Surprise!

On Friday afternoon, we headed down to Mt. Carmel for a holiday surprise. Aaron and I didn't have much on our agenda, so we both thought it would be a good idea to head down for a visit. Needless to say, Aaron's mom was pretty surprised when she went to answer the door and the three of us were standing there. We enjoyed a visit with Grandma and Grandpa Acree too. Jayden also went to church with his Nana while Aaron and I headed out to dinner and shopping in Evansville. It ended up being a really nice weekend.

Who are YOU calling a TURKEY??

Eating yummy mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving Day.

Playing with toys and being a little turkey!

Reading all about Thanksgiving. I gave him the true story of Thanksgiving too--not that he will remember, but it didn't hurt.

Our little turkey was being just that today. A turkey. This year it was our turn to stay in town for the Thanksgiving holiday. We enjoyed a homemade breakfast, watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, scanned the ads, and played with toys all before lunch time. For lunch, we joined my Dad and Marcy at Matt & Mary Ann's house and for dinner we stopped by Uncle Doug's house. It was great to see everyone and Jayden was wild as always. I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving with their loved ones. Now it is time to start the count down to Christmas.

16 months old!

Jayden is 16 months old today. The month of November has passed so fast filled with different activities that I almost missed the date!

1. Jayden weighs 23 lbs. and is It seems like he has grown a lot lately because he gets into everything that I thought was high enough for him not to reach.

2. He is wearing size 4 diapers and on occasion size 5. His clothing still ranges from 18-24 months. He has a few 2t shirts in his collection as well.

3. Jayden's favorite activity this month has to be climbing. He climbs everywhere and on everything. Good thing Grandma ordered him a big climbing station for Christmas. This will be an indoor toy!

4. He now has a lot of favorite toys rather than just a ball. He loves books, blocks, trucks, his 4-wheeler, farm, and of course Mickey Mouse. He loves opening and closing the dishwasher, pushing the button on the wash machine, figuring out ANY way to climb the stairs, crawl on the tables, stack blocks by color--(which he just did-all yellow and 6 high!)

5. Step 2 formula, 2% milk on occasion, water, apple juice along with almost any time of food is what the little man eats each day.

6. He loves pasta pick-ups and apples. He recently pulled out a package of vanilla Oreo's and snacked on those. Yum!

7. Jayden officially has 7 teeth. The 1 year molars by far have been the worse. I blame his two ear infections on this giant molar.

8. Jayden loves, loves, loves, to play outside and inside. He loves to open the back door and run outside. This has caused the doors to be locked because he can disappear in an instant! I am not excited about snow coming this winter, but it is going to be interesting to see what he does. He also loves to chase Mia around the yard and pinch her.

9. He is back to sleeping all night---thank goodness! The giant tooth caused more than just an ear infection--it caused sleeping to be difficult. This past weekend he slept for 12 hours each night. Oh, how I loved that!! He naps 1 to 2 times a day, which will soon be cut down to 1 nap. The time change also threw us for a loop, but who doesn't get messed up by that?

10. Jayden is just a funny little guy to watch. At this moment, he is dancing, spinning, and yelling to the "Itsy Bitsy Spider". He walks backwards on occasion and that is funny too. His vocabulary is increasing by leaps and bounds. He only talks when he wants to. My favorite sayings of the month include: "I'm a boy", "They say no", "Race Car", "I'm one", "Momma", and "Dadda".

He is ALWAYS up to SOMETHING!!

The old saying "boys are different than girls" is so true. I thought about that as I have been watching Jayden play this week with all of the different objects he can acquire around the house. It even brought me to reading on-line journals about the differences between boys and girls. Being around mostly girls my entire life, I didn't know how crazy, hyper---OK, active, boys could be until a toddler named Jayden came along. Well, I did notice it with Adan, but I just thought was how he was because that is just Adan. Wrong!!!!! Boys are simply different than girls in so many ways. They are non-stop. In one evening Jayden went from stacking blocks (6 high), to reading a book, to climbing as high as he possibly could on our furniture (I hope this doesn't mean climbing out of his crib soon), back to stacking blocks, ripping up paper, knocking over the garbage can, and back to reading a book. Needless to say, I am glad he is able to do all of these things and quite impressed at times, but I sure am missing the days of a little guy snuggling with his Momma in the evenings. So, tonight, with the house quiet because deer season is upon us, I took an extra hour just to rock baby Jayden to sleep and put him in his crib. He wasn't crazy, hyper, or active. He was back to being a little snugly baby instead of a big boy who goes to bed awake. So here is to more crazy days of chasing the little man around the house and hoping to get a few more nights of rocking him to sleep before he gets too big. There isn't anything much better than rocking a little baby to sleep at the end of a super long day.

Uh, oh!

A Christmas present for Jayden made it into the house this week, but didn't quite make it upstairs before he discovered it. It is almost the perfect fit for his little legs to reach the pedals. I think by Christmas he will be ready to ride!

A Happy Hunter

Aaron was pretty happy when he came home from hunting today. Jayden and I could see the smile on his face while he was driving down the alley. He was able to shoot an old 8 pointer, around 200 lbs, with his bow and arrow. While on his way back to his truck after a morning of hunting and seeing several deer, he saw another deer up ahead. He got out his bow, snuck up on him, and took a shot from about 20 yards away. I am sure you can guess the rest of the story. No need to share that part. Jayden wasn't quite sure of what to think about the big thing in the back of his Daddy's truck, but before long he was happy.

Jayden wasn't afraid of touching the deer at all. He looked at it and grabbed onto the antler. I took him in the house directly after for a long hand washing session.

So, if anyone is in need of deer meat, just contact us. We have plenty to last a lifetime.

New Coat & Hat

Jayden in his new coat and hat from Grandpa. They now have matching hats. Generally, he isn't much on hats, but this one he will keep on as long as we are outside. I am glad to hear that the Illini men's basketball team is pretty good this year otherwise, Jayden wouldn't look too good in his orange and blue!

Second Haircut

Jayden got his second haircut on Thursday night right after his Daddy. Jayden wasn't thrilled to be in the chair with scissors near his face. He cried and wasn't happy until I was holding him. Maybe next time!

Love these Boys!

Layne is getting sooo big! He was crawling around chasing Henry and Jayden. He will be walking before we know it!

Henry loved all of Jayden's toys. He was pretty happy to ride on the airplane.

All of them loved to sit in Jayden's chair, but Jayden wasn't too frank on sharing. That is something we are going to have to work on!

How could you not love these boys? They are so cute and so funny. I love seeing them all together playing. On Friday night they came over for a little play time and more importantly, so all the Mom's and Dad's could enjoy some adult time without chasing babies around a restaurant as we did a few weekends ago. I tried to get a few pictures of them together but it was nearly impossible. You take what you can get.

Our New Fireplace

Our fireplace is almost finished! It has been so nice to enjoy the warmth of the fire with this cool weather approaching. It makes the perfect addition to our house. Aaron did an awesome job!