Happy 5th birthday to Jackson

Can you believe I have a 5 year old? There's a new LEGO movie out, with a song called "Everything is Awesome" and lets just say that is the theme song to Jackson's life. Everything IS awesome for Jackson! He thought my party- complete with water balloon fight, games, store bought cupcakes, ham and cheese sandwiches, otter pops, and take home water shooters was awesome! He plays so hard and has a hard time settling down sometimes, but he sure was happy about everything! 

Summer swimming!

Summer meant that I was finally feeling a little better. What a difference it makes to have more good days than bad and to actually feel like eating!  Tommie and Dallin loved hanging out with me at my mom's pool. Ya, we were there just about everyday. 

 We signed Jackson up for the 6 and under swim team at carson. He was scared to death the first few days and cried and screamed and kicked me. He said it was just too hard. But then, he realized he actually liked it! He loved to hang on to the lane lines, definitely never swam all the way across, and never seemed out of breath. But, he swam his hardest each race and felt like a winner each time. He loved butterfly and is actually really fast at it. Finally, at his last swim meet, he swam all the way across and realized he could do it!

 Look how big Dallin and Roland are getting! 

what Spring brought us

Written in August 2014

April was another trying month. I am so grateful that for the whole month of April, Shaela made our daily dinner almost every single night. We didn't pay her a single thing, and she would just show up with amazing meals, hot and ready to go. Complete with paper plates. Oh how I needed that and loved her for it!

James was involved with more missionary work and baptized a sweet lady named judy Feathers. We were involved with the fellowship and conversion of Jason and Marina Love- another neat family that  allowed the Gospel to change their lives. 

 We spent a lot of time going to Spencer's basketball games and I grew to love having him around. I needed his help in a lot of ways. Ya, there were hard times and we didn't always handle things the best, but we loved having him be a part of our family. He graduated in May and moved on to BYU, but my boys still miss him and talk about how much fun they had with him.  It really was hard to say goodbye!

Jackson finished up his last year at orange patch preschool. So fun to have him involved with so many neighbor kids cousins.It was the highlight of his whole week and he thrived off all the attention. He was of course very serious at the performance/graduation- the loudest singer, the first to do the actions, etc.

Little Tommie kept continuing to heal and watching him started to get a little easier. Grandma Anderson (affectionately named gram cracker) brought in a meal every other week. Each time she came she had a new ingenious toy idea for him in mind. I love her all the more for each thoughtful gift that he would play for hours with.

Jackson played Tball on the mesa westwood team. He of course was very enthusiastic about it and loved every game. It was fun to have Weston on the same team and we ate a lot of dinners down there at the school field!

James was an "angel" on the stake pioneer trek. He helped pull handcarts up a big hill over and over. He came home wasted and tired- but loved seeing everyone. 

My family was in the easter pageant again which meant great seats for us! Jackson was really in to the pageant this year and the story of Jesus dying.

Remember Jimmer, our crazy dog? We lost him! :( Just at the peak of his breeding- he jumped out of the back of shaela's truck! We never found him again.

In terms of our finances, it still seemed liked the punches were rolling! The engine went out in our Hyundai. Luckily, the warranty covered a lot of the cost of a new one and we had a rental car for 2 weeks.  The fridge died and needed to be replaced. The truck blew a tire. I discovered I didn't have any maternity coverage on our insurance plan and no one would take me with the curent pregnancy. Poor James, he started to feel a little stressed! I'm sure it didn't help that Tommie's and my pregnancy bills were coming in weekly! He found a job opportunity to manage an HOA in Las Vegas. So, he took a trip there to present his bids. And, got a speeding ticket a long the way! :( We still don't know if he got the job or not, but it would be a huge pay increase for us!