Sunday, November 29, 2009


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

(yeah, yeah, were a few days late, that's how we roll.)

That photo above is of B and Amy- Amy is the daughter of one of Jon's coworkers. They had us over for Thanksgiving day. We had a great time trying to figure out how to bake a turkey (neither of us wives had ever baked one), hanging out and eating.

(a photo in which none of us look good)

I was going to stay up Thursday night til midnight to do some shopping at Kohls.com. Thankfully I was too lazy and tired and went to bed instead- everyone I talked to had a horrible time getting on their website. I went to Kohls.com around 11:00am on Friday and had no problems getting all the deals I wanted and checking out. It worked out great because I qualified for free shipping (were buying most of our gifts online this year and having them shipped to our parents house). I was happy with the deals I found!

I'm hoping to have some videos to show you next time I blog- videos Jon and his co-worker Andrew took while in Africa. They've shown four of them at theMet during the series were in right now and they have all been awesome.

OK, I think I need to wrap up. I'm a little stuffed from all the muddy buddies/puppy chow I ate today. Ugh.



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I watch the Today Show every morning while feeding Brennan. I love it, it's part of my morning routine. Yesterday I was watching and they were doing a story on Stephanie Nielson (read her blog here: nieniedialogues.blogspot.com) She is a woman who blogged about being a mom to four kids. She and her husband were involved in a plane crash last year and both were severely burned. I was intrigued by her story and found a couple videos of her online. One particular video totally struck me. She was going over her daily routine to ge herself ready- which takes about two hours of cleaning her wounds and stretching her skin out. Every day she wakes up to her painful burns. And every day she not only does all this, she also takes care of her kids and her hubby. Crazy. So today as I was showering, I was trying to remind myself how good I actually have it. It doesn't hurt to move or to shower or to pick Brennan up. I am blessed and I am THANKFUL.

Now, I'm off to look at some Black Friday ads. I'm seriously considering just shopping online tonight at midnight, we'll see! Whose going shopping Friday and whose not?? If you're going, what stores are you hitting?

Monday, November 23, 2009

Bugs, Texas, Football, Video

So far, so good. No bug spottings in the Ackerman household this week, yeah!!

There is honestly not much new with us. Jon worked some of the weekend, I got some Christmas shopping done and went out to dinner and the movies with some friends. We saw "The Blind Side" and it was awesome! I forgot we were in Texas, home of football craziness- we had to wait in a line just to enter our particular movie theater. I really recommend the movie and it's great because it is a true story.
Sunday, when I asked Jon what he wanted to do, he told me, "watch football and take a nap on the couch." So that's what we did Sunday, a whole lotta relaxing. It was nice.

Here's a video for the Grandparents- Brennan and I were hanging out in his nursery while he played yesterday afternoon so I took some footage of him just hanging out. It's pretty boring for the rest of you!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Brennan wanted to show you his two teefff!

Jon and B testing out our new backpack carrier

So I have a self control issue. Really. If there is dessert in the house, I will eat it. I try to buy ice cream because that's about the only thing I can stop myself from eating- probably because it takes effort to get a bowl and a spoon and blah blah. But cookies, or brownies, or candy. It's gone. So anyways, Jon and I have this thing where he tries to sneak in something into our cart while grocery shopping and see if he can get it all the way through checkout without me noticing. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Anyways, yesterday, as we were leaving Kroger he tells me that he's a stud. And I'm thinking, "oh crap, what'd he get this time". He grabbed Nestle Tollhouse cookie dough and got it past me! CRAP!!!

My all time hands down favorite dessert is cookie dough (is that even a dessert??). I stopped making my mom's peanut butter chocolate chip cookies only because I eat to much batter in the process and end up laying on our bed groaning because my stomach hurts. No joke. I love myself some cookie dough. Once, in college, I bought a tube of it and ate it in two days. Two days!!

This cookie dough has no chance.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Weekend Recap


So I just got home for having lunch at Panera with a friend and realized I had left our garage door slightly open (the actual garage door was shut, but the door to our apartment was open). And I immediately freaked. Hello- Texas has like, MASSIVE bugs. And cockroaches. HUGGEEEEEEE cockroaches. We actually saw one the second week we were here and I'm not exagerating, I seriously have had nightmares about it. It was literally 3 inches long at LEAST. And I just left our door open a crack- nooooooooo! What is in our house now??? Sorry I posted that photo, now y'all are going to have nightmares too. You'd think it wouldn't bother me after I brought back cockroaches from Panama in high school for my advanced bio bug collection, huh?

So this is a weekend recap and back on track. . . it was a GREAT weekend! Friday night I went to theMet Women's Holiday Dinner. It was at the Berry Center and was gorgeous with super good food.

Saturday, we woke up early and went garage sale-ing in the neighborhood we live in (Coles Crossing). We got some great deals- lots of toys for Brennan (we've hardly bought him any), a backpack carrier, food processor, serving tray, clothes for Brennan, etc. For dinner, we met friends and went to the Woodlands which is the nations #1 master planned community (master planned communities are big down here). We walked through the Market Street and went to Target because I forgot a bottle from Brennan. Sweet. Sunday, after church, I went with a friend to the Nutracker Market in downtown Houston. It's at the Reliant Center and is booth and booth of Christmas decor, boutiques selling clothing, homemade salsa, furniture- basically everything you can think of. It was awesome! Too bad I couldn't figure out how to work the GPS and we drove 25 minutes out of our way. At least I got to see where George H. W. lives!

Friday, November 13, 2009



Hello Readers!
And by readers, I mean the two of you who actually read this (Hi Mom!!)

