Christmas 2011

This Christmas season was one of my favorites we've ever had as family!  The boys were at such great ages to enjoy all of the holiday festivities, and the magic was very alive in their eyes.  We stayed around town this season, which was nice for a change.  I always love going up to Dallas at some point during the holidays, but staying home this year, with James being in school, made for lots of time to get in all of the family Christmassy things we wanted to do.  It's the little things that I love the most, like driving around looking at Christmas lights with hot chocolate and Christmas music, watching Christmas movies over and over, making Christmas cookies, etc.  I also really enjoyed decorating our new house this year for Christmas.  It was fun to figure out where to put everything and to make our first Christmas memories at our new house.  We went to a neat Christmas concert at Homestead Heritage that was fantastic.  It was free of charge, and then all of the women brought out their homemade goodies that were all incredible.  

 Everyone has their turn at baking cookies with Nana during the holidays.  Jack joined in this year and had a blast making sugar cookies (my favorite!).  James made reindeer cookies and was very proud of them. :)  Elizabeth and I went over one night and helped Mom make lots of different kinds of cookies and made plates for people.  This is always a lot of fun, and there is always lots of laughter!

 We all took turns passing around adorable, sweet John David.  He is one of the best babies with the sweetest disposition!

 James had his first Elementary School field trip to the Mayborn Museum!  I was so impressed with what they did with the kids.  In one of the rooms, they acted out the Nativity story, and it turned out really neat!  James was one of the three wise men.  It is so sweet to see little Kindergartners acting out this story.

 They had pajama day at school, which James really enjoyed!  

 James' Christmas party at school

 Our sweet neighbors put on a block Christmas party every year, and we really enjoyed it!  The kids on our block are truly exceptionally neat kids of all ages, who made our boys feel very welcome and showed them a great time.  We had yummy food, and Santa even stopped by to take pictures and talk to the kids!

Jack was shy around the above Santa, but he LOVED the below Santa decoration!  It was cracking everyone up how he kept going over to hug and kiss him and just hang around him!

We had a great time on the 22nd of December having the whole family over to eat dinner at our house! I enjoyed having the first of many Christmastime meals in my new house in the dining room!

Christmas Eve at the Barnhills!  We shared the name for our baby that we picked out with our family after dinner.  Benjamin Carl Satterfield!

Christmas morning!!  

 The boys waiting to come out and see what Santa brought.  James could hardly contain his excitement!

After opening Santa gifts, we headed over to Mom and Dad's for more Christmas fun!

James would not stop doing the Heisman pose, after RGIII won it.  This RGIII jersey from the Barnhills was by far his favorite gift of Christmas.  He wore it and slept in it for days!

 Josh was super excited about the gun I got him for Christmas!

John David's first Christmas!

Josh went with my family to the Alamo Bowl to watch Baylor play, and he had a wonderful time!  I stayed back with the boys and really enjoyed watching the game on TV with James.  He is a great football watching date. :)

Jack's attempt at 12 days of Christmas

I hate the way my voice sounds on here, but Jack has been singing the 12 days of Christmas with me, so I video'd him.

Baby #3!!!!!!

We found out Friday morning, July 29th, that we were expecting our third child!!  We had tried for two months unsuccessfully and had several negative test results on the days prior, so it was just such a shock to see those two lines!  We were absolutely giddy and couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces.  After having gone through this twice before, it's even more meaningful and surreal!  We were leaving for vacation that very day, so we tricked my mom into coming over on her way to work so I could explain our alarm system.  We then showed her the positive test, and she was shocked as well!  We then made several phone calls to family and happily shared our news!

I started to get nauseous about 5 weeks along, was really nauseous during weeks 6 and 7 (all day), and then noticed during week 8 that it was subsiding.  It slowly got better each week, and by 12 weeks, it was completely gone.  Even with the nauseation, I was sooo happy to be pregnant and felt like I was on cloud nine.  I was very happy that the tiredness that I usually experience during early pregnancy was much less than normal.  A big contributor to that was the fact that I had given up caffeine 6 months before getting pregnant for a different reason.  I had no caffeine weaning to do, so I felt like I had a lot more energy (for early pregnancy)!

