New Blog

Hi everyone. I know, I know, its been about 6 months since I have really blogged hard core. Life just got too busy. Things are starting to settle down and I'm ready to recommit to blogging, at least for the time being. I have created a new blog that encompasses our family name, because there is more to the Spence story than Jumpin Jack, although he IS the star!

As Luke updated, we had a wonderful Christmas with all of our family. The last few months have been occupied with Luke working, me going to school and both of us parenting an ever growing 20 month old. Luke's job continues to go well, he has some time off this month, so we are hoping to be able to take a mini-vacation either to DC or Chicago. Maybe both?!? He has been keeping busy with cheering the Cubbies (maybe this year?!?!), taking care of the yard and completing little home improvement projects around our house. We're thinking of putting a garden in this year, but we'll see if we get around to it.

I have finished 2 semesters of graduate school, which is really exciting. I'm enjoying it, although between taking care of Jack, our house, Luke and school work, I am a pretty busy bee. It will all be worth it in the end though. I am making some great friends at school and really enjoy the intellectual stimulation that I get from class. Although I LOVE being a stay at home mommy, I enjoy getting some grown up time every once in awhile.

Jack is growing SO FAST! He is pushing 2 and that is just amazing to me and Luke. He is talking more, his new favorite words are dinosaur and yellow. When people call, he says, "Who is that" and at the store he always asks "what is that". He's a little smartie. Jack is starting to get potty trained, which is really impressive, we'll see how far we get with that. He climbs like a little monkey, I looked in the backyard the other day and he was almost to the top of our 5 foot fence...oops! He loves Daisy and Wrigley (Duncan doesn't let him get close enough). He loves playing outside and we spend much of our day playing in the backyard. His favorite food is still bananas and yogurt, i'm hard pressed to get him to eat any type of protein, except for beans...the boy LOVES any type of bean. Peas are the veggie of choice, and he has been liking broccoli and green beans lately too. The boy loves him some milk and POP! I limit it, but, hey, everyone needs a little diet coke every once in awhile ;) He loves looking at pictures of our family and friends and is starting to be able to name people, which is really cute. He LOVES his pacificer and hides them and sneaks them when he can. I don't know how we will EVER get those away from him! We read all of the time and love going to story time (when we make it). We participate in Mommy and Me class which both of us love, plus a stroller exercise class that we both have really good friends in. We are members to both the Indy Zoo and Children's Museum and love going to each place regularly. Plus weekly playdates with Jacks good friends Roman, Jack and Madeline. Jack still loves Noura and we try to see her as often as possible.

We have really started to make Greenwood our home, which is really nice. Luke and my 4th anniversary is coming up at the end of the month. It is almost impossible to believe that we have been together for 7 1/2 years, married for 4 years, homeowners for 3 years and parents for 2 years! The time is sure flying by. We have a great life and couldn't ask for anything better (except for maybe graduation to move up a couple years for me!!). We're really enjoying our life right now.

Here is a picture of Jack and his friends from our recent visit to the Greenwood Fired Dept.



Another one of Jack, Jack and Roman at a playdate.

A few more pictures from the holidays

I just found another 250 pictures that were still on the camera and not downloaded yet so here's the highlights.



We left on the night of the 23rd after I got done working, as you can see we didn't get to my parents house until after these twos bedtime.




Opening presents with Grandpa Spence.



The family picture on Christmas Eve.



Playing in the new wagon Grandma and Grandpa Wagner got him.










Playing with the little people garage Grandpa and Grandma Welder got him and uncle Brent put together.




Driveing back home with a car packed to the gills with new toys.



We finally had our family Christmas at home the next week, and Jack was happy to finally see present under the tree!!




Probably his favorite of what we got him.




My favorite of what he got me. He also got me a football trophy that he painted himself, with mom's help of course.





He's learned to blow kisses to people.








Ringing in the new year all together. Jack happened to wake up shortly before midnight so we kept him up to celebrate. I got home about an hour before midnight after a long day at work.




After the ball dropped Jack decided to hit up the bubbly. (kidding of course)



That about wraps up the last couple of months with our family we'll try to keep the updates coming a little quicker from now on.


Here's a couple pictures just so you don't think the kids all smiles and kisses all of the time.

Luke's update

Since Steph hasn't been updating this lately I'll try to throw a little something together for everyone. This is my first try at it so if things end up looking weird so be it. We bought ourselves a new camera for Christmas since our old one died. We love the new camera but it took us a while to figure out how to get the pictures on the computer so a lot of these pictures are from a while back.



