artist at work

jillian has enjoyed coloring, painting, crafting, etc. for awhile now, but it would usually only last like 10 minutes, then she would be on to something new.

here recently she has started loving to do anything artsy. i was playing with settings on my camera, so i needed a subject to take pictures of to practice shooting more manually (bleh), so i started taking pictures of her, she had no idea i was 2 feet from her!

 i love watching how she holds her mouth while she's concentrating!

then little man, was practicing tummy time while she colored!

 so i started taking pictures of him, and jillian wanted in on that action! (how she didn't notice me taking pictures of her, i don't know!)

we'll end on this one. kade takes a nose dive and who knows what jillie is doing!?

i kind of love the simple things that make up our every day.

give thanks

we had a wonderful thanksgiving this year! i was a little nervous about all the holiday craziness with two kiddos under two, but they did so great, and we had a great day!

we started the day at kyle's parents, with both sides of his family there.

we tried to get a few family pictures, and we were medium successful!

 

jillian always loves to give kade man a good head rub!

 and then follows it up with some kisses.

 this one might get printed up big! {poor kade though, just tossed to the side!}

 we got kade situated where he was facing the camera, then this look came from jillian and the shoot was over! it happens!

me and my sweet little chunky man.

jillian did some swinging of course!

kyle's family

all the shaver grandkids with the grandparents!

this is all the shaver side of the family!

then we went to dinner at my parent's house. (kyle's aunt had my camera at lunch, so she took a ton of great pictures, i didn't do so great at my parents!)

this is the scene you will get at my parents at any family gathering:

 {all the girls in the living room talking about super important stuff (i guess andrew was joining in)}

{and all the guys in the den watching whatever sporting event might be on}

{there is usually a "battle" where all the kids want to play in the ice. this was after everyone had left, so jillie was having a blast "breaking the rules!"}

 

then we end the night with some hank wrestling! (this picture actually makes hank look smaller than he is. he's giant!)

so that was our thanksgiving and it was great! we left the house at noon and returned at midnight, slightly exhausted. and we didn't even leave greenville!

i'm so grateful for both of our families! we love spending time with both of them, and always have so much fun when we do!

pj playtime

kade is starting to be so much more alert, and responsive to us. really staring intently and smiling at us. And jillian is loving it! she thinks she has a whole new friend!

 

i just love to watch them interact now! jillian will bring him a ton of toys, and pile them on him (somewhat safely with supervision) and then just talk to him, play patty-cake, and dance for him. it's so great.

most of this happens in the mornings, because that's when they're both the happiest (their mom needs to catch on to this!)

so that's where the name "pj playtime" comes from. (but to be honest, we're usually all in our pj's until we leave the house most days, which is when kyle comes home!)

{here jillian is taking a picture of kade with her cell phone, saying "cheese kade!" think she's seen this before?}

 {sweet kisses! and kade's face! love it!}

 

 i'm finally able to catch some of kade's sweet smiles on camera!

and we'll end on this! love love love them staring at each other with those facial expressions. i see these two in a lot of mischief before too long!

so yeah, even though i'm so not a morning person, watching these two play is making them much more bearable! (that, and a nice cup of coffee)

october festivites

october was a very family fun filled month.

we covered all the october have-to's, which included, but not limited to:

*visiting the pumpkin patch - we don't go all out for this. it's in the parking lot at a church here in town, which they have fixed up really cute. we were there about 15 minutes. all i wanted was a cute picture of the kids. 

this is what we got:

 

 jillian (who normally begs to hold/touch kade), did not want him anywhere near her. makes for a really sweet fall picture!

she did finally sit next to some pumpkins for a picture alone, but that was it! so the pumpkin patch was kind of a fall family picture fail! but it was still fun for jillian to pick out a few pumpkins to bring home.

*we carved pumpkins - J liked the gooey stuff inside.

*we had some orange cupcakes

*a very cute cowgirl, and her very cute baby cow came to visit!

