October, because it's the last day of the month...

Holy cow, where did October go? It went fast friends. Here we are on dear old Halloween and I haven't really posted much about our happenings. We've taken lots of pictures this month. So of course they have to be documented here. Halloween festivities will come in the next post. Here we go...

{Family Room Baseball}
Unfortunately, the beginning of October was still blazing hot. Thus, we took to playing baseball inside the house. Jackson is getting pretty good at hitting the ball. He definitely has his stance down. (Troy is so proud ;) Jackson's favorite part is cheering when he makes a hit. "Yaaaay! I did it!"

Jackson has also taken to putting his chair on the couch. Now that it's finally cooling down, we'll be able to use our lawn chairs in the great outdoors. Hooray for that.

{Co-op Preschool}
I was invited to do a co-op preschool with a few girls from my ward. It's more of a playgroup than a preschool as the little ones don't have a long attention span. But they like playing together and the mom's like only having to teach once a month :) Here are a few pictures from when it was at our house last week.

Jackson, Evelyn, Zurik, and Mckenna

Here we are dancing to some preschool songs. They all love to dance. :)

{Sunglasses}
 Jackson has decided his sunglasses are a necessary accessory as of late. You may have noticed them in the picture above. Whenever it's bright outside he says, "Oh mommy! I need my glasses." He also wears them indoors. Combine his sunglasses with his cowboy boots and he is lookin' great! ;) Below you can see how cool he is, flashing the peace sign and everything. Aunt Ashley taught him that when she was here this summer and ever since, he's thought it was the cool thing to do. (Although sometimes he needs help getting his fingers in position.)

{Donuts & Dodging the Camera}
We got donuts one Saturday morning. Troy loves donuts. I think it's a Bushman thing. I like a good cake donut from time to time, but Troy would pick a donut for a treat any day of the week. They are second only to cinnamon rolls, which is really saying something for him. Jackson went with me to pick up the donuts. He decided his was the one with the sprinkles. He was so excited to eat it! I wanted to take pictures of us eating our donuts and Jackson saw Troy cover his face. So, much to my dismay, Jackson picked up on this...

He now puts his arm over his face about half the time I want to take his picture. Lovely. Jackson thinks he is so funny when he does it. He laughs and laughs. "No picture yet, mommy!" So you might be seeing pictures of Jackson like this for a while. 

{Yellow Boots}
We inherited these boots from a friend in our ward. She gave us several pairs of shoes that her son no longer used. So nice! Jackson has loved them. But he particularly latched onto these "yellow boots" as he calls them. They are rubber rain boots. He was wearing them 24-7 and most of the time without socks, because he refused them. He was totally getting blisters. He would also take them off and ask me to put them back on several times a day. It was completely exhausting. Seriously, this shoe thing is getting to me! Unfortunately, the "yellow boots" which hurt his feet mysteriously disappeared one evening.... Luckily the cowboy boots took their place ;)

{Winter Grass}
 We had our first go at planting winter grass this month. Troy has been a very diligent grass grower. He checks it every day when he gets home from school. He's also sought lots of advice from Matt Serafine and Kurt Peterson-- both seasoned Arizona grass planters. Jackson and I have been in charge of keeping the birds off our grass. (When you lay the seed down, they come flocking and try to eat it all-- not nice.) I taught Jackson how to scare the birds away. He now runs at the lawn, claps and then puts his hands on his hips and says. "Birds! Get off my grass!" It is so so so funny. I love it. And very helpful too. Much to our delight, the grass in the backyard is coming up great. We hope it continues to fill in and look as lush and thick as the Peterson's does ;) Troy already has plans for him and Jackson to have sleepovers on the backyard lawn.

{Like Father, like Son}
 I took this picture of Jackson reading the sports section yesterday. He loves looking at pictures of football players, just like his Daddy! Ha.

So that's an overview of October, minus Halloween. Be ready for lots of cowboy pictures coming up next.

Jackson Lately

Jackson has been saying some funny things lately. I need to be better at writing them down. Here is a random assortment for you. (Prepare yourself for a long dialogue here, it's been far too long since Jackson got his own update. If you need to skip to the bottom where the pictures are I understand.)

