Today was a great start to our little 2 week Christmas break.  I must admit the day started much earlier than I had hoped, but what can you expect when you have a 5 year old and 1 year old.  I know one day I will miss these sweet 6:30am Saturday mornings of cuddling with 2 of my favorite people on earth (of course the 3rd favorite person, in no particular order, was still sound asleep in bed) so I remind myself to cherish them every chance I get.  Once my 3rd favorite person did wake up (with a little help from myself and the boys of course) I got to spend 2 blissful hours of shopping all by myself.  It was WONDERFUL but I did realize on this blissful trip of mine that I am much less productive with my time when I'm by myself.  There is just something about the threat of knowing that at any given moment sweet Denton could decide abruptly that he is DONE SHOPPING and end my trip that forces me to be quite efficient when I have the boys with me.

When I realized my blissful 2 hours were coming to an end, I rushed home so Chad could get Dax to basketball practice.  Sometimes I just think, "seriously do I have a child old enough to go to basketball practice?"  It seems so weird.  Where in the world does time go?  While they were practicing, I took Denton to get his hair cut.  This little outing would be considered anything BUT blissful.  He screamed and cried the whole time as though he thought the kind lady with the scissors was going to seriously injure him.  It was painful for me and I'm sure for the 30 other people in the room as well.  He redeemed himself though by being a perfect angel throughout my trip to 2 malls afterwards.  That's what I love about my sweet Denton.... you just never know what you are going to get. He is definitely not shy about letting you know what he thinks.  Honestly in his short 20 months of life he has taught me a thing or two about speaking my mind when necessary.  He has a gift of it!

Finally tonight I got to have dinner and spend some quality time with sweet girlfriends.  Each of these girls lived in Hatley while I was the RD there and some were RA's during those years.  I LOVE being with these girls.  It is incredible to get caught up on life with them.  Some are married and have made their homes here in Oklahoma as teachers and professionals, and others have ventured on to different things like missions on the other side of the world or creating a new life in FRIGID upstate New York.  There are three consistent things woven throughout each of their lives 1)is the unwavering faithfulness of God and 2)is their unwavering commitment to serve Him and finally 3) is that they are just flat out FUNNY! I love to just sit back and listen to the stories of their day to day lives.  It reminds me of the incredible blessing I have to work in a job that constantly shapes me in to a better person because of the relationships I get to build with others. 

Tomorrow is day 2 of Christmas break and it holds a lot in store.  After church we are heading over to celebrate Christmas with Jake, Amber, Emily and Audree.  Dax bought his sweet little friend Emily a no bake oven for Christmas and he is SO excited to give it to her.  He has seriously been talking about wanting to get her this gift since before Thanksgiving.  I hope she is even half as excited as he is when she opens it!  Then tomorrow night is the big surprise Student Development Christmas party.  We were told to dress warm and casual for whatever we might be doing.  Warm and casual..... what does that even mean?  I'm sure whatever it is, it will provide for a good story afterwards so it will be worth it.  I'm going to try to post some pictures of my sweet friends from their days in college since we didn't get to take any updated pictures tonight and I will be sure to post before and after shots of Denton's new hair do.  For now, I'm going to end this ridiculously long entry and say good night!

Here's a picture of me and 3 of the girls at a wedding right after their junior year.  This is beautiful Caleigh, beautiful Sara, and beautiful Kelly.

 Here are Kelly, Kendi and Sara on their graduation day. Seriously, aren't they beautiful???!!!

Dax is at home because he has the flu.  I had to come home and watch him and do some work.  A barrage of emails came in so I couldn't play any with Dax.  I told him I was a little behind.

About 15 to 20 minutes Dax asked "Are you in front yet?"  He asked me if I was going to win.  I should have told him, "No one wins with email."

Dax and Emily were in the car with Misty on the way to the pool and was listening to the radio.  Dax asked Misty to change the station to another station and she said no.  Then Dax said, "Mommy you sure are pretty!"  Misty thought that was sweet and said, "Thank you Dax."  Then Dax said, "Now can you change the radio station?"  Misty then asked if he thought that she would change the station if he said she looked pretty and Dax said Yes.

Randy Papa got Dax some spy glasses with blue LED's that help you see in the dark.  He just used them to put his new Air Jordan 9 Fusions away in his room in the dark.  He came back and said "They worked!"  I asked Dax "Who do you need to tell thank you for them?"  Dax said "Randy Papa."  Then he said, "Actually myself because I picked them out."

Although that was funny and clever, he had a little talking to about that so he was corrected. 

After Dax's t-ball game we were walking to get him a Slush Puppy.  We heard some fire trucks taking off from the fire station.  Dax said, "They are probably going to put out a fire, or help a cat out of a tree."  Since you know, that is all fire fighters do.

This was over Memorial Day weekend at Gigi and Opa's house.  He really started to take steps of longer distances while we were there.  These were some of his first steps that he took.

While we were in Jackson, Tennesee at the NAIA Women's Basketball Tournament I was watching Denton and he was having a lot of fun crawling around.  I took this video just in time.

Wow.  Don't know if I've ever been more excited to wake up and realize it's spring break as I was this morning.  After a few busy busy weeks in the Jaggers' household, this week is going to be full of family time (and of course the everyday tasks that I've been putting off the last few weeks).  I did work for just a few hours this morning but then got to come home and spend the rest of the day with my favorite people in the world.  The day was not filled with any major events, just lots of fun with my boys.  We made a trip to Snip-Its to get Dax's hair cut.  He got the infamous faux-hawk again and he is so proud of it.  Denton was quite fascinated with the whole process.  I think he was just relieved it was not him in the chair.  His first hair cut was a few weeks ago and it definitely did not make his "Top 100 Favorite Things To Do in His First Year" list.  From Snip Its, we ran to Target and picked out a little outfit for one of my former students that welcomed her new baby girl to the world today.  Every time I shop for little girl clothes I realize how fortunate our budget is that we have not yet had a girl.  We made our way home and spent a little over an hour playing outside.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day.  We are still trying to acclimate Denton to the grass but have had NO success.  He HATES it - screams as though we are torturing him every time he touches it.  We'll keep trying though.  As I've heard about many other things... no worries - how many 16 year olds do you see who are afraid of the grass?  We're hoping he'll grow out of it! : )  We had a fun family dinner at Chick fil a tonight and then ventured over to Hobby Lobby to look at invites for Denton's first birthday party.  How is he about to be 1? I can hardly believe that on this exact day a year ago, we met little Jag and then Denton made his grand entrance only 10 days later.  No luck with the invites so we'll keep looking tomorrow.  Speaking of tomorrow, we have another fun day on the agenda including spending time with our friends Amber, Emily, and Audree.  It's Denton's first St. Patrick's day so we gotta make it a memorable one.  Tonight after laying both of the boys down, I had a few minutes of quiet to myself (Chad ran to the store to get me some candy).  I just had to stop and give thanks for the incredible blessings in my life - the 3 most unbelievable being Chad, Dax and Denton.  When everything else about this world seems so crazy and out of whack, they are the only 3 things that make perfect sense.  Well, off to catch up on tv shows with Chad.  I'll update again tomorrow and might even have some pictures from our adventures.