Valentines

Our Valentines was LOVELY this year! Sunday night Jaxson and I got his Valentines ready for his cousins. I thought they turned out extra cute. Jaxson picked the orange Crush pop for the boys and the pink (strawberry) for his girl cousins. He loved telling me what cousin would get what color of pop and was a "big help" cutting the ribbon for his Valentines this year. We made Valentine sugar cookies and had heart shaped pancakes for dinner.Jaxson was very excited about his valentine from Brett and I. For the last 3 years we have given him a Valentines shirt, game and treat. Jaxson LOVES playing games and is very into the movie Cars so the underwear was a big hit and he has turned into a big Root Beer fanatic.It was then time to get our Valentine treat plates ready. We gave away homemade Oreo Chocolate balls and some of our heart sugar cookies. We made Valentine delivers to all of Jaxson's aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents to wish them Happy Valentines. Jaxson LOVED taking Valentines to all his favorite people but was a little bummed that we weren't staying and playing at each of their homes. After our delivering our Valentines it was time to go swimming. Jaxson had been asking me since we went swimming in Jan. if I would take him again and I thought it would make a great Valentine date for the two of us during the day. Our friends that we do playdates with came too it was lots of fun swimming with Daisy, Becca, Dalli and Erin. Jaxson was very into "swimming" he would put his head under the water a lot I think he's ready for swimming lessons this Spring and also LOVED the dino slide. After swimming Grandma came by with her and grandpa's valentine for all of us. She always puts our valentine at the door and then rings the bell and hides. Jaxson LOVED finding her outside. They spoiled us with lots of treats that are our family's favorites, a sticky ball and mitts, a Cars color wonder book and a gift certificate for Brett and I to Don Pedros with babysitting for a date night--Yippee!. My mom and I got a kick out of Jaxson because the Valentines basket she brought over had tons of yummy candy that we all love but Jaxson was so excited about the 3 red apples she gave us. That's my fruit LOVING child!After Grandma left Jaxson and I got our Valentines dinner ready. I think our evening was my favorite part about Valentines it was just a special night and it was with my boys. We did homemade heart shaped pizza, breadsticks, cabbage and strawberries. I dipped a few strawberries in chocolate and vanilla they were yummy. We decorated our table all Valentines and then I put a bunch of tea light candles all around our kitchen. We ate dinner and then I had bought one of those Valentine conversational cards and we asked each others questions. Jaxson loved when dinner was over and he got to blow out all the candles around the kitchen.

We then had FHE and of coarse the songs and lesson had to be on love. Brett and I hide hearts around our living room and then Jaxson got to find them. The hearts had writting on them that told good or bad choices (like you share your toys or mom tells you to clean up and you said no) and Jaxson had to figure out if it was a good or bad choice. If it was a good choice he put it by a picture of a home because good choices fill our home with LOVE. There was also hearts that had us tell each other what we LOVE about one another. After our lesson we played Jaxson's new game and then ended the night with a Valentines treat-Valentine sugar cookies and Valentines fruit pizza.

I also have to add that this year for Valentines Brett was very sweet. He made me a CD of music that I'm in LOVE with right now like Train's Merry Me song and had it sitting on our desk as a Valentines surprise for me. When he got home from work he gave me my Valentines card and some new sheets the color that I told him a week or so ago that I want to incorporate in our bedroom. Such a thoughtful guy!

PKU Valentines Party

This Saturday we went to SLC for a PKU Valentines Party. We left early so that we could go to lots of places before the party at 2pm. My parents went with Jaxson and I and were such a great help. Our first stop was the oulets to do some shopping. We then headed into SLC. After a stop at Whole Foods we went and visited my cousin's wife, Amy who is pregnant with twins and is on bed rest at a hospital in SLC. Wow my heart goes out to her and what she is going through with her babies who are due in April. She was life flighted out to SLC right after Christmas. Our next stop was lunch and then to the party!

The party was in the lounge at the Huntsman Center on the University of Utah campus. I told Jaxosn at 7:15am that we were going to a basketball game and all day he talked about it and asked and asked if it was time for the game. It was great to see and talk with other families with children with PKU. We laughed a lot about our lives with PKU that only a family with a PKUer could truly understand, shared info and had a great time. Sweet Grandma took Jaxson on an adventure to find a basketball. I didn't pack Jaxson's ball for the trip and all day long we heard about how he didn't have his ball. When we got to the game my mom thought she would be able to find one there but had to do a big hike with Jaxson around the campus to the bookstore to find one. After the party we went and watched the women's Utah vrs. BYU basketball game. Jaxson lasted longer then I thought he would without being able to shoot hoops and having to just watch. He keep asking me and telling me that it was his turn to go shoot hoops. We left the game and stopped in Park City for some yummy Cold Stone! One of my favorite places. It's not a fantastic trip unless you get to go to Cold Stone. Then we came home it was a packed full day.

