Christmas in July

I love Christmas and I want to instill that love in my boys. I have a lot of ideas for Christmas activites, but one i've had a hard time finding is an advent calendar. I've been looking for an advent calendar for several years and haven't been able to find one that I love. Everything I've found was too expensive and too boring. I don't want to just open a little paper window and look at the angel inside. I wanted an advent calendar that I could use for many years, that would have fun activites to do that would help us celebrate Christmas, and i wanted to be able to update it as the boys get older. I finally found a picture and vauge tutorial of a advent calendar that i loved on Pinterest here

The calendar took me about 3 days of naps and nightime and less than $10 to create.

I think it turned out pretty cute:

Each pocket will have a tag that you can pull out that will have the activity for the day.
Some of the activites include:
~Baking Christmas cookies
~taking gifts to our neighbors and friends
~going to the local Christmas Parade
~Picking out a toy to give to a local toy drive
~Buying some food and taking it to the local food bank
~coloring a christmas picture
~making a christmas tree ornament
~watch a christmas movie and eat popcorn

Every morning the boys will be able to draw out the activity for the day. I tried to include things that are age appropriate and as the get older some of the activites will change

4th of July

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays! Thanks to Pinterest I made some really cute items for us to celebrate with this year.

I love this wreath:

I even made matching shirts for the boys to wear on the Sunday before the 4th. Here's the attempt at getting them to sit still for a picture :)

We're back

Sorry for the long pause in activity. We've had a sort of a strange few months. I'm not going to go into details. The short version is we are back in Georgia, living with my parents and waiting for God to show us our next step.
We are really enjoying our time with my parents. Brayden thrives on attention from his Grampa and Jackson loves hanging out with GiGi.

Here are the boys with daddy on Father's Day:

Jackson Cole has arrived!!

Well, Martin Man # 2 has made his grand entrance into the world. I figured i would try to write out his birth story a little sooner than i did his brother's :)

It's detailed, so if you don't want to know, please don't read it :)

Like Brayden, Jackson was quite comfortable with where he was residing, so we decided to go ahead and induce labor (after almost two years of being pregnant/post-partum, i was ready to have this over with ;). We went into the hospital on Tuesday night to begin the induction. My Doctor gave me the initial drug that is just supposed to get your body ready for labor (you aren't actually supposed to go into labor). The plan was to sleep through the night and start pitocin to induce labor in the morning. Well, like Brayden, that didn't happen. They gave me the initial drug around 9pm and by 10pm i was having painful contractions. They were still pretty far apart and not so painful that i couldn't sleep. Around 2am i woke up with much more painful contractions. They still weren't unbearable, but definitely uncomfortable enough for me to need to concentrate on breathing through them. About 4:30am i asked the nurse to come in and check my progress, but i was sure that i wasn't that far along (haha). To my surprise i was 5cm (halfway!!). We removed the initial drug and the nurse told me she would give me an hour to see if my body would keep laboring on it's own, or if we would need to start pitocin. Just a few minutes after she left the contractions started getting much stronger. I kept waiting for the contractions to change like they had with Brayden when i was about 7cm. I figured that would give the dr enough time to get to the hospital since it took about an hour to deliver Brayden once i hit that mark. Well, about 5:25am i felt those contractions and called the nurse (i think she thought i was nuts, it hadn't even been an hour since she checked me). But, she checked and she could feel the water bag. She said as soon as my water broke the baby would be here soon and left to call my dr. Several other nurses and techs started prepping for delivery. While the nurse was on the phone with the dr, my water broke at about 5:30. The nurse came back in and i started having another contraction. The intensity must have been obvious b/c i'm pretty sure i was groaning pretty loud :) The nurse is telling me not to push. My response is "I'm Not"......."HEAD!!!" At this point i'm laying on my side, so i flip over, Shane runs over and lifts up the covers and Jackson's head is crowning. The nurse rushes over to deliver and I hear her say, "nuchal cord" which means the cord was wrapped around his neck. so now i'm try really hard not to push so she can get the cord off his neck, but he just decided to deliver through it. So at 5:36am Jackson made is grand entrance into the world, delivered in the bed by the nurse b/c he just couldn't wait 5 more min for the dr. (i promise i didn't push, but when you don't have any pain meds, your body just has a mind of it's own). By the time the Dr. came in, the cord was cut and Jackson was already in the warmer. :)
Shane and I were both is a state of shock. He just sort of stood there next to the bed staring at Jackson until the Dr said "Shane, do you have a camera...?" :)
It was an eventful delivery and has been an eventful first week of life. This little man is joy and a challenge. I do believe that i have a strong willed baby already......God give me patience :)

Turning 1

It is no secret that Shane loves airplanes or that Brayden loves whatever his daddy loves. So, we decided to have a somewhat airplane themed birthday party. I'm really not a party planner, so the theme was pretty much reserved for the invitations, the cake, and brayden's outfit. Both sets of grandparents came to Texas for the party and we had a great day celebrating as a family.

