Hieroglyphics

Jackson has become very creative lately. He loves to draw and loves to color and can't get enough of it. Whenever he can, he draws his family. I love it and my fridge is covered. The other day he started exploring a new art form with bendaroos on the wall. If only my legs were really that long. (The square thing is a box. He just wanted twist bendaroos around and stick them in a box shape.)

I'm pretty sure Hayden took this picture, but it was right after Jackson had finished his creation and he was pretty proud of himself. Finally there are some decorations on the wall in the playroom.

Easter

Easter: The boys love dyeing Easter eggs. They talked about dyeing them for days and days!Their most favorite eggs got their own holders in the fridge so the Easter Bunny could see them better. Needless to say, all of these are now cracked - too much love. Ty said, "Who would have thought these cute little egg faces would make our fridge smell like one giant sulfur fart? It's disgusting." (We took all the eggs to Grandma Baughs and "accidentally" left them there.Jackson woke us up at 6:30 in the morning to see what the Easter Bunny brought Hopefully he wasn't disappointed. We kept telling him it's Easter, not Christmas. The boys loved their bubble gum machines. Guess what? ALL of their gum is already gone, but their candy is literally untouched. So weird. And Hayden has to be just like Dad. Above - Tyler hiding. Below: Hayden and Tyler hiding. Tyler is patting Hayden saying, "Good job." No - not good job.We went out in the boy's Easter shirts from Grandma Jones to try to find some evidence of spring in this gloomy weather. They boys loved the blossoms from the trees. Thanks for the shirts Grandma! Happy Easter!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Thanks for the shirts Grandma Jones! The boys had a great day. Jackson and Hayden had a lot of fun at school and told me all about their encounters with leprechauns. Hayden had a treasure hunt and at the end found gold and treats, and Jackson's class was ransacked by Larry the Leprechaun. He even brought home a leprechaun catching kit. Good thing they had fun celebrating at school, because I did nothing festive, except I put them in their shirts and took pictures. That's about all I can handle.

Jackson and I ended the day by going to his school mother-son activity with Bobber the clown. He loved the clown and thought it was an awesome show. I love how entertaining Jackson is when he's excited. Happy St. Patricks' Day!

Where to Begin?

I have so many things I want to blog about that I don't know where to begin. I'm overwhelmed, and when I'm overwhelmed I retreat. I finally downloaded my pictures from before Christmas until today and since I have so many events that I wanted to post pictures of such as: Hayden's Birthday, taking the boys to the delta center to watch BYU, seeing the lights at Temple Square, Christmas, New Years, Jackson's Birthday, (you get the idea) I decided to post about a reoccurring theme in pictures from most of these aforementioned events.

Jackson has learned how to cross his eyes.

He first learned to do this by following his finger around until it touched his nose, so now he touches his nose all the time and crosses his eyes, while Hayden touches his nose while thinking he's crossing his eyes but he's really just giving us a dull vacant stare. I really hope it's just an old wives tale that if you cross your eyes too much they'll get stuck that way because Jackson likes to cross them - all the time. He can even keep one eye crossed while moving the other one, which now that I think about it, might not be that hard, but I was really impressed the other day. I think he's exercised his eye muscles to the point of getting his eyeballs in really good shape.

Jackson

is 6. 6! Holy cow, and what a six year old he has become. I remember when Tyler's parents left to be mission presidents and his mom said that when she gets done Jackson will be 6. I thought that was horrible and terrible and he'd be so big and so grown up. But it's not terrible or awful. He's just as he should be and I still think he's nice and little. Here are some things I don't want to forget about Jackson as he is right now.

*He loves kindergarten and he loves the days when he has "centers." Whatever that means exactly. He loves his teacher Mrs. Burk. Loves loves loves her.

*He can seriously read books! It's crazy and he's so good at sounding out the words.

*He still can't say his R's. I should probably work on that, but it still sounds so cute.

*He loves to color and it a perfectionist about it. So much so that in his evaluation his teacher sent home today she said that they are working on finishing things on time. He's not distracted, just intensly focused and takes his sweet little time.

*He's pretty stubborn, and would rather play alone at recess than play something with the other kids that he doesn't want to play, which I'm proud of. It means he's not a little duckling like I was.

*He's obsessed with Star Wars. The movies yes, but mostly playing Lego star wars. Obsessed obsessed obsessed. He tells me things about the game and he's so excited about what he has found that there is no controlling or containing his enthusiasm. It's infectious - even if it is about a star wars game. As is his enthusiasm about anything. If Jackson likes something you're going to know about it, ALL about it. I love it.

