This past week we spent some time in Sun Valley Idaho with Paul’s family. It was such a wonderful vacation. This is where Paul’s family grew up vacationing, but we haven’t been able to go for the past 9 years, and last year we decided to make it happen for sure. We had such a fabulous time! We spent our days bike riding, swimming, ice skating, playing games, golfing and hanging out in town. The kids had such a good time. We have decided we need to try to go every year if we can. Here are quite a few pictures from our vacation.
All of us getting ready to ride the chair lift up Baldy Mountain
Riding the chair lift up the mountain
At the top of the mountain
Ice Skating with Dad
With Dad
It is exhausting teaching 2 kids to ice skate!!!!
Paul, Karen and I went to the Sun Valley Ice Show. The star of the night was Evan Lysacek. He is the current World Champion. The show was awesome!
Swimming. That pool was 90 degrees. It was so nice!
Well I knew it had to happen. Especially since it has to happen to all moms. Today marked the first day of Kindergarten for Jackson! I can’t believe this day is here. I feel like it was just yesterday that the Dr. was placing that little 6 pound 5 oz baby in my arms, and now he goes to the big kid school. He has been so excited for the past few weeks to start Kindergarten. We really enjoyed meeting his teacher last week, and that got Jackson even more excited for school. So bright and early this morning I took Jackson to school. After staying with him for the first 30 min of class, and helping him get oriented with his class, it was time for me to leave. It was easier than I thought, but I was still a little emotional. That school just seems so big! Poor Eli though, the whole morning all he said was, ” Where is Jack? Can we go get him?” He sure missed his brother, but I think he will get over that pretty soon. When Eli and I picked up Jackson, Jackson ran to the car and said, “I love school mom!!”
I am so excited for Jackson to begin this new phase in his life!
Right before leaving for school (love the pose, silly boy)
Jackson with his friends that are actually in his class!
Jackson all settled into his seat. Smiling at me as I am getting ready to leave. I think he likes school!
My sister in law and I have a weekly date with the kids to go swimming in Paul’s cousin’s pool. It has been so much fun. All 4 of the kids are little fish and I love that they get to spend time together as cousins. It also has been good in allowing us to teach the kids to swim. They are constantly bugging us to take off their water wings and practice swimming. Well after about 6 weeks I am happy to say that Jackson was able to jump off of the diving board and swim to the side of the pool all by himself! Paul and I sure were proud of him, but not as proud as he was of himself. I am thinking next summer he should be ready to swim without the wings. Eli is actually get the technique down really well of swimming also. I sure have loved the time I have been able to spend with the boys swimming. These are memories I am sure I will always remember!
These past week Jackson had his 4th outpatient surgery. He had to get his tonsils taken out. About a year and a half ago, Jackson got tubes put in his ears and his adenoids taken out and after that happened he started to snore really loud at night. So loud at night that it would wake me up. The snoring has gotten worse over the past year and half. This has been causing some really bad sleep habits for Jackson, and we didn’t think he was getting good sleep at night. So Paul and I decided that before the baby came, we needed to fix this problem of Jack’s. So off we go to the Ear, Nose and Throat Dr, who has now done 3 of the surgeries for Jackson. Sure enough the Dr. tells us that Jackson’s tonsils are 4 times the normal size that they should be and that they are overlapping eachother, and he definitely isn’t getting 100% oxygen when we breathes. The Dr actually made room in his surgery schedule to fit Jackson in as soon as he could since this was a problem.
So this past Tuesday, Paul and I took Jackson to the hospital for his tonsillectomy. Jackson did so well! I was so proud of him. I have to say it was quite funny to watch Jackson after he took the medicine they gave him before wheeling him off to surgery. It sure made him loopy and hilarious to watch. The surgery part itself only lasted a half hour, and we were told all went well. Then Paul and I waited in recovery and Jackson seemed really well. He didn’t cry at all and we took him home after about another half hour or so. This past week Jackson has been great. He has hardly complained of any pain, and other than this high chipmunk on helium sounding voice he has, you would never guess he had the surgery. He hasn’t snored since the surgery, and things seem to be healing nicely.
