Is bachelor life all that good?

Yes that is a picture of three teddy bears in my bed. The first one dressed in a seahawks uniform is Adam's, the white one is Tammy's and the one in the hoodie is Jackson's. My family is away on vacation and their bears share my bed to keep me company. I know sounds pretty bad for a 39 year old but my family means everything to me. I'm glad that the boys, especially Adam, are getting to spend time with their cousins! However I am ready for them to be home! I thought I would share a few of the things I miss.

Jackson - He is a GREAT addition to our family! He is fast becoming Daddy's little boy. He still loves his Mommy to death but he really loves to wrestle and he goes nut's when Adam and Daddy wrestle. His little hands get going, he starts to yell and keeps looking at his mom. You can see exactly what he's thinking in those little eyes, "Mommy, Adam needs my help get me in the action, NOW!" Don't worry Adam and I always take time to get Jackson involved and he loves it! I miss giving him shoulder rides, he always has the biggest smile and constantly bounces. Most of all I miss his huge smile every morning I go into his room and get him out of bed!

Adam- Every time I see him I think of the wonderful miracle our Heavenly Father gave us! He has become my best friend (Don't worry Jackson has joined him). I love spending time with him. We now have star wars legos that we get to play on the Wii. He loves it and of course wants to play it all the time. I miss teeball! I help coach the team and went tonight but it just wasn't the same without Adam. I miss races, shoulder rides, hard hugs and hard kisses. Most of all I love going to bed hearing "I love you all the way to the moon and back, I win"

Tammy - As much as I love my boys it doesn't compare to how much I love there mother! She is the love of my life and makes me feel like the luckiest guy alive every single day! I miss my good bye have a great day kisses, my welcome home we missed you kisses. Walks with Mom and the boys. Mom helping Jackson get in on the action with Dad and Adam when it's wrestle time. Watching her with the boys, she is the best mom ever and dedicates so much of her time to them! Most of all I miss her ice cold feet cooling down my vey hot feet every night!

So that's why the bears get to spend time with me while they are gone. I am a very lucky man to have such a great family!

We've hit the 9 month mark

My baby is 9 months old today. So hard to believe that time is going by so quickly! I've been slacking on the picture taking front lately, so there aren't many pictures to share. Jackson did finally push through those teeth that were bothering him at 8 months - it took almost the entire month, as well as a nice rash and a few other side effects. Teething seems to be much harder for him than it was for his brother - and it's moving along much more slowly! His top middle two teeth have just barely pushed through the gums. You can hardly see them, but you can definitely feel them. His bottom middle two teeth are through and growing nicely.

This is Jackson and I at Adam's preschool party. Teething has helped to make him a binky baby. Everyone said I should just go for it and give him the binky - so I did. He's getting more and more attached!Jackson continues to be such a good baby! It is so much fun to see his personality coming out. He has become a little more comfortable on his tummy and is just now starting to scoot around. Earlier today, I set him on the floor and he rolled to the other end of the room. He's starting to figure out how to move. He ADORES his big brother. Adam can always make him laugh. If Adam is in the room, Jackson's eyes follow him everywhere. The two of them are starting to gang up on dad during wrestling matches. I think dad is going to be in trouble once Jackson gets a little bit bigger!

I'll post his weight and height after his doctors appointment. He doesn't have his checkup until July 7th, because we are leaving on Friday to go to Wyoming to see my brother and his family. Wish me luck - Jackson does not like his car seat, and we are driving down with my mom. If you've got any tips for long car rides with babies, PLEASE send them my way. I'm a little worried that if he's not sleeping, he's going to be screaming about being buckled in the car seat the whole time! Should be an interesting ride!

But, he is such a cutie-pie - I'll put up with a little screaming.

T-Ball Game

Adam had his first T-Ball game of the season on Saturday. He is playing with the Mill Creek YMCA this year, and even better, his friend Xander is playing on the same team. He is pretty lucky this year to have a coach who is pretty knowledgeable about baseball. Scott is also helping out with the coaching, and he and Adam are having lots of fun practicing in the back yard. Here are a bunch of pictures from the first game.

The ball is actually in his mitt. I'm pretty sure he dropped it, but the picture looks good!

Waiting for the ball to be hit.
This kids got some moves!

Look at that pivot towards the ball!

And now - for the batting! Adam's got a pretty good swing and can smack the ball past second base, if he pays attention to what he's doing!

I love the smug look on his face after the run to first base.

And here are some spectators. It was a cold June day, so we're trying to stay warm watching the game.

Playground

Friday night, we finally had some decent weather. Scott had to work, so I decided to take a trip to the park instead of hanging around the house. We headed down to Bothell Landing where Adam quickly be-friended several kids and convinced them to play a chasing game. That kid loves to run!

Jackson took his first ride in the swing. I wish I had brought the video camera - he was laughing and giggling the whole time. It was very cute! He loved the swing.

He also enjoyed a ride down the slide with his big brother. He wasn't as sure about the slide as he was about the swing.
Hopefully this is the begining of some summer weather around here. We are so ready to spend some time outside instead of in the house with the heat on!

The end of Preschool

The end of the school year is finally here! I know it's the middle of June, but school goes until the middle of June around here. I had fun teaching the last few weeks of our preschool group. It was so amazing to me how much the kids had grown in the 5 months since it was my turn. We really had a fun time for those 3 weeks. We talked about shapes, dinosaurs, pirates, fathers and even did some camping in the rain in the backyard. We ended the year with a little graduation party. One of the other moms had a cute little graduation gown and I made caps for each kid. I'm not sure why we couldn't get Adam to smile!

