Pitch it Mommy!

Jackson loves playing with balls. He loves basketball, soccer, golf, volleyball, and just playing catch. But I think his very favorite is baseball. Sometimes he likes to pitch the ball for me to hit, but usually he just loves hitting the ball. He often grabs one of his bats (usually the big one, instead of the small one he can lift and swing really easily) and a baseball (other balls aren't usually acceptable) and comes over to me and holds out the ball and says "pitch it mommy." Then when I take the ball he says "thanks" and runs across the room and gets ready to hit it. He can hit it pretty good when I throw a good pitch. When he misses he'll say "ahh, miss" or "bad pitch." It's a pretty good activity for us to do because I can usually do other things pretty easily while he runs to get the ball, brings it to me, and runs across the room so he can hit it.

On the road again

The boys and I went to Utah with my mom and sister and her daughters. We all crammed into my dad's suburban and drove 15 hours to get there. It was pretty crowded in the car and I was the lucky one that got to sit in the back with all 5 of the kids. Luckily they were all really good. I just had to change movies, hand out books, and give treats. Jordan was the hardest one. But even he did good and didn't cry too much. We did a lot of the same things we did before when we went to Utah. We visited family, went swimming, ate out at our normal Utah restaurants, and went shopping. It was a fun vacation, but we missed Doug. Yesterday when Doug picked us up at my sister's house Jackson wanted Doug to hold him until we put him in the car t o drive home. Then he wanted to play with Doug all night and was very sad to go to bed. This morning he asked for daddy and was sad that he's at work. Jordan grew up while we were away. He has mastered rolling over from his back to his tummy and can sometimes roll the other way. He can sometimes move a little by scooting. But not the same way Jack scooted when he was a baby. He scoots with his legs pushing him not his arms pulling him like Jack did. He can reach for, grab, and eat toys. He eats and likes sweet potatoes (the baby food of course). And he can now stand with bpth his feet flat while in his jumpy toy instead of standing on his tippy toes. He's so tall. Here's the pictures:

Jackson and Alli sleeping at the Scera Pool. They were tired from not getting their naps.

Allison and Jackson at Great-Grandpa Riding's house.
Jordan at the Scera Pool.
The kids played some parking lot soccer with my uncle and cousin. Luckily no body got ran over...
Jackson loved playing with this ball at the Scera; too bad it wasn't ours. He always wants to play with everyone else's blow-up toys when we're at the pool or beach...
So his cousin Kimber bought him his very own killer whale. He loved riding it around great grandma Carlson's house, but he didn't like it the water.
Jackson with his cousins Xavier and Anna at the Scera.
Isaac and Xavier at the pool. X was cute... when I pulled out the camera to take pictures, he wasn't next to Anna and Jack but then he saw my camera and stood next to them and smiled. Then he did the same thing when I took a picture of Isaac.
I love this picture. Jack's opening his mouth so wide trying to eat the popsicle.
Alli, Sam, Grandma, Jack, Ashlee, and Kimber eating their popcycles.
Jackson got very messy while eating his popcycle. He doesn't eat them very fast so they melt and drip and get all over him... Luckily it was mostily on his skin and so it didn't stain his clothes.
Jackson and Allison eating their bottle pops next to me on the way home.
Jordan, Kimer, and Sam in the back.

4 months old!

Jordan officially turned 4 months old yesterday. So today we went to the doctor. After waiting for a very long time for the doctor, we found out the Jordan is 15 lbs 11 oz. (the 70th percentile) 27 inches (the 97th percentile) and his head circumference is 17 inches. The doctor said he has grown a lot since the last time he saw Jordan. Since Jordan is now 4 months old he can eat baby food. I was pretty excited to feed him, but I didn't know how he would do, since Jackson hated rice cereal plain. He wouldn't eat it until we started mixing fruit and vegetables in it.
Jordan eating his cereal.Jordan was so happy in between his bites. He loves eating!
Jackson after his first attempt at baby food.

Jackson 2 years later. He claims he likes it now. He kept asking for more, but I think he really just wants to be like Jordan though :)

Out of the mouth of Jack

After watching his cousin Preston get baptized Jack said, "my turn!" and was sad when I wouldn't let him get in the font.

Jack loves to call Doug "Daddy-O." He only says it at night though. He says "night, night daddy-o" then giggles.

This morning when I was getting Jack's clothes for church I picked up a tie and asked if he wanted to wear it. He said "no, different one" I showed him a different one and he again said "no, different one." We went through several ties like this until I finally picked the right one and he said with a smile, kind of laughing "different one" and I knew I chose the right one.

Whenever Jack sees a bicycle he says "motorcycle!"

He calls his cousin Brooklyn "Brookilyn." It's so cute to hear him say it.

He's really good with names. He remembers names so easily. He knows all the nursery kids' names. One day when we were at the mall and he was playing on the toys he saw a kid from nursery that was pretty new. When I saw him I thought he was in our ward, but I didn't know his name. The kid started crying and Jackson said "Coby's crying." Before he hadn't acknowledged the little boy so I didn't think he knew who he was.

Tonight we went to my parents house and my sister and her family were there. Jack had just finished eating grapes at the table when he got down and said "I want to see Alli (his cousin) cry." The funny thing was she wasn't even crying.

