Merry Christmas!

What a blessing this year has been for our family! We have had some rough times...Elese's sickness, moving in January, my broken tail bone & probably some more that I have thankfully forgotten! :) More importantly though, we have had many blessings this year. We moved into the perfect neighborhood and were quickly greeted by welcoming neighbors. We found a wonderful church to go to, River Hills. We managed to get Scott, Emery & Elese all on the right diet and see them thrive once their small intestines healed. We visited Disney World as a family, went camping on Labor Day, celebrated Emery's 6th birthday with a big party, graduated Emery from kindergarten, saw Garth Brooks in concert and joined a small group at church. Aside from all of that, we welcomed Eliot Scott Jackson into our family at just the right time...God's timing is perfect! He lifted our family from the darkness and has brought such joy that it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Through all of this we were surrounded by our family and friends. Many of you have visited us in our new home and we are so thankful for your friendships. We love all of you and are privileged to share this journey we call life. May God Bless you and your family. Merry Christmas!

Pizza King Baby...Gluten Free Style!

It's been 10 months on the gluten free diet for Elese and 8 months for Scott & Emery. They are doing so well and are such troopers about the new foods that they have to eat. Scott has a few favorites that he can no longer eat because of the gluten allergy. He misses buns, bread, fried fish but most of all he misses Pizza King pizza...with a passion! We've been on the search for a good gluten free pizza dough and we think we've finally found the one!

So, earlier this week I bought tomato paste, pizza cheese and logs of pepperoni. Scott went to work on it tonight and came up with our version of Pizza King. It was outstanding and everyone loved it. My favorite comment was when Emery saw her plate she said, "Dad, it looks just like Pizza King pizza!"

This was all that was left! Emery & Scott were fighting over the last couple of pieces. Finally Emery put the old parent guilt trip on Scott by saying, "Dad, I was going to take that for my lunch tomorrow!" I'm sure she probably batted the daughter eyes at him too!

Round #2!

We have another snow day here in Cincinnati. I'm starting to get a bit nervous because this is our second one. The school district only has 3 in the calendar so we have 1 more day and then we'll be making them up. :( It's only December and many more snow days could be in our future. It's fun though having all the kids home on a day like today! Here's a shot looking out from my front door. It honestly looks like a snow globe!

Since we're having a lazy snowed in morning, we decided to go for the hot chocolate and oatmeal! This is a favorite of Eli & Elese. Just think, next year I'll have 4 pulled up to the island!

Snowy Days

This past Sunday evening the snow started to come down! The kids got a snow day on Monday so we just enjoyed playing outside and hanging out together. Here are some shots of the kids with the neighbor kids playing.

We baked the cookies during the day but waited until Scott got home to decorate them. It was nice to work all together on them since both Scott & Emery usually miss out when they're at work & school all day.

Yummy!

Eliot was in on the action too...kind of. Can you tell his teeth are pushing through the gums...hence the wet shirt?

Sprinkles, sprinkles, sprinkles! Here's a shot of the finished cookies. The ones with sprinkle overload are Elese's...the 2 year old just couldn't resist loading them up!

Forts & Fun!

The kids have 2 things that they love doing with Scott...wrestling and building forts! It snowed here overnight so we decided to laze around this morning and relax. I could hear the noises of excitement coming from the basement and when I got down there, this is the big fort I saw!

Here's a shot of the inside. Elese is cracking up...I'm not sure why.

Christmas Party

On Friday night Scott & I headed to his work Christmas party. It's been several years since they've had one so I was pretty excited to go and catch up with some of the other wives. We had a nice time and even stayed out to midnight!

Christmas Play

Last night was the Christmas play at church. Emery, Peyton, Eli & Elijah were all in the choir. I was surprised at how big of a production this was. I think the kids had practice for something like 6 weeks! The kids had a great time and did a fantastic job.

This is my favorite picture of Eliot. This is how he looks most days just smiling away! He loved this shirt I was wearing and kept looking at the jewels and pulling on the mesh. He thought it looked pretty tasty!

Can you tell Elese has an entire cookie stuffed into her mouth? They still look pretty cute anyway.

Here's a shot of the choir. Eli is in the 1st row and Emery on the 2nd row. Emery did such a great job and knew every single motion and word. I even caught her singing all the words during a little girls solo. Eli & Peyton took turns laughing & yawning...they had practice the night before pretty late.

Elese did a nice job watching the play. She alternated between standing in Scott's lap to dancing and doing the motions in the isle. I think she knew them better than Eli did!

Elese thought it was hilarious how Emery & Eli were up on the stage. She kept yelling, "Someone turned out the lights!" every time the main characters were talking.

Once he woke up from a nap, Eliot enjoyed watching all the action and of course checking out the lights.

For some reason Elese kept smelling the fake snow on the Christmas tree. I think she was trying to figure it all out.

Kelly Visits

This past Tuesday my best friend Kelly & her two boys headed up for a visit. Kelly pulled up in her shiny new mini van...something I thought I would never see her drive! Funny how motherhood changes you in more ways than one. I didn't feel like cooking so we headed over to Texas Roadhouse with all the kids and Scott. I'm sure we were getting some looks with all the kids!

Here's baby Lucas! He's getting so big and I'm sure him and Eliot will be best buddies. Elese acted like he was a part of our family and started mothering him too!