An Air Show In Our Backyard

This past weekend Davis Monthan AFB had an Air Show and we had the pleasure seeing the Thunderbirds fly over our backyard. Our backyard seemed to be a turning point for them and we didn't mind! This is what we got!

Right over our heads
Heading back to the base where all the spectators where waiting for them!

Straight up as Jackson would say!

This is a photo that Jeff took at the actual air show. He worked Saturday and Sunday representing the Tucson Air National Guard and stood out with one of the F-16s. He had a really good time talking to all the kids and people who admire the Viper!

27 Week Check Up

Today I had my 27 week check up and everything looked good. I have gained 3 pounds in the last 3 weeks, so a pound a weeks. That's pretty good. I also heard Tanner's heart beat and it sounded healthy and very strong! Dr. Schalk said it was perfect! I also had my Glucose Test, which I won't know anything until my next appointment or they'll call if something comes back abnormal. I go back to the doctor in 3 weeks and then every 2 weeks after that. I can't believe I only have 89 more days! It's going by so fast. I will take a picture and post it next time. I will officially be in my third trimester and probably bigger!

The only thing I have to report these days is I am super tired all the time. Can't really remember if I was this tired in my first trimester, but I don't seem to think so. Just sick to my stomach and wanted to sleep it off. I have been a little restless and my legs are a little achy. But, I am feeling BIG these days and just trying to stay busy.

Jackson can't wait to meet his little brother. He asks about him all the time and wants to know if he's moving or if he can hold him. I just keep telling him, he can hold him when he's ready to come out! He seems to be pretty happy with that answer. I think he's going to be a super BIG brother and have lots of fun with Tanner.

"Chicks in tow"

Had my first aerial refueling mission today, and it was very challenging. I was only able to hook up to the tanker once out of three tries, but once I did I got 2700 lbs of fuel in less than a minute. We then went and did some offensive basic fighter maneuvers, and I pulled 8.7 g's which popped a bunch of blood vessels under my skin. This is common among fighter pilots and it is called "geasles."

Jeff's New Car

So here it is! Jeff's new car! He recently purchased a 2004 Lincoln Town Car do to the fact that his not so great of a truck is pretty much ready to be put to rest. The engine really needs to be rebuilt on the truck and we all know he doesn't have the time these days. A future project of his. We also needed another family car. Can't really fit 3 soon to be 4 in a truck! Especially if we were only going to have 1 car for some odd reason.

This car is really nice! It has 35,000 miles on it and looks like the old folks who owned it never drove it. Well, they really didn't if it's a 2004 and has 35,000 miles on it! We put that many in just a year! The inside is immaculate and doesn't have any wear or tear. The engine is also immaculate and doesn't have one spot of dirt or grease anywhere! This car was a steal and I do have to admit, I was a little disturbed that he wanted this car! As my BFF says, "he's an old man now!"

He just had the windows tented!

Jeff loves the grill on this car!
The rear end of this beauty!

Finally the inside! It's the cleanest used car I have ever seen!

The good old Lincoln!

MoNsTeR JaMs

This past weekend we took Jackson to Monster Jams for his 3rd birthday. He was so excited and anticipating the day. He definitely liked it, but boy was it loud and the arena was way to small! The cool thing is that we've been DVRing Monster Jams on TV and Jackson will now say, "I've seen him!" Kind of cool that he gets in to it now that he's seen it!

Jeff had theses ear muffs from working on the flight line in Fresno and they were put to good use on Sunday! Jackson wore them from the time we got in the car to the very end of the show!

Right when we got out of the car, he took off and couldn't hear us so Jeff ended up sprinting after him the whole way in to the arena! It was pretty funny! The guy in the picture had to run after and stop Jackson from going in to the road! He is so fast these days! Poor Jeff, I feel for him these days while I am pregnant! He is definitely getting a run for his money! lol

Jackson and best bud these days! Boy they are joined at the hip!
Grave Digger racing the Ninja Turtle truck!
Jackson's $15 dollar foam monster truck hat that he had to have! The worst part of it is that when we got home he threw it away! But he looks so cute in it!

