When James and I work from home on Mondays it can be a struggle to keep Andrew entertained and still get stuff accomplished. So I figure how better to keep a little boy busy than to build a blanket fort and make a mess of the living room. He kept trying to pull the blankets over but generally was pretty happy with his little hideout.
Super Hero - not exactly sure what his special power is but you get the idea.
Favorite sports team fun day at daycare.
Can you tell what his favorite team is?
For Christmas I bought my mom and dad plane tickets to come visit. They spent a long weekend here and we had a lot of fun. But only managed to take this one picture....and it isn't even of mom and dad. Terrible huh?
We had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa though. Got some shopping in, a bit of sight seeing. Lots of food, park time, playing cars, and Grandpa even got to do some sheetrock repair thanks to a little 2 year old foot going through the wall.
Some of the funny things that Andrew likes to say now. He has become obsessed with Scooby Doo because all of the older kids at daycare love him. It is pretty funny.
Promise I'll try to do better about the updating....I have been swamped at work and with life - kidney stones, a 2 year old, cars and procrastination. So I have been terrible at updating but will be better!
Poor Andrew has a really crummy birthday being 2 days after Christmas. We are really trying to make it a point to celebrate his half birthdays and his actual birthday is a pretty small affair.
I made him some special "Mater" cupcakes 
and got him a Mater balloon 
and we went out for burgers. Pretty laid back. You can see he enjoyed the cupcakes lol.
And he got a new truck. That was probably his highlight of the night.
Random Things about Andrew at this age:
*He loves to eat - strawberries are his favorite and then yogurt. He is usually a pretty good eater but these are some of the favorites.
*He loves to sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. And do Patty Cake, he loves reading books. He will come and bring me books all of the time and he wants to read them all. If they have cars or trucks in them those are the favorites even if there aren't words. He will name off all of the different types of cars and trucks in each book. He loves animals too.
*He loves water - being December it means he just plays in the bathtub all of the time.
*He loves anything "Cars" related. He has at least 3 different Mater toys, a Finn McMissile, we bought Cars 2 and he loves that.
*He loves to watch Mickey Mouse Club House and do the hot dog dance. He loves Little Einsteins too.
*He loves to play with Colt - mainly because Colt is the only dog who lets him lol.
*He loves to say Amen to prayer. Sitting still during it is a whole different story but he has the end part down to an art form lol.
*He can name most all of his major body parts.
*He loves to watch football with daddy and yell "Toushdown" (Touchdown), and "Huska Power" (Husker Power), and "Go Big Wed" (Go Big Red).
*His vocabulary expands every day but his favorite words are still car related which I know comes as a huge shock to everyone.
We are so glad we have this sweet (and major handful) in our home. He brings a lot of excitement to the house for sure.
After we cleaned up from Christmas, we got ready for church and enjoyed a really nice musical service. I love Christmas time. I love the music, the messages, the spirit and the little child that lives inside all of us still. The music is definitely one of my favorite parts. I should have gotten a picture of all of us, but apparently didn't. I am terrible at this! I did get some cute pics of Andrew in his new sweater looking adorable. 
Can you tell he likes to ham it up for the camera now?
After church we had my friend Catherine from work and her boyfriend John come over for dinner. Again I didn't get any pics but we had a delicious dinner. I made a Rosemary and Garlic Crusted Prime Rib, Garlic and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes, Ciabatta Bread Stuffing, Homemade Crescent Rolls (my Aunt Nanette's recipe YUMMY!), Catherine brought Green Beans and Brussel Sprouts, and then to top it all off, we had Caramel Apple Pie (From the Pioneer Woman) and Chocolate Pecan Pie with Homemade Whipped Cream. I think I just gained more weight typing out our menu. But it was super yummy. And we enjoyed hanging out with Catherine and John. Thanks guys!
We have decided to try and make a point to always be home at our house for Christmas. Trying to travel with gifts and have Santa follow us is just a hassle and kind of takes the fun out of the holiday. And we want to be able to build our own family traditions as Andrew gets older. This was our first year of Christmas at home. I was really excited. I couldn't wait to get the house all decorated and be able to have Andrew open all of his gifts.
On Christmas Eve some of our really good friends always have an open house with tortilla soup and tamales and caroling and fun with friends. We have always missed it because we were out of town or had family in town so this was our first year to get to attend. We had so much fun and look forward to many more years of the Jackson's "Twas the Night Before Christmas" fun. Thanks Guys!
On Christmas morning, Andrew woke up pretty early - 6:30, but I guess he could tell how excited I was or something. We had homemade cinnamon rolls - something we did many years while I was growing up - 
and banannas. 
Here is the tree and gifts below it, before all of the mayhem began.
We got Andrew a power wheels quad with Lightning McQueen for Christmas. I figured it would be the best of everything he loves. Cars the movie, cars in general and noisy things. How can you go wrong? You can see as soon as he finished breakfast and got down, he ran straight over to it and jumped on. 
Daddy hadn't even unplugged it from charging yet, so we had to adjust pretty quickly. His patience was non-existent with his excitement. 
He didn't really know what to do so we pushed the button and showed him how it worked. And he liked it briefly, until he couldn't figure out how to stop it. Then he freaked out a bit. It was really funny. He wasn't too interested in it for a while after that. But I got a couple of good pics. 
After that he decided to come over to the tree and see what all the fuss was under there. He did get the hang of ripping the paper off. 
Although the first gift he opened had cars in it and as soon as he saw those, he quit tearing the paper and started trying to get those out. And it was hard to get his interest back after that!
We put his car race track from Santa together and he was loving that as you can see.
He got quite the gift collection this year. He got a tractor from Aunt Kiersty, Aunt Megan and Uncle Seth, 
and a "tractor" which is actually a monster truck from Mr. Jim and Tyler and mommy's office, lots of new books and some new clothes.
James got a lot of new clothes, and the Lord of the Rings movies, but these were a fun gift I found. At Hobby Lobby they started carrying a line with vintage ford stuff. This little hook has the lightning bolt gear which was on the unibody pickup that was sold to pay for my engagement ring. Pretty perfect find right? 
I got the Kindle Fire that I have been wanting, and a cute little casserole dish and a cupcake holder. Now I better get cooking!
The final results of Christmas.....
We didn't make it to see Santa last year. We were trying to leave town and it just didn't happen. So Andrew got to see Santa for his first time this year and our Church Christmas party. He wasn't scared at all but kept looking around like what the heck am I doing up here? He did get a Candy Cane at the end so he was as excited as can be.
He really enjoyed the cookie walk too. Although after he won on his first try, he couldn't understand why he didn't get a cookie every time and kept trying to go take more. He was on a bit of a sugar high after this so bed time was a ton of fun!
