Merry Christmas from the Pickles!

Obviously we can't send a card out to everyone, so I'll post here! Merry Christmas, friends and family! I hope you spend time with your families. Remember the reason for the season!!

looking back for a minute

Just a look back of the past months of little Jake man!

This time last year, I was 33 weeks pregnant

My belly, 3 weeks to the day, before Jake was born. Check out my pregnancy induced swayback!

Jake Ryan

February 6th 2010

8lb 2oz

21.5"

Jake, freshly born. This was taken within hours of his birth. He was wide eyed from the very beginning!

2 weeks old

3 weeks old

1 month old - I love this picture, haha

6 weeks - hilarious!

Easter, 2010. He was 2 days shy of 2 months

so presh, my favorite of his 2 month photos (he was almost 3 months)

11 weeks old

Just a few days shy of 3 months

3 months old, after the swing, the jumperoo was the next major hit (later came Big Cat)

the swing always helps me see how big he got in the tiny days... 3 1/2 months here

3 month photos

4 months old, starting to get around via rolling everywhere

4 months, haha

Those eyes!! 4 months

we called this the inchworm

5 months, Jake's first Fourth of July

swing fail. last time in the swing. ornery fella! 5 months

sitting up unassisted and without falling over- 5 months. we also got our first teeth this month

I know it's blurry. This is one of the only pictures I have of this mode of transportation that lasted a few weeks. He scooted himself like this. 5 1/2 months

sweet boy 6 months

this was his very first time on all fours. he pushed up and had this look on his face. he spent 3 weeks rocking back and forth and moving from sitting to this position before he took off. this was 6 months and a few days

I could not complete this post without including food. this was a favorite for a while... wagonwheels. mmm. lol

the very first time he crawled. he crawled through here and into the kitchen, where he knocked over the dog bowl and dog food went everywhere. 6 months, 28 days

4 days later, he pulled up. this was the first time.

my favorite of his 7 month photos

probably one of my favorite photos, to date, of anything i've ever photographed.

J's first vacay to Branson 7 1/2 months

8 months old with "Big Cat" and yes, a naked butt.

8 months old. Jake took his first steps at 8 months, 22 days.

8 1/2 months old, playing at the park

LOVE this. A week before he turned 9 months.

ROTTEN, getting into everything

After J took his first steps, (3 in a row) It took him about a month before he'd take more than 3 at a time or stand alone without plopping back down immediately. Once he took more than 3 steps, it was all down-hill from there!!

And this is where we are now. This video was taken today. He walks about half the time now. :( 

Just like I was warned... time really does fly by!!!

10 Months

On the night before my sweet baby's 10 month "birthday" I find myself reflecting quite a bit on our last 10 months. They've been filled with more joy, love and laughter than ever before... than I even thought possible! They've also been filled with more frustration, anxiety, and worrying than ever before. I knew life would be more intense, but I'm not sure I realized that every emotion, including the bad ones, are felt way more intensely when a child is in the picture. You don't just fear things for yourself any longer... there is an innocent child that depends on you that you start to fear things for, as well. I try not to let my mind go there often, but we all think too much sometimes and with a kid, I feel like when I do let myself worry--I worry a bazillion times harder than the pre-kid days!!

I wrote a letter to Jake. You know, in the event that he begins reading in the next 24 hours. Kidding. I love blogging and the idea that it's like journaling, in a way... except I alway lose track of a journal. I always know where to find this one. And one day, I want Jake to read this and other letters I will be writing to him while he's little. :)

