My Boys, My Joy

As we have just finished celebrating Thanksgiving, I feel overwhelmed by the blessings I have in my life. I have truly been richly blessed. I am so grateful to all my family and friends and for all the love and support we feel from those around us, even though we are far from many of you. Thank you for all you do for us, for all your wonderful examples and for just being the wonderful people that you are.
Also, I am just so grateful for my own little family. I don't know what I would do without Jack. He is the greatest, most wonderful husband in the world. He supports me in whatever I do and is ALWAYS there for me. He is my best friend and the most wonderful companion a girl could ask for. He is my true love. Thanks babe for loving me so much and by showing how much you love me everyday! :o)
And even though it took us a while to get started, I can't imagine my life without Jaxon. He brings me so much joy each and every day and is so wonderful to be around. I love that he always has the biggest smile for his mom and dad. I love that he is able to learn so much each day, yet at the same time, teach me so much too. And I love that he is just such a good, good, GREAT baby! I love my boys so much!!

Jaxon Update

Well it's been a little while since I last blogged, so I'm going to be posting up a bunch of stuff all at once. First off, Jaxon had his 9 month appointment and he is a healthy boy...but a little bit of a lightweight. He is only 18 lbs 13 oz, but he is 29.5 inches tall. So, again, high percentile for his height, but not so much in his weight. Anyone have any ideas how to get this little boy to beef up a bit? :o) Also, we went over to one of our friends home and we discovered that Jaxon can go up stairs. We don't have any stairs in our apartment, so who knew. As for going down, well, not so much. He has no fear and just stands up and falls back. Good thing mom and dad are there to catch him. :o)
Another Jaxon accomplishment-Jaxon has discovered toilet paper. Well, in general, Jaxon has discovered that one of his favorite places at home is the bathroom. Unfortunately, this does not bode well for the toilet paper as you can see.
We also went with our ward a couple of weeks ago to the temple in Columbus, OH. We actually had to drive over 2 hours to get there!! The whole way there just made me feel bad that we had not taken more advantage of the temples so close to home for us when we were in Utah. The ward was great for helping out the parents with young kids and had people at the church right across from the temple watching kids during the sessions. Jaxon was a great little boy...well, as far as what everyone has told us ;o)...and we got to enjoy a nice session.
And SNOW! We got our first taste of OH winter this past couple of weeks with LOTS of snow and cold. Here's the view from our apartment.
And here's Jaxon fascinated by the white stuff outside.
And just one more Jaxon accomplishment to update on. This kid is standing all by himself!! It's been so exciting to watch him go from using the furniture to get himself up to now just barely using a toy on the floor or us to pull himself standing, and then just stay standing by himself for while.
He's still really hesitant about taking steps, but just the other day Jack got him to take one step!! We're still working on it though. Jaxon just likes crawling so much better cause it gets him to where he wants to go so much faster.

Play Date

Here are some fun shots of Jaxon at a play date we went to a couple of weeks ago at the Parmatown mall by our house. (There are more pictures here) They have quite a fun play place for the kids and it's indoors, so I have a feeling we'll be there a lot more this winter once it gets too cold to play outside.
Here he is showing off his Canadian shirt! :o)
He did really well with this tunnel crawling through all by himself. The tunnel had a little bit of a lip to it though, so at the end of it, he kind of face planted getting out of the tunnel. :o(
Here's an action shot of him playing with the little gear toys they have there.
Funny thing about this toy is that EVERY kid wants to play with it. It was finally free from the "bigger" kids so I took Jaxon over to play. As soon as Jaxon started playing though and making sounds with it and showing he was having fun, another little boy came up to play at it. He started crowding into Jaxon's space so Jaxon just shoved him over. It was really funny. But the next thing that happened was not so much. This little boy, who was quite a little bit older, got really mad that Jaxon has pushed him, and sat down on his bum and turned his legs towards Jaxon in a double kick motion. Wow, I must have broken some kind of record getting over to Jaxon and getting him out of the way of this kid who was ready to just kick him over with both his legs! I was quite surprised at how mad I was at that little kid, because I know in his eyes, Jaxon must have started it since Jaxon pushed him first. But wow, I have quite the mother bear instinct in me! :o)
Here's Jaxon with his good friend Sage.
Jaxon loved this bridge they had there...couldn't quite figure out how to get up it though.
We had a lot of fun that day!

Jaxon's Haircut

Before the haircut...
(Can you see why he needed a cut? :o)
During the haircut...
(Crazy hard to keep him still)
After the haircut...
(So much better, eh?)

Halloween Fun Galore

We were really lucky this year to have so many Halloween festivities to attend so we could dress Jaxon up...and dress ourselves up too. :o) We have lots and lots of pictures posted here, but here's just a sample of what we did for Jaxon's first halloween.
Friday before, our friends Karie and Trevor had a big party and Jack and I actually dressed up for this one. I was a butterfly, Jack was an extreme butterfly catcher, and Jaxon was a little pumpkin.
Here is Jaxon with some of his little friends Brogan, Jaxson, and Kylie. All these little babies are all within 6 months of each other in age.
A couple of days before Halloween, we had a playdate Halloween party with a couple of the girls.
Jaxon has been able to "walk" with the help of toys like these. Thanks to Julie for bringing it to playgroup, Jaxon got to practice walking all around the gym.
Here is Jaxon with his friend Jaxson.
Here he is with Kinley.
And here is one with Jaxon and Ethan. They were enjoying some apple juice...or more appropriately, the cups the apple juice were in. :o)
Here's Jaxon with mommy.Ahhh, wasn't Jaxon a cute pumpkin?
Finally, the night of Halloween, we went out to a really nice neighborhood of some other students and went trick or treating. Actually, we went with our friends who had kids old enough to trick or treat and tried to get Jaxon to mooch some candy for his mom and dad. :o)
Here's Jaxon with some more pumpkins along the trick or treating route.
Here's Jaxon trick or treating with Daddy.
Here's Jaxon trick or treating with Mommy.
All in all it has been a great halloween with lots of fun activites. We even had nicer weather for the night of halloween. Hope you all had a great halloween too!

Witches Brew Girls Night

It's been a tradition for the student wives to have a girls night about every month or so and this month, Randy hosted a Witches Brew. It was soooooo much fun!
We all had to decorate a witch hat to wear to the party and Randy had such fabulous decorations up at her place and we played a Halloween Family Feud.
We all had a grand ole time and I was so excited cause my hat won "Most Original"!! Here's some fun pictures from that night.