Rounding 3rd and heading home

As of today we have hit the final trimester...the big 3. Wow! How am I in my 3rd trimester already? Don't get me wrong, I'm SO INCREDIBLY grateful to be in this final stage of my pregnancy but it just seems like yesterday that I was counting down the weeks until I could see my baby again at the 20 week ultrasound.
Sorry, no belly pic this week yet but I'll get one posted soon.

Today was another exciting day for us here in the Jackson household...and tomorrow I'll tell you why. Gotta leave em' wanting more! :-)

Since posts are more interesting with pictures, here is one displaying a few skills Mike and I want to pass on to our children. jk. We do look pretty tough though...

Dear Insomnia...

Please Go Away!!! I know you haven't visited me too often in this pregnancy so far, and I appreciate that, but if you could leave me alone say ummm, well, FOREVER, that would be great.
Much love and "say hello to your mother" (Mark Walhberg reference...any Saturday Night Live fans here?).
Brooke

And the doctor said...

that "she" is in fact, a "GIRL!"
ha!
So funny to post this but after the "typo" of girl vs. boy at our 20/21 week appointment, we were a little unclear.  Mike and I have thought baby girl all along and it looks like we guessed right on this one...well maybe we'll just go with "parent's intuition".
Ok, I have WAY too many "" in this post so I'm going to wrap it up and leave with you with thoughts of Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!!
xo
"Brooke" :-)

26 weeks

So what's a typical Wednesday morning like for us in the Jackson household these days? Well, we probably woke up around 5:45am to a kitty running across our legs and/or heads. We try to go back to sleep for a bit and then (on a couple mornings at least) go for a short 30 minute walk around the neighborhood. Then all the typical morning stuff...showers, feeding Finn, Imus on in the background, a little political banter (or eye-rolling) from something we heard on the morning news, you know, the usual. But what makes Wednesdays a "little different"? That "little one" that grows another week older and another week closer to joining our family. Yes, Wednesdays are when our "weeks" change and this week I'm 26 weeks. I'm still feeling great and can feel the baby move a LOT more. I'm talking multiple times a day...especially at night. She gets her groove on at night and wants to play, play, play! It's the weirdest yet most awesome feeling. I'm definitely getting a bigger baby belly now...here is a pic from today. I actually think this picture kinda hides the belly a bit...I'll take one that shows it a little better next week. (Isn't it weird how pregnancy is the only time you want pictures to show off your "belly"?) ha!

So, back to what makes Wednesday's different? Mike takes my "belly pic". :-) And then...
Finn attacks Mike.

Well, maybe it's Mike that attacks Finn. :-)

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Mike and I have been hard at work to move everything from our townhouse to our new house AND make our new place cozy, presentable and "ours". It's a work in progress, ESPECIALLY when we don't have our usual firepower (and yes, I'm talking about me here). :-)  I'm still participating in the packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning, ripping apart, putting together, etc. that IS moving, BUT I don't have my usual "firepower" behind me with being all 6 months preggers and all. Mike ends up carrying quite a bit...or telling me to put things down if he sees me carrying something that he thinks is too heavy. It's all coming together though. We are finally out of the townhouse (well pretty much, Mike has ONE more thing to pick up there tomorrow)...woohoo!! It was nice to have time to move slowly but it also meant we would use every bit of the time and drag the process out.
We also have been working on our yard. As I mentioned before, Mike is now a yard aficionado. :-) No really, he's getting pretty good. He has removed a TON and I mean a TON of plants, bushes, trees, weeds, flowers, etc from around our house. If you have visited our house or remember from past pictures, there was quite a bit of overgrown landscaping. And now...well now most of it is gone! Mike rips it out and I bag it up, he carries the bags and I rake through the dirt, he sprays the weeds and insects and I...well I don't do much with that part, too many chemicals. I DID put together our rocking chairs and tables and my mom and I planted the flowers in my planters. We still have more we want to do with the front of the house (i.e. plant new bushes, etc.) but we still really LOVE our porch. Here are a few pics.
From the road:

 Loving our Rocking chairs! Thanks for the birthday presents Mom and Mark!

And here you can see our planters and flowers, LOVE. Thanks Mom and Grandmomma! (and Annie for helping to plant!!)

And our ferns (yes, I'm not as good at ferns yet) and new "J" mat...you know I love the "J". Thank you Mom and Grandmomma for the ferns (Easter bunny was very nice to me this year) and Muffy for the "J" mat.

Here are a couple pics from sitting on our porch. Just a few houses and then the beautiful hills...going to LOVE this even more in the fall. And to the right is a new playground that the neighborhood JUST installed in May. When our little one is old enough to be there, I'm sure we'll be the "bathroom" house. You know, the one that all the little kids run to with our daughter saying, "Sophie has to pee! Can she use our bathroom?".

And here is a pic of the back patio.  Mike cut back the magnolia tree and we spruced up our "old" patio furniture. 

And here are some pics of the back of the house. It may seems pretty basic but let me tell you, that "basicness" took HOURS of work. Mike and I (ESPECIALLY Mike) have spent an incredible amount of time removing weeds and overgrown plants from the back of the house and shed. For once, we are proud of "basic" and "plain". :-) We will add more plants later, but for now, we are enjoying NOTHING.