Putting garland up on the tree can be a very exciting event, just ask Steph.











Putting the finishing touches on the tree.











The finished product!! (you can't really tell but the ornaments are all on the top half of the tree)











This is my biggest contribution to the holiday decorations.




Playing the part of Rudolph.







Riding the horse Grandma Marvel and Aunt Linda bought him for Christmas. Deffinitely one of his favorites this season.









Running in the first snow of the season. Yes, he is barefoot. He ran out there before we could stop him, but it was a very short run in the snow.






Caught looking for his Christmas presents under the tree.






Loaded up in the car to go somewhere. Look at the beautiful blue eyes he got from his mom.







Ham it up for the camera. He has learned to smile for the camera recently and show off his pearly whites. In this picture he still only had 6, now he's up to 8.




Jack loves spending time at his wee-school with Steph and all of the other kids!!






This is the plate that Jack made me for Christmas, definitely the best present I got this year, followed very closely by the Wii my parents got us. Unfortunately, we don't have pictures of the reaction when we opened the Wii at their house. We were quite suprised and excited.

Long time

I know it's been a loooong while since I've posted. The Spence household has been very busy. Between the holidays and school, I haven't had much time to update. Our camera broke a few weeks ago, so I didn't even have any photos to update. We finally got a new camera, so hopefully I'll be updating again soon, I just need to figure out how to download pics from my new camera. We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, we definately did. I have one more paper to write and then I'll have more time to do things like this. See you all in a few days (I hope)!

YES WE DID!!!

Luke and I posed in our Obama t-shirts, while Jack advocated PEACE!!




We witnessed history tonight, as a family. We are so thankful that our son will be raised in a country where everyone is capable of being president. Jack will never know a time where it wasn't possible for a black man to be president (we'll work on getting a qualified woman there next). We are so happy tonight. We both know that there is a lot of work to be done now, however, are confident that the right man is on the job.

YES WE CAN!!

TURN OFF THE MUSIC ON THE SIDE!

Halloween 2008

Which Pumpkin is which?




Pumpkin carving!
Nicole's Wedding!

Cutest lil' "Jack" o'lantern





Rocking the vote on Saturday with mommy!



I haven't posted in nearly a month, SORRY about that everyone, we've been really busy at the Spence household. The month of October was great. I finished up my first graduate class (acutlly, I still have to write a paper about maternal and child health, if anyone has any good info, let me know). Mommy and Me continues to go wonderfully and Jack and I love our stoller exercise class. We're both making many new friends, which I love. We visited a couple pumpkin patches and got some pumpkins. I downloades about 150 photos a couple weeks ago and unfortunately, they didn't register on my computer and I didn't realize it until I had already deleted them, so most of our October pictures are gone. Luke was on reserve the month of October and ended up working about 7 days, so he was home a lot. Jack and I both enjoyed having him home. The end of October, we headed back to Iowa. Luke and I dropped Jack off at my mom's house and then Luke and I headed to Kansas City for 4 days to help my best friend, Nicole, get married. I was her maid of honor and had a great time. The wedding prep was fun, the wedding was beautiful, being away from jack was hard. It was the first time that I had been away from him for any considerable length of time, he had fun with his grammy, grandpa and aunts, but mommy missed him. They joined us in KC on Sat for the wedding and we flew home Sunday.

We had a playdate with my new friend Kate and her son Roman, who is 10 days older than Jack. I am so glad to be making some new friends who live close to me. Jack was a "Jack" o'lantern for halloween. The cutest Jack o'lantern if you ask me. He dressed up in his costume for mommy and me, story time and halloween night. We went trick or treating at our friends Dustin and Nicole's apartment and hung out with them for a little while. Luke left Saturday and Jack and I met up with Beth for pizza and then went to a halloween party hosted by my girlfriends Lana, Tanya and Jen. The party was fun and everyone was cute. I went as a pilot....origional, right? Luke got home Sunday and we had a nice day. My new class gives me a lot of homework, I so I feel like I am reading a lot and writing papers a lot, but I like it overall.

Today the weather was wonderful, we played outside and had a great time. We got down our Christmas lights to start our plan for our display this year. Luke is really into decorating our house for Christmas, so we're getting ready!!!

We head back to Iowa Thursday for my friend Jessica's wedding, we're excited about seeing everyone again. It will be a short trip, but fun!

Luke and Jack both have coughs and colds, hopefully they clear up soon.

We miss everyone and hope to see/talk to you all soon.

Lots of love!!