I started feeling my lower back pain that I had a lot of trouble with in my pregnancy with Jack around 7 weeks along.  After it getting worse each week for a while, I made an appointment with a physical therapist.  He figured out that it's my SI joint (it connects my pelvis to my sacrum/spine) that's messed up, which coincides with what a chiropractor found when doing x-rays a couple of years ago.  This is a birth defect that I have that I would have never known about if it weren't for pregnancy.  That was interesting to me, because that was what cause my distastes pubis at the very end of my pregnancy with Jack (abnormal separation of the pubic bone), which caused extreme pain to where I was unable to walk and had to be induced.  SO, I'm just praying that this doesn't mean that I'll have the same thing happen again towards the end of this one, or worse, before the end.  I have found that the less I do, the better it is, which is hard when you have two little boys!

We had our first appointment on Tuesday, August 30, and they told us we were 8 weeks to the day!  We had a great ultrasound, and our baby looked healthy.  Josh half-jokingly said that it looked like a boy.  I asked him why he thought that, and he said, "because that's what our other two boys looked like!":)

8 week ultrasound pic

We decided to have the 12 week ultrasound that checks for chromosomal abnormalities, because we knew there'd be a good chance we'd find out the sex of our baby!  I had felt God preparing me that we were going to have another boy, so even though every single person thought we were going to have a girl, I kept thinking boy!  The ultrasound technician proved me right and was convinced we had another perfectly healthy little boy in there!  Josh and I absolutely love having boys, and are very excited about having three now!  We started thinking about all of the fun things we will do with our boys, including camping, fishing, extending our driveway to make a bigger basketball court, etc.

12 weeks

Two other big milestones we've had are feeling him move around 15 weeks, and then our big 20 week ultrasound.  This was the best of all of my 20-week ultrasounds!  It was absolutely amazing to see him in 4-D, moving around, and we thought he was absolutely adorable!!  I could already see resemblances of the boys and us in him, which was so neat.  I just fell in love with him after seeing this ultrasound, and have been giddy ever since!  It has given me a great surge to get me through the rest of this pregnancy, and we can hardly wait to meet him!  We feel so blessed to have such a perfectly healthy little life inside, just growing, and waiting to join our family in April!

The boys are so into this pregnancy, and talk about him a lot.  They also talk to him, now that he can hear.  James was very interested in when he was going to get his hearing, but he kept thinking that when he got his hearing, he was going to get his ears then too. :)  He kept telling his teacher how many more weeks or days until his baby brother got his ears.  Jack just keeps wanting to "go get baby brother".  It's so hard to wait so long!  Jack spontaneously gives my belly hugs and kisses frequently.  James also will occasionally come up and talk to him and give him a kiss.

20 weeks

Here is our latest picture of our precious baby boy!

Jack is 3! (with baby pics at the bottom)

Jack turned three on December 2nd.  The morning of his birthday, Josh and I took him to Cafe Cappuccino for chocolate chip pancakes.  We had a nice time, although Jack was being somewhat of a birthday monster. :)  He had been talking about his birthday for months, but wouldn't let anyone talk to him on the phone or talk about it that day.  The next day, we had a fun birthday party at our house with our family.  We did a Cars 2 theme, since all Jack talked about was having a "Finn Micked Missle and Mator" cake.  We enjoyed a yummy brunch around 10:00, and then Jack opened his presents afterwards.  The big hit of the party was his Rody ("Brody", as Jack calls it) bouncing horsey.  He loves him, takes care of him, prays for him, and sometimes calls him his best friend.