Dear Jake,

On your 10 month birthday--

I love, love, love being YOUR mommy. My heart overflows with love for you. You light up my life like nothing I’ve ever experienced. You are such a happy baby. You love to eat. Oh, honey, how you love to eat… anything and everything.  You are SUCH a good sleeper and this could not make a happier momma! You do not like to be alone unless you are in your crib. You love bath time. That is your fun time with Daddy. You have a blanky, but you only use it when you sleep. You snuggle your face into it before you go to sleep, and I think it is so stinkin’ cute! You absolutely refuse to hold your bottle, and just within the past couple days, you have started holding your sippy. I’m ok with that, because I know you won’t need me to hold that bottle forever, so for now… I will, and I'll love it. You are walking!! All over the place!! It is really hard to watch you run off and crash, but you have to learn somehow! You just get up and go right back at it, you’re a very determined little fella. You have most definitely perfected the art of run crawling. You crawl just like Mogley, from Jungle Book when you speed crawl. You are so funny. Your facial expressions keep everyone laughing. Your personality is very big and you let the world know it. When we are out in public, you talk to everyone we pass. If they don’t talk back, you talk louder until they do. You can say, “mama” “dada” “yum-yum” “uh-oh” and “hi”. You wave, and it’s not a normal wave… you flop your little hand up down and say, “hi, hi, hi, hi, hi”. You are a wild little boy; always busy doing something.  You love to climb all over Momma and Daddy.  You love playing with balls. Throwing them, rolling them, bouncing them, chasing them and taking them from the dogs.  Your very favorite toy is the “Big Cat”. He is a push-toy that plays music and you would push him for hours if you could. Your face lights up so big when you see “Big Cat”. You love to dance. Anytime your hear music or any kind of beat, you dance your little hear out. You bounce up and down or rock back and forth to the music. I have even seen you dancing to the sound of the whooshing dishwasher. You love to give kisses, but only on your terms. I have caught you kissing your reflection several times. You give the best sugars. You do not like to cuddle, except for bedtime. That is our special time together. You are so sweet when you twirl my hair and brush my face with your tiny little hand. You fall fast asleep in my arms and most nights I will just hold you and look into your beautiful little face. A lot of the time, I will dream about the future. What will you look like? What color will your hair be? What will your hobbies be? I pray that God blesses you with a sweet countenance. There is nothing more precious than a sweet little boy. We feel so blessed to have you as our baby boy, Jake Ryan.

Love you a million times a million, and that’s too many to count,

Momma

Jake with Big Cat

Wordless Wednesday

Jake's first encounter with the Christmas lights at Rhema

Back to reality

Thanksgiving was great!! I was sad the long weekend was over. But I guess it's good to get back to reality.

I'm not sure how most people do their holidays, but we try and make it to all family gatherings we are invited to. We are blessed enough to have all our family living within a reasonable driving distance. My dad's side of the family makes it a point to have all the family get together on Thanksgiving. We don't all usually make it together for Christmas, so we set Thanksgiving aside to make sure that's the time we all get together. It's quite possibly the reason Thanksgiving is my favorite. I don't get to see that side of the family too often and it's a day we all just get to hang out, eat food, chit-chat and watch football. Derick's family usually does a lunch on Thanksgiving day. So, we start our day out with the Pickles. The Cravey gathering is a 40 minute drive from there and we meet at 2. So, we basically have to go to lunch, visit a little and head to Monroe. We get back to my parent's house just in time for bed. Usually, in Thanksgivings past, my BFF Tana and I go shopping at the butt-crack of dawn on Black Friday. Actually far before the butt-crack of dawn. We did not this year. I got some good deals still, but Tana--next year, Black Friday is back on!! FYI, parents, if you are not normally a Black Friday participant... there are way more deals to be had when you have kids and most places start their toys around 10pm (Toys'R'Us) or midnight (Walmart) the night before. Then we have a Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family. My mom's side of the family consists of her sister and brother-in-law... my aunt and uncle. This year, it was in Bartlesville (where they live) for late lunch/early dinner.

Since Jake's birthday is the first of February, it works out perfectly to snag some deals for birthday too. He's going to be getting a little battery powered sport quad for his birthday!! Haha!! I can't wait to see him on it! It's for ages 1-3. I can't believe they make those things for kids that little! Anyway, we got it 50% off. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Speaking of Jake, the kid is walking like a pro, much to my dismay. Not that I doubt him. He's just a big guy, I figured that since he was a larger one, that he would walk late. And I really wished it to be that way, too. I am not looking forward to chasing a toddler any time soon. Jake, well, he obviously has other ideas. He walked from the couch to the TV today. That's the farthest I've seen him go solo. I didn't start counting his steps until he was already going and what I counted was 23. So, our count is greater than 23. I think I can stop counting now. Which only means we are approaching full blown toddler days way faster than I am ready for!! I guess I better just give up... he's gonna go at his own pace, no matter my wishes!

I leave you with my favorite picture, so far, of these two. This is our friend, (her mommy and I were pregnant with these two at the same time!) we watch her a couple times a week. We love when she comes to play with us. :) This picture is priceless. They loved their walk today!! We just went around the block because it was kind of windy. But they just sat there (buckled in, of course) facing each other and just jabbering away at each other! They're precious together.

Happy day!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

My favorite holiday of them all. Family, fellowship, food... ahhh, yes!

Things I am thankful for (in no particular order and completely random)

Husband, a healthy, precious baby boy, a roof over our heads, good food, the gift of being able to stay home with my child, a career that allows me to work as little or as much as I would like, an awesome camera and the chance to take pictures for friends and family, computer (sorry, it's true) iphone, our church, amazing parents, super sister, family, family, family, friends, a best friend that I've had for 15 years that should basically be encompassed in the family section, reliable transportation, a TM, and last but certainly NOT least--the most awesome, loving, forgiving and providing Heavenly Father.

