Monday, November 30, 2009

Piano Man



Since Jackson learned to climb the Piano has been one of his most favorite spots. He gets stuck under the piano bench at least once every day. Last week he discovered the piano could also be used for playing. He loves it! Now the moment he sees the keys he heads over to help play a song.

 
Troy helping Jackson play.


And now, Jackson helping his Aunt Lindsay play... it sounded beautiful.


 

 
 Our little Mozart. I hope his love for music sticks.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Glorious Break



For the past two weeks we have had a break from medical school. Two glorious weeks. Reality is going to set it pretty hard tomorrow. I can tell that already. Although Troy's hard work paid off and he made good grades, finals week was a little rough on all of us. The break was just what we needed. I'm grateful for all the extra time we've had together and all the fun things we've been able to do. We have had lots of family in town, which was so fun. Family activities are featured in various other posts. Here is what we did when it was just the three of us.



We got to go to the temple! My friend Sarah Sheppard is from Mesa. Her mom Cheryl Elggren graciously offered to watch Jackson while we did a session. Because the temple is about an hour away, a temple trip from beginning to end is about a 5 hour ordeal-- a little tricky when you have a nursing baby who doesn't think bottles are very great. Having a sitter in Mesa made it lots easier. We were so grateful we got to go. The inside of the Mesa temple is gorgeous. There's definitely a pioneer spirit there.

The Serafines have been working hard on their backyard during the break. They invited us over to try out their new fire pit. :) Smores in November, it was delightful! Note the lovely landscaping work behind Matt and Stacy.
 

Troy and I decided we wanted to check out Lake Pleasant. It is 30 minutes from our house and quite nice. We went on a short hike down to the water and let Jackson touch it. He thought that was pretty cool. Even in November the water wasn't so cold. We definitely want to go back again.







 
Troy was excited there was a sailboat in this picture, so I thought I should point it out so everyone else could be excited as well. :)

The rejuvenating rest we got these past two weeks was just what the doctor ordered. (No pun intended ;) On to term two!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Our Bountiful Peeps


It has been so so fun having our Bountiful peeps in town. We have missed these guys since we've been away. Here is a compilation of random photos of the activities not highlighted in other posts.

 
My little brother is convinced In-N-Out Burger is the best restaurant ever created. If Jeremy could choose any food to eat, 99.9% of the time he would choose a hamburger. Here we are eating our burgers in the sunshine.


Jackson celebrated In-N-Out by taking a nap.

 
Cute Ashley. My sisters are such good babysitters. Both Lindsay and Ashley played with Jackson all week long. He loves all the attention.



Ashley wearing a beautiful necklace made from Jackson's toys. Lovely.

Mom, Lindsay and I stayed up late one night chatting and playing with pictures on the computer. Of course Jeremy and Ashley loved that because they were trying to sleep in the same room ;) That's what happens when you have 8 people crammed into an apartment. I actually loved it!


Troy and my dad playing ping pong during half-time of the BYU vs. Utah game. Since we don't have cable we watched it in the commons room at Troy's school. What do you know, they have the Mountain, who would have thought?

Jackson liked to wake the whole house somewhere between 4 and 6 a.m. Jackson is happiest when he first wakes up. He is usually wide away within 30 seconds and ready to play. He was squealing with delight every morning of the visit. Apparently the walls inside our apartment were thinner than we thought. Here he is playing with Grandpa early in the morning.


The truth was, Jeremy was a good babysitter too. He played with Jackson a lot. Jackson got to where he was reaching for Jeremy when he walked past.


Sister picture. You have to have one at every family vacation, right?


We had such a nice time. It was hard to say goodbye again. At least Christmas isn't very far away! Thanks for coming, we miss you already!

A Walk in the Park



Today we took my parents to Sierra Verde Park near our house. It was a little cooler today than it has been the rest of the week, but it felt so good to walk in the sun. My mom kept saying how she was getting all her Vitamin D. I think they've been missing the sunshine.

My mom has a camera with 15x optical zoom and a fast shutter speed. Which means you can catch lots of things that you wouldn't be able to otherwise. I had SO much fun with it at the park. I took lots and lots of pictures. Luckily my family is used to this (and Troy is getting more used to it all the time) so they played along. The lighting was a little weird sometimes because we were at a covered playground, but we got some pretty fun shots.


  


Because of the way our stroller works Jackson has to hold himself up to be able to see over the front. He kept his fingers gripped to that tray the entire walk. He is so strong!



 

 
Maybe he swallowed a bug? I'm not sure what made him make this face.


 Jackson's first time on the swings. He seemed pretty content.




Cute picture of my Dad!

 
See? Fast shutter speed. Sooooo much fun.



 
 Beautiful Ashley. I am in love with these hot pink flowers, so we had to stop and take some photos. I need to find out what they're called.




 
The stroller put him right to sleep. Cute little guy.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Black Friday


I'm usually not a big Black Friday shopper, although I do always look through the ads and debate about whether the deals warrant 5 a.m. shopping trips. My mom, sisters and I decided to go to Kohl's. They were having some good sales and they went until 1 p.m., which we liked. We walked in and this is what we saw. The line looked long, but we didn't realize how long until we got to the baby section and we hadn't reached the end of it. It wrapped around the entire store. True the deals were good, but definitely not worth that kind of a wait. I'm not that hard core and thankfully neither are my mom and sisters. We would have been there for hours!

The girls, and Jeremy, wanted to see the movie New Moon. Although Jeremy professed deep dislike afterwards, I thought it was pretty good, better than the first one anyway. I love going to movies and it's always fun to see a good girl movie with my family. (Troy was delighted they took me so he wouldn't have to sit through a vampire chick-flick later ;)

After the movie we played baseball. We met up with my mom's cousin and her family (the Bartons). It was a short game because it got dark, but it was really fun. My mom and sisters surprised themselves at how well they did. Lindsay even caught a pop fly in the outfield! We had a great time.




 

 

 
 My cousin Chelsea and her daughter Mckenna.

 
Ashley keeping Jackson entertained on the sidelines.