• "Tickle" is pronounced "Kickle." This morning, we were hanging out on my bed. I was trying to fix our internet. He bounced over to me with a sheepish grin and said, "Mommy, kickle me!" We then had a tickling war where I pushed him down on top of the pillows over and over. He loves to "kickle" me back too, by lightly brushing his fingers mostly on top of my head and saying "kickle, kickle, kickle!"
• He loves to sing the BYU Fight song. At the end he loves to do the "wheels go round" motion (rolling his fists) and by the time you say, "Cougars!" His whole body is shaking with excitement. Sometimes we sing it before bed and it doesn't seem like such a calming bedtime song. Oh well, he loves it. He also likes to yell out "BYU Cougars!" at intervals throughout the day. The Y has one very loyal fan in training ;) He can also sing the last one or two words at the end of each phrase. When we sing you hear a "GLOR-Y!", "STORY!"  "DAUGHTERS!" "IN PRAISE OF YOU!" "STRONG!" "BLUE, COUGARS BYU!" All sung at the top of his little lungs. It's pretty adorable.
• During General Conference, he called all the male speakers "Prophets" and said that Elder Scott was, "Grandpa." I'm not sure which Grandpa that was supposed to be... Sorry Dad and Neil, I promise neither of you look that old. ;)
• When Jackson wakes up in the morning he usually yells for us to  come get him like this: "Mommy! Mommy! Daddy! Daddy! I awake!" When you enter his room, he spreads his arms wide with a huge grin on his face and says, "I awake!"
• Jackson is pretty good at pronouncing his 't's. I can't say the same for other letters, but the emphasis on the 't' makes some things he says pretty entertaining. When Troy leaves for school in the morning, Jackson likes to "watch Daddy." Meaning, he wants to sit in the garage/driveway and watch him drive away. He says goodbye to Daddy at least six times, runs up to the window and gets on his tippy toes to give him a kiss, and when the car finally makes it out of the driveway and is pulling away, Jackson puts his hand out in a stopping gesture and says: "waiT!" All the while he is running down the driveway to catch Troy. "WaiT Daddy! WaiT!" Then he tries to think of something else to say and usually he can't think of much, he's just stalling. 
• Last week, we were in the driveway wishing Troy well on his way to school. Jackson had been playing with his little Spiderman figurine that morning. When Troy was pulling away, Jackson ran after him saying "Daddy, WaiT!" Then he said, "Here, Daddy." and gave him his Spiderman (a prized toy) to take with him to school. So sweet. 
• This morning, Jackson came in while I was blow drying my hair. He likes to check my hair in the morning to see how it's doing. If it's wet, he says, "Oh no! Mommy's hair wet!" As if this is something really bad that needs to be fixed very quickly. When it is dry, he smiles and says, "Mommy's hair all better!" I don't know why he cares so much about the state of my hair... maybe because I tell him we can't leave the house until I've "fixed" my hair, (as in dried it.) Anyway, he came in while I was blow-drying, and I blew some hot air in his face. He laughed and threw himself on the floor as if it had blown him over. He did this over and over, laughing all the time like it was the funniest thing ever. The things that entertain Jackson.
• Speech Particulars: "F" is pronounced using "B." Jackson can't say f's. Thus, any word containing an 'f' is substituted with a 'b' sound. Fun=bun. He also says words that end in 'y' with a twist. Instead of the "ee" sound on the end it is an "-i-n-g" sound. Thus, funny=bunning, and Kindi (Colt's mom)= kinning.
• Jackson is a social butterfly. We've learned that Jackson gets irritable if he hasn't had enough social interaction in a day. Sundays are hard on him because once church is over, it's just us and he gets bored, poor fellow. He is constantly talking about his friends. He tells me we should go to so-and-so's house, that I should call Colt's mom and that we should all go to the park. Yes, Jackson. That's a great idea. Unfortunately, it's 6:30 a.m. No one's in the mood for the park now. ;) He gets SO excited when he sees ones of his friends. He loves to give them hugs and greet them with a loud, excited voice rattling on about who knows what. It's funny. He also loves when we have visitors at our house. Troy's old roommate came over for dinner Sunday. He and Jackson had never met, but Jackson immediately loved Brian. He talked his ear off the whole night. The thing about Jackson talking is that he is pretty determined to be heard. He will repeat the same phrase over and over and over until he feels you have sufficiently acknowledged what he is saying. He likes it best when you repeat back what he said. So he did this to Brian all night. When Brian left he wanted to sit out on the driveway and watch him drive away in his car. (Something he requires of all visitors leaving our house.) The next morning during breakfast he told me, "Mommy, Brian bun!" (bun=fun) and then, "Brian go home to his house." Ha. Very similar things happened when Matt Serafine was over for dinner a couple of weeks ago too. "Matt play football with Jackson. Matt bun." Yes Jackson, all Daddy's friends are very "bun." 
• Jackson has taken to wearing his sunglasses everywhere the last few days. He told me, "Sun bright mommy. Need glasses." Apparently it's bright even at dusk, and even inside our house, because he's been wearing them at all hours of the day. We lost them at the park today and that was a disaster. Troy and I went back 3 times collectively to look for them because he was so worried about them. We even prayed we would find Jackson's glasses, and that did the trick. He beamed when we found them, and told us. "Glasses hiding in the tree!" as we found them lying partway under a bush.
• Jackson's favorite thing to do is to play with his dad. He would literally wrestle and run around the house all night with Troy if it was possible. And trust me, Troy puts a lot of time into both these activities. Sometimes conversations before bedtime go like this:
• Me: "Jackson it's time to go na-night." 
• Jackson: "No go na-night yet mommy. I play with Daddy now." 
• Most nights when we are putting Jackson into bed he asks. "Daddy play I wake up?" And then Troy will answer according to the next day's schedule. Troy feels really bad when he has to tell Jackson he'll already be at school when Jackson wakes up and they'll have to play later. But Jackson is pretty understanding. He just loves to get in as much Dad playtime as possible.