Count your blessings today. Write them out! Happy Thanksgiving, I hope it's a wonderful holiday with spent with friends and family.

Happy FIRST Thanksgiving to this wild and crazy little monster!!

We have officially hit our 9 month growth spurt, full force. It is undeniably a growth spurt! This kid is eating as much as I do! And he's been spoiling the heck out of me and sleeping in. Ahhh, I love it. I know it won't last long, so I'm soaking it all in. I had to WAKE HIM UP on Tuesday at 0830 because I didn't want him messing up the day with an off-schedule. He then ate a whole banana, a bowl of cream of wheat and some cheerios, oh, and an 8 ounce bottle. The rest of the day, and the days following up until even now have been filled with lots of eating and sleeping in.

Home, sweet, sweet home.

We're baaa-aaaaack!!!!

And we couldn't be more thrilled. I have had such a great past couple days visiting and seeing lots of my friends that I've missed so very much!

Ok, before my week long hibernation from the world of internet... I left off upset because our housing situation was in shambles. I just knew I was going to be living with my parents for the rest of our lives!! Well, as it turns out… we don’t have to any longer, because WE GOT OUR HOUSE!!! It was a very crazy turn of events, which ended in both our favor and the seller’s.

Here’s how it went down.

Our original closing date was supposed to have been November 5^th. That’s what the previous post was all about. The following weekend, I tried to remain positive. As much as possible, anyway, considering I’m Mrs. Pessimistic. I’ll be honest; I was M-A-D at God (for the record, we’ve since worked things out).  I couldn’t believe He’d allow all the Texas stuff, all the selling of the old house stuff, and then THIS?! And so last minute, too! I was having a good ol’ pity party come Monday when we found out that it was basically, no way, no how. We even went to Broken Arrow and looked at a house that we both liked. Well, sort of. It is the same floor plan as the original one, but needed some major re-doing on the inside. Can I just ask this, who, in their right mind, would leave blue countertops, blue tile in the kitchen AND entry-way, blue tile around the fireplace, ridiculously hideous wallpaper on way high walls, a PINK Jacuzzi tub…BLECH! No WONDER you have to sell your house for less than you paid!!! Yuck. Anyway, we thought, we’d still get it and re-do the things we didn’t like. That is how much we loved this floor plan. On Thursday, we really mulled things over about making an offer, because we didn’t wanna get screwed… AGAIN!! We decided we’d put in offer and see what happened. Derick contacted our realtor at 11 that morning.  At around noon, I got an email from her with an email feed from the sellers, amongst many, MANY other people. She said, “Call me, asap”. What it boiled down to, was that the sellers were relentless (thankfully, now, looking back… wouldn’t it be nice to see ahead?! Oh, what’s that? Duh, trust God! Easier said than done, no thanks to the flesh). They had called the state representative for FEMA and some congressperson; they’d also gotten the lead civil engineer from the City of Broken Arrow involved. This guy had contacted our mortgage company’s flood certification company and gotten it all cleared up. Well, we were not automatically comfortable with just getting the flood certification company to ok it. So, Derick called and spoke with the civil engineer guy who reassured us that FEMA has to make a new map, as the one that our flood certification company was trying to go by was from 1988. Seriously?! So, no flood insurance, and we got the house we loved.

Anyway, I was on my way to take Jake to a doctor’s appointment in Tulsa, when I got the message that it had all been taken care of and we were going to get the house we loved, after all!!!! We moved all our stuff into the garage on Sunday. My mom, dad, aunt, uncle, sister, brother-in-law, and Tana all helped us get everything moved. It was really a fun time, actually. Ok, us ladies and Jake actually went shopping, so I would say we had it a little easier. :) We closed on Monday at 4:30 and were in our new house by 5:30 that evening.

It’s been a whirlwind of a week. I’m slowly but surely getting everything settled. I got Jake’s room almost completely done today. It still needs painting, but we’ll get there. At least he can finally sleep in his own bed!!! He’s been in a pack-n-play for months. I realized that he started sitting, crawling, pulling up, standing and taking steps since we were last a normal family unit under our own roof.

Which, by the way, he took his first steps when he was just shy of 9 months. He took 3 steps in a row. It was the most he took for almost two weeks!  He finally had a breakthrough this week and we are up to 6-7 in a row. And he does it unprompted now, like I don’t have to be holding onto him and then let go kinda thing. He’ll be cruising along holding onto something and I’ll turn around and he’s in the middle of the kitchen toddling away! It’s crazy. I'm not sure I'm ready for all this toddling business...