This is the best present he got: dominos!!! he plays with them for hours. thank you Mrs Barbara and Mr. Gene

Playing with is new Sandbox made by Grandpa and his new sand toys from GiGi

He loves the water table that Grandaddy and Nana bought him! it's great for hot Texas afternoons :)

Mommy and Daddy working on the airplane cake:

Here's the finished cake. We had to make it without eggs b/c of Brayden's allergy, so the cake was a bit on the moist side and hard to ice, but I think it's pretty cute for my first attempt at cake decorating :)

He like the attention more than the cake. He only ate about 3 real bites.

Brayden turns 1!!

It doesn't feel like it's been a year since my handsome son made his grand entrance into the world. His first couple weeks where unexpectedly difficult, but it still amazes me how God equipped him with the perfect personality to deal with his medical issues. Even at just a few hours old people commented on how alert, aware, and calm his was. As he has grown his personality hasn't changed. He is a sweet-tempered, fun-loving, adventurous, and easygoing little boy. He loves the younger babies in the nursery at church, which makes me hopeful that he will make the transition to big brother without too much difficulty.
Here are twelve fun facts about Brayden- one for each month of his life:

~ He loves vegetables! i'm talking a serious love here...he picks out the broccoli or peas and eats those first over any type of meat. Let's pray that will last :)
~ He loves fuzzy blankets. we have two really fuzzy blankets that i have to keep washed b/c he has to have those to snuggle with when he sleeps
~ He loves any type of music and loves to stop and dance to it. He has this Noah's Ark that plays music when you push a certain button. he'll spend 10min pushing the button, dancing, and pushing it again when the music stops.
~ It is impossible to video tape him doing anything cute (see above) because every time he sees the camera he stops what he's doing and crawls over to hold it
~ He's obsessed with computers. Every so often i'll find him standing next to the computer desk in the office staring at the screensaver or trying to type on the keyboard :)
~ He also has an affinity for cell phones. If you are talking on it, he wants to hold it and play with it. i have to use a Bluetooth now so that he can't see that i'm on the phone :)
~ Chase is our new favorite game. I don't know where he learned it, but a couple months ago he just started crawling a few feet away and stopping to look back to see if i'd follow him every time i tried come over to play with him. now he'd play chase around the house for hours if i could keep up with him for that long :)
~ he loves cats and dogs. no matter whether they are big, small, lazy, or hyper he thinks they are all hilarious and loves to have them lick his hands (no, this does NOT mean we need a dog Shane :)
~ I have yet to find a food this child will not eat. Seriously, he'll eat anything.
~ He is allergic to peanuts, eggs, and possibly seafood. So, even though he'll eat anything, his diet is still pretty limited.
~ Everything he does is full of enthusiasm. When he plays, cries, and sleeps with all his heart. He also loves with enthusiasm. All you have to do is look at the smile on his face when his daddy gets home from work to know what i mean. It makes me tear up every time ;)
~ Last random fact: he loves the potato masher?! I keep it a kitchen drawer that he can reach and at least twice a week i find it in the living room or in some other random place in the house :)

Well, sometime soon i'll post a video and pics of Brayden's Airplane Birthday Party. Until then, enjoy this picture of the little man at just 5 days old :)

So...It's not February anymore :)

It's no secret that it's been a while since i posted last. Just a few things have happened in the Martin life since then. I think everyone probably knows what's going on, but i'm going to give a brief overview anyway :)

~ at the end of February Brayden had RSV and spent a week in the hospital
~ that same week we found out that he's going to be a Big Brother! God has funny timing :)
~ March was fairly uneventful except for Shane and I desperately begging God to give us some guidance for the upcoming school year. Shane needed an internship to finish his degree and EVERY door was closing
~ In April God opened an incredible door for us right after we stopped looking (why does that ALWAYS happen?!)
~ I quit my job in June and we moved to Texas (which is pretty much as awesome as everyone said it was)
~ Shane is now the collegiate minister at Rocky Point Baptist Church in Stephenville, Texas
~ I am now a stay-at-home mom to my little man
~ Brayden turns 1 in 8 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~ Jackson (boy # 2) is due on November 5th
~ yes that makes my boys 14 months apart
~ call me crazy, but i'm actually looking forward to having boys that close :)

For a little comparison, here is a pic of brayden from around when the last blog post was and a pic from a couple weeks ago :)