Catch-up

Wow, it's already been a long time but yet, there's still more to catch up on.

August:

This was a BUSY month for our little family. James started classes in the athletic training program, and boy oh boy is he a new MAN! He loves school! It's great to see him excited to read his textbooks, and go to class on time, and talk about everything he learns. He started a clinical assignment at Mountain View High school in Orem working with all their athletes. The high school boys seem to love him and make up nicknames for him. (It's probably because he gives such good massages!) I started another year of hall advisor and kicked off a big week of RA training. Despite being gone all day, James played MR. MOM and canned peaches and homemade salsa. Even though his mom wasn't around as much, Jackson started walking! It took only like 2 days of holding his hands high above his head, but he mastered it fast. Some people say it's hard when they start walking, but honestly, Jackson was so much happier! August also brings about BYU football season and Jackson actually made it to all the games this year. With books, toys, and LOTS of fruit snacks and juice boxes, he was a happy boy! He would even clap along with the fight song and stare at the ball. James couldn't be more proud.

September:

One of my highlights was taking Jackson up to the petting ZOO at thanksgiving point. He started being able to make LOTS of different animal sounds, and ran around the place pointing and grunting at the animals. SO many people stopped to comment and after 2 hours, I decided I'd had enough. James played on an intramural football team (of course). They played hard every week and practiced for hours. They didn't make it as champion, but James was definitely the star quarterback. I blame their losing on the fact the made James NOT play quarterback for awhile.

October:

My parents made nice trip up to visit. We enjoyed a football game and of course, the homecoming week festivities. My dad is always so good at supporting BYU and doing all the "different" activities. Yet, those are always my favorite parts of his visit! We ended the weekend off with a good visit to the OC-TUBA fest where some world famous tuba players sang into their tubas. (literal singing). It was great! October is also my birthday month and James surprised me with a gym membership to 24 hour fitness. I couldn't have asked for a better present. Jackson gets to go play int he kids' club and I've definitely become more fascinating with Zumba, cycling, and body-pump classes. Jackson loves the little playgrounds, and the worker girls are nice BYU girls that he loves. Thanks James, for giving us something to do each day!

James and I also went to our first haunted house to celebrate halloween. It was raining pretty bad on halloween, so we took a raincheck for another night. However, it was SO freaky, the people actually touched you and I kind of just froze. James had to pull me through the whole entire thing, saying "Shawnne, you have to walk.... shawnne, MOVE, etc.". When it was over, I even started crying! Now, I realize why we will never do something like that again.

NOVEMBER:

Living with the freshmen...is well...crazy sometimes. We had some lovely young men decide to vandalize a car int he parking lot (and well, it was our van...). They picked it up, moved it, cracked the window, and pooped on it! The police officer sure was mad and it took weeks to get it all figured out. Drama came when one of the boys' uncles got involved (tried to persuade my decision, guess that's called witness tampering...). Anyways, right around that same time, I had a girl try and stab herself on the balcony during the ward party, 2 girls that had anxiety attacks (rolling on ground screaming), a boy with a pretty severe eating disorder, and another attempted suicide (drug overdose). It pretty much wore me out trying to deal with it and Thanksgiving was a much needed break. My mom watched Jackson and we left with Brad and Julie over to Disneyland. Despite getting the stomach flu, I had so much fun! Normally I love Indiana Jones, but seeing as my stomach hurt, my favorite was the Buzz Lightyear shooting game. Brad spent lots of hours making a Disneyland trivia book which provided lots of entertainment in the car. We visited Huntington beach and of course, brad was the only who got in. We also ran the turkey trot...together. WOW! James wasn't feeling good and so, he didn't even try and pass me, just ran with me. It was great! Ok, so we jogged. But, still beat the sister missionaries my dad invited! The Bob and Marlene Anderson's got together and for the first time, James met some of my dad's sisters. We then went over to Nate and Andrea's new house in Gilbert for a few hours.

