G-Ma's Visit

We had another awesome visit from my Mom last week! She stayed for 10 quick days and we packed each day in with a ton of fun! She got to be there for Nolan's first day of preschool and for the news of our 3rd baby boy! We love having her here to share in those special moments, but we also LOVE having her here just to experience our day to day life!

We had a ton of fun running errands, shopping, dropping off and picking up Nolan from preschool, cooking meals, sewing, watching T.V. and movies, playing inside and outside, reading books, and SO MUCH MORE!

Here are some photos from our time spent together. Some were taken by me and some my mom took on her days home with the boys while Mark and I were both at work! The boys loved this special time with just their Grandma!

Relaxing on the front porch! Heath loves to be outside and if he is ever fussy, a little time out in the fresh air always seems to help change his mood!

Playing TAG in the basement one night!

Loungin' around the house in the morning...Nolan showing a little Brotherly Love!

Playing outside on the deck!

Enjoying a little pool time in the backyard!

One night Grandma took Nolan to the movies! They saw Smurfs in 3D! Nolan loved the movie and laughed out loud! Now he is trying to collect all the Smurfs from the McDonald's Happy Meals. He has my whole family in on the action...even Grandpa and Uncle T. are now ordering Happy Meals just to help him out!

Making M&M cookies! Nolan carefully counted out 2 M&M's for the top of each cookie! He made his cookies with his 2 favorite colors: green and blue!

Heath just had to get in on the action too! Only he would put one M&M on the cookie, and one in his mouth, and one on a cookie and one in his mouth! Repeat! He has such a sweet tooth! (Oh, and don't worry about the fact that both of our boys were not wearing pants while baking! Whoops! What can I say, they LOVE being naked!)

Look at that smile...it really helps him get away with just about anything! Here he is enjoying a fresh from the oven cookie! I think that little grin got him more than one! How can you say no?!

When my mom comes we do a lot of cooking and baking. One night Mark wanted to really impress us with HIS culinary skills, so he went shopping, came home, and whipped up these delicious stuffed peppers for us!

One day after preschool we hit up the pool with Barb, Jayne, and the cousins!

And something Nolan really looked forward to each day after preschool was getting a new sticker pack for his Toy Story sticker book! Grandma treated him to a pack a day after a great day at school! He loves reading the numbers and finding where to stick them. And every time he gets a sticker he already has he says, "Oh, Doubles!" It is so cute!

Heath is finally starting to really enjoy reading like his big brother does! He and Grandma are reading Eric Carle's From Head to Toe in this picture! He loves doing all the actions and sort of hums along to the rhythm you read at!

Heath wants to do EVERYTHING that Nolan does! One day he even put on his big brother's underwear all by himself! He put both legs in the same hole and had them on backwards, but we were impressed that he did it alone! So we let him wear them over his diapers sometimes when we are just playing around the house. He has actually showed a little interest in going potty like a big boy, so we are going to break out the little potty chair and start experimenting with this concept soon! We are definitely in no hurry, but we thought we might as well try while he's showing interest!

A visit from Grandma would not be complete with out a stop for frozen yogurt! This time we went to Yogurtland! Everytime I tried to get a photo of him here, he would lean over and try to smooch his Grandma! So sweet! He has apparently already learned the art of closing your eyes when you kiss! How smooth! Ha! He sure loves his Grandma and sings her name to her all the time..."Grammy Pammy!"

Yum-O! His favorite: strawberry frozen yogurt with gummy worms & bears, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and M&M's.

Heath can't get enough fro yo either! He shared my tart yogurt with fresh berries!

This photo was taken right before we took my mom back to the airport! Neither boy was very cooperative- hence why Buzz is in Heath's mouth and Nolan looks bored! At least Grammy Pammy is smiling nicely!

So these photos were all just taken in our day to day life with G-ma! But while she was here we had to have a Rocky Mountain adventure or 2! I'll be blogging later this week about our trip to Tiny Town and the Denver Botanic Gardens! We had a ton of fun on two gorgeous Colorado days!

Thanks for a fun stay Grandma! We sure love you! And we're already counting down the days until your next visit...just wish it was sooner than Christmas!

Where a Kid can be a Kid!

(With all of the excitement around here with preschool starting, my mom visiting, and our BOY news, I have been busy and haven't had a chance to blog about a few other fun things...so this is a BACK TRACK post!)

We wanted to do something special with Nolan before he started Preschool a few weeks ago, so we decided to take our family for a fun night out at Chuck-e-Cheese!

Nolan has been to Chuck-e-Cheese 2 times before, but both times were without us, and both when he was younger. So we thought it would be fun to take him now that he will be able to play the most of the games and actually enjoys going on rides!

I got a great coupon online and for $20 we got a large pizza, 4 drinks, 60 tokens, and an awesomely memorable night together!

Nolan wanted to play a few games first! This was his favorite of the night! Of course, it involved feeding a dog!

Heath's favorite thing was putting the coins into the games and rides! He loved this special little job of his!

driving

Nolan REALLY wanted to play Whack-a-Mole, but they didn't have it! These 2 games would just have to do...

The boys must have been REALLY hungry from all of their playing...

because they each scarfed down 2 whole pieces of pizza while they watched the Chuck-e-Cheese Show!