So, I know I haven't posted any inside pics since we moved in but I promise they will come. Just trying to get it all put together.

We did have a funny (well crazy, but funny) experience yesterday. Our kitchen faucet decided to turn into a geyser and explode water EVERYWHERE in our kitchen. It took both of us to get the damn thing off and by that time we were laughing like crazy and soaking wet. You have to laugh or you might want to cry. Since our wood floors are new, we were like maniacs trying to get the water off of them. We had every towel in our house in the kitchen soaking up the water. Water in the floor, in drawers, on the ceiling, everywhere. But we got the water cleaned up! And have had a fan blowing on the floor since. (check out our flowers on the island...they are from a plant in our yard that we had to cut-back, pretty!)

A plumber came and said that other than needing a new faucet, we're fine. We purchased the faucet today and it should be installed tomorrow.  Hello home ownership. You didn't take long to rear your ugly head and show us who's boss. :-) Oh well, we laughed through it. Thank GOODNESS Mike was here when it happened b/c it took two of us to minimize the water.

Whew, this was a long post! :-)

Baby Jackson is doing great!

Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful Dads in our lives. We love you! And also to Mikey, the soon to be Daddy. (He had a big breakfast this morning from me, baby Jackson and Finn...Finn was instrumental in making the pancakes.)

We're back in business!

Internet business that is. After a week and half with no Internet (not sure why it takes Verizon that long to activate service when it doesn't even require a technician to come to the house), we are LIVE on the net again. Well, we've had our phones so we can get online that way AND we've been at work so we've online there, but with no Internet at home, I haven't been able to blog very well. So I guess I have no excuses for not blogging like crazy now! :-)

We spent the weekend in Cincy to visit our nephew Jackson for the first time. He's ADORABLE! Seriously, so cute. And Jenn is doing FANTASTIC. She is already a great momma and just adores her little man.  We're SO excited for Jenn and Matt!! And, in case you all didn't read my Facebook post, I earned my Auntie Badge by being peed on by little Jack. ha! Can't wait to bring that story up in 18 years when he's graduating High School. :-)

Here are a few random pics of Mike and I with Jackson (ps. it was late at night so just ignore the tired look on my face...I have no idea why I look like that. Oh and doesn't Mikey look so young here? He seriously looks 15 or 16.) 

While we were there Jackson had newborn pics taken by Britt's friend and amazing photographer Lauren. She sent a few teaser pics and just blew my socks off. Here are a couple. You can friend her on Facebook at LEO Photography.  I'm hoping she'll travel to VA in Oct. :-)

Well, it's good to be back blogging. Kisses! :-) ha.

Happy Viability Week!

This week I'm 24 weeks which according to all the books/blogs/and other sources of "over information" I have :-) means that I'm at "viability". Now I'm no Dr, but evidently that means that if for some reason I had this baby today, she (or he...kidding, we're still thinking it's a "she") would have a better chance of survival. With that being said, "stay in there little one"!!! Keep baking at 350 for another 16 weeks please...thanks, your parental units (aka mommy and daddy).

Here is a little pic. You can see the belly is definitely becoming more noticable.
Oh and I'm loving my new dress...so "earthy classy" as  Mike would say. Screams Brooke, yes? :-)
Ha, ok, I'm all over the place this morning so here is the pic.

Uncle and Aunt Jackson

Jackson Matthew Mercer made his way to the world June 7th.
He's absolutely beautiful and both he and Jenn are doing great.
Here's a pic, isn't he precious?

Jackson weighed 8lbs 3oz and was 21 3/4 inches.

His Auntie and Uncle are SO excited to meet him this weekend!!! Our first nephew!

First night in our new house!

We are officially in our new house! Woohoo!! Ok, so we still have “stuff” at our townhouse, but our furniture, most of our clothes, kitchen, kitty and well ourselves are now at the new house. Last night was our first night at the new digs and it was great…it feels like the place is really ours now that we have our belonging there and even more, slept and showered there!

We do not yet have internet or TV so there is a lot of togetherness going on. Ha! It’s actually a great thing though b/c we have PLENTY to do at the house so TV and internet would just be a distraction. Who am I kidding though, we can both check our email and access the internet on our phones. :-)

Finn was a little “what the heck is going on here” last night and very curious about the new house…a little skittish but I’m sure he’ll adjust soon. He found his litter box so that makes for one happy Brooke Type! :-)

I will post pics of the house soon.

In other news:
- We felt the baby kick for the first time last night. I have probably felt her (we think “her”) move before but I didn’t realize it. But last night there was no denying it…it was a baby moving! Mike actually felt it as well which is wild b/c I know it’s hard for others to feel it for awhile. I think she was just kicking the daylights out of me because I worked a little to hard with moving yesterday. Ok, worked too hard for a preggers, NOT for a normal person. Mike worked his BUTT OFF!!! It’s so hard for me to not just try to do whatever I did before…but I’m trying. <

- Jenn’s (Jackson) baby should be here soon! Her due date was last Wednesday and she’s made progress so we’re expecting the call anytime…can’t wait!

- Hope’s twins are doing GREAT! They are growing, healthy boys that are oh so cute!!!