Pictures!

The big picture post...Christmas at our house, Christmas at Grandma's house, Cousin Shep's BD, and general tomfoolery. Enjoy!

Annabelle Mae is here!

All 6lbs. 2 oz. of her! She is sure a little honey and her brothers are so happy she is here (at least one of them)! First meeting with her brothers and Grandma V...Deacon was interested for about 10 seconds and then just wanted to check out the hospital.

And Jackson is very protective of "Little Annie" as he calls her.

Looking forward to going home tomorrow!

My Heros!

Just a few fun pictures from Halloween! Jackson's costume got lots of use pre and post Halloween. Here's Batman and Todd mowing the lawn.

And our little Superman...

Not exactly leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but man is he cute! Jackson was a really good helper. He would hold both buckets and make sure he got one piece of candy for him and one for Deacon. Such a good big brother!

And my third hero! I love all my boys!

October so far...

It's been a busy month so far! I wish I could say it was because I was diligently getting ready for the arrival of Baby Girl, but it's not. Haven't started that yet...I'll let you know if I ever actually am "ready", but we are excited to meet her! But with Jackson in school two days out of the week, it seems to go by so quickly. So here's the quick run-down in pictures of what we've been keeping busy doing...
Deacon LOVES taking baths. As soon as he hears the water turn on, he runs for the bathroom. The other day, Todd made the mistake of starting the tub and then going to get a cup from the kitchen and when he came back, Deacon had already made himself comfortable in the tub. Fully clothed.
We've been making frequent visits to Pumpkinland. Always fun to get some fun pictures of the kiddos. This one just made me laugh.

And it's so hard to get Jackson to actually look at the camera and smile so had to get this one in here since it doesn't happen very often.

All my boys in the corn maze.

The other day, this is how I found Deacon in the bathroom. He'd gotten up on the stool all by himself and started brushing his teeth. He was very proud of himself!

And, of course, we've been playing in the leaves! Jackson loves raking them into piles to jump into and throw around. Deacon mostly just likes to watch and throw an occasional leaf or two.

Can't believe that Fall has been so beautiful so far this year. I'm hopeful it means we'll have a milder winter than we've had the last couple of years, but who knows?! We'll just keep enjoying being able to play outside for as long as we can!

Chuck E. Cheese!! AKA Jackson's BD-Round 2

As promised, here are a few pictures from our jaunt to Chuck E. Cheese last week for J's big 4th BD bash with his cousins! The last time Jackson was at Chuck E. Cheese was way back when we visited my friend Allison in Michigan when Jackson was not even 2 years old. I didn't even think that he would be interested in going, or even really know what it was, but out of the blue on his birthday he said, "Mom, I've got a great idea! We should go to that birthday place that we always walk by at the mall!" I kinda played dumb for a minute or two, and then when he wouldn't give up on it, we decided to try to make it happen. And it's always more fun with cousins, so Ella and Max and Aunt Ally and Uncle Randy all joined us for the fun times! Jackson found the air hockey table to be quite a draw. I think he made sure he played just about everyone in a game. Given the kid-sized nature of the table, Todd was at quite a disadvantage when he played him!

It never ceases to amaze me when I see these three in a picture together how much they look related!

Partners in crime....I'm having visions of a birthday about 12 years into the future and it makes me scared!

End of summer wrap up

I am so mad at myself that I didn't take more pictures of fun things we did this month! I did manage to get my camera out at a few different occasions, but even then didn't seem like I took the time to really document it. And now I'm sad because I hardly have any pictures of my new niece, Clementine Rose, who was born July 16th. We got to go visit them a couple weeks later and she is sweet as can be. Here she is getting some love and kisses from her mom and brother. It was so fun to hold a tiny baby again, but did give me a glimpse of what life could be like for us soon-Deacon would get very jealous when I held Clementine and would cry and try to climb all over me. I'm scared! We also had a fun visit from my friend Jessica and her kiddos. They have visited us here in the OC a couple of times, but haven't seen our new house yet, so that was fun to have them here. Again, no good pictures of that, but her two boys and my two boys had lots of fun playing together!

And Deacon got his first haircut last week! I was sad to see his Justin Bieber hair go, but he does look really cute with his new hair cut. I will admit he didn't love having it cut, be he didn't really cry, just didn't want to sit still. Can't say I'm surprised really, but the end result turned out good! Here's the before: Not so happy about the cape he had to put on...

And here's the after: Happier now that it's all done!

We've been enjoying some cooler weather on and off here lately which has been fun, and we're looking forward to some fun things in the next couple of weeks. Jackson starts 3 year old pre-school next week, which he is super excited about! We had a little date the other day, just the two of us, to go pick out school supplies and get a backpack. I used to LOVE school supply shopping, so I'm glad I'll get to enjoy doing it again with my own kids! And PumpkinLand will open soon too, and we're looking forward to going to see the animals-Jackson said he can't wait to feed the Llama's. Maybe I'll be better about taking pictures this month!

Okoboji 2010

We just got back from our yearly trip to Lake Okoboji with all of the Vogels and it was a really good time. The weather cooperated and we had some really nice days, the kids all played together really well, and I got to take lots of naps. What more could you ask for in a vacation? I think part of the reason this vacation is so fun, besides getting to spend quality time with all of the in-laws that we don't get to see as often as we'd like, is because we can take the boat out every day for just a leisurely ride or do some tubing with the kids. I love being on the water! Deacon really enjoyed his first trip on the boat. He was so calm and engrossed the whole time and just sat and watched the other boats and looked at the water.

Before anyone yells at me for tubing while pregnant, I will tell you that we were going very slow so there was no chance of falling off and the bumps were minimal! Todd will not like that I put this picture up- he calls it the "fat guy in a little coat" picture. He was sweet and gave me the good life jacket. True love!

