Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I am a little sad that Christmas is over already. Even though I can get harried and stressed right before the holidays I am always a little sad when it's over. We had a wonderful Christmas with Grammy Karen and Al. Jackson was SO very excited about Christmas and the look on his face when he opened his gifts was priceless! He would get so very excited and would say "Thank you, thank you, thank you" after each one. He kept telling everyone "Merry Christmas!!!" including Falkor, Finn and Cadbury. So cute. It is such a special gift to be able to share my love of Christmas with Jackson. I hope we are creating special memories that he will cherish always.

Jackson update finally!

Wow I have been a bad Mom and haven't updated in forever!

We had our first real snow a few weeks ago and Jackson and I had fun playing in the snow. Last year Jackson wasn't crazy about being outside in the snow but he seems to love it now. In fact, it took me a while to get him back in the house. Jackson "helped" shovel the snow with his mini rake and we built a snowman. This was Jacksons first official snowman. He was devastated when it melted later on in the day. :(

Jackson is SO excited for Christmas and loves looking at Christmas lights and decorations. We have a tradition of driving around and looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. I know Jackson will be thrilled! It is so much fun that Jackson is so into Christmas this year. I love everything about Christmas and I'm so excited to share the magic with Jackson.

Jackson been using his imagination so much lately. He is really into "hatching baby chicks" right now and sleeping with baby horsies at night. When I go to get him in the morning he'll tell me that he has a baby horsey on his pillow and then carefully hands it to me. He is also pretending out loud a lot when he plays by himself, which is so dang cute. He's still obsessed with trains and will talk to Sir Topham Hat and all the other trains when he plays Thomas.

And a miracle happened last night when Jackson told me for the first time ever that it was bedtime while I was reading him a story. I know that isn't really a big deal but Jackson had been doing that with Mark for a looong time now and had NEVER done it for me until last night. Before last night I was always the one that had to say "ok bedtime now" which would of course start the "please more stories" pleading. I couldn't believe he actually told me he wanted to go to sleep!!! Woo-Hoo!! My little guy is growing up! :)

Lovin' Fall!

Fall is my favorite time of the year and I think Jackson has really been enjoying this fall as well. He loves looking at all the Halloween decorations and seeing pumpkins everywhere. He recently discovered the joy of running around and crunching leaves. I LOVE the sound of leaves crunching and have many fond memories of it from when I was little. I am sad that fall is almost over already!

Here are some pics of Jackson enjoying the leaves in our front yard.

Christmas Comes Early...otherwise known as...What happens when Momma is away

I went to an all day scrapbook event this past Saturday and about 2 hours in I received an odd message on my phone. It was a photo from Mark's phone...the first one he has ever sent me. I couldn't tell exactly what it was at first and then I figured out that it was a picture of a HUGE train table box in the back of our car. Mark took Jackson to Toys R Us and got him the Imaginarium Train Table. We had planned to get it for him for Christmas since he is completely in love with train tables right now and it's something he can grow with. Needless to say Jackson was in shock when they bought it and Mark took these hilarious pictures when they got home. I'm actually glad Mark bought it when I was gone because the thing took nearly 4 hours to put together!!!

Ummmm.....excited much??!!!

"Shake and Bake!!!!"

Halloween with Jackson has been really interesting. Like I mentioned before he LOVES everything about Halloween, and I know he's going to be so sad when the pumpkins and decorations come down. The costume part however was a different story.

Iowa does Trick or Treating the night before Halloween....I know, it's dumb....so on Thursday we started to get read to TorT around 6:30. I asked Jackson if he wanted to wear the puppy costume for Halloween and he said "No thanks Momma". I tried to talk it up but he wasn't going to budge. So Grammy Karen had given him a race car driver jumpsuit a few months back and I decided to ask him if he wanted to be a race car driver and he was excited about it.

So we got him ready and headed out to TorT. He LOOOVED seeing all the costumes, decorations and pumpkins but did NOT want to go up to the houses. I tried to explain to him that we go up and get treats but wanted nothing to do with that. I told Mark that Jackson simply couldn't be my son since he was turning down FREE CHOCOLATE!!!!. We went to a total of about 4 hours, including one of his buddies' houses, and got about 6 pieces of candy. TOTALLY WEAK! LOL I know I was the only one disappointed because Jackson could not have cared less about the treats, which is ODD for him. Last year he went door to door with no problem. It will be interesting to see how it goes next year.

We told everyone that Jackson was Ricky Bobby from "Talladega Nights". We got lots of laughs from that. Although Jackson would say "No I'm Jackson Hogge" every time we'd say he was Ricky Bobby. :)

Our weak Halloween loot. Boooo!

"Shake and Bake!!!"

"I like to go fast!"

