i took a break today.

thanks julie, becca, and britney. awesome!

happy mothers day to me!

We had Sunday dinner over at our house for Mother's day. We were watching the Modern Family Mother's day episode when I could hear water and bowls in the kitchen. hmmm.... "Jackson, what are ya doin' sweetie?" "I'm making your Mother's day thing. It's a surprise. Don't come in here." Brent went in to assist with his masterpiece. When I was called in this is what awaited me. A bowl of water with peas, vienna sausages, some sugar, chocolate chips, pecans, and a strawberry (which jackson tasted before he put it in to make sure it was good.)
"Don't you want to taste it mom? I wish I could have some. It looks so yummy."
Then he came at sat on the couch with me and told me he made it for me because he loved me so much and he wanted me to know that.

Even a week later he'll still randomly say "remember that thing i made for you on mother's day? it was so yummy. i wish we still had some more of it."

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!!!

chattanooga

i was so happy that brent was able to go and serve in the clean-up in chattanooga. it was really hard on jackson though because it seems like he's been really busy on the last few weekends. when we were talking about what he'd be doing this is what he said.

jackson: i wish i could go with daddy and help the people.
mom: wow jackson i'm so happy that you want to help other people. thats so good!
j: [sounding very annoyed] you're happy that i'm sad. thats not very nice.

so what did brent do in chattanooga?

you can't tell in the video but that was a cicada that he ate. even in a group of men, brent will still out gross them all. he told me, "i can never turn down an eating contest." he also out ate all of the youth group at cici's this year. it was something like 20 pieces of pizza and 20 cinnamon rolls. needless to say, i am so proud.

if you needed an image to add to the grossness of it this is a picture of a tree covered in cicadas.

do you want to see sam?

i posted something like this yesterday along with other posts to be scheduled out but they were all deleted. did y'all have any problems with blogger recently?

this is sam. sweet. happy. cheerful. sam. he spends his days playing with balls. careful though, he will throw them. he is mostly walking these days. he started saying "uh oh" which he says in the cutest little way. his "oh" sounds like either a canadian or minnesota accent (i get them confused but its cute.) he loves to feel a part of things. when jackson and i were watching tangled last week sam would loudly laugh whenever we did. he loves to be thrown backwards. when you hold him, you must hold on tight because he will throw himself backwards so that you'll dangle him upside down. very nerve wracking.

my hometown of tuscaloosa

i'm thankful that my family is safe and my thoughts and prayers go out to those less fortunate. it hurts to look at. i don't know what to say.

sometimes life is frustrating.

sometimes i feel inadequate and way behind the learning curve. (in this example of trying to make sugar cookies.)sometimes we feel like nobody is listening. or helping. or leaving us alone.
sometimes we feel trapped. like the world is coming down on us. like everybody can see that we're backwards except us. like we've been abandoned.