Jackson pulled his pillow out of his crib and then took the cushions off the couch and made himself a bed in the middle of the kitchen floor. He thought he was being so clever. He also thought we were convinced he was sleeping. He was "snoring," but his eyes were wide open... tricky Jackson! ;)

Notice the figurines on the floor. Those are Jackson's "guys." He has to take a "guy" with him everywhere he goes. He goes through phases of which are his favorites, but he loves little action figures. He sleeps with about eight of them every night. Many of them have been named "Batman" as all superheros are called batman according to Jackson. He labels them by color, "white batman," "red batman," "blue batman," (which is the real batman.) This boy loves his super heros.

Jackson has a thing for shoes. It's a big thing. He likes to wear Dad's shoes, Mom's shoes, and about six different pairs of his own shoes in a day. He especially loves boots. He went through a phase where he was wearing my boots around for a couple weeks. They were thigh high on him, but he didn't seem to mind. He thought they were cool, even though he couldn't really walk.

He crouched down as the lawn mower passed. Troy said he acted like he was hiding. Sorry Jackson, our backyard is pretty much an open book to the golf course. No hiding here.

Jackson loves to help his Dad with projects. His whole face lights up when the tool box comes out. He says, "Daddy I fix it too. I help." Then we give him some small wrench and he proceeds to "fix" all the surrounding furniture while Troy finishes up his project. On this particular day the project was washing the car. Jackson liked this activity a lot. I think he ended up as wet as the car was.

He spent much more time than necessary in the soap bucket. This was his favorite part.

One evening we were all hanging out on the couch and Troy and Jackson got into a pillow fight. Jackson thought this was hilarious and oh so much fun. See the video below for lots of giggling.

This little boy sure is entertaining. We're so glad we have you around Jackson. Love you!

A Baby Shower

Two weeks ago two of the sweetest friends, Helen Francis and Robyn Whiting, threw me a baby shower. Helen Francis was my visiting teaching companion the first two years we lived in the ward. I also taught her daughter Claire in YW. Robyn Whiting is my current visiting teaching companion, and we also served together in YW and I had her daughter Paige in miamaids. These women are so sweet and generous. Everything from the invites to the party favors was adorable. These women know how to throw a party! The theme was "She's About to Pop" and everything was decorated in bubbles. Several other friends helped out as well. Heather Ashby helped organize food and took all these lovely pictures you see here. Stacy Serafine helped make lovely pom-pom balls for decorations that are now being displayed in our nursery. (So fun!) And Amanda Peterson and Kindi Wahlstrom helped prepare food. Several other friends offered to help too. I have such kind friends. I was completely overwhelmed by all the work and effort that went into this. I couldn't believe it was all for me. It was so much fun. Not to mention we were given so many adorable girl things! This little miss is going to be stylin'! (Can't wait for her and I to play dress up together everyday ;) Here are some pics from the party.