December:

Well, that brings us to now...the crazy time of year with freshmen checking out and James taking finals. So far, it's looking like it will be his best semester grade-wise...which is definitely exciting! We spent the past weekend going up to Salt lake city. We went to the BYU basketball game at energy solutions arena. Jackson was mesmerized by all the lights, sounds, and people. Halfway through the game, when he finally snapped out of his staring, he started yelling "basketball hoop" at the top of his lungs. James and I got a good laugh realizing he must think that's what everyone is yelling. We went to the temple square lights, and went up to visit my mom who was in town. Sunday was Grandma and Grandpa Matthew's homecoming talk form their Ogden mission. I spent most of the time outside with Jackson but it was fun to see all the family. We had a big luncheon afterward and I met a lot of their investigators. I'm always continually amazed at what good missionaries my grandparents are. My mom took Jackson home on the plane with her. They are so good to help us through our busy times. I know Jackson's having LOTS more fun than he would here, and even though I hate going without him, it's been very helpful to get caught up on lots of things. Sometimes I really wonder how long I can keep up a more than 40 hour work week and stay on top of the house stuff and be a good mom. Luckily, peak weeks like this (where I work 80 hours) only happen about 3 times a year. But, we'll leave for Arizona this coming Tuesday. We're already counting the days....

What to do with all my energy?

I've decided Jackson has way too much energy. Besides learning how to walk, he spends most his time finding something to throw, something to jump off of, or lately, to throw his head back on. These videos make me laugh. The first shows how he is no longer satisfied with crawling. This happens all the time when I won't help him up so he can walk. The second is what he does on the bed all the time.

Visit from Taylor

We were lucky to have Taylor LeSueur come visit us for a week. He sure is an active little boy who is SO smart and wonders about EVERYTHING. I found I only knew about 1/3 of the questions he asked. We enjoyed some good mini-golf, playing in the duck pond, watching some movies, and of course, the cannon center. I think Taylor's favorite part was that he didn't have to eat anything healthy. James was helping a guy in our ward coach a football camp for little boys, so Taylor and cousin Matt went along too. Between that and getting hives form the duck pond, I think we wore Taylor out! He drove back to AZ with us and I was so impressed he could sleep through Jackson's screaming. What a trooper. I think my favorite part about the whole visit was when he commented on our apartment while talking to his dad. "Dad, there must have been a MASTER architect because it's amazing how they fit so many things in such a tiny place!"

Trip to Arizona

For 2 weeks in July we got to just leave everything and enjoy family. We spent the first half with my family. Jackson LOVED being around all the kids, and of course, everyone spoiled him. I still think his favorite is my brother Matt. We had a big shower for my Aunt Kris (who is having baby number 9), did lots of Mesa Thrift shopping, lots of swimming, and of course, my mother saved my hair! I loved being in Mesa again, James and I commented over and over how nice it would be if he got accepted to a PA school in Gilbert. Once again, I think we wore Jackson out!

Luckily, July means that Wilford, Kathleen, Sam, and Spencer get to spend some time away from the Dominican Republic. We sure enjoyed having the whole family (minus Clayt's family) at the cabin. I always forget just how pretty it is. There is a nice pond right outside the back of the cabins and Jackson spent most his time staring at it, crawling around in the dirt, and doig everything he could to avoid family devotionals! We drove up to Green's Peak one day, rode horses another day, and spent some time at the ranch's playground. Jackson was spoiled once again with all the attention. One morning, Wilford took Jackson out early in the morning for a little "grandpa time". How nice!

I sure wish this picture wasn't blurry!

Or that James' eyes weren't closed,

or that Jackson was smiling!

Pretty view though...

Thanks to Em, the MASTER of fishy lips,

Jackson can now do them. I keep trying to

get it on camera to show her though.

Someone asked me why I never put pics of ME on the blog. Well, I realized since I really do take most of the pictures, the only ones taken of me are usually by some niece or nephew. I had a good laugh at these two... :) Looks like I need Shaela's "glamour shot" camera!

