GOOP!!!!

It has been cold here and Jackson and I have been trying to find things to keep us busy indoors until the weather heats up. The other day we made this goop. It is just 1 part corn starch 2 parts water but it is so fun to play with. When you first touch it, it feels solid but then when you pick it up it instantly turns to liquid. We played with it for about 45 minutes until we both had more on us than what was on the plate.

So Cute My Heart is Going to Explode.

My mom sent Jackson an adorable Mr. Rodgers sweater for Valentine's Day and it might be my favorite piece of clothing he owns. It is now his Sunday sweater. He looks so grown up when he wears it. Is he really going to be 2 in less than two months??? Where has the time gone?

Meatloaf Anyone?

I have a crock pot and I want to use it. I had daydreams of pot roasts and perfectly cooked chicken. I was so excited to make dinners that smelled good so when Ike walked in the door he would say, "Wow that smells amazing! What are we having for dinner?". Well my daydreams have not come to pass (YET!). I thought I would try something easy like meatloaf and unfortunately it ended up looking a little too much like cat vomit for my own comfort.



I won't lie. I was fully expecting someone to get food poisoning in the 48 hours following that dinner. Amazingly, no one did. I will not give up! I will eventually make dinners that look and taste good. I will overcome!

Recent Things...

It has been a very busy month for us so far and I wanted to post some pictures of things that happened/we did that I did not write posts about.

We had a mammoth snow storm and were snowed in for a few days. This is the view from our front door.


The patriots lost the Super Bowl but that did not stop us from taking some cute pictures during the game.



I have been working on baby projects. I made a cute onsie and a nursing cover. The onsie is going in storage though, because we are having a boy! Thank goodness I made the nursing cover unisex.



We had a wonderful Valentine's day.




Lastly, because I have been walking in the evenings with a friend of mine, Ike and Jackson have had a lot more one on one time. Jackson loves his daddy!

Adventures in Food Storage!

So I have accumulated a few #10 cans of basic food storage (Thank you mother!) over the last few years and I have decided that it is time I learn to use some of it. Rice is easy enough but wheat is kind of intimidating. I looked up a few easy ideas and Cracked Wheat seemed to be the easiest thing to start with (considering I do not have a wheat grinder). My first attempt to make cracked wheat in my blender turned into slightly gritty flour but my second attempt, I feel, succeeded! I needed to cook it a little longer than the 5 minutes suggested in the recipe but overall I feel like it was a success! I will try to make it a couple of times a week to make our oatmeal last longer. With milk and sugar I thought it tasted about as good. I had a #10 can of Pinto Beans and my first thought was Refried Beans!!! I looooove Mexican food so I found a good recipe and two days later I had some surprisingly yummy and slightly gritty refried beans.

You know you want some.

Top those with the homemade tortillas a I made and we had some delicious Chicken Chimmy Changas for dinner. I am feeling better and better about my food storage and it is no longer the intimidating monster in my cupboard.

You are not so scary!!!

And the winner is...

BABY BOY!!!

You guessed it ( or maybe you didn't.) and we are having a baby boy! We had our ultrasound today and we are definitely having another little man in the family. Jackson will have an adorable playmate and Ike will have another clone of himself to run around the house and yell "ball!!" whenever there is a commercial for football on TV. Now the only problem I have is what the name will be!!! We like James, John and Joshua and no we are not just going for "J" names, we just happen to like a few of them. I have a feeling there is going to be a coin toss somewhere in our future to help us decide this.

And because I have been lazy this pregnancy I have to apologize for not posting a baby bump photo of me sooner. I took the first one this morning.

Jackson is...

J : Joyous! He is always happy. Well not always, but pretty much almost always. He didn't even make a fuss when I had to put drops in his eyes for the last five days. He is always ready to smile.

A : Active! Jackson loves to run. He runs in the house, in the yard, in the library and pretty much anywhere else his feet will touch the ground and he has more than five feet of space. He likes to just run in circles in our living room. He is always moving and doing something.

C : Carr! Jackson is a Carr through and through. Sometimes I wonder if he got any of my genes at all. He is the spitting image of his dad when Ike was 2. He has the tell tale Carr cowlick (correction...he has 3 tell tale Carr cowlicks!!!) and he loves loves loves to watch Sports with his daddy. He can even identify the New England Patriots symbol.

K : K is for Kisses. I love to kiss Jackson and he occasionally will give me kisses. He gives kisses like he would bite you but does not close his teeth down. It is always a little scary because you never know if he is going in for a kiss or going in for a bite.

S : Sesame Street! Well, not the entire thing...just Elmo. We usually watch the last 15 minutes of Sesame Street every morning and Jackson is crazy for Elmo. Whenever he sees pictures of Elmo or an Elmo toy in the store he points and tries to get my attention. He would watch hours of Elmo if I let him. Thank goodness he is only on for 15 minutes a day.

O : Outside! This is Jackson's favorite place to be. He always wants to go outside even when it is waaayyyyyyyy too cold for me. When I won't let him out he will stand up on our chair in the living room and try to look out the window. I am counting down the days to summer.

N : NO! and yes. Jackson likes to communicate by shaking his head yes or no. Sometimes I feel like I am playing 20 questions with him trying to figure out what he wants. He is getting much better at saying words in general. (New words he has started saying recently: Jesus, Baby, Chair, Door, Boy and Hat. None of them are pronounced exactly right but we know what he means and we always clap when he says them.)

Jackson is going to be an awesome big brother. He already loves babies and I have no doubt he will love his new baby brother or sister ( FYI 6 days until we know the gender!!!)