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