Jackson's Here!

Jackson Read Black was born Friday, November 14th at 1:45 pm. He weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 20 inches long. We are so excited he is finally here and he really is a good baby. I am recovering a little slower than I'd like but such is life with a c-section. Everything went really well though-Jackson had to spend awhile in the nursery with breathing problems and I was going crazy wanting to see him-finally almost 8 hours later they brought him to me. Madison thinks he is cute but I still don't think she really comprehends it all. Unfortunately we have had to keep Jackson away from her since she was diagnosed with hand, mouth, foot disease the morning before he was born. She is healing though and gets really excited when she sees him-I think she is going to be great with him. Luckily Brian's mom, Jolynne is here and she is saving my life! Here are a couple pictures and I will try to put more up soon-I know these aren't the best!

Part IV: Pumpkin Patch and Halloween

PUMPKIN PATCH

Before my Mom left, we decided to go to the pumpkin patch and pick out the perfect pumpkin (which we didn't even carve) and Madison was such a doll!

Isn't this the cutest pose!

Grandma and Madison with Madison's selection of the perfect pumpkin.

I love this next picture, it looks like she is playing hide-n-seek with someone!

We couldn't decide at first on the perfect pumpkin and Madison seemed just as undecisive.

TRUNK OR TREAT

Since we missed our ward's trunk or treat, we decided to hit up the Leon Valley's party and enjoyed visiting with everyone we don't always see. Madison was such a cute witch and Brian put a lot of time and effort into his costume!

Trying to get a pose-it is so difficult catching her before she runs off somewhere. I was so excited at first because it seemed like she didn't mind her hat.

But she let me know rather quickly that it would not be worm all night-in fact she would be taking it off very soon!

It was fun handing candy out to the kids but Madison didn't really get into it very much. Once she went to one car and realized she had obtained candy-she was done and ready to indulge.
She also figured that it wasn't worth working for it when we had a huge bowl in the back of the jeep-so she remained there the rest of the night!

TRICK-OR-TREATING!

Friday night we decided to take Madison to the houses in our neighborhood-hoping she would participate and not stop at the first sign of candy. Luckily, Clayton showed up and they were both immediately excited.

We waited around for awhile waiting for signs of other trick-or-treaters and thought we would let the kids get warmed up with a piece of candy. Madison was all for relaxing and eating chocolate while we waited.

She even wanted to share her spoils with little Lucy who was the cutest lady bug!

I think we got impatient and eventually started the night for the whole neighborhood-luckily others joined along very quickly. Brittani and Matt handed out candy while we went! There was one house that was decked out with decorations and had a scary skeleton by the front door that would of a sudden start talking. It kinda scared me at first but Madison and Clayton loved it and kept laughing at it!

They were so cute together and would hold hands from house to house-unfortunately I could not get a decent picture of this Kodak moment but here is the cutest thing I was able to capture.

It was such a fun night and being our first year not in an apartment, I loved getting to hand candy out and seeing all the different costumes. Madison did really well although her stomach was not used to the sweets and she exploded during the night and now has the rawest, blistered bum which made today a lot of FUN! Poor girl. Hope everyone had a great Halloween and I can't believe it is NOVEMBER!

Part III: Girl's Weekend

This past weekend I was able to be apart of something amazing: a whole weekend of no kids, no cooking, no cleaning, etc. Brian's mom put us all up in a hotel on the Riverwalk while we attended the Life Seminar and Time Out for Women all day Friday and Saturday-it was so much fun. There were amazing speakers and artists and I especially enjoyed hearing from Sheri Dew and Wayne Nelson on Friday. Here we are eating on the Riverwalk at Landry's.

And again at Chili's

Besides the amazing nourishment (physically and spiritually!), we had a lot of fun just hanging out at the hotel. Heather brought us all these cute denim hats she got at a boutique.

Did I mention how nice it was to get a break, this picture pretty much summarizes how I felt:

Saturday night we surprised Brittani for her 22nd birthday and had a bunch of her friends and family meet at Acenar on the Riverwalk for dinner and cake. My mom even came to San Antonio since her sister Ilene was here from Utah working at the Time Out for Women.