There isn't much new happening this week in our lives. We've skyped a lot with family and that's been great- seriously, thank you Lord for Skype and technology!!

Jon and I both had a stomach flu thingy (Jon had it much worse), but were both feeling better and B never got it!

My cell phone is still broke but I realized I CAN take calls- just can't call out. Jon ordered a new LCD screen so hopefully it'll be fixed soon (okay, it is seriously lonely without a home phone or a cell phone- I hate it!).

Brennan is still being great and we are still so thankful! He learned yesterday that if he pulls my hair, I yell and then laugh. So he did it about 15 times in a row yesterday and it was hilarious. Probably wont be so hilarious in about four days, but oh well.

I'm doing a cookie exchange with my mops table so if you have any EASY and DELICIOUS cookie recipe, will you comment on this blog or email them to me?? Gracias! (Erin Zubert- can you send me the recipe for your super easy whipped cream/pudding cookies??)

Also, I need some toy ideas for Brennan for Christmas. I'm trying to be forward thinking here- so if you have any toys that your 12-24 month child loved- let me know!!


My mom helped me unpack our kitchen and she wisely told me to put a bunch of tupperware and non-breakable in a cupboard to let Brennan play with. He loves it and it lets me get dinner made!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A Post For New Mommy's

I grabbed this paragraph from Shauna Niequists blog- loved it and wanted to share it!

"And now I’ve cried in my car, walking away from a perfect pregnant belly, afraid that that will never be me again. After a miscarriage that was deeply painful both physically and emotionally, after a long season of slightly-unnerving medical follow-up and testing and big words, and now in the midst a season of longing that extends to the present, I know something I didn’t know that first time.

This is what I know now: You, pregnant mama-to-be, are nothing short of a walking miracle--heartburn, varicose veins, swollen ankles and all.

You, newborn mama, are right smack dab in the middle of one of life’s most precious and strange seasons—leaking breasts, poochy tummy, sleepless nights and all.

This doesn’t help, really, when you can’t sleep because your belly is so big, when the baby can’t sleep, when the milk doesn’t come, when the jeans don’t fit.

But this is my prayer for you: that just every once in a while, you have moments when everything stops, and you realize that you are blessed beyond measure, and that this season is faster than the blink of an eye.

Put your hands on your belly, and say thank you.

Smell your newborn’s perfect tiny head, and breathe in that smell so deeply that you will remember it every day of your life.

Blessings on you, and on the new life in your belly or in your arms."

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Good Things


Lots of good things happening around here.

I just made brownies solely because I wanted to eat the batter. YUM!

Brennan has been off the Prevacid for about a month- Praise the Lord!! When we were without health insurance, we ran out of the Prevacid and instead of going out to get more (at $250.00 a pop), we thought we'd try a day without it and see how he did. He was fine. And then the next day- fine. And he's been great every since! He still has some silent reflux, but it doesn't seem to cause him pain like it did before.

Jon, B and I went to downtown Houston last night and had a blast. It was some much needed fun. We went to Hermann Park to walk around. It's a huuuge park with a band shell, fountains, several ponds, cafe, a train that runs through it, paddle boat rentals, etc. Then we drove to The Village hoping we would find a cute restaurant for dinner. We stumbled upon Mi Luna, a spanish and moroccan tapas restaurant. We did some shopping, walked around and finally left right around Brennan's bedtime. We had to pinch ourselves because it was kind of weird to say to one another, "we actually live here. Weird." We both like living in a big city and for right now, it really suits us well.

I dropped my phone while putting Brennan in his stroller and it died. Oh wait, this is a list of Good Things. . . moving on (but don't call me cause you wont get me! Try Jon, or email me instead!)

Brennan's been just a happy little camper lately and we are THANKFUL. It's one of those things, I think, where we truly appreciate him being a content and happy baby because he just wasn't for so long. We are just eating him up right now!! He crawls around, pulls himself up on EVERYTHING, says "mama and dada", has two bottom teeth, likes his bath, doesn't like to get his diaper changed or dressed for the day (it's like trying to wrestle a greased pig), and loves to be tickled! He's so fun!!

We had some new friends over for dinner this week and stayed up far too late laughing together.

We took our Christmas photo yesterday and the FIRST shot turned out great! Now that is a Good Thing!

What about you??

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

This morning I was sad.

Sad and grieving for a very good friend of mine who lost her baby at 23 weeks to Anencephaly. I'm sad I couldn't be there for her and sit with her and attend her baby's burial. I'm so sad.
I'm sad and worried that our house hasn't sold in Michigan. And I don't want all our savings to go to a house we're no longer living in.
I'm sad I had to cancel lunch plans with a friend because I don't want her to get this stomach virus thingy.
I'm sad for my hubby who was up all night puking and still not feeling good.
I'm sad and concerned for a situation that Jon and I are facing and were not sure what to do.

But then I read through my Beth Moore bible study and it talked about how God wants what is best for us- so we don't need to worry about things. We need to trust Him.

And then I loaded up Brennan and we took a car ride and rolled the windows down and cranked up the music and it was sunny out and it was so refreshing!! It's about the mid 70's here in Texas and wonderfully sunny. It's amazing what a rejuvinating car ride (and a good bible study) can do for a girls spirit.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

I'm currently listening to "This is All That I Can Give" by David Crowder and the darn song makes me cry every time. Especially tonight when I'm sick with some sort of virus and just not feeling good. Such a good song. My wonderful hubby took Brennan to Best Buy (supposedly to scope out or new tv, ha!) so I could relax and chill for a bit.

Lately, when Brennan gets up from a nap, we hear a crunching sound on the monitor and walk in to see this:
That resulted in this:

So funny!!