Almost done cooking!

This week I start my weekly dr's visits! That is a good thing b/c it means the end is so close. I just can't wait to have our son here with us. I am not counting on any changes though seeing as how Levi didn't come until his exact due date. I'm crossing my fingers that this baby decides to surprise us and arrive early! 5 weeks or 37 days left. I just can't believe it!

Only 7 weeks left

I am getting more and more nervous as the time draws closer for our 2nd son to arrive. I am so grateful to be a mom even with all the tiring work it requires. Matt and I are still trying to finish up the nursery. When it is complete I will post before and after pictures. For the nursery, I went with a jungle theme. I found a website that has murals that you put up yourself. I found the perfect mural and when it is finished it will be just adorable.

This pregnancy Matt and I have been careful about sharing the name that we have picked out for this baby. We have not had good luck with choosing names and telling people ahead of time. At church there were about 10 people pregnant at the same time. I wanted to make sure that everyone else had names picked out or was having a girl before we said the name we have chosen. Well, the time has come and I feel I can now say our sons name. On March 3rd, hopefully before then, we will gladly welcome:

Jaxon Riley Young

We can't wait for Jaxon to join his brother Levi. I know it will be an adjustment for Levi to not be the only child. Hopefully it will be easy though. We are excited to be a family of 4!!

Christmas is over...but it was good!

Our lights and tree are put away (they were put away on December 26th) and Christmas is over for another year! Each year it is so fun to see Levi get more into opening presents and seeing the lights on houses. Matt and I loaded up Levi and Macey and headed to my parents house for a few days. This will probably be our last Christmas at my parents house for a while. I want to finally have a Christmas in our home, which we have yet to do. We want to start our own family traditions and do our own thing this next year.

Levi woke up on Christmas morning in an ok mood. My family likes to wait until everyone is there to open presents. So we had to wait on my brother and his wife to arrive. Meanwhile, Levi's mood was quickly going down hill as it got closer to nap time. Sidenote, my parents house is very loud when we are all together and usually Levi doesn't get very good sleep while there. Levi started to open a few gifts but just got more and more mad. So half way through opening presents we had to put him down for a nap. Two hours later we resumed the opening of his presents.

Levi before the nap: This is his first look at the presents! He was very excited...at first.

Still in a good mood.

Round 1 of opening presents:

You can tell by the face that Levi is done with the whole gift thing!

Round 2:

The whole family except for Thomas. He is serving our country in Iraq.

Back row: Matt, me, Melanie, Mandy, Jessica, Tamara, Brian

Front row: Dad, Mom, Levi, Aubree, Joel

We hope that everyone had a great holiday and a happy new year!

Icky Icky!

This week has been a horrible, yucky, nasty, gross week! All 3 of us have been sick. Levi has strep and Matt and I have horrible colds. I'm trying to think of the positives and I figure that one good thing is we can all just be sick at once and get it over with. Another positive is that b/c we are sick it gives me a reason to do a good cleaning in my house. Those are the only two good things I have come up with so far.

We are slowly getting better each day. When Levi had strep a few months ago he had diarrhea at the end of the sickness. That is what we are now dealing with for him. Matt had a fever Friday night of 103 and I was at 101. I had a dr's appointment on Friday and I had to have my blood drawn. I made the mistake of holding my breath while they did that. I almost passed out so I had to stay longer at the dr's office until I was able to walk. It didn't help that I was already congested from this cold so I have no clue why I would be so dumb and hold my breath. I think Friday was our peak day of illness. It is hard for me to sleep still since I have congestion in my chest. Every breath I take is a difficult one since I am 7 1/2 months pregnant. But let's just get all the sickness done now before Christmas!

Thank you Mandie for bringing us soup, rolls, and cookies. It was all yummy! Thank you to Brian and Sam for coming over and giving Matt a blessing. We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Tender moment with Levi

So it seems when one person gets sick the whole family is sick soon thereafter. Last week Matt had laryngitis and had no voice. He went the the dr and was put on some meds and he is much better now. This week Levi developed strep. Levi just had strep back in September/October so I was shocked when the dr said he had it again. To top it all off, I have developed a cough that is just about to kill me.

Yesterday Levi woke up with a temp of 104. I was scared to death. That has never happened before. Shortly after waking up Levi threw up as well. That scared me even more b/c Levi has never done that before either. I called Matt frantically and asked him to come home. When Matt arrived here at home we quickly went to Levi's dr. He is now on meds and is so much better today. Levi still isn't 100% but he has more energy than he did yesterday.