Heathy flying with daddy!

It was fun for Nolan to try every game but what I really think he liked the most was ripping the tickets off and counting them at the end! He would get so excited to see how many came out!

Watching the boys have fun is just the best!

Monster Truck time!

Trying their best to earn as many tickets as they could...they had their eyes on the prize counter all night! Daddy liked using the tokens to play the games rather than using them on the rides...he too wanted as many tickets as possible! Mark had a blast playing the football throw game and I shot some hoops as well! I guess you never really grow up!

Riding with Chuck-e himself! Nolan was waiting all night for the "real" Chuck-e to come out to visit kids, but he never did! Bummer!

bowling

Trying to jet ski, but this game didn't work very well!

driving the bus

Once all of our tokens were gone, it was time to turn in our tickets and see how many we earned: 180!

Woo hoo! Good work boys!

We walked out the door with 2 Airheads, 4 packages of Smarties, and 4 small rubbery creatures: a shark, stingray, octopus, and scorpion! Nolan could have cared less about the huge prizes costing hundreds of tickets. To him, his new sea creatures were simply the best Chuck-e-Cheese had to offer! 2 weeks later and he still plays with them everyday!

What a fun night to celebrate our BIG boy!

Preschool here we come!

(Which for those of you wondering...Preschool has gone great so far! He is always a little shy when we first drop him off, but when we pick him up his teacher always says he has had a good day! He has adjusted well to 4 busy mornings of learning and it is clear he is soaking it all in! He looks forward to seeing what color table he will sit at each morning and his favorite activity has been driving trucks in shaving cream!

He still doesn't like to tell me much when I ask him a bunch of questions. But he always says he has fun, and he always tells me things on his own throughout the day! He tells me the names of stories they read and songs they sing. He was even singing a days of the week song the other day! I just love it when he shares the things he's learned and done with me! I can't wait to see how much he grows this year!)

Introducing...

Jansen BOY #3!

Yep! That's right...we are now the proud parents of 3 BOYS!

I am WAY outnumbered!

But I will be so loved and very well taken care of by my 4 guys!

Here he is at 20 weeks! I think his profile looks a little different from Nolan and Heath's at this same stage of pregnancy. He has more of a Johnson nose like my Dad and Brother!

But in this video, he really reminds me of Heath with his broad rounded chest! I just love watching him arching his back!

Yawning! What a hard life he lives! The structure of his cheek bones looks just like the boys! You could see his chubby cheeks already!

He was VERY active in the ultrasound and was moving all around! He kept putting his fists up which was just perfect...if you know his story, he's been a fighter all along!

After finding out the gender of the baby on Tuesday, we had Mark's family over for a little party to reveal our big news!

It was a nice night to grill out! It's crazy to think that in just a few months we'll have another BOY to add to this mix!

Payton is such a good sport about being the only girl! Here she is sportin' her usual tail as the boys "played bags"! The only Jansen grandkid missing was Landon...he was off eating grass

somewhere!

It was so nice having my mom in town when we found out we were having another boy! Here she is eating dinner with Nolan!

After we ate, we had a fun plan to share our news! We really wanted to include the boys in the announcement! Check out the video to see how we told everyone...

Nolan found out he would be having another brother when the kids opened the present and released the BLUE balloons!

They also found blue candies at the bottom of the tub! Each cousin got to pick their favorite: blue gummy sharks, blue sour patch straws, a blue tootsie pop, blue pretzel M&M's, and blue Skittles! Yum! Needless to say all the candy was devoured in celebration!

My Mom even made a blue cake for the big people dessert!

And at the end of the night all the kids walked away with a blue balloon as well! Score!

I feel like baby #3's often get overlooked. Especially when it's another baby of the same sex. So I really want to make sure that we celebrate and take time to acknowledge how amazing this gift of life is to us! And this night was the perfect way to welcome our 3rd son into his awesome family!

"All Mommy's Teams Stink!"

The title of this post is what Nolan said to me on the way to the Bronco's Training Camp last Saturday! His Daddy really has him brainwashed! He was so excited to go watch the Broncos play and had to be sure to tell me that "the Bears stink, the Cubs stink, all of Mommy's teams stink!" Mark was loving every second of Nolan's rant!

We decided at the last minute to head just 5 minutes up the road to Dove Valley to watch a bit of the Broncos Training Camp. We got there late so it was packed and there wasn't really a great place to sit. But we found a place in the rocks up on a hill and watched the practice in the scorching sun! We only stayed for about 45 minutes due to a restless toddler and the unbearable heat, but my 2 big boys had fun watching the action!

I love this picture because it looks like Nolan is busy asking Mark yet another question! One question leads to the next, to the next with him! Nolan kept asking who the other team was. He didn't really get that they were all Broncos practicing against each other.

He had all his Denver gear on for the day!

The highlight of the day for me was watching Tim Tebow on the field!

I made sure I pointed him out to Nolan! If I have to be a Bronco fan, at least there's something worth watching for! Ha!

Go Broncos!

Love these 3 guys!

"We're number 1!" Nolan asked, "Where's the one that has 2 fingers up?"! I had to explain to him that you don't want to be number 2! Teams only want to be #1! That means they're the best! Despite the Broncos record last year, they will always be #1 to this little fan!