Costume Attempt #1

Jackson has been SO excited about Halloween for over a month now. He told me in September that he wanted to be "The King" from the Disney Cars movie so I started brainstorming a costume. I began work on it and wanted him to try on the base of it to get an idea on how it was fitting. Well Jackson REFUSED to wear it. It's a good thing I didn't make the entire costume before I found that out. So we visited some costume stores and nothing was grabbing his attention. We had a Halloween playdate with our little group and he needed a costume so I found a cute puppy one. Nice, easy to put on, soft...you get the idea. So I show it to him and loves it...until he had to actually wear it. He wore it at our playdate for all of 2 minutes. I didn't even get one picture of him in it!!

So this past weekend we had a Halloween celebration with trick or treating and kid activities at West Glen and we took Jackson. He would wear the costume this time but would NOT wear the hood part or let me put a nose or whiskers on him with makeup. So you could not tell what he was even supposed to be. LOL Yeah he definitely has a mind of his own. So I got exactly ONE picture before the hood came off for good. We'll see how Trick or Treating goes tomorrow!!

Learning to ride a bike!!

We got Jackson an awesome trike for his 2nd birthday but he really just liked to scoot around on it or have us push him with the handle on the back. When Grammy Cola was here we started working with him to teach him to actually ride it and he did awesome!! It was so much fun actually watching him ride.

Grammy Cola got Jackson a Camelbak and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. It will be perfect for when we got on our long walks and hikes in the woods.

And while we are on the subject of "wheels" Mark told Jackson that when he is 16 that he can get a Jeep. Umm yeah quess what Jackson keeping talking about non stop now. He also tells me when I am 16 I can drive too. ;) What Jackson doesn't know is that Poppa really wants a Jeep. That's ok because I've got Jackson talked into wanting a pink one!

More pics from Grammy Cola's trip

Here are a few more pics that we took while Grammy Cola was here. I am so very happy to have more pics with Jackson too!


Muggin' for the camera!

Lunch at McD's

Momma and Jackson man

Pumpkin Patch

We visited the Howell Pumpkin Patch on a GORGEOUS Saturday afternoon. I think half of Des Moines was out there too. :) We visited the same pumpkin patch last year so it was fun to see Jackson's reactions this year. He LOVES pumpkins so to say he was excited would be an understatement. Jackson rode the little tractors, fed the goats, ran in the corn maze, and begged to ride the on the hayride but the line was a million miles long. He was thrilled to pick out his very own pumpkin!

Grammy Cola Visits!!

Grammy Cola surprised us with a visit last week!! It was a wonderful surprise, especially since we haven't seen her since our visit to Utah last September. She was just dying to see Jackson and we are so happy she was able to come out and stay with us for a while.

Jackson had big fun with his Grammy. It was a real treat to watch them together. We did loads of fun family activities including visiting the zoo and the pumpkin patch. Grammy Cola took nearly 400 pics so I have lots to post. LOL

Here are some pics from the zoo.

Marky, Grammy and Jackson

Marky and Grammy feeding the adorable goats.

A pic of Momma and Poppa. (A very RARE thing!!)

Grammy and Poppa

Future Fireman?

When I found out that our MOPS group was going to be doing a tour of our local Fire Station I could barely wait to tell Jackson. He is beyond obsessed with anything with wheels, including firetrucks of course, so I knew he would totally dig the fire station. I didn't tell him about it until the day before because I knew he would be too excited and ask me about it every 10 seconds. When I finally told him you should have seen the HUGE smile on his face. He just couldn't wait!

When we arrived at the station they had just been called to a fire so we had to wait for them to get back. It was VERY hard for Jackson to wait just outside the station when he could see the fire trucks inside! Once the our began Jackson started naming all the parts of the truck thanks to a firetruck book from the library. The firemen at the station were quite impressed. At the end of the tour one of the fireman let Jackson sit on the truck so I could snap a pic and gave Jackson his fireman hat but it was too heavy for Jackson to hold. The firemen asked Jackson if he was going to be a fire fighter when he grew up and Jackson told them "Yes!". As we were leaving the firemen told Jackson that they would see him in 15 years. :)

Detroit Zoo Pics

I have loads of pics of myself at various ages in front of the big bear fountain at the Detroit Zoo so of course we needed to get some shots of Jackson.

I have many wonderful memories of the visiting the Detroit Zoo as a kid and I was so excited to be able to take Jackson there when we were in Michigan. He of course had a blast and flipped out when he saw the train. The train ride there is much longer than the train ride at our little zoo and Jackson loved every minute. Here is a pic of us on the train together.

John Deere Dreams

Jackson adores anything with wheels and totally flips out when he can get up and close to any vehicle. At The Learning Farm Jackson was able to see some John Deere tractors. He just loved it.

