2015 Recap

2015 is coming to an end. I can't believe it. Every year flies by faster than the previous year. Craziness! I am ready for 2016. New beginnings as always! Here's the traditional year in review for 2015.

January

 Jackson visited Crystal Bridges museum for the first time this month. He also went to two birthday parties. Busy boy! KK also came to visit this month. Too fun!

February

 Look at this sweet boy's cheeks! We celebrated Jackson's first Valentine's Day with hundreds of hugs and kisses. :) XOXO!

March

 Happy Spring! We celebrated Springtime in the daffodils, went to South Arkansas to visit family, and more.

April

 We celebrated Jackson Randolph's 1st birthday!!! He had a Poky Little Puppy party complete with birthday cake, ice cream, strawberry shortcake, and chocolate custard. :)

 Oh, how precious. Jackson loves smiling for sure!

May

 We had several walks with the wagon. It's one of our favorite things. :)

June

 We took advantage of Russell's weekends off and went on a couple of road trips. This was taken in Eureka Springs. Oh so fun!

July

 Jackson's first train ride! We got to spend time with family on this fun adventure. We love his little conductor hat. :)

August

 I started my own business, "Baked with Love" selling homemade cinnamon rolls.

 Also, friends and family surprised me on my 30th birthday with an 80's theme party. So special!!!

September

 Russell and I celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary at one of our favorite places downtown.

 I also got to go to a Kelly Clarkson concert with my sister, Kelly, Whitney, and more friends. We had a blast!

October

 Jackson's first haircut. He did great and was so well behaved the whole time. My handsome boy.

 Met Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, for the.......fourth time. No lie. I would meet her again and again if I could. She's the sweetest!!

November

 It was a busy month. Jackson and I went to the library for the first time and had such fun. His favorite part were the puzzles.

 Thanksgiving with family...Russell took this picture. We loved fall so much!

December

 We went to Journey to Bethlehem with Amy, Tony, and Leighann. It truly was wonderful.

Christmas 2015

Jackson is now 20 months old and learning new things every day. Time flies. We say is often, but time truly does fly. Wow!! Here's to a blessed 2016!

Happy New Year!

 

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17

A Daniel Tiger Halloween

Hope y'all had a safe and fun Halloween this year! We had lots of fun. It was not hard deciding on a costume for Jackson this year. He has adored the character, Daniel Tiger, for months now. He loves the music they sing on the show, and claps his sweet little hands every time the show is on.

Here is our little "Daniel Tiger" at Daddy's work. They always love for kids to come and show off their costumes every year. Special thanks to Aimee, who made the ears and also to Maureen, who made his tiger tail. :) 

So cute!

He loved sharing his candy at Daddy's office as well. Too funny.

Here is Jackson checking out his loot. 

Friday night, we lit the jack-o-lantern that Russell and I carved for sweet J. It was so cute watching his reaction to the light inside the pumpkin.

Playing around and laughing. It's what we do best!

I love this one of my boys!

Sweet boy

Russell worked so hard for the past three weeks to build Jackson a "trolley" to fit over the wagon we have. I enjoyed painting some of the pieces, but he did most of the work. Here is our Daniel Tiger in his trolley. Ding, Ding! 

Our family with the trolley at Fall Fest. 

It was so good to see our friends, Kelsey and Abbey there too!

Fun activity to try! 

We also went to Laynette and Rusty's house to trick-or-treat and to visit for a few minutes. Laynette goes all out for Halloween, so it was fun to drop by.

Our little tiger was getting sleepy. :)

We still made time to stop by Starbucks and get a "frappula" for Halloween. Did you know they only make these Frappuccino's one day a year? 

How I love my little pumpkin. It is so bittersweet to look at these pictures. Time truly flies.

Last night, when I was putting Jackson to bed, I held him and sang, "Great is thy faithfulness," "I love you, Lord," and more. Jackson rocked back and forth and clapped his hands and gave me the biggest smile. It was the perfect reminder that no matter what you are going through, good or bad, God is faithful!! It brought tears to my eyes. Cherish every moment with your babies, kids, teens and adult children! :) It's worth it for sure!

 

If you honor your father and mother, things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth. Ephesians 6:3

October Fun

The month of October was so busy, but fun. I tried a few new things and projects with Jackson as well last month.

 We painted this pumpkin, what I call a "ghost pumpkin" with Jackson's little hands. You can see it did not turn out perfect, but that's okay. It was fun and Jackson got to try his hand at painting. :)

 I also made chicken pot pie soup with puff pastry croutons. I just cut out shapes and baked the pastry for a few minutes. And voila! You have croutons!

 I took our sweet boy to the doctor a couple of weeks ago for his 18 month check-up. He is healthy and growing for sure. Anytime we go anywhere, Jackson is so happy and friendly to everyone. People love that and can't help but smile when he greets them. :)

 Russell and I went on a date last Friday and we had lots of fun. Pei Wei opened in our area recently, so we were anxious to try it. It was very good. We also went to mini golf and acted like teenagers again. HA! Target was also a priority for our date night. :)

 Jackson "helped" me bake cookies the other day for friends. He was so proud to help me.

 He also had to taste the dough. Yummy! Oh, and the picture is totally not centered. I have a toddler who is always running. What can I say?

 

 Ta-da! Halloween cookies!

 My nephew, Logan, turned 16 on Thursday. I absolutely positively cannot believe it!!! We love him so much.

 Halloween is just fun for us. Papa Murphy's makes a special "jack-o-lantern pizza" every Halloween, so we had to get one.

It's a must to watch Hocus Pocus every year. Traditions, traditions. :)

 

So that's a couple of weeks in a nutshell. I will post more about Halloween in a day or two. Jackson looked adorable in his costume! Stay tuned!

 

Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. Psalm 95:1-2

 



Bentonville Film Festival 2015

Earlier this month, our little town of Bentonville held a film festival. It brought thousands of people to this area to see what it was all about. Our family had to find out too!

 BFF! Jackson had a great time!

 There were many places in NWA that showed independent movies and familiar movies as well. VUDU lounge was one of them. Popcorn, Coke, or M&M's, anyone?

 Jackson kept holding on to that bottle of Coke. Too funny.

 We also had fun photo booth pictures made. So fun!

 The next day, I decided to take Jackson to the festival and it was just he and I hanging out together. Our first stop was the Coca-Cola vendor booth. I was so excited to get our names on coke cans. :) It's the little things, y'all. It was great to see Jonathan Martinez and Laine Baker from our local news station while I stood in line. :)

 Jackson and I even met Laine and she asked to get a picture with Jackson. Jonathan even took the picture and he kept commenting on Jackson's "little locks." It was great meeting them!

 What's a film festival without the Oscar Mayer weinermobile? Just fun to see.

I even ran into Amy Duggar! It was so crazy I met so many well known people in a short amount of time. Haha! Amy was very sweet and so friendly! So awesome meeting her.

I think there will be a festival every year, so that's pretty exciting!

I hope that next year, we can participate in more events at the festival. I just love this place!

 

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to savesinners-of whom I am the worst. 1 Timothy 1:15