This week was Paul’s birthday! We started the week out with a family party on Sunday with yummy food and I even had Paul’s favorite pie for him to eat. He is really into the cream cheese lemon pie from Marie Calendars so that is what we had for cake. On Monday Paul and I dropped the kids off at aunt Jamie’s house and went to a concert with some friends. We went and saw Andrew Bird and Death Cab for Cutie at the Red Butte Gardens. It was a great night out and a really good show. On Tuesday, Paul’s actual birthday, his mom had a golf tournament fundraiser and Paul got his first eagle golfing! I admit I don’t know a ton about golfing but I know eagle’s are dang awesome! Paul’s birthday present was some new golf clubs that we got a month and a half ago since he has been golfing so much this summer and I am glad that they are working out well for him.
I hope you had an awesome birthday honey! The boys and I sure are thankful for you and love you so much!!
Last week Paul had to take some photos of his mom, so the boys and I decided to tag along. Well we ended up taking a few family photos. I think they turned out pretty well for being unplanned.
Jackson’s 5th birthday was while we were in Boise. We had told him this year that he wasn’t going to get a friend party, but that he would be in Boise with his Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle, and cousins who he doesn’t get to see much. Needless to say he was pretty excited. He told me that for his birthday he wanted everyone to go bowling. So I let all the family know that that was his request and if they could come it would be great. We ended up having 19 people bowling on two lanes the night before Jackson’s birthday. It was a lot of fun! After bowling we went to my parents house and had cake and ice cream. It really meant a lot to Jackson to have so much family there for his birthday. He still tells his friends about bowling for his birthday. We did have another little family party when we got back from Boise with Paul and his family.
I can’t believe my little boy is 5!! Just like with Eli, I put together a list of things about Jackson. Here is the list along with some pictures from his birthday.
He loves Legos, creatively building towers and spaceships of his own design.
Says he wants to be a “builder of towers” when he is older.
He loves to make up games that involve “fighting dudes” including points systems for each move and “damage”.
He is such a sweetheart. He loves to give hugs and tells people how much he loves them.
He gives fish face kisses and they are the sweetest.
His reward for being good is playing Xbox with his dad and brother. Favorite games include, Sonic Unleashed, Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman, and Tennis.
When mad at us he often threatens to “sell our stuff on eBay”. We let him think he could actually do it.
His favorite songs are “Funk Soul Brother” by Fatboy Slim and “Just a Friend” by Biz Marke. He sings these songs to himself often.
He navigates kid sites on the Internet better than his Grandma.
He recently figured out how to do a front-flip on the trampoline, which typically consists of him bouncing on his head and over.
He loves numbers, counting and generating random large numbers.
He does not like it when we are out in public and I make him use the ladies room so I can keep him in my line of sight, “mom, I am not a girl!”
He is a little fish. He loves to swim and be in the water.
He loves to play card games especially Memory and Uno.
He is very into Transformers and Bionicles right now.
He is very good and patient with little kids and is a great big brother.
He loves to be around other kids. He gets so excited when he sees them play outside.
He for some reason loves to put things in his mouth. He will suck on the ends of pillows, etc when he is just sitting around.
He has had 4 outpatient surgeries in his 5 years.
His favorite movie (as of today) is Night at the Museum. And loves to quite the Easter Island statue “Give me gum gum dum dum”.
He loves to ride his scooter and his bike (now sans the training wheels).
I have a lot to catch up on my blog! A week or so ago my brother got married so we packed up and headed to Boise for the wedding. The wedding was fantastic! My brother married a cute girl who we have gotten to know over the past 6 months and we are excited to have her as a part of our family. After spending a few days in Boise, we had to send Paul back home so he could go back to work, but the boys and I stayed another week or so in Boise. We had a GREAT time. We went to parks, slip n’ slided, went to Eagle Island, went bowling, went boating, hung out with some old friends, and of course spent the majority of the time with my family. The boys had so much fun with their grandparents, Aunt Shantay, Uncle Sam and their cousins, who used to live here and now live in Boise. I guess they are technically my cousins, but they are closer in age to my kids. We also were able to celebrate Jackson’s 5th Birthday, but I am going to save that for another blog. Here are some fun pictures of our trip to Boise! (there are a lot of pictures)
The Happy Couple!
Me and my sister with our Grandparents
Enjoying Cake!
Jackson and Eli with Jared and Nolan
Enjoying Eagle Island
Fun with Grandpa
More Fun with Grandpa
Aunt Shantay and the bunny
Going on a tube ride with Uncle Sam. I didn’t get a good shot of the huge smiles on their faces!
