We've Moved!

With the start of the new year (Happy 2013!), I've decided it is time to start a new blog.  This one has taken me from planning our wedding in 2008 through the birth of both of our children.  That is 4 years of blogging! Wow. When we started it, we were just a twosome which you can see by our domain name jasonandmack.blogspot.com.

It's time for a fresh start.  The new blog will still be a family blog to keep everyone updated but will also include recipes, kids crafts, business ventures and the adventures of a mom and dad of 2 littles.

So come join us over here!

www.choosetobeshiny.blogspot.com

Merry Christmas & Happy 2013!

26 Months.

Dear Addie,


I blinked one day and then you were no longer a toddler and all the sudden you are this.... kid. This little girl. I am not ready!

 Further proof was when we decided to transition you to a big girl bed and we braced ourselves for the transition but you didn't skip a beat! I am sure you were thinking, "Finally! A bed that matches my sophistication and intellect! I think now I will go sit in my reading nook and read the works of Darwin." Or you know, something like that.

You have been recognizing your name on papers from school, etc so I made you this nifty puzzle that you have been working hard at but not quite there yet. Not too shabby for a 2 year old! You are smart as a whip and use such descriptive words like "delicious" and "amazing." You are counting to 13 now!

You are so sweet with your manners and starting to understand emotions like sad, happy and scared. You say "no thank you" and "thank you" and "please" on your own and give spontaneous hugs around the neck and leg. You love getting up in Mommy and Daddy's bed to watch your favorite tv shows and snuggle under the covers. Your absolute favorite show right now is "Little Einsteins." You watch it over and over and over and over! You are obsessed with all things Disney Princess and love dressing up in your princess dresses and strutting around the house.

Your favorite foods right now are yogurt, cheese, pickles and spaghetti. You are drinking 2% milk now and we all drink so much milk I have to keep it stocked up every week.

You continue to be an amazing big sister to Tate and it melts my heart to see how sweet you are with him. When he cries you tell me, "He's hungry, mamma!"

You light up our lives, kiddo!

Love, Mommy & Daddy

3 Months.

Dear Tate,


How these three months have flown by! Our house is busy busy! I am savoring every time I kiss your tiny toes, every time you do the adorable baby stretch when you wake from sleep, your gurgling, laughing and cooing that will one day be words and sentences. I know it won't be like this for long. You are teaching me to sloooow down and just soak in every minute. I can be juggling 542 things at once and starting to stress and then you smile at me like you are saying "Hi Mamma!" and it reminds me nothing else really matters besides you, your sister and your Daddy.

You are sleeping like a champ and a lot of the time when you are ready for bed you don't even want to be rocked, you just want to go straight to your crib.
Right now you are loving playing on your playmat, being tickled on your lips and chin and you LOVE LOVE LOVE to eat! You are 14lbs and drinking about 32oz a day. You are the most adorable chunky little bundle of love.
Another favorite past time is watching your big sister's every move. You smile when she giggles and you know her voice when she enters the room. She loves sharing with you and I cannot wait for the day when you are both really playing together. She ADORES you. Can you blame her?
Your Daddy and I thank god every day for you. You are the perfect piece in our family and we are so proud to have you as our son. The first thing Daddy does when he gets home from work is take you immediately in his arms and snuggle you like you two are in your own little world. It melts my heart.
Weekends are my favorite because we always have at least one lazy day where we all sit in our pj's and snuggle and play and watch movies and order in food and just enjoy our little family.
It is the best day of my week. :)
Love you to the moon and back,

Mommy & Daddy

He's Here!

Tatum "Tate" Jack Hensley

April 17th at 9:11pm

7lbs 9oz 20 inches

Little man gave us a surprise and made his debut 2 weeks early!  He has completely stolen our hearts.  Welcomed with love by Mommy Daddy & Big Sister Addie.

Elmo!

 Our almost two year old is OBSESSED with Elmo. DVD's, books, dolls, the whole shebang! In fact anything remotely resembling elmo gets a squealing response.  So as I was consignment shopping today and I spotted an Elmo chair back in the corner, I knew she must have it!

This was definitely the response we were going for! Nothing warms my heart like her excitement. :)

Happy Easter, Everybunny!

The Happy.

Sneak peek pictures from our photographer:

^This photo right here illustrates how completely and totally lucky of a girl I am. Everything in this picture is what I live for and all that I need. I mean, look how handsome of a husband I scored... WOOOWOOO!!

And this photo below shows how important it is to have a great photographer.... I feel like Two-Ton Tilly and she somehow used smoke and mirrors to make me look like this:

Money well spent! :)

We also had our last big ultrasound yesterday. This whole pregnancy has been a blur and we've been so distracted with Addie bug and all kinds of life events that I love having an ultrasound because it is alone time for just us and little man. To stop the outside world around us and completely focus on him. This last ultrasound was also that *moment* I was waiting for, that hits you when you realize there is a tiny human on their way and he is yours.

Tate was being completely cooperative so the ultrasound tech switched it over into 3D and let us just watch him for a while. Yawning, smacking his lips, nestling his hands under his chin. Homeslice is in the 80th percentile for size, head down and running out of room rapidly so it pretty tight quarters.

And as I saw him pull in his lower lip to bite on and then let it out with a tiny sweet smile, I realized, those are Jason's lips and mouth and I might just be getting the mini Jason I have been seeing in my dreams.

Love you, little bubba!

