It's Fall

So in creating your first blog in a few years, where, or rather, when do you start.  Now or way back when you left off?  I'm choosing to start right in there here and now October 2015.  Fall is so beautiful and there are so many fun activities to share.

 We tried Wales West Pumpkin Patch.  It was a fun day trip for the family.  They each got to choose and decorate a pumpkin with train rides, inflatables, and hay rides sprinkled in as well.  We love taking our wagon on these trips because Paige is so happy in it.  

 This was our second attempt at crazy hair day.  Our first attempt was the WRONG DAY!  I was fearful the boys would be totally upset with me but when they got home and noticed my new haircut they commented on how weird my hair looked.  On the real crazy hair day they got off the bust and upon noticing that I actually curled my hair they asked "did you do crazy hair day too?"  

 Jackson has decided he wants to be an author and has started making comic books at night.  He is a natural motivator because he'll often recruit Sam and other friends to write their own books as well.  This was his first day setting up a stand to sell them in the front yard.  He told me he was a little disappointed his only customers were family, but he was happy to earn $1.15.

Paige and our friends the Emmertsons' son Ryker dressed up for the Trunk or Treat as Pebbles and Bam Bam.  

a homophone

Jackson: Mom, can i go outside in my bare feet?

Griffin (the neighbor): you have bear feet!?!? let me see!

i took a break today.

thanks julie, becca, and britney. awesome!

its kinda weird though

the kramers are a good family friend of ours. i serve in relief society with the mom, kristy. brent serves in elder's quorum with the dad, brad. and jackson was in preschool this year with their daughter hannah. we see a lot of them separately, but apparently, not a lot of them together. this is the story kristy told me when i picked jackson up from her house today.

kristy: jackson, what should i name my daughter? (she's 6 months pregnant)
jackson: i have a name but it's kinda weird though. brad. it's my dad's friend's name.
k: that's hannah's daddy's name. does you're daddy have more than one friend named brad?
J: ??
k: [kristy showed jackson a picture of brad.] is this him?
j: [very obviously amazed] oh my goodness. that's my daddy's friend!!!

A Q and U wedding

So for our preschool group I had the letter Q. yuck! What do you do with the letter Q??? Well, in the elementary school I worked at they had a Q and U wedding. I mentioned it to the kids and they were excited but when I thought more about it I didn't want to do it. Like a week later Hannah told her mom that "she still didn't get to marry jackson." I felt bad so we did it. They got into it more than I realized. I mean, the wedding part, I don't think anything about the letter Q stuck.

unfortunately for jackson he is the only boy in his preschool so he had to marry all three girls. he was pretty over it by his 3rd wedding but i made him do it anyway so he wouldn't let the girls down. I did feel bad for him though.

Then we made a wedding cake, complete with buzz and jesse on top--a detail which i loved.

So I wouldn't do it again. They actually got into it more than I imagined. I came downstairs and jackson had kissed one of the girls. It was innocent and his explanation was of course that they were married but I think it might have upset a girls mom. so i'm not recommending this activity but i couldn't not post it.

They got to play in the rain but all Sam got was a bath

doesn't he look like he's pouting?

preparing for the real thing...

Three days a week I've started watching one of Jackson's friends from nursery Iris. She's about 6 months younger than Jackson which I didn't think Jackson would even notice a difference. He does though and it has given me glimpses of the type of big brother he will be. It's funny to see my characteristics/behavior in how he treats her. Now imagine this in a high imitating mommy type of voice, here are some of my favorites..."Honey, you want some juice." "Are you drinking juice? say yeah. say yeah." "Who am I? I'm Jackson. say Jackson." (when she picked up the remote control) "that's not for you Iris." "that's not safe Iris." He'll pick out books to show her and teach her how to... well jump on the bed or play red light/green light (a new favorite since our fhe on obedience.)

I know its not exactly the same but it's an idea of maybe how things will go and it makes me more excited. I'm grateful to see the patience and kindness he has shown her. I think, really I do, he'll be a great older brother.

Go to the Tennessee Aquarium

I know these pictures don't do it justice. But seriously, you should go. It was a million times cooler than I thought it would be.Oh yeah, I touched those! and fed them shrimp.

You know how you go to the zoo and everything just sits there. The aquarium is not like that. Those penguins were constantly diving and racing and swimming. Way fun to watch.

