Disneyland

In June, we got to spend 10 amazing days in California. Tyler had an oral surgery externship at Loma Linda, so we decided to join him for the second week and make a vacation out of it. We went to Disneyland with Tyler's family, spent a week with just the 4 of us Boyds while Tyler completed his externship, and then met my family in San Diego for the last 3 days. It was incredible. We really needed the break.

Jackson and Fisher with cousin Ben. Ben and Fisher are just a few weeks apart. I wish we got to see him more.

Jackson eventually got over his hatred of sand and decided he LOVED the beach. He even told Grandma "I love the way the sand feels in my toes."

Matching shark PJ's, a necessary souvenir

I tend to forget makeup when I'm on vacation. I should quit that habit for the sake of our vacation family photos.

He REALLY overcame his fear of the sand

Between Disneyland, shopping, and all the trips to the swimming pool, Fisher spent a lot of time in his new stroller. He didn't seem to mind. He's such a trooper and actually seemed like he enjoyed himself most of the time.

Fisher and Grandpa waiting in line for Pirates of the Caribbean. Fisher was pretty fascinated by all the rides he got to go on.

Jackson and his Aunt CassieAnn got to take a nap on a cozy Disneyland bench (made of cement) I was a little jealous.

Enjoying the ocean view in San Diego. Thanks to my Grandma and Grandpa Romney for the amazing condo. It's my favorite place on earth :)

This what we saw every time Fisher woke up from a stroller nap.

Jackson started the week terrified of the water, but was pretty brave by the end of it.

After spending a week soaking in chlorine, Jackson complained that his nipples were hurting him. A few minutes later I found him asleep like this, just trying to let those things air out.

My San Diego birthday, fantastic despite Tyler's almost forgetting.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip. Jackson is such an active little boy, but every once in a while he slows down to give a good hug or a snuggle. It makes my day.

Jackson and cousin Madden. Times like these make me wish we were in Idaho. Jackson would have so much fun getting to see Madden every day.

The beginning of Jackson's Disneyland nap. See the drool on Tyler's neck? Yeah, that happened...

Jackson was a Disneyland Pro--he rode every ride that he was tall enough for, including Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Thunder Mountain. I don't think I'll ever be able to enjoy Space Mountain the same way again. After sitting next to Jackson for 3 excrutiating minutes while he sobbed and screamed through the entire thing, the ride makes me a little sick to my stomach. I've never seen terror like that from my sweet little boy. But he did it and he said next time we go, he'll be older and will probably like it, even though this time he "hated that stupid ride".

This picture was unfortunately timed, but the really cute thing happened after the picture. He gave Pooh the biggest hug I've ever seen, and then tried to kiss him, which was funny because I'm pretty sure Pooh can't actually bend over. But Jackson just puckered up and waited anyway. After several attempts to bend and twist over, Pooh finally just blew Jackson a kiss, which seemed to work.

Wink, Wink

I find myself having less and less time for this blog. But since I count it as my photo journal, I am planning to go back and update things. I'm in the process of uploading pictures from the past few months and working on a few posts. In the meantime, I've added a few new Cute Funnies. Jackson is at this perfect age. Something hilarious comes out of his mouth on an hourly basis. I NEED to be better about writing this stuff down. I should probably just put  a voice recorder in his pocket every morning so I don't miss anything. I'll bet it would be a best-selling audiobook in no time.

You have to love this kid. I can't believe he's almost 4.

Cute Funnies (Part 4)

October 13, 2013After giving Jackson his allowance:
Jackson: "Am I rich?"Mom: "I don't know about that, but you have a lot of money for a little kid."Jackson: "Wait! I could buy a little kid with this?!"
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 May 15, 2013Jackson is convinced we should be moving to Alaska instead of Texas. He doesn't like the heat... or the sunshine. He is truly a Seattle child. So tonight we were talking about why we couldn't move to Alaska.
Jackson: "I want to move to the place that snows all the time."
Mom: "No you don't. It's cold and you'd have to wear a really big coat every day. Plus it gets dark really early. It's dark all the time."
Jackson: "Wait, there's no Chuck E. Cheese in Alaska!?"
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 April 7, 2013Jackson said this while watching Tyler play a racing video game.
Jackson: "You know what would be great for me right now? If you could go a little bit faster."
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March 7, 2013
This morning, Fisher got a hold of a bag of Craisins and was dumping them everywhere and shoveling them into his mouth. I took the bag and told him no more craisins, and of course Fisher started crying. Jackson responded with, "Mom, you crushed his dreams."
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 March 6, 2013 
Jackson said this while holding a baseball bat. "Dad, can I pretend like you're a piñata?"
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March 3, 2013 
Jackson: "Did you know that goats' children are called 'children'?"
Mom: "I think you mean 'kid'."
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Feb 21, 2013 
This question happened while Jackson and I sat at our kitchen table eating breakfast.
Jackson: "Mom, why do these chairs not stick to the ground like the ones at McDonald's do?"
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Feb 4, 2012 
Ranch flavored Pringles have a picture of a green onion on the can to represent the flavor. Today Jackson brought the can to me.
Jackson: "Are these kind of chips healthy for you?"
Mom: "No, they are very bad for you."
Jackson: "Well, I think they are actually healthy because they have celery on the can."
Well played, marketers...
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December 2, 2012Jackson: "The bath needs to have enough bubbles that you can't see my wee-wee."
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November 28, 2012Mom: "Do you want some milk with your breakfast?"
Jackson: "Um... let me see. What's the word I'm looking for? Oh... YES!"
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November 6, 2012

