All About Jackson

I caught Jackson stealing his brother's cereal when he wasn't looking. This was a rare moment of weakness buying sugar cereal to begin with. It won't happen again for a long time. Especially not with small colorful pieces that stick to the tile... but I digress.

I remember making a poster puzzle of all of the words in Lincoln's vocabulary at 22 months and I feel like I need to try to do something similar for Jackson as he is suddenly saying SO much. Our favorite thing from the past two days is a very distinct "thank you, welcome" He say's "your welcome" before the person he's thanking has a chance!

His favorite tv show is Little House on the Prairie, he calls it "neigh" because there are always horses on. He asks to watch it everyday with his dad. He has no patience for commercials and whines until they are over, "no! neigh, neigh!"

He is all boy and loves cars and trains and such. He can make the kind of boy noises that come naturally to them for driving his cars around... if I tried to make those same sounds you would all make fun of me for sure.

He has just started watching the Letter Factory movie that taught Lincoln all of his letters and walks around saying, "tuh, tuh, tuh." He says that whenever he draws too.

A mama's boy through and through, he follows me wherever I go. No matter where I say I'm going (including to take out the trash or go to the bathroom) he gets really excited and says, "come!" He loves to help me cook and is always saying, "try, try!" He wants to stir and dump ingredients in and things like that. He has a stool that he pushes around the kitchen and finds me wherever I roam, usually he ends up right where I need to be and I have to stand leaning over him to get to what I'm trying to work on.

The games we are playing all of the time right now are duck duck goose and hide and seek. I wish I had a video of Jackson walking around Lincoln and I patting our head SO EXCITED and saying "quack, quack, quack, quack." I usually have to remind him to say "goose" eventually. He calls hide and seek "eek" and loves to hide with Lincoln or myself and loves to count with me (up to three) and say, "come!" when it's time.

Unlike his brother, he loves to wear clothes and shoes. He likes to look at the picture on his shirt and show it to you proudly. He loves to put on a jacket because that means he's going outside. He LOVES socks, and especially footed pajamas, which he calls "ocks."

Jackson is a climber and we are constantly telling him to get down. Do ALL boys do this? It is scary!

He is very giving and always asks for some of whatever he is getting for everyone. When my dad and Jeff were working in the attic recently he kept insisting that they too needed a cheesestick. I finally had to just take them one so that we could move on!

That's a pretty good list of things. Now I'll have a record of some of my favorite things about my little guy.

Lunch Laugh

Lincoln is starting to do a lot more pretending and we are getting such a kick out of it. At lunch yesterday he was eating Dino Nuggets and he started making two of them have a conversation that went something like this:

"I'm a dinosaur"

"Me too"

"Let's be friends"

"ok"

"Want to go to planet ketchup?"

"ok"

As he ate off parts of them he'd look at what was left and give it a new description, a bat or camel or something. It made for a very amusing lunch!

New Callings

Between classes today I ran into one of my seminary teachers. I stopped her to thank her for all she did, knowing now how much of a sacrifice it is and how much work goes into it... little did I know that I would be receiving the same calling two hours later!

We were asked to meet with the bishop today after church and he told us that he had some callings for us. He talked to Jeff first about his, boy scouts, something new for him. He seemed hesitant about talking to me and said, yours isn't really a calling, it is an assignment...

Boy, I've heard that line before....

I couldn't think of anything it might be except Seminary teacher, and lo and behold!

We've done this with Jeff as seminary teacher and I guess it is my turn now. I'm actually really excited about diving into the scriptures and getting to know the youth. I won't have to adjust to the early morning schedule too much since my kids wake me up at 5:30 or 6:00 most days anyway. Jeff will have to get up a little earlier to help out with the kids and develop a morning routine that includes them. I won't start until the beginning of the year, so we have a little bit of preparation time. It will be nice to have an experienced teacher at my side for my many questions that I'm sure to have. I do have a great love for teaching, especially to people that are eager to learn, as I'm told this group is. I'm excited.

6th Anniversary

I have to admit that I forgot our anniversary. I knew it was coming, but it sure snuck up on me that December is already here... I guess that's one of the troubles of having an anniversary on the first of the month! My sweet grandparents sent me an e-mail early in the morning wishing us well and I thought, nah, it can't be December yet? Sure enough, it is. Well, my parents remembered too and called to offer their babysitting services, so we were able to spend a lovely evening together. What did we do on our free evening? Pho for dinner (yum) and a trip to Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. It may sound a little sad, but we enjoyed being able to relax and shop at our leisure.

I'm so grateful to be married to a kind and loving man. He is very patient and giving and would do anything to help a friend. He's a super dad. I'm a lucky woman.