One day when I was changing Jack's diaper he was holding a Chuck E. Cheese token. I told him not to put it in his mouth (he likes to do that sometimes with coins and I'm paranoid about him swallowing them). So he put it by his mouth and started acting like he was eating it, but without putting it in his mouth. He told me he was pretending. I didn't even know he really understood what pretend means.

We sometimes have Jackson say prayers. He can kind of do it on his own. He says the first and last parts, but skips the middle. He also whispers it so you have to listen very carefully or else you'll miss him saying "amen."

He still loves to make sandwiches out of things. In the car one day he put his flip flops together and said they were a sandwich. He put the toys on Jordan's jumpy toy together and called it a peanut butter sandwich.

Last week we were at the park and Jackson sneezed or coughed (I don't remember which) and he said something to the effect of "bless you mommy" telling me to say bless you. So I said "bless you" and he replied very politely "thank you."

Jackson really loves making people laugh. Whenever someone laughs at something he does he'll do it over and over and over again.

Road Trip

This is my longest post ever. I thought of trying to cut out a lot of pictures. But then I decided if people get bored looking at them all, they can just stop looking. I wanted to show many of the fun things we did. We went to Utah for a week and a half. Doug's family had a family reunion in Parowan. Our nephew Preston was baptized while we were there. We had so much fun seeing Doug's family. He has 5 brothers and 2 sisters. All but one brother was able to come. We missed seeing him and his family... Hopefully they'll be able to come next year. We took about 14 hours to drive to Orem. We stayed there for a few days with my grandparents. That way we were able to visit some other family members that live around that part of the state. We had a fun and really busy vacation.

First stop: Orem

Jordan wasn't feeling good on the Monday we were in Utah. He cried unless we were holding and rocking him. But then we went to see Doug's sister Candis and she pulled out this swing. He loved it from the moment we sat him in there. He fell asleep after watching all the kids play for awhile. Candis let us use it for the rest of trip.

Grandma Carlson and Jackson

Grandpa Carlson and Jack

Grandma and Grandpa Carlson

Tooele/Stockton

Grandpa Riding and Jordan

Aunt Kari feeding Jordan

Unlce Mohsen taking Jackson for a ride.

The Scera Pool

The Reunion in Parowan

Three legged race: Xavier and Daisy, Lily and Brooklyn, Lauren and Shayla

Doug during the bubble blowing contest. He had one of the biggest bubbles.

Isaac watching the contest

Swimming

Avery, Mckay, and Daisy

Xavier

Dinosaur tracks and the Gap

Jackson, Jordan, and I didn't come on this adventure. Jack needed a nap and Doug didn't want to take Jordan... I don't know why not though. Who wouldn't want to carry a baby on a little hike? But luckily Doug took some pictures so I could still see what happened.

Some of the family

A dinosaur track

Look how huge that thing is... the people are so tiny at the bottom.

Damon and Hunter up on a tall rock... Doug told them to put their arms up like they just conquered the world and this is what they did.

Some hieroglyphics

Anna and Brooklyn

Damon and a lizard

Jordan back at Deveny's house

Family Pictures Grandma and Grandpa Dance

Dylan, Donna, Shayla, Randy, Toria

Mckay, Deveny, Preston (who just got baptized that day), David, Brooklyn

Hunter, Landon, Jason, Shantel, Lauren

Daisy, Shawnee, Damon, Darrin, Carson, Whitney

Tyler, Avery, Rose

Isaac, Ryan, Anna, Xavier, Candis

Jackson, me, Doug, Jordan

The whole Dance family, minus Doug's brother Brian, his wife Tina, and their three daughters that weren't there.

The grandkids

Randy, Deveny, Jason, Darrin, Tyler, Candis, Doug, Joan, and Blaine

This was supposed to be a funny face picture... but only Doug and Jason ending up doing one.

Whitney holding a sad Jackson. He, along with many of the little kids, was sick of taking pictures by the end...

Finally playing at the park

All Jack wanted to do from the moment he got out of the church was play at the park. We kept saying after the pictures we can go play. But the pictures took way too long in Jack's mind.

Xavier about to got down the slide. Jack poked his head in the picture right as I was taking it. I thought it was pretty funny.

Going Back Home

This is the view when we were leaving Parowan.

At the hotel

We stopped in Boise on the way home since we had a longer drive from Parowan.

On the road again

I don't know if you can see it too well, but there are a bunch of bugs on the window. I was trying to take a picture of the contrasting colors of the big hill and the green grass but instead I got a picture of the dead bugs on our windshield.

Here's the big hill and the green grass without all the bugs. Doug thought it looked cool and wanted me to take a picture of it... Actually he wanted to take a picture of it because he thought his view was better than mine (even though we were sitting next to each other. Maybe he just doesn't like my picture taking skills as much...) But I didn't think it would be very safe for him to take a picture while driving so we settled for me just taking it.

After a long drive and sitting in the car for about 7 and a half hours watching movies during most of it and doing the same thing the day before, this is what Jackson wanted to do when he got home... He's really not addicted to watching tv, at least he wasn't before this trip.

And Finally, two cute videos of Jackson

This one shows how excited Jackson was to get to Boise. He must have really liked it there too because on Tuesday he wanted to go there again.


This one is of Jackson calling grandma on his feet-phone. He's a pretty funny boy. He keeps us laughing.