our august through pictures....

malachi becoming more and more mobile :)

learning to climb - his current favorite - the coffee table

 

daddy's day off morning wrestling match ;)

figuring out the walking thing

looking at this "family book" of pictures

playing "music"

14 months old - august 9th

snuggles are a rare thing nowadays - we eat them up when they happen!

my birthday ice cream dates!

funny boy!

jeff's new toy - a smoker

20 week ultrasound - Aug. 20th 

a healthy baby that we are choosing to wait to know the gender of!

getting better and better at walking!

M and his friend Nathan at Nathan's house

first roasted marshmallow - mess all over M and daddy!

M's newest place to play

dinner out with my boys!

"talking" on daddy's phone

 

a few days after my birthday we were so blessed to be able to drive over to Chicago for a few days and see my sister and her friend who had flown out from California for a vacation. we had a fabulous time! it was so nice to get away for a few days as a family and spend time together :)

at the "bean" - our first time seeing it, even though Jeff and I honeymooned in Chicago a few years earlier, we had never seen it. pretty cool for sure! 

dinner sunday night especially for jeff - eveything cooked on Weber charcoal grills by Weber grill masters!

 

monday we went to the zoo - us with Ashley

the petting zoo part

it was a really rainy day but we made the best of it :)

you can see the bean is still wet and streaked from the rain

malachi enjoying one of our fabulous meals in Chicago!

Jeff being his usual goofy self! love him!! :)

 

i hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse into our home in August.

 

until next time,

Love from the Mixon house

our july through the lens of instagram...

since getting my iphone back in july, i have really been enjoying the app instagram. it's basically just a photo sharing site but they have some pretty sweet editing tools to make your pictures look way cooler than they did when you took them ;)

so enjoy some pictures from our July!

 

sweet boy!

Daddy's day off usually involves a morning of "wrestling" - M loves it!!!

a little more pool time - M is still not sure about it. hopefully by next summer!

giving mom pounds in the grocery store...

sharing a snack when daddy comes home....

and then trying to steal dad's food right out of his mouth! jeff says the competition for food has already begun!

he's always so happy in the morning after breakfast :)

showing me his teeth - he now has 9! (at the time of this picture he had 8 though)

"helping" mom with laundry

he likes to look at himself in the camera when we turn it around - he's such a ham!

taking a few steps! 

the morning before his first haircut - i was trying to capture how crazy his hair had gotten!

such a big boy getting his haircut! he did so great!

this is the way M likes to "play" - pull all the toys on the floor and just sit in the middle of the mess ;)

 

funny kid!

doughnuts on dad's say off are always a hit!

he's so silly!

the cape made a reappearance this year at the church slip-n-slide. and of course M had to have a cape to match! (even though momma wouldn't let him go down the slide this year)

 

we even got a special treat to be able to see one of my best friends from college. we drove up to meet her about an hour and a half away and it was such a sweet time of catching up and playing with Malachi!  

He loved Sara!

and he loved her big glasses! :)

 

hope you enjoyed seeing our month through the lens of my phone ;)

 

until next time,

Love from the Mixon house!

the things God teaches you through pregnancy sickness...

i know you're probably wondering what happened to me. i mean the last thing on here was Malachi announcing we were expecting Baby #2 and then nothing for 2 months! well, i sincerely apologize for being so quiet around these parts for so long. but the last few months have been hard ones in the Mixon house with me moving a lot slower that normal due to some first trimester sickness. the Lord has been so gracious and sustained me and the last 6 weeks have been TONS better but those 2 months of feeling icky really helps to put things in perspective for you! the Lord has been teaching me a lot through this season of slowing down and i would love to share with you some of those lessons.

lesson #1 - there are seasons of life where you HAVE to slow down! this was the first lesson God started to teach me early in my pregnancy, i think because He knew it would be the one that would take me the longest to get! ha! i mean, i do not like to slow down. i push myself and think that i "should" be able to do x,y, or z because i "always" do it. well, guess what? you're not "always" laid up feeling nauseous and so when you are you should take that as your body telling you to slow down! there are seasons where you just have to be ok with whatever you can do and thank the Lord you were able to do that. during those 2 months we bought a lot more things at the store that i normally like to make but didn't, my house wasn't as thoroughly cleaned as i normally like, the laundry didn't get done all in one day like i like, etc., etc. But in the end we still ate, we still had clean clothes, we still had each other. and in some seasons, that has to be good enough.

lesson #2 - all babies are different. this is such a helpful lesson for me to learn now and continue to remember forever. i think it's even more important because Malachi and Baby#2 will be so close in age. i think it would be so easy for me and for others to compare the two. "well, malachi did this" or "malachi didn't do that" etc. but the reality is that these are two completely different little people that God created unique and separate from one another and they will each do things the way that God has ordained them to do it. this pregnancy has actually been a really helpful little "sneak peek" into how different i think they could be. i didn't have any sickness or anything with Malachi, my pregnancy was like a model pregnancy (atleast until the end with our little "twist").  but this pregnancy has been so different! it makes me wonder how else they will be different... will he/she sleep great like M always has? will he/she be a better nurser than M was? will he/she have an outgoing personality the way M does or will he/she be more reserved? these are all questions we have to wait to have answered but i am so thankful that God is reminding me even now that comparing them is futile, they are each their own person.

lesson #3 - the way you take care of yourself during pregnancy is the way you take care of that baby inside you. this lesson goes along with number 1 but has had a much greater impact on me than the first one which is why i am listing it separately. i think a lot of times we can forget that pregnancy is about growing a person and not all about me and what makes me feel good. i have realized this even more this time around when i was feeling sick and gross and didn't want to do anything. i still had to remember that the baby needed me to do certain things for it.  i still needed to eat, i still needed to get up and move as much as i could, i still needed to try to eat those foods that are good for me, even if they didn't sound appealing, etc. etc. This is the first of many sacrifices you make as a mother! you have to take care of yourself, not just for yourself, but because that baby is dependent on you for everything! everything you eat or don't eat, the amount of activity you get or don't get, the amount of rest you get or don't get, all of these things affect your baby. and no mother would ever give their baby anything but the best after it is born, but sometimes we don't do the same while pregnant. it's hard things to think about, but it's an issue of selfishness vs. sacrifice.

lesson #4 - going through sickness gives you compassion on those who also suffer through sickness. i am in no way saying that i had it worse than anyone else, i know of many friends who suffer much worse with sickness during pregnancy than i did. but i think now i have a glimpse of what others have gone through and it gives me compassion on them. since i didn't experience anything like this with my first pregnancy i could never really understand what all the fuss was about or how debilitating sickness can make you feel. and i think if i had never experienced it it could have led to pride in my heart toward those people, like i was somehow better because i always had easy pregnancies. but the Lord humbled me, even before it got there, and for that i am so thankful.  He allowed me to go through this so that i could be humble and helpful toward those who also suffer.

these are just some of my thoughts on what God has taught me this far. He could have more in store to show me through this pregnancy and if that is true then i will be thankful for that. but for now i am so thankful he has allowed me to feel more "normal" and to get caught up around here. now i can share some of the things going on around here this summer!

Until then,
Love from the Mixon House!