Since Levi was sick I knew it was going to be a very long day and night. We tried to put Levi down for a nap but he only slept for maybe 30-45 minutes. When he woke up he was cranky, of course. I cuddled up with Levi on the couch and we laid there for another 30 minutes or so. Levi was laying beside me with his head rested on my chest and I could just feel every breath he took. I haven't had a moment like that with Levi pretty much since he started walking. Shortly after that I moved into our bedroom. We snuggled more in bed and I loved it. I was so happy to know that Levi felt safe and comforted by me. It brought tears to my eyes to know how much Levi really does love me. He has just recently learned how to give kisses but still doesn't give them all the time. It is those moments that I cherish and treasure when he knows his mommy and daddy love him and will protect him. I am so thankful that we have a beautiful son that loves us and knows that he can rely on us to make things better.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is mine and Melissa's 5-year anniversary. I want her to know how much I love her but words are never enough but it doesn't hurt to try.

The things I love about Melissa:

1. Her unconditional love for me and our family.
2. Her sense of humor – She is so funny and silly. I love that we can be goofy with each other.
3. She is a wonderful mother to Levi. She is so patient with Levi and is a terrific role model for him. Nothing makes me more proud to be her husband than to see her in action as a mom.
4. Her laugh – I mean her real “laugh out loud” laugh. I’m not sure if a lot of people have heard her laugh like that.
5. Her stubbornness – An attribute that we both share but we have learned to compromise and accept each other’s stubbornness.
6. Her family – I love how we have become closer over the years. I also love that we have been able to spend a lot of time with them lately.
7. She is a fire-cracker! She won’t hesitate to stand up to someone for what she believes in.
8. She makes me want to be a better person.
9. Her testimony of the gospel.
10. The way she knows me.
11. Her smile.
12. Her eyes.

I love more than I have ever found the way to say to you. Happy anniversary my love!

Happy Birthday Matt & Levi (A bunch of pictures)

It's that time of year again when Matt and I scramble to figure out what to do for gift ideas. It doesn't matter if it is for us or for Levi. We struggle usually every time. Matt's birthday is Dec. 3rd. Levi's birthday is Dec. 4th. Our anniversary is Dec. 11th and of course Christmas on the 25th. Every year we tell each other that we really had poor planning in every department possible. But it does make for fun times though.

Matt turned 28 this year and our baby boy is now 2! I honestly can't believe that Levi is 2. It is so cliche to say but where did the time go? The past 2 years have been difficult at times but more amazing than anything. For Matt's birthday I made him a cake. Let me just say that I am NOT a cake decorating professional by any means. I try and that is all I can do! But it's cake so it will just be eaten anyway. I also made Levi a cake as well. I can never decide what the best thing to do is as far as cakes go. Do I make just one cake for both Matt and Levi? Or do I make 2? Being pregnant doesn't help me to decide which is better either. So I did 2 cakes anyway.


I didn't have a number 8 candle so as you can see I just put 27 + 1. It worked!

Levi really wanted to touch the candles but he did a good job helping Matt blow them out

The next day I was able to help Levi blow out his candles. Since Levi's birthday and Christmas are so close together we decided that we wanted to save most of his presents for Christmas. So we got him an Elmo chair. He loves it! It giggles and vibrates when he sits in it. We also got him a play kitchen set with food. We replaced the microwave that came with the kitchen set with a way cooler one. The new one has a timer, makes noise, and has more buttons for Levi to push. It is interesting to watch Levi use his imagination and pretend to cook or eat the food. Our neighbor got Levi an Elmo movie and Elmo bath toy as well.

Then came the fun part of letting Levi go crazy with his cake. We stripped him down to his diaper and let him go at it. We gave him a bigger piece of cake and Levi wasn't sure exactly what to do with it. Once Matt showed him he could just pick it up and eat it, Levi devoured that cake.

This past Saturday my parents came out and spent the day with us. We went to the Heard Museum. It was a really neat place that you wouldn't think would be so close to us. They had a dinosaur exhibit going on and Levi wasn't too excited about it. The dinosaurs moved and made noise and it scared him. It was cute to see how much Levi clung on to us. Meemaw and Papaw brought presents too. They got him a new pair of shoes, toy trucks, crayons, and a coloring book. We were most excited about the shoes!

Levi is touching a crystal that he is not supposed to touch.

Digging for "Fools Gold".

Looking at the nasty snakes! Yucky!

Levi is too scared to let go of us or my mom's leg!! There wasn't anything that he liked about the whole dinosaur experience.

This museum is a fun place to visit and we will be going back in the spring when they have more outdoor exhibits open. We had a fun weekend celebrating with each other and family. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming out. We finished off the day by going to Subway for dinner and doing some Christmas shopping for Levi at Toys R Us.