The Malones: Mondays with Crosby and Jane Claire

At 11:24 am, Crosby Fox turned 3 years and 49 weeks old!!! At 1:03 pm, Jane Claire turned 36 weeks old!!! How sweet are they? I mean really. Could they get much cuter?? I think not!! I am most definitely not biased. Not at all!! ;-)

So if I am honest, this set of pictures technically should have been in last week's post. Technically, I took them last Monday. And this post is supposed to be about last Tuesday through this Monday. But, I just had to break the rules. Last week's post was so full of stuff. These would have just gotten lost at the end. I thought it would be good to break it up so we could just focus on these beautiful children I have been blessed with!!!

Now that I have cleared thing up, I will get to the pictures. I needed a good picture of these babes for Christmas cards. We had beautiful pictures taken at the beach this summer by the fabulous Jessica Edenfield. Since it is Jane Claire's first Christmas, I really wanted a more recent picture of her in her Christmas dress. I thought would give it a whirl and see if we could come up with one decent picture. We loaded up and headed to Animalia in an attempt to get that one perfect shot. The landscaping is absolutely gorgeous and the weather could not have been more beautiful. I had high hopes...

And they did really, really good!!!

I mean look at that sweet face...

I could just eat her up!!!

She looks like such a little priss. Just precious...

Ahhhhh. And then there is my little man...

He keeps things nice and lively...to say the least!! ;-)

He is such a little ham and I love him to pieces...

I moved to a different spot and tried for even better...

Yea. I should have left well enough alone!!!

I think I got a pretty perfect picture! There was one that I was really pleased with so I finally called it a day. I will have to save that for Christmas!!!

So on Tuesday, we finally had to do it. Blake got out the allen wrench and we lowered the bed a notch. He pushed for 2 notches but I couldn't do it. One notch at a time please. I can't have this baby thinking she is too big!!! Unfortunately, there is no denying it. She is getting better. That is why we had to make an adjustment in her sleeping arrangements. I walked into her room after a nap and found her pulling up on the rail! Yikes!!

I am loving Christmas PJs. Loving. It has been so warm around here that I have held out in putting these warm fuzzies on...

She just looks so cute in them that I finally had to do it. A little bit of cooler weather helped! Crosby had to have a PJ picture too...

He looks thrilled, no?!?

Thursday night, we headed to Nacho's for a little Mexican dinner. I was feeding Jane Claire a bit of rice and beans from a regular, metal spoon. I noticed a little resistance when I was feeding her. I didn't give it much thought initially. Then it hit me...a TOOTH!!! I stuck my finger in her mouth and sure enough, her first little tooth broke through her gum!! Her bottom left tooth to be exact! I cannot believe my tiny girl has her first white cap!!! Sigh. I must admit, I am a little worried how that tooth will impact me!! ;-) We shall see!

On Friday, Blake came home from work itching. I guess the itching technically started Thursday night. We just didn't give it too much thought then. But on Friday, he came home from work and had a few red patches on his sides. As the night progressed, the patches got larger and started to migrate. As they moved, the itching got worse. It got to the point that he could tell where the next patch was going to pop up because it would itch like crazy first. It was quite bizarre. I was fully expecting to end up in the ER. After steroids and lots of benadryl, the patches started to fade. And he fell asleep. I stayed up until 1:30 to make sure the mystery rash didn't move up to his face and neck. Thank goodness it didn't. I finally felt comfortable enough to let myself fall asleep.

My uncle and aunt were in town from Texas and we planned to meet them for lunch Saturday morning. Blake was feeling better and all seemed a go. That was until an hour before we were supposed to meet the fam. Blake had another patch show up!! This time, he went straight in to see the doctor. That left me with 2 kiddos (and myself) to get ready in 30 minutes and of course that didn't exactly happen! Luckily we were only 15 minutes late. We were able to enjoy a meal at Porta Via in Cool Springs while waiting to hear from Blake with a doctors report.

Jane Claire and Harper met Aunt Mary and Uncle James for the first time...

Crosby needed his picture with them too!

A few minutes later, Jane Claire pulled over the glass you see in the bottom right of the picture and it shattered every.where. It was lovely. The good news is no one was injured! That was followed with more good news. Blake was going to make it. Apparently he came into contact with something his skin does not like! What that is, we may never know. That sort of leaves me a little nervous about the future. I sure hope he never comes into contact with whatever that was again!! I would share pictures so you could see how horrible he looked but I value my marriage. He would leave me if I posted them so I guess I shouldn't...

Thankfully all patches were cleared by Saturday night for Animalia's Christmas party. This year, the whole staff headed out to Opryland to see the Ice exhibit and to have dinner at the hotel. Blake and Crosby went to see Ice last year while I was on bed rest and Crosby loved it. I was excited to finally see if for myself! The only problem was the fact that we were at Opryland. In December. On a Saturday night. Talk about total mayhem!!! It took some folks an hour and a half just to get from the interstate to the parking lot!!! There were people everywhere!!! That meant the line to see Ice was really long. Let's just say waiting isn't exactly Jane Claire's strong point! Especially when she is tired. It was her bedtime after all! Here my little angle is dressed in her warm snow suit...

In hindsight, I should have waited to put it on her. I think she got too hot while we were in the parka line. She lost it and we had to make our exit before even making it to the cold stuff!! Of course! ;-) At least Blake and Crosby got to do it again...

A donkey made of ice... (it was a Shrek theme this year)

Shrek made of ice!

My boys with Shrek and the donkey...

Making their way to the slide. If you look closely, you can see all the blue parkas headed up the steps...

Blake and Crosby basically had the place to themselves when they went on a Tuesday morning last year! A little different this time! In the ice tunnel...

Blake said he started to get really cold and was ready to leave. I am wondering if it had something to do with the fact that his parka wasn't even closed?!? ;-)

His dad's wasn't closed either! He still enjoyed the slide...

Blake and Crosby with the dragon...

The pictures are impressive. I can only imagine how good this stuff looked in person. I would have loved to have seen the nativity myself. It looks beautiful...

I didn't get to take pictures a dinner because Jane Claire was really beside herself at that point! But I did manage to snap one...

Meet "Mr. Patrick". He sings children's music and we happen to have one of his CD's. Of course, Mr. Patrick sings our favorite song on the whole CD. Crosby was super excited when we told him we would be eating dinner with Mr. Patrick. He was kind enough to sing a little bit of "That's What I'll Be"just for Cros!! Too cute. You can here his band singing below. Mr. Patrick is on the far right and our favorite song comes in at 8:30, just in case you want to hear it yourself!

That song stirs up a lot of emotion in me. It is the first song on our CD so we listened to it every night for months. I was pregnant and on bed rest with Jane Claire at the time. I didn't pay attention to the lyrics for the longest. Then, one day, I did. Oh man, the tears started flowing!!! "I'm growing up everyday. I'm putting most of my kid things away..." I know I was emotional because of pregnancy but those words hit me hard! We had just moved him out of the baby bed and into his big boy bed. He was looking bigger and bigger. It was a hard pill for this momma to swallow. My baby boy...growing up!! Still makes me tear up!!! Jane Claire was born, and we had a different CD playing. One night Blake stuck Big Kid Band back in and I nearly lost it again!!! This time, remembering being pregnant! What a sap! Needless to say, I love Mr. Patrick about as much as Crosby does!!!

Here is Miss Jane Claire at 36 weeks...