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 :)

Fisher

My baby boy is 6 months old. He gets cuter every day. He has adorable pouty lips, the softest skin, and cute little fuzzy hair on his head, and he smells amazing. I'm enjoying my boys :)

My Big Boy and My Baby Boy

Life has been happening lately, which is why I haven't been blogging much. Poor Fisher gets a lot less camera time than Jackson did at his age. So this morning I decided to snap a quick picture of each of them, just for the sake of record keeping. I'm going to get better at pictures and video soon. Tyler got me a present and I'm hoping it will help me break the habit of non-picture-taking. Sadly, the present is going to take a few weeks to get here, so until then, here are a couple of cute pictures to hold you over.

Fisher - 5 1/2 months old. His feet are his new favorite toys. I love watching him figure it out. He tries so hard to grab his foot, and when he finally gets it, he gets so excited that he kicks really hard, loses his grip on the foot, and has to start all over. And of course this whole thing is very confusing to him. He's going to be thrilled when he figures out that he is the one controlling that foot that keeps escaping.

Jackson is 3.5 years old. I can't believe he'll be 4 this summer. He seems so old lately, and although I occassionaly miss baby Jackson, I am REALLY enjoying watching him grow up. I can't even describe what's its like when he gets in one of his moods where he has a long, serious conversation with me. Are all 3 year olds so insightful? I wish I could get transcripts of all the conversations we have.

Happy I Love You Day

Happy Valentine's Day

My friend Rendy set up this photoshoot for all the kids living nearby. It was pretty fun. I wish I had realized I had those bright green socks on...

 I rarely get to do Tyler quotes; he's not as funny as Jackson. But I have a good one and it's V-Day related. Stick with me people, I promise it's G-rated :)

Jamie: Is it too late to add something to my Valentine wish list for tomorrow?

Tyler: Probably, but go ahead and give it a shot.

Jamie: I want a leg and...

Tyler (cutting me off mid-sentence): Nope. Out of the question.

Jamie (I finished the sentence anyway): a leg and foot massage.

Tyler: Oh yeah, I could do that. Sorry, I thought you were going to say "legos".

Jackson: "I'm so photogenic. Watch me give the smouldering eyes look."
Fisher: "Really? The 3 year-old is holding me up? I'm going to tip over. I know it."

Jackson: "Haha, I love my little brother."
Fisher: "Yup. Here I go. I'm tipping over. Thanks a lot, mom."

January 2012

Fisher's new trick

We enjoyed 3 snow days, which included Tyler's school being cancelled and my work being cancelled. It was great, although by the end of it I was feeling a little stir crazy.

At one point, this snowman was standing up straight and had 2 eyes. Over the 3 days, he kept leaning further and further until he finally collapsed. For the record, I wouldn't recommend using mandarin oranges for eyes; it was creepy, especially at night when he was just staring into our back window.

Thanks to the generosity of a lady on Craiglist, we received this desk for free, along with a very nice free Kenmore dryer, since ours broke. Do you like the Fisher cubby spot? For the record, I'm not a fan of Bumbos on any kind of raised surface, but it was just a cute spot to stick him for a few pictures.

The desk also doubles as a quick-to-make fort. And yes, Fisher is still there, but I promise it's not a regular thing.

 The adorable faces of Fisher.

Last week Tyler and Jackson went to a Motocross show together. Jackson had the time of his life.

Just for the record, this was not supposed to be a set up photo shoot or anything like that. I realize there are about 50 different colors/textures/patterns going on here. He was just playing on his blanket on the floor and looked so cute and smiley that I had to snap a few.

My Boys Are Awesome

We have the cutest boys. Here are some pictures from the first few weeks of 2012.

Love

Tyler was in Texas for 2 weeks after Christmas. My amazing sister Lindsay came to stay with me and help with the kids and spend a week relaxing. It was fabulous to have her here. Jackson cried when she left... I might have too.

I love that babies can sleep anywhere in any position

Seattle Christmas 2011

As usual, Santa visited us early this year due to lack of suitcase space for our flight home from Idaho. It's fun to celebrate the holiday more than once though. Jackson loved the 3 weeks of Christmas he got to enjoy this year. Every time we would do something Christmasy, that night he would say, "I'm just sad that Christmas is over" and I would say, "That's the great thing, Jackson. Christmas isn't over yet." Once it was actually over, we were sad. I didn't take my camera to Idaho so I'm working on getting pictures from sisters. Until then, here's a peak at our Seattle Christmas.

Christmas morning... so  excited!

