Sick

So, I spoke too soon yesterday when I said I was the only one who hasn't been sick. I am now sick like everyone else. No one gets excluded in this family.

The Many Faces of Drake

Our baby boy is growing up so fast. Drake has so many expressions sometimes he looks like an entirely different baby. Luckily, most of his expressions are happy ones. He loves to eat, only last night when the first two pictures in the collage were taken he was not very happy because he is teething, so he didn't enjoy his dinner like he usually does. He also loves attention. If someone's eyes are not on him then he will shout or cry until he has your undivided attention.

It is obvious that he is ready to get up and move around with his brother, but much to his frustration his legs just aren't on the same time table as his mind. His legs are constantly moving, but not in a way that helps him crawl or walk. As the matter of fact, the only thing he has mastered is fervently kicking whomever is closest to him.

He is sleeping through the night most of the time now, which is so freakin' awesome!

Jackson, Drake, Justin, and pretty much everyone in our extended family have been passing a cold/flu-like illness around. I have been fortunate enough to avoid this family plague, but everyone else has been knocked on their butts by it. Other than that, we are all doing well. Oh, but if anyone knows of a well paying .net computer programming job let us know. Justin still has his job for now, but, like most businesses, things are not looking all that good at his company these days.

And A Happy New Year!

We spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day at Grandma and Grandpa Cersey's house. We played a lot of Wii Playground and ate a lot of food. I am sure I gained a couple of pounds in the past month. Anyway, it has been fun spending the holidays with family.

Jackson had a fever on Sunday, and on Tuesday he broke out in little red spots all over his body. The picture of him below was taken today, and the spots have faded somewhat but you can still see them a little bit on his cheek. I called his pediatrician and the nurse said that it sounded like he has Roseola which is a highly contagious virus that affects children between the ages of 3 months and 3 years. It is not a serious illness and Jackson's didn't seem bothered by it much until yesterday (New Year's Day). Yesterday he was like the living dead. He laid around all day and threw up 4 times. He couldn't seem to keep anything in his stomach. He slept more than I've seen him sleep since he was a baby. It was so sad to see him so sick, but he seems to be doing much better today. He is coughing quite a bit now, but he hasn't thrown up yet and he is playing with toys and speaking coherently again, so I think he's on the mend. We hope your New Year holiday was better than Jackson's.

Happy New Year everyone!

A Very Cersey Christmas

Before I summarize our Christmas festivities let me just say that I am terrible at remembering to take pictures, so there aren't many good shots of us here. Please don't deem us as boring and not festive based on these pictures. Consider us boring and not festive because I admit it is the truth. Shortly after Thanksgiving (no, I didn't take any Thanksgiving pictures. I'm terrible.) we started getting our Christmas decorations out which really is just our fake pre-lit tree and its ornaments. I don't get into holiday decorating much. Anyway, we had a good time as a family decorating the tree and listening to holiday music.

On December 13th we went to our nieces' Christmas performance and afterwords Santa showed up. Jackson was in such a hurry to see him that he beat us to his lap and we weren't able to get a picture of it, but Justin, Drake, and I all got shots with Santa.

On Christmas Eve we went to Justin's sister, Jennifer's house in the afternoon to spend time with his whole family, and then to my parents' house for dinner. My mom made meatloaf for Christmas Eve dinner. She tried to make it look festive, but in my opinion it just ended up looking... well you can see for yourself.

On Christmas morning we opened presents at our house. Justin and I don't spend too much on gifts because the kids are still too young to know the difference and we know that both sets of Grandparents will spoil them rotten anyway.

Then we went to my parents' house. We ate a nice breakfast, opened stockings, and then presents. Jackson got a V-Motion, clothes, and more train stuff. Drake got clothes and some fun baby toys. Noonch the cat got a Mrs. Claus hat.

Later we headed down the street to Grandma and Grandpa Cersey's house. All of Justin's sisters and their families were there. Jackson loved playing with his cousins just as much as he loved opening more presents. Both boys got more clothes and toys. Jackson got his favorite movie, Polar Express and a basketball hoop. Justin and I both got new cell phones (our numbers are the same), and I got an awesome feather comforter which is my new favorite thing!

We had a great Christmas. We hope you did too!

Update on the Boys

I never posted Drake's 4 month stats, so I'll go ahead and do it a month late. He was 27 1/4 inches long (97%), 16 lbs 12 oz. (79%), and his head was 17 inches around (68%). He is following in the footsteps of his older brother who had almost exactly the same measurements at 4 months old.

The boys are both doing great. Drake cut his first tooth a couple of days ago. Jackson's new favorite phrase is "I can't" which, after each utterance, I quickly instruct him to never say again. Drake is once again waking up multiple times each night, but we still hope to break the habit soon.

In the picture below Drake had spit-up and then immediately plunged face first into it.

In this picture of Jackson you can see the friendly reminder that we need to place on Jackson's back so that Dad isn't tempted.

My Birthday Party!

Last Saturday night I had an awesome birthday party. The party was at my in-law's house. They have the perfect basement for parties (thanks Mom and Dad for letting us take over your house for the night). Carey Fox made a suspicious looking, yet very tasty cake (thanks Car). Of course we had Chick-fil-a nuggets (thanks for bringing those Mom) and some other great snacks. We played my favorite games, Rock Band and Trivial Pursuit. Jill Frailey livened up the night with her amazing vocals. Ryan Horsley and I took the mic a couple of times as well. No one was all that excited about playing Trivial Pursuit except Justin and me, but they all stayed and played anyway. I think it turned out being one of those rare times when everyone is stuck playing a game that they hate, but surprisingly they end having a lot of fun anyway. All in all, there was great company and a lot of laughter. I couldn't have wished for a better party. Thanks Justin and Jess for helping to put the party together, and thank you to everyone that came. I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Family Pictures

On Monday, my birthday, we had Justin's sister, Jennifer, take some family pictures for us. The boys were being a little uncooperative, but we got a few good shots. Then on Tuesday, just to cover our bases we had my mom and Justin's other sister, Jessica, take a few more pictures. They all did a great job, don't you think?