Here's all four kids in their graduation caps.
And here they are being goofy.

We really had a fun year in our preschool co-op. It's fun to look at some of the projects Adam did at the beginning of the year and see how much he improved in writing his name, coloring and cutting. I'm so thankful for the other moms and all the time they put into the classes they did. It was a great year!

Prayers

Adam says the best prayers. He wants to be the one to pray at every meal, which is great. His prayers consist of saying thank you for anything and everything he can think of. His typical prayer goes like this:
"Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for mommy and daddy and Adam and Jackson. Thank you for Noah and Talia and Aiden and Asher. Thank you that Jackson won't make noise during the prayer. Thank you for grandmas and grandpas and aunt Rachels and Uncle Daris. Thank you for Uncle Brian to come over. Thank you for Jesus Christ. Thank you for our blessings. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
During his prayer I will remind him to bless the food (if he is praying at meal time). He usually doesn't, so I'll remind him when he's done and he'll quickly add that part and say Amen again. Well, last night at bed time, he was saying his prayers and added this part:
"Thank you that mommy won't tell me what to say in my prayer."
I guess I better stop trying to get him to bless the food...

Teeth

So, in my last post, I mentioned that Jackson finally had his second tooth come in. I was looking thru some pictures I have on my work computer, and saw this one of Adam at close to the same age. This was taken 5/25/2006 and Adam had 4 teeth on the top and 4 teeth on the bottom! It's so crazy how kids grow so differently!

What to report?

I know all 2 of you that follow our blog (Grandma and Grandma) are wondering what's going on since I haven't posted anything in almost two weeks! I guess life is just going on. Let's see what we've been doing -
Scott and I celebrated our 16th (yes, that is 16 years) wedding anniversary back on May 28th. I can't really believe it's been 16 years. It doesn't seem possible. We also helped Scott celebrate his 39th birthday. I've been thinking about all of these numbers lately. I was recently given a new visiting teaching companion, and after talking with her on Sunday I thought - I'm no longer the "junior" companion. I know they don't put VT companions together that way, but I've always been paired with someone either older than me, or close to the same age. I think my new companion is at least 10 years younger than me. How did that happen? I have always felt young - not that I'm feeling old or anything - I'm just feeling different lately. I guess maybe I'm having a harder time with Scott turning 39 than he is. I don't feel like we have hit the mid to late 30s - it doesn't seem possible. I'm not making any sense, so I'll stop typing about this topic...
On to the boys (which is the real reason I do this blog). Jackson finally cut his second tooth. It's been a loooong couple of weeks! We actually finally broke down and took him to the doctor last week. He had been pulling at his right ear like he was going to pull it off, and it just wasn't letting up. Both ears were beautifully clear. But, he had 3 teeth trying to pop thru. He has been grumpy!! I noticed yesterday that the second tooth on the bottom came thru - so now we're waiting for the two top teeth. His top gums are so swollen - hopefully they will come thru quickly. Jackson has also gone back to his old ways when it comes to pooping. (Sorry - skip this part if you don't want to read about poop!) When I was breast feeding him, he would go a week or more without pooping. The doctor wasn't too concerned, since when he did poop, it was soft, and he didn't have any problems. When he started solid foods, it became much more regular, but over the past two weeks or so, he has started having a hard time. Can teething cause constipation? I heard it can cause things to go the other way... Anyway - I've been adding prune juice and miralax to his bottle to try and loosen things up a bit. Poor guy! I hate to see him struggle like he has the past couple of weeks. He pushed so hard one day that it actually made him throw up. He just cries and cries! The prune juice seems to be working, although he's not back to his once day poops, it was much softer yesterday! (OK - no more poop talk!)
He's also become a much pickier eater. He wants grown up food and wants to feed himself. He's so funny - he can clamp that little mouth tight when he doesn't like what we try to feed him. He has started to show the first signs of crawling. Not sure what took him so long, but last night he was doing the rocking thing, and has started to move himself backwards. It's only a matter of time now!
So, what has Adam been up too? He started T-Ball yesterday. He is playing thru the YMCA again this year. You never know what you're going to get for a coach thru the Y (all volunteer/parent coaches), but it looks like Adam lucked out this year! His coach has played baseball all his life, and started the kids out with some stretches, and then baseball fundamentals. He might actually learn something this year! His friend, Xander is playing on the same team, so that is fun too! The weather has been so wet this year, that his first practice was actually cancelled. We got to the field last night, and it was a virtual mud bog. Hopefully we will start having some dry weather around here! I'm sure I'll lots of pictures to post in the coming weeks!
We've started the last few weeks of preschool. It's my turn in the rotation again, and I've had fun planning for activities this go around. It's been so fun to see the changes in the kids! I did preschool the month of January and part of February, and the kids have progressed so much in several skills since then. This has been a fun way to do preschool! We were lucky to be included with a couple of other kids whose moms had done this type of co-op preschool with their older kids. Adam has learned a lot over the past year thanks to the other three great moms! I am so glad we decided to join in!! Adam has loved going each week and I'm sure he's going to miss it over the summer!
I guess that's about it from around here. Sorry for the boring, no pictures post, but I wanted to keep my "journal" up to date.