*He still likes transformers and has so many. Right now he plays with a 5 pack power core. You put 5 different pieces together to make one guy. When he talks about it he always says, "My 5 pack" and the way he says it makes me laugh. I could listen to it all the time. Good thing he tells me about it every day.

*He is exceptionally skilled at spinning his light saber around. Before we got him one that makes sounds he would make them all on his own. I could hear, "Hmm mmm mm pchouuuuu" all the time. He stands like a Jedi and fights using moves from Star Wars. He's totally intense when he's doing it too, but it kind of reminds me of the mid evil club at BYU and I secretly pray he won't ever be interested in something like that.

*So far he is so great at practicing the piano. He gets excited about his piano lessons every week. I don't know what I did to deserve this and I'm scared at the retribution I might receive someday for how I acted when it was time for me to practice. eeek.

*He loves to play with his little brother. They fight occasionally, but usually he is his protector and they're best friends.

*When Jackson is playing Lego Star Wars he sets up a chair for Hayden to sit right beside him. He doesn't want Hayden to join in the game, but since there are multiple characters on your team at all times, he tells Hayden which one he is and keeps him informed of everything his character can do and how helpful he is to Jackson, and somehow this keeps Hayden entertained. Hayden will sit next to him for way longer than he should just listening to Jackson and watching the game.

*He keeps me on track. In the morning I kind of verbally list everything we need to do for the day, or what he needs to do in order to get ready. This is for me to remember what they heck I'm doing and to kind of organize my brain, and then mostly for Jackson so he has some structure. He'll repeat back the days activities to me and reminds me if I forget something or do something out of order. "K Mom, first, I need to brush my teeth, and THEN I'll get my pants our of the dryer and pick out a shirt, and THEN I'll find my socks and put on my shoes an THEN we'll eat lunch go to school." I wish I could describe the hand motions and facial expressions that go along with this. It's really cute.

Thank you Jackson for being so awesome. You have so much personality that I can't even begin to capture in words. Mommy loves you. Thanks for always being my good boy.

Cranky Pants

The other day the boys were fighting so I sent them to seperate rooms. Jackson wanted privacy and didn't want anyone to see him. He informed me he was making a sign and taping it to his door. This is what I found on his door:

Yep, that'll keep Hayden out - and me laughing.

My Hay Hay

My baby is 4. I say this every year, but seriously, how did this happen? It's going way too fast.

Here are some things that I never want to forget about Hayden at 4 years old.

* He loves loves loves babies. Loves them. Whenever he sees a baby he wants to say hi to it, or hold it, or take care of it. Ty took a bunch of stuffed animals out of the garage last week and he has adopted the baby chicks (that Ty gave me for Easter) as his "babies."

* Everything is funny. He wants to giggle at everything and when he really giggles it's hysterical. I love his laugh. All he wants to do is have fun and when things are not happy and fun, he gets slightly devastated.

* When he gets slightly devastated he flops on the floor. I mean flops, straight down, no bracing himself for a fall. He's standing straight up and then 1/4 of a second later he's on the floor by literally discontinuing the use of all muscles. Don't try to pick him up in this situation because he goes completely limp. It's a really fun game to play in the store. frrrmp. I give him a sticker if he doesn't flop when I say "no."

* He is my sweetie and at night before he goes to bed he has to give me, "First, a huggie, and first a kissie, and first a zerbert." He's very good at zerberts, or raspberries, whatever people call them. I'll be sad when he doesn't want to give them to me anymore.

*He loves star wars movies and books and "podracing" with his brother.

*He gets up every night in the middle of the night to go potty - which I love, because his brother, well, ya.

*He sneaks into our room in the middle of the night. He has the ability to crawl in our bed like Houdini and then pets daddy's arm, or head, or cheek until we respond and "snuggle".
*He's so funny and says the funniest things, but he doesn't want to be laughed at.

*He stomps his feet like no body's business. Sorry people below us. He does it because we tell him not to.

*He has the sweetest little voice. It's just sweet and when he talks sometimes he even seems innocent. Just right now he came in my room with his little high pitched sweet little "Mommmmmy?" (Ok it's not cute right now because it's 3 hours after his bedtime, but later I'll look back and say, "Ahhhhh," his voice was so cute.