We had a really good time, but we are looking forward to seeing these bad boys in a bigger arena and doing more freestyle stuff!

Happy Birthday to Jackson!

Jackson Is 3 Today!

I can't believe our little boy is 3 today! Where did all the time go from when we brought him home from the hospital?

It seems like yesterday we brought Jackson home from the hospital. I remember looking at him the day we were getting ready to come home and crying my eyes out over how much I loved him already and we had just met. I can't even explain how much I love him now. If your a parent or a mom, you can only imagine the love you have for your child.

He made his grand entrance in to the world on March 8th, 2007 at 10:30 am. He weighed 7 lbs 11 ounces and measured in at 21.5 inches long.

He has brought great joy to our lives and we couldn't imagine what our lives would be like without him. This picture below is of Jackson the day we brought him home. He was 2 days old!

From birth, Jackson was a good sleeper and eater. I nursed him every 2 hours during the day (in the begining) and every 4 hours at night. As he got older the feedings moved to every 3 to 4 hours during the day and he was sleeping 6 hours + at night. At 5.5 months is when he started teething and that's when things started to change for him.

This is when he started eating solids and the only one solid he didn't like were those yuckie pees. I didn't blame him, it's not something I'd put in my mouth either!

At 6.5 months he was sitting on his own. Crawling at 7 months and he never stopped after that!

He spoke his first word at 8 months! It was daddda and not to long after that it was mommmma!

He took his first steps on Jan 2nd, 2008.

This picture below is of Jackson on his 1st birthday, March 8th, 2008! It's crazy to think back at all of the milestones he has achieved in just his first year. He went from crawling to walking, cooowing to babbling and saying our 2 favorite words (daddda & mommmmma) he also went from not knowing what any of his little limbs were to clapping and discovering he had toes. All in one year! I do have to say that we've always thought he was a little advanced on somethings, but he did just fine figuring things out for himself.

From 1 to 2 he had a lot of change. After his first birthday, I started weening him and were fully done with breastfeeding in April. I think he was ready because he never fussed or wanted it afterwards. He started eating with a spoon and fork just a month after.

He attended his first minor league baseball game in May, The Fresno Grizzlies!

We enrolled him in Little Gym. This helped develope his fine motor skills and discover his strengths and tubbling. He loved it and it helped him become more independent as a toddler.

Climbing out of his crib at 13 months.

Moved to Mississippi at 16 months (drove across the United States)

As we adjusted to Mississippi life, Jackson discovered lots of new things. These were also firsts for playing in the mud, water parks and bugs. He made lots of new friends during this year and we got to do a lot of traveling as well. We visited Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. We went to the Georgia Aqarium, Graceland and the Jacks Daniels Distillery.

He had a Hernia repaired in October, his first surgery.

He also had his first airplane ride back to California for Christmas. We also drove from Mississippi to California to celebrate his 2nd birthday.
This is Jackson at his 2nd birthday party!

From 2 to 3, he had changed so much. He was talking so much after his 2nd birthday and now he talks in paragraphs and has a complete conversation with us. Shortly after his 2nd birthday we started potty training. I believe this was in May. It was pretty easy and a little scary!

We had lots of attempt at getting Jackson to sleep in his own bed this year, but we never got for longer then a week.

He started school at the Child Development Center on base in Columbus.

We visited Florida with daddy while he attended water survival school. After Jeff finished that phase of training we drove home to California. This is when we discovered Jackson would have a sibiling!
As we waited for Jeff to finish IFF, we celebrated halloween in Fresno, visited Sea World and ended up flying back to Columbus for thanksgiving. We got to visit with Jeff for a couple of weeks and flew back to California to get ready for Christmas.

In January we moved to Arizona. We got Jackson back in a routine and enrolled him back in to school and Little Gym.

This is Jackon yesterday at his little birthday party we had here at the house with some friends. Now we will see what he has in store for us in the coming year! Happy Birthday Jackson, we love you so much and we are so proud of you!

Jackson is now sleeping in his own bed and we will attempt pooping in the toilet!