Jackson: "Can we have McDonald's today?"

Mom: "No, look how long that line is. We have to get to work."

Jackson: "That's okay. Long lines are good. It gives us more time to sit and talk to eachother."

*And so we enjoyed a very pleasant and lengthy discussion while we waited in the long drive-thru line at McDonald's because you can't argue with a 4-year-old's impressive logic.

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October 23, 2012

Jackson and I were riding in the car on a cold day and I had the heater blasting, which Jackson doesn't like. He randomly complained to me, "Mom, I'm as warm as an old truck." I have no idea what that means.

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September 28, 2012
Jackson: Hey! ‘R’ is in the middle of how you ‘are’. Like a pirate… like ‘argh!’.
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September 20, 2012
Jackson: “Do you remember what my favorite drink is? It starts with an ‘orange’.”
Mom: “Is it orange juice?”
Jackson: “That’s right. How did you know?”
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September 17, 2012
Jackson: “Do you know what time we finish work? At six eight oh-em.”
Mom: “You mean at 6pm?”
Jackson (looking at me like I’m an idiot): “That’s what I said.” (It kind of reminds me of Chandler trying to learn French)
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September 12, 2012
Jackson: "Did you know if you say lots of numbers together it's a gun. Like forty-five oh six. That's a fast one."
Where on earth did that come from?
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September 12, 2012
 Jackson: "Wanna see how many kids I want you to have?" Then he holds his hands out as far as he can reach.
Mom: "That looks like a lot. How many is that?"
Jackson: "Twenty-five six"
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July 8, 2012 
Jackson was watching Backyardigans and it was singing a song about Snow Patrol coming to the rescue.
Jackson: "Wait... snow patrol rescues people? I thought that was just what super heroes do."
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July 3, 2012
***You know the joke about 6 being afraid of 7 because 7, 8, 9? Sometimes Jackson tells it with different numbers, which makes no sense. When I tried to correct him the other day and explain that the joke doesn't make any sense with the #3, this was his reply***
Jackson: "No, mom. I was mixing it up on purpose because I wanted to make you afraid of 3."
How can you argue with that?

Buzz, Artist, Sunburns, and Sleep Violations

We babysat Jackson's friend and she showed up in her Jesse costume. Jackson immediately ran into his room and put on his Buzz outfit. It was quite the night, complete with staged weddings, Dance Central, and making Fisher be Bullseye.

Trying out the front screen on our new Bloggie Camera. The front screen is great for take-it-yourself photos, our facial expressions are not as great...

I love that Tyler is sporting his short sleeve mission shirt. The long sleeves were too painful on his golf burn.

Taking a fantastic nap... this violates every one of the safe-baby-sleep-rules. Don't worry, I laid next to him the entire time.

Making a bird feeder at preschool... Jackson is SO serious when it comes to his artwork.

Our awesome new Joovy Caboose stroller. It solves all the world's problems, or at least the problem of a toddler that thinks he's too big to sit in a stroller, but still too small to run beside me when I workout. He can hop on and off as he pleases. It's a miracle. I feel so mobile again.

Visitors

Some of the Hawkins family visited us in April... or was it March? Man, where is the time going?

Also, why are there not more pictures of their visit?

It was so fun having them here. We all enjoyed the new Hunger Games in IMAX, a trip to Miner's Landing for the arcade and carousel, a fabulous art show for the girls and disc golf for the boys.

Swimming was a blast. I'm pretty sure my dad still holds the record for the fastest time down the speed water slide. His technique is perfect.

Jackson and Aunt Whitney using the spray toys

We visited Krispy Kreme for the "After 9pm Half Price Special"... twice

On the carousel... not much of a picture

It was such a fun week. Jackson cried when they left. He spent the following weeks mailing pictures to them and crying everytime he thought about them being gone. His favorite make believe game is when go on the space ship to Idaho and visit Grandma. We are excited to see them briefly in June and see EVERYONE in August. Can't wait!