Robyn made the most delicious white chocolate popcorn bags for party favors. Yum!

It's a little hard to tell in this picture, but Helen made this cute ABC banner out of vintage alphabet prints. It was so cute! Helen also made the diaper cake on the table. It is so cute that I still haven't been able to take it apart.

Some of my cute friends. Amanda Peterson, Jill Neely, Kindi Wahlstrom, and Cheyenne Poulson.

Stacy Serafine, Jesica Fowler, Angel Day and me.

While I opened gifts, Jesica organized all my gift bags and tissue paper so I can reuse them. She is a champ ;) On the right Robyn Whiting is taking down all the info for me. (I can't believe I forgot to get a picture with Helen and Robyn before I left! So sad.) Boy did we get some fun things. Here are a few more pictures.

Stacy and I.

Robyn had everyone color pages for an ABC book for the baby. So cute right? Right to left: Brenna and Catherine Dickson, Tiffany and Ellie Larson, Robyn Whiting, Shanna and Dominica Maznio, and Mikayla Briggs. It was so fun to have so many of my young women come to the shower. I sure miss hanging out with those girls.

It was such a fun day, and it made me even more excited for this little girl to come. Thanks to everyone who helped and attended. I was completely spoiled!

Exciting News About Temples

I've had this post saved as a draft for some time now. I thought I'd better post it now while I'm slightly inclined to do so. Mostly these days all I feel like doing is lying on the couch and sleeping. I am SO tired all the time. Which is bad since I have so many things I want to accomplish... oh well!

ANYWAY- back to this post.

Provo, UT. With Conference weekend came the announcement of Provo temple #2. How exciting is that?! Our first apartment was just two blocks East of the Provo Tabernacle. We had stake conference in this building, and we drove past it everyday on the way to work and school. We were really sad when it burnt down last year. So the news that it will be the site for a new temple is super exciting. We talked about it all weekend. Yay for TWO temples in Provo!

This is the picture I took while we were in Utah last December. It was about a week after the fire. (super low quality pic as we were driving on super scary roads trying to get back to Payson from Provo.)

 Rendition of what the temple will look like when completed.

Payson, UT. Payson had their temple groundbreaking on October 8th. Troy's family all got to go because his Dad is the Bishop. Way fun to be there! It apparently rained the whole time. The picture of what it will look like is amazing. We're excited to watch it grow when we go home to visit. The site is in a really pretty spot. It's going to be awesome.

Phoenix, AZ. During conference weekend we visited our own temple site to check it's progress. So far they've just been moving dirt around. Nothing too exciting yet. But it was still fun to go check it out. I told Jackson we were headed to see the "new temple" while we were driving. When we got there and didn't see any temple he kept saying, "Mommy, I don't see temple yet." He looked through the fence and yelled "Temple, where are you?" over and over again. It was so funny. I tried to tell them they still had to build it, that the temple was coming. He said, "Oh, yes, temple coming." then paused a moment before saying, "Mommy, No temple yet?" He was very confused. However, this did not keep him from having the time of his life running around the parking lot of the adjoining chapel. Troy was a great sport and followed him around while I sat on the curb in the only shade tree in sight. Because of course it was still at least 105 degrees even though it was October 1st. (Pretty soon kids, it's going to cool down here. That's what they keep telling me anyway.) I'm excited to keep going back to the temple site. I totally want to take Jackson's picture in front of it as it grows. Sitting there while Jackson got his energy out reminded me of the Bountiful temple construction and this picture:

 September 1993.

Don't mind my awesome expression or my stellar purple hat. Ha! At least Lindsay looks cute. ;)

Who would have thought way back then that I'd eventually get married there? I remember it was so much fun to watch our temple be built. We sat on the temple grounds and watched as the lights came on for the first time. I was also just old enough to go to the dedication and I though it was completely cool that President Hunter was in the same building I was. I'm excited for Jackson to sort of have some of those same experiences here. At this point the Phoenix temple will be completed somewhere between 2013-2014. Hopefully we'll still be around when it's all done. Hooray for temples!

"When you come to the temple you will love your family with a deeper love than you have ever felt before. The temple is about families."

—Richard H. Winkel