25 Weeks

25 weeks today and definitely showing! I am feeling great but my back is starting to hurt again. I had my doctors appt on Tuesday and she said everything looked great. The only bad news to report was that I have gained 7 pounds in the last month:(

I am trying to gain the recommended amount and no more with this pregnancy, being that I went over board with Jackson and managed to pack on 60 pounds!

I actually felt an elbow go across my stomach today! Pretty cool and this little guy is definitely active!
I have 15 more weeks until I give birth and i'm almost to my 3 trimester! It's going by so fast!

Our Visit With Kathy

Last week on Tuesday, Jeff's mom came to visit us! We haven't seen her since December and this was before they moved to Florida. She was visiting for most of February to help Jeff's brother and his wife out while they were preparing for the birth of their 3rd child. After Cameron was born Kathy headed our way for a week and for Jeff's birthday.

We had a great time with her. She always keeps us busy and we love her company. We tagged her along in our daily/weekly routine and added a few more things to the list. We headed to Tombstone for one day and celebrated Jeff's birthday the next. We had a couple of things we didn't get to do due to the rain and making things muddy, but all in all we had a great time!

Here we all are at Tombstone, AZ. Jackson really wanted to go for a horse ride and this was the closest thing to it. The carriage ride takes you around the town and tells you the history of Tombstone and all of it's legendary rebels! I did get a picture of Wyatt Earp's home, but didn't include that. If you like to see it, just let me know and I will post it!

As a child my dad took me on this Adventure trip and one of the trips included Tombstone, AZ. We stopped at this very cemetery and I have a picture of just me standing next to Mr. Lester Moores grave. I wanted to go back there and get one more picture, especially of Jackson and this head stone. I need to have my dad send me the picture and then I will do a comparison picture! It is kind of nice to have a family picture of something I remember doing as a child.
Sunday, February 28th was Jeff's 29th birthday! Kathy and I stayed up late and put a couple things up for Jeff. I am really big on surprises and love doing things for my boys and family. Here is Jeff in the morning after he saw his banners!
Jeff and Jackson getting ready to blow out Jeff's candles. Kathy, Jackson and I went to Costco last week to order Jeff's "chocolate mousse cake" and Jackson insisted that Jeff have a Dinosaur cake! It was so funny to see Jeff's face when he saw it! He got a kick out of it!
For Jeff's birthday dinner we went to Benihanas! If you know Jeff, we all know he loves his tempinyaki! (not sure on the spelling) We had a great time and enjoyed every minute of it!

Kathy left us on Tuesday this week and is back in Florida and now my dad is here to visit for Jackson's birthday on Monday! Lots of visitors this month!

Finally a single seat fighter pilot!

Flew the mighty viper all by myself last Thursday and had no one in the back seat to bitch at me, because there is no backseat, yeah! It was awesome! My instructor chased me around in close formation, so if I had any problems I would have some support up there. The flight went really well and my instructor seemed really pleased that I didn't become a smoking hole in the ground! Overall the flight went great, and from here on out I will be doing the majority of my flying by myself.

Walking With Dinosaurs

I was surfing the web looking for things to do a few weeks ago and ended up looking on ticketmaster.com for some ideas. Well, they had a few things listed for the Tucson area, 2 of which were Walking With Dinosaurs and Monster Jams. Well, we went to Walking With Dinosaurs tonight and bought tickets for Monster Jams for the 6th of March. That will be one of Jackson's birthday gifts!

We have been waiting for the day to come and here it is! I think I was more excited then Jeff and Jackson, but I think I was more excited to see Jackson's reaction. He's seen the commercial for WWD and thought it was the coolest thing and insisted that we go right then. I had to keep reminding him that the dinosaurs had to travel here and it would take some time. You can't really explain to a 2 almost 3 year old that it takes time for things. You can, but they really don't get it, but I tried and for the most part and I think he understood!

So the day has/had come and we did a semi normal routine today. We headed to the zoo/golf course trails and went for a nice long walk followed up with feeding the ducks. Then Jackson decided that listening wasn't a rule and he didn't have to do what we told him. Well, that got him in trouble and put straight in his car seat and we headed home.