*we spent halloween night at heidi and brent's.

we took jillian down the street to trick or treat. it didn't take her long to figure out that she could walk up to someone and say "please" (she couldn't get trick or treat down) and they would put candy in her bag. she walked probably 5-6 blocks, but then we carried her back, because she started to get slower and slower.

when we got back to heidi and brent's, we helped pass out candy to the hundreds (literally) of kids still trick or treating. this may have included jillian putting a chewed up starburst in a kid's bag. oops!

 our sweet family - love our little farmer and her livestock.

 whenever she saw someone in an odd/scary costume, she would just stare forever, and then look at us like "umm..did anyone else just see that?"

 we finally did get some semi-cute pics of the kiddos with some pumpkins in the back yard! as far as pictures go, i've learned to roll with the punches and take whatever we can get!

and that sweet sibling love pretty much wraps up the month of october! 

i just really love fall. it makes me happy.

back by popular demand!

well, popular demand of one person! (you know who you are.)

the blog has been taunting me. i feel so guilty for not keeping it updated. and i don't even know why. i have started many posts, to get back in it, but i don't finish or post them.

a lot of things have happened since we went to the zoo. (what a random place to stop blogging!)
such as:
* moved to a new house
* feels like we're still moving in, as there are still rooms to be painted and decorated.
* went on vacation to south padre
* we painted, and then painted some more.
* went on another vacation to galveston
* did a lot of mundane things that equals our life, which i love.
* oh yes, we added to our crew!

yeah, we have a second child now, and our blog doesn't even know about him!
so, blog, meet JEFFREY KADE NELSON!

we like him. like a whole lot.

he was born on september 24th, 2011 at 6:39 am.
he weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces.
he was 21 inches long.
he likes to eat. a lot.
he is 6 weeks old and now weighs 13.5 pounds. (do the math)
he is just now getting on a schedule - yes it has taken 6 weeks.
he kind of had a rough 5 weeks, but he is doing much better now.
he has really cute hair, but it is starting to thin, which makes me sad.
he is now in a size 1 diaper, and i am trying to finish a box, but we really need to move to size 2 now.
he is absolutely adored by his big sister, jillian.

see?

but sometimes, she "loves" him so much that it makes his face look like this: 

(which makes her face look like "yeah, i like him, even though it scares him daily.")

so, our life has been a little hectic lately, but we are settling in to a family of four quite nicely.
i think it suits us well.





this makes for the world's worst "life update" of the last several months.

i still haven't decided if i will try to back track big events, we shall see.

for now, this will do!

zoo's who!?

"zoo's who!?" is not random. it's one of jillian's favorite books, so i thought it an appropriate title.

we had been wanting to take jillie to the zoo before it got to be unbearably hot, but every weekend has been filled to the max! we finally got a chance a couple weeks ago (yes, i'm late..these are all my re-cap posts).

and no, we did not go early enough to beat the heat!


we decided to go to the tyler zoo, because it's smaller, and at jillian's age, she really doesn't need any more than that!

neither kyle or i had been in forever, so we didn't remember exactly what it was like, so we were all pumped!


we decided to go on a sunday, because we didn't have an open saturday in forever, so in thinking this would be an all day affair, we skipped church and headed out that morning.

well..it took like 2 hours to see the whole zoo! and we were taking our time!

i'm not complaining, it's the perfect size when you have younger kids! we just now know that we can go to church, then lunch at mercados (yum), and still have time to see the zoo!

we had a lot of fun, and jillie, of course, loved it!

her favorite thing was the birds. they were squawking really loudly and she would just laugh and talk back. or just say "oh wow!"


her other favorite thing was the "petting zoo" which was just a bunch of goats.

she went around and touched every single one! and called them all puppies!

{this is her "i'm so excited i can't contain myself" look!}

{this was zoomed in way closer than expected, but i kinda like it!}

{when we got home, we headed to kyle's parents to swim and cool off. check out j's sweet goggles! she wore them for like an hour!}

it was a great family fun day and we will definitely be going back! just maybe when it's a little cooler.

we're trying to squeeze in extra "family fun days" before #2 gets here, to soak up these last few months we have with jillie girl.