*His favorite songs are Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift and Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Mis. I'm serious. The Les Mis one especially. I had my Les Mis cd in the car once (because I'm a sucker for show tunes, OK? I love musicals and I can't help it) and he heard it and now when we get in the car he says, "Mom, can I hear MY song?" (Jackson loves it too and they belt it in the back seat of the car. I should record it.) This is what I hear coming from the back seat:

They like to yell certain parts at the top of their lungs.

(Chorus)
Can you hear the People SING?
Singing the song of angry MEN!
It is the music of a PEOPLE who will NOT be slaves AGAIN!
When the beating of your HEART echoes the beating of the DRUMS
There is a life about to start when TOMORROW COMES!

Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with MEEEEEE?
Beyong THE BARRICADE is there a world you long to SEE?
Then join in the FIGHT that will give you the RIGHT to be FREEEEEEEEEE.

(repeat chorus)

Will you give all you can give so that our hmm hmm hmmhmm VANCE
Some will FALL and Some will LIVE will you stand up and take your CHANCE
The BLOOD of the hmm hmm will water the meadows of FRANCE!

(repeat chorus)

Happy Birthday Hayden! We LOVE you! Now stop growing. Thanks.

Happy Halloween

Let's just pretend that Halloween was, like, yesterday.

Before it got cold, I took the boys to the lake to let them throw rocks. They could do this for hours and hours. I wanted to relax so I thought I would take them up and they would throw rocks and I would read and it would be so nice.

It started out fine. The boys were throwing rocks and it was all peaceful in the mountains.

Here Jackson is picking out his perfect rock. I should have known by the look on his face that he was going to do something that would cause me a lot of work. You think he's giving me a sweet and innocent smile, but no.

I was enjoying my camera and watching about 15 ducks swimming together when I hear shrieks of laughter and then this is happening. Do you see the mud flying through the air? This one is my favorite because it's right before a huge splat of mud is going to hit Jackson in the face. I just sat there for a while letting them throw mud and laugh. Finally I got up to take a picture of the final product before they were going to get stripped down and dunked in the lake.

Ew. Luckily I did bring a change of clothes, but I forgot towels for "just in case". They were so happy and thought it was so funny. The I stripped them down and they seriously got dunked in the lake to get all the mud out of their face and hair. That part wasn't fun, but they did think it was hilarious running around naked for a little bit and then getting warm inside the blanket. The lake was so cold that they learned their lesson and after I changed their clothes they didn't throw any more mud, onlyrocks. It helped that we moved to a place with only rocks, and no mud. Guess how many pages I read the whole time I was up there? 16. So not relaxing for me, but what can you do? At least they were happy.

Hee Haws

Holy Crap this week has flown by. I have been so busy I haven't watched any TV. I don't even know who got kicked off of dancing with the stars and that was on Monday and if you know anything about how much I love my TV, and how much I love to catch up on my shows until 2 in the morning, this will give you an idea of how crazy things have been. Not to mention the fact that I have been without my camera for weeks. Did you know that your memory card can lock? When it's locked you can't take or delete any pictures. And did you know that all you have to do is push a little white thing on the side of your memory card up or down to unlock it? If I would have known this I would have had beautiful fantastic picture memories of going to cascade springs with my boys, who love it there. It was beautiful and the weather was perfect and the boys saw fish and little waterfalls and climbed over the bridges. Stupid memory card.

Anyway, last week was not crazy. It was fun. We started off with our annual trip to Hee Haws and I actually had my camera for about 10 minutes after I unlocked the memory card, but then the battery died.

The boys love it there, and this includes Tyler. They love getting dirty and playing in the courtyard and most of all visiting Leroy the pig. Guess what? Leroy died. He wasn't there. Luckily there is a new pig paving the way to extreme pig obesity.

The best part of the whole thing was feeding the little animals they had there. There was a petting zoo type pen and it was funny. There were goats walking around who literally climbed on me for food. There were rabbits that Jackson and Hayden got to hold. We fed baby piggies (I love them so much - I really do) and Jackson and Hayden loved the baby ducklings and they actually let the boys hold them. They'd kick their feet a little when you picked them up, but they let you pick them up and didn't run away.

Ty's favorite animal to feed there ( you can't feed the big pig) was the donkey. He loves that thing. When Ty would walk away with food still in his hand the donkey would kick the fence with it's front leg over and over until he came back. They totally bonded. They're kindred spirits. If he were reincarnated he would be a donkey. I tried to find him a donkey costume for halloween, but I haven't found one. He has said that is a costume he would actually wear. Anyone have donkey ears and a tail?