You know that feeling you get when someone sneaks up on you? Lately after about 30 minutes of "quiet time", Jackson will sneak out of his room and silently creep into whatever room I'm in...and I will jump out of my skin when I look up and see him standing there.


I caught him sneaking down the stairs yesterday...in an face mask no less. Is this normal??!!?




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The Circus "Parade"

Last week, the circus came to Greenville. While we have taken Jackson in the past, its not something we do every year. So I was excited to check out the annual "Circus Parade"...which is basically the animals walking through downtown, from the train station to the coliseum. I had heard mixed reviews so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Let's just say that we will not be doing the circus parade again. And I use the word "parade" quite loosely. I realize the purpose of the processional is strictly functional, getting the animals from point A to point B. But I kid you not, we waited for an hour and a half and could have missed the entire thing had we blinked. I'm talking half a dozen elephants, a few horses and some trick ponies. Don't get me wrong, it was neat seeing the animals up close, but really, they could've thrown in a clown or two. I guess all the hype had everyone overly expectant, but Jackson summed it up by saying that "Bebe's parade was better than this one." (He was referring to the annual Old Soldier's Reunion parade in my hometown, which had bands, floats, cheerleaders, etc).







Thankfully the weather was decent (despite threatening showers) and we had friends with us.



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The burden of documenting our lives

Am I the only one who feels like I can NEVER catch up with photo albums? I mean, everyone takes hundreds of pictures, so its not the actual digital photos themselves that are the burden. Its compiling them from the iPhone, iPad, digital camera, etc into one place, then sorting, dating, uploading, printing THEN archiving those rascals.

Confession: I have not updated any hard photos albums since December 2010. Yes, that is 2 years ago. Yet I have thousands of digital images on my various devices that are just sitting there, eating up precious memory space and waiting to be used in some way, shape or form.

But then the burden snowballs...okay, I've got the digital pics in one place, sorted by month & year, weeded out the bad ones and ready to upload, but what next? Do I upload to shutterfly and do a photobook? This will be a small fortune considering it would be upwards of 100 pages long for each year, not to mention time consuming. Or do I upload my pics to Costco and get them printed as 4x6 prints and just mount them in photobooks myself? More labor intensive but probably less expensive and I can do it in stages at my own pace. And I don't do anything fancy...just double-stick tape & a sharpie.

After debating back & forth for several weeks, I decided to dive in with the latter and just work on it a little bit every evening. My goal is to catch up to date by the time Baby Brother is born in May. So far, I've successfully printed 2011 photos in their entirety, by month, and have completed the album pages from January - July. Its been a fairly quick process once I go organized and also figured out you can import photos into Costo from Picasa which is amazingly quick and saves a step since I already use Picasa as my way to organize & share our photos.








I have actually really enjoyed going back through out older pictures and reminiscing as I make these books. Ben & I have gotten some great laughs, and its fun to see how Weston resembles Jackson when he was younger.
I know we will treasure these albums for years to come, and that helps motivate me to document as much as I can!




On a video note, I am so blessed to have a private videographer (Mom) who takes tons of video when we are around, but also takes the footage from our iPhones, iPads & video camera and edits, creates chapters, menus, etc., then burns us DVDs. We have an entire album of home movie DVDs that Mom has kept current for us. We are so thankful for that and the kids love to watch them fairly often.
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Brothers

"Look Mom, I made a flyboat for my WonderPet." I love his imagination and how he is constantly being resourceful and creative.




Reunited. After 48 hours of being quarantined from each other thanks to the stomach bug, these two were so excited to finally get to play together. It makes my heart sweel to see them be such good buddies and love each other so much. Jackson even cried the day before because we wouldn't let him hug on his brother.




The one and only way I will be able to manage shopping with 3 kiddos...Target's super cart. I'm sure the novelty of being strapped in will wear off quickly and they both will be clamoring to get out. When Ben saw this pics, he said, "Did you threaten to take away their AppleTV or something? They look scared."



DJ West rocking out on Jackson's turntable.



Just a little Saturday out shopping with the fam.



Whenever we take a picture, Westie says "cheese" and grins so big his eyes squeeze shut. Precious!



Helping Daddy fix the storm door. So much fun to teach this little boys things lately. He's such a sponge.