Bad Weather & 50 Days.

It was a rainy weekend here in H-town. I didn't mind it for the first half a day but once it decided to drag into Sunday and into Sunday night, I have to admit I became a bit stir crazy. Addie stood at the back door (apparently unaware there was a monsoon going on on the other side of the door) and whining "shooooooes on! shooooooes on!"


It was time to get creative up in here.

We started with the bubble blower, bringing it in off the porch and into the middle of the living room. Now most would have seen this as a soapy, slipping hazard on our tile floor but not us, folks. No, WE LIVE ON THE EDGE.

On Sunday when there was still no sun in sight it was time to bring out the big guns. Or what I like to call The Best $14 I Ever Spent. I had purchased it at Hobby Lobby the week before anticipating the rain. It is a little cardboard playhouse that you put together and then the kiddo can color all over it with marker, crayons etc. It was a hit. I even got SO bored that I got to work when Jason was giving Addie a bath and she emerged to a suprise cardboard cottage makeover:

Electricity and indoor/outdoor carpet! I snapped this photo just as she was exclaiming, "WHAT?" Can you tell I miss my Etsy shop and am looking for other ways to channel my creative juices? *smacks forehead*

The sweetest moment of the weekend was brought to me by my husband. He came home from work on Friday with this:

I was just so surprised. Not only did he get a sign printed up to match my business cards but then got it custom framed. I don't know if you can tell but the thing is huge. I cannot wait to get it hung up in my studio. I really miss working, I know I am doing the right thing by taking a break as I have been feeling MUCH better in the pregnancy department but I cannot wait to get back to it. I plan on spending my off time getting things in my studio reorganized as well as brainstorming new project ideas.

With that said, 50 more days of baby baking! We hit up Walmart and got a lot more things crossed off the list that we needed for little man. I also scored this cool train depot lamp for only $30:

Pottery Barn can keep their $99 one!  We like a bargain around here. :) I am loving all the tiny details that are coming together, cannot wait to share the whole thing!

Mack, over and out.

31 Weeks!

First up... belly!

The nursery is coming along, this past week we have gotten almost everything hung up on the walls and washed 3 huge loads of tiny baby boy clothes and got them folded, organized and put away.  Thank goodness we have 2 nephews and a lot of friends with boys as we have recieved SO much hand me down baby boy stuff. His drawers and closet are almost full!  Here is a sneakity peak at Tater's room so far....

All the blue walls look different shades in the pics but they are the color that is in the last pic with his white kicks. I just couldn't get the color adjusted right on the others. :) I cannot wait to reveal it all! We have had so much fun picking everything out and working on it while Addie jumps around in Tate's crib squealing "Bubba's bed! Bubba's bed!". I cannot wait to see those two together, I know they will be good buddies!

And partners in crime and I am sure.

Tickle, Tickle G.I. Joe.

We are currently watching Madonna's Super Bowl half time show as Addie emerges from the bedroom modeling a different hat (and dance move) each time. 

The whole weekend she has serenaded us with "Tickle, Tickle, G.I. Joe,"  translation: Twinkle, twinkle little star. Of course! 

She cracks us up endlessly. She is going on 2 years old and I still catch myself wondering, what in the world did we ever do without her?

Zoo Day & Manners Matters!

Last weekend, the weather was gorgeous and it was the perfect day to hit the Houston Zoo! We called up Addie's buddy Van, loaded up and headed out for an adventure.

Riding the train.

Addie was a huge fan of chasing the goats... just not touching them.

Makes my heart happy.



Not sure what animal this was but it must have really impressed her!



Cutest monkeys ever.

Discussing stock options over chips, queso and chicken nuggets.

These two kiddos melt my heart. Something else that is melting my heart lately?  Hearing our girl say "Thank you" all on her own without prompting and also saying "Bless you!" to people when she hears them sneeze.  She has also started saying "Love too!" when we tell her we love her and yeah it is just about the best feeling on earth.  She makes us so proud. :)

Sunday Hike.

Our little explorer. :)

Progress.

To say things have been hectic in our neck of the woods would be an understatement.  2012 has started off with a bang, Jason has been so busy with the family business and I am swamped with Etsy orders (this is a great thing!) as the wedding season approaches. Addie is growing like a weed, we have reorganized almost our whole house and then one day we realized we should probably start getting ready for our sweet new addition to get here because we only have 3.5 months left (GASP!)!  We scheduled my c-section last week at our doc appt for May 1st and that is when it hit us that he is coming... and soon!  Before I get into our preparations, I'll share a belly pic from date night last night.  The belly is definitely popped out and showing! It is so funny to me how high I seem to be carrying this little guy, I carried Addie WAY lower. :)

So onto the preparations.... we got the nursery all painted with Addie's help.

She also did a great job of handing Daddy his tools while putting together Tate's crib. Let's hope she is this happy and helpful once her baby brother gets here! :)

I love this next picture, I have a very similar picture of Jason putting together Addie's crib (on the right)!

Progress, woooo woooo!!!

You can see the adorable Curious George and Vintage Train crib sheets we bought draped over the crib, I am in love with them! While we were out and about last night we also picked up some little boy things! It was very exciting to shop in the blue and green section, though we did pick up some pink and purple for Addie as well.

Have I mentioned lately how happy and grateful I feel to be having a little boy AND a little girl? Sometimes I feel like I need to be pinched. :)

Little Liberace.