After the 2 weeks, we decided to leave Jackson with my parents for a week and a half. James needed to prepare for finals and finish his 2 correspondence classes. I really needed to get everything ready for check outs of all the summer students. Rather than just pay for a babysitter here, we left him for the first time! I think it was a little hard on me to go from only being gone for like 4 hours to something that long, but we sure appreciate all my families' help! We were able to get everything done, and James even still made it for 4 days to scout camp. The drive home to Arizona felt extra quiet and lonely, but it was one of the prettiest drives I've ever made. There were scattered thunderstorms followed by full rainbows and double rainbows. The pictures don't do it justice, but I did try! Thanks to grandma and grandpa Andersen, he flew home the following week with them. They said he was perfect on the flight! (Our prayers were answered!) Jackson seemed to have a hard transition to being with boring us, in our tiny apartment, but once we learned he had double ear infections, I felt a little better about my parenting! A week and half later, after 5 days of fever's over 104, and a whole bottle of Amoxicillin, he's a new man!

New skills

Because Jackson is SO advanced, he has mastered quite a few things this past month. He now CLIMBS. Yes, climbs. No walking, but climbing. He makes it up on to the couch and I found him on the second shelf of the bookcase the other day. He gets scared once he's there and just starts crying. He's so determined though and sticks his tongue out the whole time he tries. He also shakes his head no, and grunts. And, he has 4 teeth coming in at the same time. So he'll now have 4 on top, 4 on the bottom. What a man! He really is such a sweet boy and sometimes I have to remind myself he just has TONS of energy. Or "life" as other people comment.

I'm pretty sure he's saying a few words now, besides the "mom" and "dada", he says "oook" when he wants you to look (and of course he's pointing with his little tiny index finger). He says "ooh ooh" for ducks and food that he likes. His new favorite food are grapes. He can down those so fast. I always try to cut them up, but he usually gabs the bowl and just eats them off the stems. I still haven't figured out how he chews them up, but man, he loves them. Tonight, he said no to cookie and no to ice cream, and proceeded to eat the whole bowl of grapes. I know what we're buying for our trip to Arizona this week!

Fourth of July fun

I love July in Provo. I first went to the freedom festival when I was like 12 with my family and I still remember how much fun I had. We loved the "frontier days" the best as Jackson fell in love with the bagpipe band (clapping, cheering) and we even had a artist draw James and Jackson. Ha ha. James was so embarrassed and yes, the picture is definitely modern art. Freedom days was a lot of fun as we mostly just looked at all the booths. I got my hair "styled" (aka. braided) by the Paul Mitchell ladies and Jackson loved the free suckers. We tried 3 mornings to make it to the balloon festival, but we never made it out the door by 6:30 am! So, that's the only thing we missed out on. We watched Stadium of Fire fireworks outside late that night and Jackson didn't even cry! We had gone a double date (we set up Whitney Metcalf with Russ Cardon, and enjoyed the fact we don't have to go on awkward first dates anymore! We saved seats for the Grand parade with some of James' cousins and Jackson LOVED it. Of course, we finished the day off with the annual water fight at Grandma and Grandpa Bennion's. James is always the hit of all the cousins. Probably because he rips his shirt off, runs around like a crazy man, and soaks EVERYONE. He shows no mercy and you can often hear him say "oooh...sorry, are you ok?..... ouch, that must have hurt.... you're right I shouldn't do it so hard..." Gotta love him!

Swim lessons

I love these pictures I got while he was in the pool, it sure captured some of the funny facial expressions he gives.


We've been taking "swim lessons" OK, the mom tot class, and he has LOVED it. It gets me outside everyday so I won't complain about the tan. He spends most of the class sticking his head underwater and climbing out of the pool. He was the only kid under the age of 2 who mastered getting out of the pool. I feel bad because his stomach gets so cut up on the cement but he just loves climbing out. We took the class with my friend, Lindsey, and her son, Davis.The bike rides got a little hot and the boys annoyed each other almost the whole way. We'd stop by the cannon center for lunch right after and load up on cookies to make it the rest of the way back. The best part was the 3 hour naps he took when we get home. Now, I teach a few boys in the ward swim lessons and he has to just sit and watch. Basically, he's not too happy about that. The mom, Sis. St. Clair, is so sweet to chase him around and try and entertain him. She commented to me that suckers seem to be the only way to get him to sit still! AMEN!

