Memorial Day Weekend 2009

I know that I am a little late in posting, but things are pretty busy over here! This is the last week of school (WOO HOO), we are moving back to Kalamazoo on Saturday (mixed emotions), and we leave for Mexico on June 12!! I cannot wait to actually breathe and relax in a few short weeks!!

Back to the reason for this post - Memorial Day Weekend we went camping with three other families, the Staals, the Littles, and the Rodenhouses and we had SO much fun! It was lots of week and I think we are finally (almost) recovered! This was our first real camping experience with the boys although we did go with Brett's parents over Labor Day weekend last year for a few nights. I don't count that as our first real camping since we weren't really in charge of all of the food and we didn't camp on our own!

Friday night we packed up and headed to the house in Kalamazoo because we needed to mow the lawn and get all of our camping gear at the house. We left late Saturday morning and packed ourselves into the car pretty tightly!! I told Brett that this will be the first and last big trip in one of our cars!!

The boys had so much fun! Brady loved being able to sleep in the tent and thought it was so cool that we were camping! He got along really well with Lily and Jackson was happy to play in the dirt!

Here are some picture highlights of the weekend!! I took a lot of pictures and I can't narrow down which ones to post :) Sorry for SO many pictures :) We are talking about making this a tradition and I think it's a great idea!!

Under Construction

We had Jackson's first birthday party on Saturday and it was so much fun! I had tons of fun planning the party once we decided to go with a construction theme. We served food with shovels, had dirt dessert in a big dump truck, and used road signs, construction cones, and caution tape for decorations! Jackson had a great time even though he started out a little crabby after having to wake up a little early from his afternoon nap.

There was lots of socializing.

Many fun new presents to open - thank you everyone!!!

Sand to play in! This was a huge hit until the guys dumped the sand out. Lily and Brady stood by watching and saying things like "This is not nice" and "I do not like this". Don't worry, we will fill it back up as soon as we move home to Kalamazoo in another month.

I would have to say the highlight of the party was Jackson eating his cake! He wasn't too sure what to do at first, but he really didn't want to touch the cake. After a little prompting, he decided it was okay to dig right in and he ended up polishing off the whole piece of cake!!

Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us!! We hope you had fun!!

Happy First Birthday Jackson!!

Wow, where has the year gone. I can't believe that our little Jack Jack is one today. It really does seem like just yesterday we were going into the hospital ready to meet our new little one and now we're chasing him around as he runs all over. Jackson really is such a sweet little boy. He is very content to play on his own although he's also a little sneaky and if you don't watch him he is off to one of his two favorite places - the kitchen or bathroom!! We have to be so careful to keep those rooms blocked off.

My favorite part of Jackson getting older is seeing the boys play together. Most of the time, Brady is so sweet with Jackson and Jackson LOVES tackling Brady and watching and following his every move! It is precious and it makes my heart melt whenever I see it! I'm looking forward to watching Jackson change and grow in this second year and I can't wait for the first time he says "I love you, mama!!"

Happy First Birthday Jackson!! We love you so much!

PS - I will post new pictures soon, I haven't taken many new good ones recently that I haven't posted already!!

Jackson's First Haircut

We finally got Jackson's haircut this week! It was getting a little long, but it's so hard for me to do that first cut!! We were supposed to do it last week, but Jackson and I were both sick and Brady also had a cough so we postponed it to this week.

His hair was definitely getting a little long and shaggy, but it was also getting these adorable curls!!! Here are a few before pictures:

My friend Melissa cut the boys' hair and Brady went first - he did great and looks wonderful!

Then it was Jackson's turn. We decided to try letting him sit in the chair by himself and even though he was squirmy, he did a pretty good job for a one year old!

And here is an after shot of the new 'do:

Ok...here's the real one :) (you can also look at the MSU shirt post from today since this is kind of a weird side shot!!).

The Obsession

So....every spare minute Brady has is spent riding his new bike or scooter! I finally have some pictures of him riding his new bike and he is already pretty good. I'm so surprised at how quickly he learned how to ride his big bike! I'm so glad we decided to get him the smaller bike because I actually bought the 16" size originally, but I think he would have really struggled to reach the pedals!!

Sabotage

So....I picked the kids up from daycare today and when I walked into the house I was wondering why the voices sounded so excited to see me! I mean, don't get me wrong, the kids are normally glad I'm there to pick them up, but they sounded extra excited.

Well....when they came around the corner from the living room into the kitchen I soon discovered what the excitement was about. Miss Alicia had found new shirts for the boys!! When I got home, I took a picture of these SPECIAL new shirts.

In case you can't tell what's on them, here is a close up of Jackson's shirt.

And here is how Jackson feels about this shirt!!!

Good one, Miss Alicia!! Daddy was not too pleased :)