The kids even enjoyed the tube a bit more this year. They always had to go on with an adult, and again, we always went really slow, but they still had fun.

We also managed to take a fun Father's Day picture of all the Vogel brothers and the kids on Father's Day. Todd is the youngest of the 3 boys, Tim is the middle brother with Lilly, and Randy is the oldest with Ella and Max.

More pictures to come...

Fun at the STL zoo

The kids and I took a long weekend trip to STL last week to visit the my sister and family to help celebrate her birthday. I wish I had taken more pictures, but these are a few from the zoo.
The kids always like the zoo, but sometimes I think it's just because they like riding the train. Either way, it kills a good couple of hours and everyone's happy! Deacon's first trip to the zoo! He wasn't all that impressed, but he did enjoy watching the fish.

Again, proof that the kids were probably more excited about the train than the animals.

The kids enjoyed each other's company (most of the time) and Lindsay and I got to spend some fun time together and enjoy a whole day on our own that we filled with all sorts of loveliness, including an underground birthday celebration dinner. Awesome food, and a really fun time compliments of Lindsay's talented chef husband and his peeps at Entre.

A recent conversation at our house....

...went a little something like this:

Todd and I were in the kitchen after putting the kids to bed. I reached into the fridge and grabbed two bottles of beer- both for Todd.

Todd: One's good.

Jenny: I think you're going to need both.

Todd: (strange look) Huh?

Jenny: I'm pregnant.

...cue the crickets....

And then in typical Todd fashion he says: "Who's the father?" Such a comedian that guy.

Baby Vogel #3 will arrive around Thanksgiving! A very welcome surprise, for sure!

Visit from the Perkins fam- minus Uncle John

My sister, Lindsay, and kiddos Eva and Sheperd came for a visit this past week and a good time was had by all. The kids had tons of fun playing with each other and Lindsay and I got to have some good sister time too. Here's the quick run-down of our time together:
Move night for the kids- Jackson calls it a "dark movie" since we turn all the lights off to make it more theater like. Snow White was on TV so we popped some popcorn and made an evening of it. We had a couple of decent days, so we headed to the park. It was a little wet and sloppy, but the kids didn't care at all. Deacon thoroughly enjoyed his first ride on the swing...

Our church had our annual Pinewood Derby, so the kids all got to race a car. Some of the races went better than others, but Jackson got third place in the open division!

Linds and the kids left this morning so this next couple of days could be lonely at our house. Thanks for braving the drive on your own, Linds! Love you all!

Last week at the Vogels...

Most mornings, this is the picture that greets me when I go into Deacon's room. Jackson used to come right into our room to wake me up when he woke up, but now if he hears Deacon, he makes a detour and decides to go play with him. I can hear them through the monitor and it's quite entertaining. Jackson gets all the toys in Deacon's room and puts them in the crib and then climbs in to play. I promise Deacon enjoys it a lot more than it looks in these pictures. This was actually the first morning I found them like this and when I walked in they were playing sweetly. Then, of course, I had to run and get the camera and he didn't like it that I left. And you may notice that Deacon is wearing the same clothes in both pictures which shows that he didn't get his clothes changed for at least 36 hours (probably longer honestly). My theory is if it doesn't have poop on it, it's clean. There you have it.

And the excitement of the week was Todd's birthday on the 3rd! The kids and I had a fun day getting things ready to surprise Daddy with a cake and balloons and his birthday presents. Jackson really got into the whole thing, which was fun and nice to see that he enjoyed it even though he wasn't the one getting the presents. He did have a little trouble with wanting to eat the cake that we made before Todd woke up, but I explained that we had to wait until we could sing Happy Birthday to Daddy. And then I left the cake on the table and went to go put Deacon to bed. When I came back I noticed that I should have been more specific and told him that he couldn't LICK the cake either. Nice. Live and learn, I guess.

Happy Birthday Babe! I love you this much <----------->! Enjoy your guilt-free golf!

Snapshots from AZ

We just returned from our yearly visit to YaYa and Papa's house in Arizona, and it was a great time! The weather was perfect, and so was the company! YaYa and Papa filled our days with plenty of opportunities to soak up the sun and we definitely tried to take advantage of that! We made the hike up Thunderbird mountain one afternoon. Todd and I did the longer version of this hike with Jeremy last year, but this year we did the shorter version so we could bring the whole family along. Jackson really enjoyed it and never once complained that he was tired, which surprised me because I was plenty tired!

We also spent one morning at the Phoenix zoo and then that afternoon went to Ikea in Tempe. But, of course, the camera battery died so the only pictures I have from the zoo are on my phone at the moment. On Saturday before we headed back home we headed to Old Glendale for a chocolate festival for a little last hurrah in the sunshine. Jackson liked it because it mixed two of his favorite things: chocolate and helicopters! They had a few rides for kids and one of them happened to be a helicopter ride. Jackson was trying to act all pilot-like hence the arm out the window look.
On the way home, we ended up taking a bump to another flight which really couldn't have turned out any better. We decided to do it because we only got home 30 minutes later than we would have originally and the flights we changed to weren't full so we could bring Deacon's carseat on. We had to make a stop in Denver instead of a direct flight, but during the stop in Denver they let Jackson go up in the cockpit and sit in the pilot's seat. He was quite enthralled and asked the pilot a TON of questions.

They also let him talk over the loud speaker and he got to tell all the passengers that were boarding from Denver "Welcome Aboard!"

From Denver back to Omaha the flight was so empty that one of the flight attendants sat and talked with us for a while, and then she took Deacon off our hands for us for a bit and walked him up and down the aisle. Just a few more reasons to fly Southwest...cheap flights, bags fly free, and fun flight crews! And on top of all that, we got $450 in flight vouchers for taking the bump. All in all, not too shabby!