I think Madison already forgot who I was!

The birthday girl and her new BF Matt-for details on how we feel about Matt-see Jamie's blog!

The yummy cake! (don't know why it turned out sideways-sorry!)

Then Sunday we all got together again after church to celebrate Brent's 17th birthday.

I'm sure he'd hate it, but I loved his grin in this picture!

All the siblings-Brian really comes from an amazing family and I feel so blessed to be a part of it.

His parents have been an amazing example of how we want to raise our family and I am so grateful for all that they have done and continue to do for us.

All in all, it was a much needed break and I feel like it was a perfect getaway before the baby comes. It was so much fun to hang out with my aunt Ilene from Utah and my mom stayed Sunday night as well! Monday she helped me get everything ready for the big day and it feels so good to have everything in order-thanks for all your help mom.

. . . . . .More to come

Part II: Baby Shower

Last Thursday I went to the cutest boy baby shower ever! and how awesome that it was for me! I have some amazing friends and they went all out-it was so much fun. They did a cowboy theme and when we first walked in we each got a sheriff badge to pin on our shirt (the basket of bags was the party favors!)

The food was also amazing and labeled with western titles.

Even the drinks were tied into the theme.

The cake was phenomenal as well-little did I know that Hillery was also an amazing cake designer/decorator. It was so cute!

Here we are playing "guess what baby item is in the paper sack." I had never seen this game before and I couldn't believe how hard some of the items were-in fact noone got them all right.

The rest of the pictures are just some shots of everyone who attended.

Jamie and my mother-in-law Jolynne were even able to come and it was so fun to have them there!

It was amazing going from feeling like I still needed so much to prepare for this baby to having everything! Thanks so much to those who planned it as well as everyone who came and helped prepare our family for a new baby! After the shower we picked up Brian's oldest sister Heather from the airport and started our girls weekend! Details to come in the next post!

October in Review! Part I

Thanks to Rachel, I finally was able to get pictures to load-so beware there are tons. Here is a catch up of the past month and all the fun things we have been able to do:

PIE NIGHT & CONFERENCE WEEKEND

The Smith's decided to come visit for the weekend and we were so excited to meet little Owen for the first time. The highlight of the weekend was probably the famous pie night the Konkle's hosted again this year-they were sooo yummy! It was so fun visiting with everyone.

During Priesthood, we got the girls together to hang out and visit with Jamie. It was a lot of fun and yet again-more yummy food!

Conference was amazing as usual, although you just don't seem to get as much out of it when kids are in the picture. I decided not to stress about getting to fully enjoy it and just watch it later in the week on the church's website (amazing!). Brian also took the relaxed approach:

This picture sure brought back memories. I can't believe it has been almost two years since we had Madison and soon we will be going through it all over again!

OWEN'S BLESSING

The following weekend we were able to go to Hempstead and visit with family. I went to the Waller Ward's super saturday that Brian's mom organized (with 34 projects offered-HOLY COW) while he went wakeboarding with Brent. On Sunday we headed down to Kingwood for little Owen's blessing.

The family who were able to come

Enjoying a delicious fajita dinner!

Owen is so adorable! I hope Jackson turns out just as cute. The bar has been set pretty high in our family with adorable nephews!

FAMILY REUNION

The next weekend we were so lucky to be able to go to the Heber-Davis family reunion and celebrate Grandpa Jack's 90th birthday. It just so happened that it fell on the same weekend as the TDA convention here in San Antonio, so Brian had Thursday and Friday off from school. We flew into Las Vegas Thursday night and drove to Mesquite where everything was held. Here we are enjoying a delicious buffet at our hotel (can you tell I am pregnant and LOVE food? Well Dr. Cherney sure could when I weighed in after all our vacations-oh well right!)

All the girls with the birthday boy!

The whole family! I couldn't believe that there were over 150 people that showed up from all over. (Just kidding I accidentally just deleted that picture) so here is the Black family:

And another picture that was supposed to be at the top of this section-oh well please forgive the sloppiness of this post!

Overall, it was a lot of fun and it was so nice to get away for the weekend. We are so grateful for The Black's and everything they did to let us be apart of the reunion.

So, more to come in a little while!