They were laying down looking up at the aquarium.

It is so fun b/c they have several volunteers sitting around at random points to tell you neat interesting details. We loved it! It was gorgeous inside and out!

Playtime

Jackson's friend Connor came over to play this week (and my friend Emily with their new baby Anne). So the boys are kinda half play and half fighting over toys but its still fun to get together. These two riding toys they kept on switching. I guess the grass is just always greener!
Sweet little babies make me so baby hungry!

More Tennessee Pictures!

So this is a little bit of what we've been doing since we've been home. Cheri Ebbert, Becca Mccombs and I took a day in Gatlinburg while the husbands took the kids! yeah for us! Jackson's just been hanging 0ut in a box.

He seems to have skipped the crawling face and just went straight to jumping across the room! I think its because of the new shoes I bought him.

Wizard of Oz Party

I think it was last weekend we went to a little girl's Wizard of Oz birthday party. John and Becca Mccombs' daughter Ally turned three and she's obsessed with the Wizard of Oz. Of course she was Dorothy. We were all supposed to dress up, and I dare say, only after Dorothy herself, our little tinman was the cutest. Here is our Oz family. Brent was the scarecrow, I was Auntie Em, and Jackson was the tinman.
Here's the whole party. Go ahead and try to find a cuter costume than Jackson's (not including Dorothy.) Ally actually has beautiful blond curls, I don't know where they found the wig but her Grandma made the dress.

I found it!

Well.... after a long wait.... I finally found my camera! Yes, my lack of posts was due to the fact that I had misplaced my camera. it will never happen again. My apologies.

So our friend becca gave us a baby gift about a week or two ago and it has proved to be like our favorite thing. It's this adorable little elephant mini-blanket thing. I lay it on top of him and he just grabs it and moves it around. He still is grabbing toys but because it's so soft he loves it. I admit, as the parent, I choose what his favorite toys are because I give him what I like the most but yesterday I learned his devotion to this new item. I put him down for a nap and he was not happy about that. After a couple of minutes of crying I gave him his elephant and a pacifier and he calmed down and went right to sleep. It was so cute! We just thought his alph-alpha look was too cute. I promise I didn't do that on purpose. How pathetic are we as parents though. He was smiling so much we tried to get a picture of his too cute, puckered lip frown!
Dad came home jammin' with the ipod and felt the need to share with Jackson. It really was cute!

I decided that he was spitting up too much and I told him I was sick of cleaning him up and constantly wiping his mouth. We both agreed he needed to take care of his own mouth so he is now wiping his mouth like a well-mannered boy should!
We had lots of friends over for dinner the other night. Years ago, before missions and such, we all used to hang out as YSA. We had the mccombs, dixons and quayles over for supper and it was so fun to catch up. We had one 3-year old, 2 babies and one baby on the way. It was super fun and we almost all had a blast. Poor Daniel, the only cool guy of the bunch, was bored by the nerd ramblings of other guys. We girls played rook and planned eryn's baby shower. Daniel played for jackson who was totally intrigued by the guitar.
Mark and Desi with Emma (the mccombs' baby) Becca and Eryn admire Ally's twirlability

Sweet Home Alabama

Jackson made his first trip down to Alabama this weekend!! Yeah! Mama loves showing him off. We were able to leave Thursday night because Brent's classes were canceled for Good Friday. We made it the whole way down without stopping for Jackson to eat which I was happy about. We have such a strong guy.

Here is Jackson with g'ma and uncle lance. Doesn't Lance look great! He volunteered to baby-sit for us Friday night but we were all too exhausted to leave. I took this picture because I thought it was so cute with the two grandparents and baby but wait.... I think Dad's watching TV!

Three of "my" young women now have babies. This is Sherry (Largin) Lake, with her baby "Deuce", Mary (Jones) Lagrone with Drew and me. Now we know we have others that will be trailing us sooner rather than later and we can't wait to add more to this picture!!
Now once Jackson got Dad's attention by crying dad was great to pick him up and sing his two favorite songs, "Take me out to the ballgame" and "Yeah Alabama" which both worked like a charm. I've even used them several times since we got home.
All in all the trip was fantastic. I'll load another picture of two of when we stopped by great-grandpa's house on the way up.