Tyler got me a pancake pen. It's exactly what it sounds like, which is why my pancake is shaped like my name... awesome.

Enjoying Christmas breakfast with the display of Jackson's first Lite Brite picture. It's a transformer.

Making gingerbread houses

Sometimes you're so excited to see grandma that you forget to put your pants on

We're sitting at the airport ready to head to Idaho for Christmas. It took us a total of 10 minutes to check 4 bags, get boarding passes, and get through security with a toddler, a sleeping baby, a car seat, and 3 carry-on bags... AMAZING. So now we've got some time to kill and I have a great story to brighten your morning.

This morning, Jackson wakes up at 6am. The first thing he says is "I am so excited to see Grandma Hawkins and Grandma Trish!" So I tell him to get dressed, which is usually a 30 minute process with a lot of arguing. About 30 seconds later, I hear him call out, "Mom, I'm ready!" So I go in his room to find him wearing nothing but his Buzz Lightyear underwear and his socks and shoes on the wrong feet. I laugh and say, "Jackson, you're shoes are on the wrong feet, and I think you forgot your pants and your shirt." He looks down, looks a little embarrassed, and says "Oops. I better put them on."

So far things are going very smooth. I'm going to go back to enjoying my Qdoba Breakfast Burrito, which is really the only reason we do morning flights :) Merry Christmas everyone. Wish us luck with our 3 month old on our flight. See you soon!

Stockings... Just In Time

A few weeks ago, as I was decorating for Christmas, I realized we didn't have a stocking for Fisher. Then I looked at our sad little stockings (Tyler and I had matching $1 Walmart stockings with glittery swirls that I had stitched our names into. Jackson had a $3 blue velvet stocking which was purchased years later.) They were cheapy and ugly.

So my grandma makes the most amazing stockings. She made them for all of us grandkids, and I have always wanted to try to replicate them for my family. But with no sewing machine, I had to do a simplified version. We bought pre-made stockings, but we got the good kind this time. They were thick and soft, and we might have purchased six of them... just in case.

So it took a few weeks and a lot of stress, but I finally finished them yesterday, just in time too, since Santa arrived early this year and brought us presents last night. Today is Seattle Christmas, by the way (the holiday we celebrate BEFORE we travel to Idaho for Christmas, because we don't want to have to haul everything there and then haul it all back again). Merry Seattle Christmas!

I wasn't planning to have these done in time for Seattle Christmas, so yesterday when I realized I could finish them, I had exactly 60 minutes (during Jackson's preschool) to jog to Safeway with the stroller, purchase stocking stuffers, jog back home, wrap the stocking stuffers, and hide them. This Santa deal is a lot of work. And Santa is obviously not getting enough sleep these days, because he accidentally put all of Jackson's presents in Fisher's stocking. Whooops.

Here they are. I basically love them. Thanks to my Grandma Romney for inspiring these awesome stockings, although mine will never look as great as hers do.

 I wanted me and Tyler's to match, since my Grandma made my Mom & Dad matching stockings and I always thought that was so cute.

And I love the little animals I found for the boys' stockings. Look at the awesome little hats. I ordered these animals special from Amazon, then found the exact same animals right across the street at Safeway a few days later. Go figure. Sometimes Safeway has the most random, awesome things. Example? Fisher's banana costume also came from the Safeway across the street. I love our Safeway. I'm in there at least twice a week, usually more. The cashiers all know me by name. One of them even laughed at me when I tried to show him my driver's liscense to go with a check. "Oh Ms. Boyd. You don't need ID here. We see you daily." Random tanget...

 

Now for a few other projects we made this season that I never got around to blogging about.

Oreo turkeys from Our Best Bites.



Halloween bouquet made for our Relief Society Service Auction, inspired by the chocolate-dipped oreo bats from Our Best Bites.

They sounded like they would be a bit too rich for me, but they aren't
Chocolate-dipped oreos = delicious

Halloween 2011

I'm finally getting around to posting Halloween pictures, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Jackson getting ready for costume day at preschool

Playing with leftover dry ice after my work Halloween party

Our pumpkins. Tyler did Darth Vader. I did the lazy fake version of Spider Man. Jackson was Iron Man. And Fisher's was a simple fish, because at that point we were sick of carving pumpkins.

Gorilla and banana... loved it

Super heroes. I got criticized by several different people for saying that our costumes "go together" because Superman is DC Comics and Iron Man is Marvel. I also had an 8-year-old kid at my work Halloween party say to me, "Is that your costume? That's it? Seriously?"

Not a single one of us managed a normal facial expression for this picture... whoops.