So we came home and tried to get him to eat lunch and that didn't happen, did I mention kids his age are just down right naughty at times? Well, that's a whole blog in itself! So he went down for a nonsleeping nap that he does these days and ended up just playing, but he stayed there for a while! (I am telling you this because it is leading up to the picture below!)

So, long story shortened! It was about 30 minutes before we wanted to leave and this is what happened do to our long day of playing and no nap!

I just have to tell you, if you get a chance to see this show we recommend it! It was an hour and a half long and just right for Jackson's age. He loved it and wanted to see more. We thought he would have gotten scarred or Jeff and I even joked that he would think dinosaurs are real after seeing it, but he hasn't said anything. We sat on the floor and splurged on the tickets, but we wanted to be close! I do have to say that these dinosaurs were pretty realistic and it was just awesome! We really enjoyed it and would see it again! They went through all the stages of the dinosaurs and how they evolved with the earths ever changing environment. Very informative and funny!

I am going to just put pictures this time and no comments!

Sorry some are so blurry! No flash photography!

It was so funny when the T-rex was growling at these little guys, He yelled " kick his butt!" There were a few people in our section that laughed! He is so funny. Jeff and I have no clue where that came from!

We ended the night with dinner at Claim Jumpers!

Today was a really good family day!

Pima Air & Space Museum

Jeff took Jackson and I to the Pima Air & Space Museum yesterday. It was pretty cool to see so many old airplanes and new ones that have been used and abused or just used for a test run, but mainly sitting and collecting dust! LOL I'm kidding, but it was pretty amazing to see so many. Many that I have never seen before in books or videos. Believe me we watch and look at a lot of air craft material!

I included the link above, it's highlighted if you want to take a peek at their website! I really wanted to share some pictures of Jackson running around and exploring! They had some really fun kid friendly exhibits and a great gift shop! He added an F-16 Thunderbird to his collection and a glow in the dark jet t-shirt!

Here is the start of our venture!

We found this in one of the many hangers! Thought I would share it with all of you.
Jackson sitting in a model plane playing with the rutters!
They had some stations for him to hear pilots talking on the radios and buttons to push telling him which runways were which. All to much for him to understand, but he had fun doing it!
This one is my favorite! He had Jeff's navigator glasses on and he just looks to cool!
We had a really good time spending the day together! Jeffrey even took us to lunch at Claim Jumper!

A Gift From Tonya Harrison

I received a Hooter Hider from Mrs. Tonya Harrison today and what can I say other then Thank You and I Love It!

She made one for a friend of mine at her baby shower and it was absolutely beautiful! I do have to say that Tonya is very creative and has an eye for putting colors together!

Here it is, it's reversable and very soft! I can't wait to use it!

She included a note with the gift!
The two different fabrics she used.

Just another picture of the colors!

I wish I knew how to sew. I would love to be able to make a gift from the heart!

Thank you, Tonya!

I absolutely love it and will think of you every time I look at it!

21 Week Sonogram

Yesterday I had my 21 week sonogram. Normal procedure and this is when they tell you what your having! I already knew that, but it was nice to have her see is boy parts and say, "yep, it's definitely a boy!" She checked everything and measured all the body parts she could get to.

He seems to be quite comfortable in there and didn't want to move around for her to check him out! He has his head laying on my left pelvis/hip and his feet are up across my belly. I figured he was laying like that because all the kicks I feel are on the upper and middle right side of my belly. He does however make it really uncomfortable for me to bend over and especially when I have to use to bathroom. He is so low, I am in pain half the time when I get up at night to use the restroom. I think I am going to be down a lot in those cat stretches. The one when you get on your hands and knees and move your back up towards the sky and lower you abdomen to the ground to get him to move.

Here is a side profile of our little man

This one is confirming he is a boy!

She did say from her measurements that he is already over a pound and according to my weekly updates on pregnancy.com, he should weigh around 3 quarts of a pound.

Otherwise, I just can't wait to meet him! I am feeling so much better about this pregnancy and feel a great amount of love for him already and I haven't even met him!