I have really seen a big change in Jack since he turned three last month.  I was sad about him losing more of his babyness as he headed towards three at first, but I'm really enjoying watching him emerge into more of a "big kid" (hard to type) now!  I noticed a growth in his vocabulary shortly after turning three.  He was using a lot of new big words and was expressing himself differently. Just yesterday he cracked me up with two words I'd never heard from him before.  After picking up James from school, Jack randomly told me from his car seat, "Mama, you look adorable." I thought that was hilarious, since I was wearing no make-up, a baggy sweatshirt (hiding my big pregnant belly), and had frizzy hair pulled back in a rubber band.  It did sort of make me feel good though, ha!  That night, as he was eating dinner, he said, "This dinner is berdiculous."  He was trying to use the word ridiculous, and even though he used it incorrectly, is made for a good laugh.   His personality that was already very strong, has come out even more lately!  He absolutely cracks me up daily.  He is hilarious and loves to make people laugh.  He has some new goofy faces, says funny one-liners often, and likes to talk in goofy voices.  He has perfected his mischievous grin, and tries often to use it when he knows he shouldn't be doing something.  He is a big-time charmer and knows how to work it!

He has always been strong-willed, but he is getting even more particular about things now.  He is slightly OCD in some ways, like when he is setting his stool down on his rug in front of his sink, and he makes sure it is exactly in the grooves.  Before bed, he cleans his room (by picking up his toys and putting them in the hallway), has to turn off the light, and then open the already open door all the way.  In that same order!  He doesn't like to be dirty or have anything on his face that he can feel there.  If he spills, he likes to clean or have me clean it right away.

Jack's loves are people, swinging, singing, dancing, his Cars 2 cars, stuffed animals (he has to have his crib full of them), pretending, building with blocks, Boz videos, "helping" me in the kitchen, going to the park, climbing things he's not supposed to climb (I could see him being a mountain climber someday, because he is very agile, strong, and resourceful), playing in water, being home with just me, giving lots of hugs and kisses, getting tickled or chased by his Deedah, and just being noisy and destructive.

We had Jack's three-year check-up around his birthday, and it went very well!  I talked to his doctor about his biggest challenge, which is his yelling and throwing a fit when he doesn't get his way, particularly with his brother, but also with Josh and me.  He told me that Jack is very aware, knows exactly what he wants, wants all his ducks in a row, and is strong-willed (and spirited), so when things don't pan out the way he wants, he gets really mad about it!  That was him to a "t".  He has been known to throw some punches when he acts like this, too.  He gave me lots of hope, though, telling me that it is a good sign that he is usually remorseful and apologizes after acting this way.  He told me he saw a future leader in Jack, and that he seems to excel socially.  He told me that with lots of prayer and guidance, these challenging character traits will become positives.  Jack had the whole office's attention as he went off and wished everyone he saw a Merry Christmas happily at the top of his lungs. :)

Jack's first creation with blocks made all by himself.

One big accomplishment since turning three is that Jack is now potty trained!  I decide that after Christmas would be a good time, since we had nowhere to go.  We started on December 31st, and it was somewhat disastrous.  He didn't care at all about it, and had accidents every time he needed to go.  He had the attitude like, "Oh well!  Just got the seat all wet!"  The next morning before church, he woke up and had another big accident.  I decided during church that I was just going to stop for now and wait for him to start talking about it.  Well, that was when it completely turned around.  He stayed dry throughout church and lunch at Elizabeth's house.  When we got home, he pee-pee'd in the potty. He stayed dry through his nap, and then continued to do great the rest of the day!  I think he might have had one accident that afternoon.  That night, I told him he was going to wear a diaper to bed.  He said he didn't want to and that he didn't wear diapers anymore.  I told him twice more that he needed to wear a diaper, but he begged and refused.  Josh and I looked at each other and then decided to just go for it.  I got his change of clothes, a new blanket, etc., out for him when he had his accident in the middle of the night.  Well, to our shock, he woke up dry!!  This is our child who would wake up soaked every morning in his diaper!  I realized then that we were probably done with diapers!  He continued to do well, just having about one accident a day for a while.  Now, he's really good at holding it when he's really gotta go, and has about one accident a week (at night).  So glad now to have that behind us!   Our next big hurdle will be moving him to a big boy bed in plenty of time for him to get adjusted before Ben comes!

 

For fun, I thought I'd add pictures from Jack's first year.  I can't believe how fast time has gone!  It seems like he should still be my new baby!

First birthday