Brothers

I often have people ask me if I'll keep having kids until I get a girl. I don't really think of it like that. I love boys, and I would be perfectly content with a family of all boys.

Sure, I gaze at cute little Easter dresses with a twinge of hope, and I did once tear up when shopping for a baby girl baby shower. Ribbons and bows would be fun. But there is just something special about my boys. I love them.

It's so fun watching them become friends. Each night, Jackson and Fisher have "Fisher snuggles time". They lay in Jackson's bed together, looking at the Lite Brite or the glowing star turtle, and just giggle. Jackson will talk and talk and Fisher just stares at his face and listens with a big smile. It's adorable.

I love them and I love how much they love eachother. Fisher's face lights up when he spots Jackson across the room. He does the rubber neck everytime Jackson walks past. Jackson can keep Fisher entertained for hours.

Never-ending Easter

Holidays tend to go on and on in our house. It's like I haven't quite decided which traditions I want yet, so I just try a little of everything. Easter was no exception. We had so much fun and Jackson just finished off the last piece of Easter candy tonight (thank heavens).

At the Ravenna easter egg hunt

At the Laurel Village easter egg hunt

Watching a movie in preparation for Scott's easter egg hunt

Fisher was not a fan of the confetti eggs that Scott made, although Tyler sure had fun with them

Attempted Easter family photo. Nice profile, Fish.

Scott's egg hunt was a week after Easter and the kids went crazy for it. So fun.

We tried to include Fisher in the egg dying festivities. I think he enjoyed himself.

Easter morning. Fisher got baby food and baby spoons. Jackson did a little better than that.

Hunting for eggs...LOVE THIS PICTURE. It's so classic Easter morning.

Mmm... mushed peas. Just what you always wanted from the Easter bunny.

Bloggie Videos

We have really been enjoying our new Sony Bloggie Camera. It's nice to have something small that I can keep in my purse for quick photos and videos. We've been doing a lot more videos since we got it. And Tyler likes to play around with the video editting on his Mac. He's put together a few videos so far. They are kind of random mixes, and they're pretty long. I don't expect that anyone but us and maybe the grandparents will view them. But here they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xP_F1HE3_w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhC7xXpmjM4

Fire Trucks

Jackson's preschool class got to visit the fire station

He was a little nervous about sitting in the driver's seat

Jackson and his best buddy, Hugo

Several weeks after the fire station visit we had a real fire truck visit our apartment... at midnight... when the apartment directly above us had an actual fire. It was quite the night. Waking up at midnight to the smoke detectors going off, thinking "I can't believe they're doing the drill at midnight" because we recieved a letter saying there would be a fire drill this week and it could be any time of day, smelling the smoke and realizing it wasn't a drill, and grabbing both boys in their pajamas and running outside. It was quite the evening. Luckily, no one was hurt and none of the smoke or fire damage came into our apartment.

Confessions: Jackson Said What?!

Jackson has had a couple of wonderfully inappropriate comments lately, and I feel like they should be shared with the world. Feel free to judge me as a horrible parent because things like this come out of his mouth :)

We've been trying to teach Jackson which words are okay to say and which ones aren't. It's not like he's swearing up a storm, but there are just certain words that sound a little off coming out of a 3-year-old. So Jackson has been working on censoring himself. The other day he said, "Mom, I've gotta go take a... ya know.. that bad thing." (He was talking about the word "crap". He needed to poo...)

We also had to teach him not to say "dang it" because he can't say his G's or his N's very well so it just comes out like the real word. So today in the car, he was in an inquisitive mood and asked
Jackson: "Mom, is 'dang cute' a nice word or a bad word? Like if I say 'Fisher is dang cute'. Is that okay?"
Mom: "Yeah, I guess that's okay. He is pretty cute."
Jackson: "Yeah, he is. But sometime's Wolverine says 'I can't see a damn thing!' and that's not okay to say. Wolverine can be kinda bad sometimes."
Mom: **stifling silent giggles** "Yup, that's not very nice of him to say."

Tyler has a friend with darker skin who was over the other day. Later that night, Jackson said, "Dad, what was your friend's name? Like, the one that is brown?"

Today an African American man held the door for us at the store. Jackson got very excited and yelled, "Mom, look! That guy is in the "Throw Your Hands Up In The Air" song video."
Once again I had to avert my eyes and try not to laugh. Just for the record, it was not actually Taio Cruz.
Jackson likes his privacy when he needs to poo. And he always says the funniest things to let me know I need to give him some space. But yesterday's was one of the best. I was in the bathroom doing my hair and he runs in.
Jackson: "Mom, I've gotta poo. You better get out of here. I know you, and you do NOT want to see this!"

All offensive statements aside, you have to love this little boy :)