Today, we visited Pigtails & Crewcuts for Jada's first haircut. She did fabulous. Here are a few pictures of the big event. :-)

Here's Jada standing at the top of the stairs outside of her new gymnastics class. Her first class was this morning. She is in love with it. After class, she told me all about how her "teacher taught her how to do gymnastics" and she "met lots of new friends".

Once we arrived home, she promptly started dancing in the kitchen and informed me that she was doing "gymnastics". After about 5 minutes of intense dancing, she said, "Mommy, I'm exhausted" (yes, she used the word exhausted), then walked over to the couch, laid down, placed her head on the throw pillow, placed the blanket on top of her, then asked asked to watch "Lord of the Beans" (a Veggie Tale movie). ha ha. I think it's safe to say that gymnastics class actually wore her out! :-)



Running laps for warm up


Waiting on a dot for her turn


Walking the balance beam


Just a snapshot of the room



And here are a couple of videos... can you tell that she loves structured activity? And doesn't she just look so adorable in that little outfit?

His first tooth (bottom, front, right tooth) broke through on Gabe's 30th birthday (12/24/11). His second one (bottom, front, left tooth) came in two days ago. :-) What a big boy!

Today is Jada's 3rd Birthday. The past 3 years have been such a blessing and we are incredibly thankful that God chose us to be her parents.

We celebrated by going out to dinner to Red Robin tonight, as a family. Both of the kids were fantastic. Here are some fun photos of our family along with a video of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to her. So fun!

Miss Jada is turning 3 years old in just a few days. I can't believe how fast time is flying.

We had a little birthday party for her at our house last Saturday (12/10/11). Because she loves Dora the Explorer and has an equal, if not greater, love for crafts, we decided to throw a Dora themed party with "decorate your own backpack" activity. So fun. Here are pictures from her party.

Jada is potty-trained! We're SO proud of her!!!

Last Wednesday morning (8/31), Jada told me that she wanted to wear her Dora underwear. Immediately, all plans were cancelled for the rest of the week and we started potty training! We are so, so excited that she doesn't want to wear diapers anymore. I think she's been physically ready for a while, but she's a little strong-willed (I have no idea where she got that from... ha ha), so we were just waiting for HER to make the decision that she was ready.

We started Potty Training Boot Camp on Wednesday morning and pretty much just stayed home for the next 6 days. Thursday morning, Tracy and her sweet girls came over for a play date, which was awesome. I get stir crazy very easily (which is why the kids and I usually go somewhere almost every day). It was great to have another mommy over to hang out with and to help hold Micah for me when I had to run Jada to the bathroom a couple of times.

On Friday night, we met the Marson family, at a park for dinner. It was perfect. So wonderful to spend time with friends AND a safe, outdoor place to visit during potty training. :-)

Jada had about 4 accidents the first day, 2/day for the next few days then NONE yesterday or today!!! Whoo hoo! She is doing fabulous.

Here's a little look at Potty Training Boot Camp... a painting station, a "picnic" lunch in the living room, the classy potty chair in the middle of the room & Micah just hanging out trying to suck on his toes. Pretty hardcore training, huh? :-)



Also... today was Jada's "First Day of (home)School"! I started a few days before Micah was born and had a few scattered lessons during the spring (then took the whole summer off), but now we're officially starting. My friend, Brianne and I are following the same curriculum (which is awesome because I need someone to hold me accountable with the lesson planning!) for our kiddos. The plan is to have a 20-30 min. lesson every Mon., Wed., & Fri. morning. I'm going to try to coordinate that with Micah's morning nap... we'll see how successful that is! :-)

Jada really thrives on structure (again... I wonder where she got that from... ha ha!) and I'm looking forward to having a scheduled, intentional one-on-one time with her. She absolutely loves it. She even invited her friend Fiona to school tonight. "Nona, you want to go to school with Jada tomorrow?" (I might just have to throw in an extra day of school this week because she's so excited about it!) :-)

One of my favorite pictures of Jada is her 5-month old shot that I took in front of our neighborhood playground. I thought it would be fun to take a similar picture of Micah, since he's 5-months old, in the same location.

Here's the outcome:


Taken 5/19/2009. My little chunky monkey.




Taken 8/17/2011. My long & lean little man.

Jada, Micah, & I headed over to the Washington County Fair (just a couple miles away from us) this afternoon! We met our friends Becky, David & Garrett and had a wonderful time together. We said hello to some fun animals in the barns, played in the children's area, sat on some huge tractors & even enjoyed a little picnic for lunch (Jada is REALLY into picnics right now). Not to mention, it's a beautiful, sunny day today - couldn't have asked for a better afternoon!

Here are some cute pictures of our adventure:








Jada LOVED moo'ing with the cows. It was pretty entertaining to watch - here she is in action! ha ha.



And here she is explaining that these roosters actually belong to her & David (hmmm...). :-)

It's been 2 weeks since Micah & I came home from Emanuel Children's Hospital. He is doing well on his medication. We're still figuring out the best dosage for him; we want to give him the lowest possible dose, but obviously need it to be effective. Unfortunately, that means that he's been having a few seizures here and there during this transition time.

Emotionally, it's very tough because I know that my baby could have a seizure at any moment and all I can do is hold him, make sure he's breathing, pray for it to stop, try to concentrate on the symptoms so that I can report it to his neurologist, time it (to make sure it doesn't last longer than 5 min.), then just comfort him when he comes back and is upset afterwards. Definitely a trial.

However, I am incredibly thankful that we have this medication and an amazing pediatric neurologist and pediatrician who genuinely care about my son. Most of all, I'm thankful for the opportunity that this has given us to grow closer to God and to completely trust Him. This experience has made me realize, more than any other time in my life, that I don't have control over what's going on. I don't understand why this is happening. I can't make it go away. Our only comfort is that God sees the big picture when we don't and He has only good plans for us.

Romans 8:28 - "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called, according to His purpose."

Jeremiah 29:11 - "'For I know the plans I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

Hebrews 2:18 - "Since He himself (Jesus), has gone through suffering and testing, He is able to help us when we are being tested."

I'm so grateful that we're not in this alone. I can't wait to see how God uses this; may He be glorified!