In other Jake news... At his 9 month appointment, he weighed 21 pounds, 12 ounces (70-90th percentile) and was 29.5 inches long (95th percentile). Solid little guy. He got a Prevnar vaccine and his second flu vaccine. And let me tell you, you’d have thought they took a chunk out of his thigh, the way he acted! He quickly came back to reality when I presented him with a sucker that I happened to have from the last time we visited Jake’s Nena at work. Our friend, Leon, always gets a kick out of giving Jake a sucker. Jake loves them WAY too much and they are WAY too messy!! We usually end up melting down when I take it away in the middle of walmart. But I figured this moment called for a sucker. He deserved it. Crazy kid. After his appointment we went to visit some of my old co-worker friends. Then I met Derick and he took Jake home so that I could have a girl’s weekend with my BFF- Tana. It was a kid-free, husband-free, amazing time. We crafted till we weren’t able to see straight! We taught ourselves to crochet, we made hooded towels, we made tie onesies and shirts, we made little taggy loveys, we shopped, we ate out, we stayed up way too late, we slept in… It was wonderful!!! But it was even more wonderful to get a big ol’ hug around my neck from my sweet baby boy when everyone came up to move us in on Sunday!!

Overall, during my absence from the blogging world, much has happened. Much goodness!

Can you believe Thanksgiving is only 6 days away?!?! WOOHOO!!!

I leave you with one of my most favorite recent pictures. I love it because it so captures the spirit of my hilarious child. We have way too much fun together. What on this earth did I do for entertainment before he came along?? Life must have been incredibly boring. :) He is one silly little monster boy that brings so much joy, laughter and love into our lives.

Rawwwwwwr!!! I'm gonna keel you, green bean!!

Let me go home.

One would think, after all we've been through in the past year, that we would be given a break of some sort at one point, or another.

Well, my friends. No such luck as of yet!! It's unfortunate. I know.

Crazy stuff developed over the past few days. They might be able to clarify the flood stuff, so we might get the house, then they couldn't and the sellers wanted to pay for a year's worth of flood insurance. We aren't comfortable with that because what if it's not fixed in a year?! Then we have an extra $400 a month on our mortgage for flood insurance? I think not! So, we decided, even as much as we love that house :( , to cancel that contract. One would assume that since the sellers did not fully disclose issues with the property regarding the flood zoning, that it would be a no-brainer for us to get our earnest money back. May I remind you that we will already not be getting our appraisal and inspection fees back. AND we lost inspection, appraisal and earnest money in TX. Well, these sellers are still adamant about us buying their house. They are apparently furious that we are canceling, when they are willing to pay the insurance fees (for one year only). That is just too risky for us, and we do not see where it could be wise AT ALL to go forward with that. So, that said, they are not wanting to sign the release to give us our money back. If that happens, we will have lost a grand total of $3,000 this year just trying to buy a freaking HOUSE!!!! So, frustrating. 

I'm trying so, so, soooo hard not to get mad at God about it. But it is becoming increasingly difficult by the day! It's like every SINGLE day, there's more bad news. I can never get excited about anything because given our past history it doesn't work out!

I just knew after the whole Texas thing that we would get a break. I thought wrong!

I was trying to tell someone the other day my logic behind it all. I started thinking (which gets really confusing if you're not me, or a very few other people) and I thought. Ok, so God allowed all this to happen and I really talked God up,  made sure people saw how His hand really was on us through the whole Texas and trying to sell the BA house ordeal. And it really was all God! Don't get me wrong! I can still see His hand at work even know. He is keeping this deal from happening for a reason. Thank goodness we didn't get IN the house and THEN realize the flood stuff!! Anyway, I feel like God is like, "Oh, this one here... she really sees my hand at work. She's telling a lot of people about how I have been looking out for them. Let me do some more crazy stuff so she can keep seeing my hand at work and keep telling people about how great I am". Well, I'm just going to say this: I know God is at work, and I know He's going to take care of us, but I'm going to be keeping my observations of God at work to myself for a little while. I'll probably get punished for saying that.

So, we are waiting for these shady sellers to release us from the contract... and to let us have our flippin money!! Dang it. Who knew by signing a contract we'd get so dang screwed.

We have another house, that we've looked at twice now, that we like. It's actually the same floor plan, in the same neighborhood... just NOT in a questionable flood zone area! So, we are mulling the idea of this one over. While at the same time, trying to figure out what we're gonna do about the dang earnest money!

Anyway, we could really, really use your prayers regarding the situation. I am seriously about to lose my mind. It's not good. Not at all. I can't stop thinking about how my poor baby boy hasn't even had his own bedroom for months now. I get really sad when I think about it. I just wanna be in my own home, in my city, where my people are. I never in my life thought I'd say this about somewhere other than Fort Smith, but man... I wanna go home.

Well, that's that, my friends. Please be praying for us.