Jackson's Michigan Adventure

We just got back from a two week vacation in Michigan to visit family and friends. It was an amazingly long 12 hour drive but Jackson did AMAZING! We had so much fun in Michigan. Jackson loved the enormous Detroit Zoo, the Macomb Library with a Thomas Train table, the Learning Farm, and the way fun George Park.

Of course I look a million pics.

Jackson at The Learning Farm

Garage Sale Treasures

Garage Sale-ing (yes that is the official term) is a bit of a family tradition. I have many memories of going to garage sales with my Mom when I was little. And I can vividly remember when we would find some amazing Barbie deal or new stuffed animal to add to the enormous collection.

Well Jackson is learning about the beauty of garage sales as well. We hit a few on Friday and we found a dump truck, a digger, and a tow truck for under $2.00! Jackson couldn't have been more excited and kept saying on the way home, "Momma I LOOOVE my new trucks, thank you SO much". Way too cute. Here is a picture of Jackson with his new treasures. The tradition lives on!

Jackson's Perfcet Day...at a Dealership??

Last week Mark, Jackson and I went to the Dodge dealership to look at cars since our lease is going to be up soon. Jackson was just beyond himself! He was simply beyond thrilled. He oohhhed and ahhhhed over each car in the showroom and would squeal "OHHH Momma this one is MY favorite!". The car salesman got a kick out of him.
So the next day Jackson pleads for me to take him to the "car store" allll day long. We ended up going to the Hummer Dealership and walked around outside to look at all the Hummers. Jackson was in heaven!
So if you want to make Jackson's day just take him a car dealership!

Summer Smiles

Jackson just LOVES to be outside nearly every minute of the day. I have no idea what we are going to do this winter. He loves finding bugs and picking flowers and just playing in the dirt.

A Boy and His Dog

A few weeks before we lost our dear Hexi we added another furbaby to our family. We brought Falkor home on July 19th and he and Jackson are already best buds. We told Jackson about Falkor for weeks before we even brought him home and every day Jackson would ask "See Falkor today??". Now the first thing Jackson asks for every morning is Falkor.

Jackson loves to tell Falkor all about his toys and show him his trucks and Falkor is happy to listen. They really are too cute together. I snapped this pic of them digging together in the yard. Yeah I'm gonna have my hands full with these two. I

t's going to be so much fun watching them grow up together, especially since Falkor is a Great Dane and will top out somewhere near 170lbs. :)

Very Sad Time for Us

This has been a very sad week for our family. On Monday we had to let our sweet Hexi girl go. We found out VERY suddenly (on Monday) that she had advanced cancer and didn't have long to live. We decided to let her go peacefully and not watch her rapidly decline before our eyes. Here is a little tribute I wrote for my Hexi girl. I want to write something longer and more detailed but it's just too hard right now.

My sweet Hexi girl....I remember seeing you for the first time as a little black ball of fur sitting so quietly under a piano bench while your brothers raced around the living room like crazies. "Oh" I thought "What a nice, calm, quiet pup". Yeah the joke was on us. I didn't know anything about picking out a puppy when we found you, but I know now that we were meant to be together. I took you EVERYWHERE with me when you were a pup, including the vet clinic that I worked at in Utah. You were my constant shadow and always game for anything I had in mind.

We dubbed you Hell on Wheels Hexi because you rarely stopped moving and your boundless energy was shocking sometimes. Your free spirit and zest for life will always inspire me to appreciate every day.

You were wary of strangers from day one but once you made friends with someone you were completely devoted to them. I was concerned about your reaction to Jackson when he was born, since you were not fond of most children, but from the minute we brought him home you became his second Mom and doted over him almost as much as I did. We used to joke that Jackson could play anywhere as long as Hexi was there because she would have ate anyone that came too close.

You were with us for our 5 moves to 4 different states in 6 years and you always adjusted so easily. Always ready for the next adventure. You loved to wear the costumes I made for you and I will cherish the video I have of you in your frog dog costume when we were on the local news in Ohio.

I learned SO much about being a good pet Mom from you and I will never forget those important lessons. I feel so lucky to have had you for the time that I did although no amount of time would have ever been enough. It is such a shock to have lost you with such little warning, but I know I could not have dealt with watching you slowly decline either. Thank you so much for everything sweet girl. You will always be close to my heart. Rest well Hexi Wexi

Swingin and Splashing...

We went to one of Jackson's very favorite places last week...the splash park! It's an awesome park with a good sized wading pool with fountains of water here and there. There are also 2 very nice playgrounds to enjoy. It was busy because it was a hot day and Jackson was upset that someone had brought a dump truck that he couldn't play with but we still had a good time. And Momma is happy because she doesn't have to wear a bathing suit in the shallow water. :)