And last but not least, our most recent picture of sweet baby boy #3. I am getting super excited about having 3 little boys and realize how cool its going to be having these little guys grow up with built-in best buddies. And it melts my heart when Jackson talks about his "new other little brother". He recently asked me when he will get to meet the new baby brother and if he could please come to his birthday party when he turns 4. When I old him that both new baby & Weston would be at his party (in June), he grinned ear to ear. And every night as we are reading bedtime stories, the baby loves to kick. There's nothing like seeing Jackson's smile when he feels his littlest brother kicking in my belly. So thankful for my boys!

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Recovery

Last week, the stomach bug hit the Talbert house...hard. I started getting sick on Monday afternoon and spent the evening throwing up. Ben thankfully took over the boys as soon as he got home and got them to bed just before he started getting queasy.

We were concerned about dehydration since I'm pregnant and the after-hours nurse urged us to go to the ER for fluids if I didn't stop throwing up soon after taking the Zofran she prescribed me. Rather than running across town to the 24-hour CVS, we borrowed some Zofran from my neighbor. After 3 hours, it finally kicked in and I was able to keep water down.

Just as Ben was coming back home with the meds, we hear Jackson throwing up in his bed. So Ben helps him to the bathroom, and in turn, starts throwing up too...in the sink. And as crazy as it sounds, J actually was comforted by the fact that Daddy was sick too, and his terror of being sick vanished. Ben pretty much had to handle sick J because I was incapacitated. After 3 bed changes, he finally got a puke bucket system in place for J and made himself a pallet on the floor and hunkered down.



Tuesday, Ben of course stayed home sick and we took shifts caring for Weston downstairs and being quarantined upstairs in our bedroom with Jackson. Neither of us could fully function and Jackson was still throwing up. Thankfully Weston did not get sick at all, and honestly, if he had, I am not sure how we would have been able to manage.

If nothing else, this little bout made me realize how precious our health is, and made me realize how fragile we, as humans, truly are. If a microscopic virus that we cannot even see can cause us so much damage to our bodies, how can we think, even for a minute, that we are in control of this life?


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Girls Weekend

Every January for the past 5 years, Sally & I have gone to Atlanta for the Gift Market. Thanks to my (now expired) business license from my apron biz, we are granted access to the market, which is only open to buyers & business owners. The majority of the market is order-writing only, but we go strictly for the cash-and-carry jewelry. Row after row of wholesale costumer jewelry, unbelievably cheap (the suggested mark-up is 6x the wholesale cost). Buyers stock up for their stores and we stock up for ourselves & the occasional gift :)








Jewelry galore. Booth after booth. We made our initial sweep in 4 hours and then headed to Ikea for the world's longest shopping trip. I swear we walked the entire showroom twice. But got some great deals & left pleased with our finds.

After dinner at La Madeline, we vegged out in our hotel room and watched the Miss America pageant and ate miniature candy bars. Our crazy girl's weekends have certainly evolved over the years!

Sunday, instead of our traditional trip to the Dawsonville outlets, we greedily opted to go back to the market...arriving only to realize that the Atlanta Falcons had a home game that day so downtown ATL traffic was a nightmare and parking was $35 (which would nullify all the great jewelry deals). So we hit up a few shops in Buckhead and headed back up 85.

It was so relaxing to have a couple nights away to spend with such a dear friend. I treasure our annual getaway and know we will continue this little tradition.

As a side note: This was the first time Ben has kept both kids solo for two consecutive nights. I think he did awesome and they even managed to make it to church for the 9:15 service on Sunday (albeit without diapers or sippies). Ben was mentally & physically exhausted when I rolled in Sunday afternoon but it made me feel super appreciated. He already warned me that its going to be a tough sell to get him to watch all 3 boys for more than 1 night next year :)







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Blowing Rock

In mid-December, we headed up to Blowing Rock to do an early Christmas and Dad's bday celebration at their Tweetsie House. Mike & Jenn were there, too, so it was fun to spend time with them!


Jackson loves to sit beside Westie any chance he gets, and loves to lovably kiss all up on his face. Westie, on the other hand, isn't such a fan!


The only snow we could find was blown snow at Appalachian Ski Mtn. After playing in the slush for 5 minutes, we were asked to leave because we were "damaging their snow base."


Aunt Jenn & West


Jackson to rocking his new Wolfpack football jersey. He'll be able wear this one until he's 10!


As the Isaac tradition goes, the birthday boys gets wrestled to the ground and trapped under the kitchen table. In this case, its Poppy. He's the one buried until three 7-year olds and a 3 year old.


After managing to ward off his attackers, Poppy saves the day by dosing Westie up with a little cake icing.


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Location:Valley Fall Ct,Greer,United States