I also met my new idol at swim lessons.

When I first passed this lady, I thought for sure she was babysitting, then I learned, no, they really were all her 6 kids, and they all were under the age of 6, AND, they all rode bikes. I felt bad asking to take her picture while they all were riding,

so I just got the bikes in. No need to lock them to the rack, just all together prevents someone from stealing! In case you can't tell, there are 5 little bikes AND a seat, and she rides too! She took the mom-tot class with the 2 youngest, and the rest were in different classes. It sure seemed like a lot of work for one 25-minute class, but I soon stopped complaining about the effort of only having one!

CAMPING!

Ever since before we were married, James has tried to convince me to buy a tent. It took 2 years and I finally caved in. He's been so excited he even set the tent up in the front room!

Well, we finally braved the elements (aka Jackson) and tried to go camping. We only went back in American Fork canyon, but the weather was perfect. We stayed in the Timpanookee campground and really did have a lot of fun. We did decide that one-night camping is perfect for the one year old little boy who isn't walking yet. He crawled all through the dirt, ate the rocks, and of course, annoyed the fellow campers with his shrieking!

We spent the next day hiking around Cascade Springs. We tried to get someone to take a picture of all of us, but she held the camera upside down so it didn't quite work. But, I fell in love with Cascade springs! You walk in the middle of all the little falls on boardwalks. Jackson loved all the birds and everything was so green! I loved it!

This picture cracks me up just cause you can see how Jackson always sticks out his chin so his bottom teeth stick out. James is always worried he's going to need braces already.

Baby contest

We entered Jackson into the Freedom Festival's baby contest. I'll be honest, I really just wanted to win some of the great door prizes, and you got Stadium of Fire tickets if your baby won. Well, it was so wierd... parents took it WAY too seriously, and most kids were just crying. Jackson was VERY cranky in line and I gave him suckers to try and calm him down. But then he wanted to "crawl" around so of course the dirt stuck everywhere the sucker juice was. Basically, by the time we got to the table, he was so dirty and his face was bright red from crying, and James and I had both about had it. These were the only pictures we managed to take, and no, we did not win. But, I will probably try again next year in hopes of the prizes!

A new generation of babysitters

I've now left Jackson a couple of times with a new babysitter, Grace. She's the bishop's daughter of our ward and passed us out a magnet with her number. I always leave her with my cell phone in case she needs to call me. I was going through my old text messages this morning when I found a few I didn't recognize.....

Grace: "He is so cute mom! He's like chase and race (her older brothers) put together into one cute little package"

Grace's Mom: "I agree! Jackson is so cute. I like how carefully you take care of him. Love, mom"

Grace: "We just came in and are very tired. Should we put on a baby show to calm down too?"

Grace's Mom: "Make sure he is dry. Offer a snack and water, wipe his hands, read a book and rock. If he is tired put him in his crib with a kiss."

Grace: "Mom we just watched the show and now he is a little bit sleepy"

I sure had a good time laughing at those! Maybe I should be a concerned...but now that I know HER mom is so involved too.... maybe I won't!

And I wondered why baby-wise wasn't working

It hit me while going through all the pictures from these past few weeks that we really haven't planned around Jackson's schedule at all. Poor guy, he's just been worn out!

And the winner is....

MAN CRUSH.
Ha, what a team name! James’ softball team took first in the intramural championships with James as pitcher. Even though the last game was FREEZING… I actually made it to most of the games and saw these boys get extremely competitive! But hey, they finally got the coveted championship t-shirt. As the back says, “Those who say ‘it’s just a shirt’, don’t get it!" I did actually enjoy softball season though and I'm glad I have such an active husband! (who if you can't tell, sure has lost some weight lately!)