Jaxson practicing his shot.

The ball was a big hit with some of the kids that came to the party.

Telling the clown that he wanted a green puppy.

Our January

Our January was good. We always get to start the new year off on a great note--our anniversary. This year was #8 for us. Brett started a tradition I just love when we had our first anniversary with giving me the number of roses that we have been married for it's so sweet. My 8 red roses were so beautiful this year and made our house smell heavenly. Brett surprised me with a wii and the Just Dance 2 game. Jaxson and I are very addicted to that game. We play nightly and Jaxson is amazing with the "robot dance"--his all time favorite. We've had some great Just Dance family nights at our home. I gave Brett tickets to Bon Jovi in March. Brett's never gone to a concert and I figured Bon Jovi is one we can both go to and enjoy. Bon Jovi was on Oprah in January and it got me all excited for our concert it's going to be awesome he's got lots of great hits. I also every anniversary dig out our wedding album and DVD. Jaxson all month long has asked from time to time to watch the movie of when mom and dad got married. He makes me smile.

We've spent January doing just lots of fun things like: ice skating, sledding, swimming, playdates, family dinners with our parents, a temple date night and even a dinner/game night with our friends and their kids at our home. We've tried to make the best of this very cold trap inside month.=)

Brett has spent TONS of time working on our new home with doing all the shelves, doors, framing of the doors and baseboard. Jaxson and I didn't get to see him much this month. He would go to work at 6am come home eat dinner with us for 20 minutes or so and then head down to the house and work till 9:30 or even 11:30pm some nights. He's done an amazing job and I appreciate all the work he's done for our family. It's been a big sacrifice for all of us but I know we will LOVE it and it will be well worth it when it's all done. We are in high hopes of being moved in the first of March. Yippee!

Jaxson and I ended the month with being sick, no fun. We both have sinus infections. I feel back to normal now that I have some meds and Jaxson's getting there. I also reached my goal of running 5k's daily and the crazy thing is I'm starting to like running. I never thought that would happen. In January I also was a book worm thanks to my sister-in-law Danielle and read the whole Hunger Games serious. Such a crazy topic but I was so into them and was staying up way too late to read them they were good! I think Brett was thrilled when I finished reading them.=) I read through them in 3 weeks I just had to know who Katniss ended up with in the end and how it all ended.

I was horrible at taking pictures this month but here are a few shots I did take--

One Saturday while Brett was working at the house Jaxson went down to "help". He even took his own tools to help. He lasted a total of 30 minutes but it was super cute to sent Brett and Jaxson both down to "work" on the house together.

The Rest of 2010

Over 5 months, that's how long it's been since I lasted posted on my blog, too long! I can't believe it's been that long but then again every time I get on my blog I see Summer swimming pictures and that wonderful Summer weather does seem like a while ago. Life has been fun, busy and eventful just like I'm sure yours has been these last 5 months. Around July my computer no longer would let me upload pictures and sadly that made my blogging less a priority. With the year ending I thought I needed to get on here and journal one of two of the things that have happened to us. There has been so much but here are some of the things that have made up the rest of our 2010.

July-The end of July my sweet friend Stephanie came with her husband and her 2 girls to our town for a visit. It was one of the highlights of my year. I met Stephanie at a PKU cooking workshop in 2008 and we have developed a great friendship over email our kids are pretty close in age. She has been one of my main lifelines to accepting and dealing with PKU. She's an amazing mom to both of her adorable girls who have PKU. It was so wonderful to have her and her wonderful family in town. We did a lot of fun things together, talked and talked and ate a few meals together outside on our lawn. It was really great therapy for me and I'm still waiting for Stephine to send me the bill.=) Thanks for coming Steph I can't wait till we can get our families together again.

Aug.- I had a birthday. I love my birthday, I get that from being raised by my mom. This year I had the best birthday! My sweet sister in law, Elizabeth called all my girl family members and friends and took me out to lunch with all of them, so much fun! I got tons of great birthday gifts and my boys took me out to SLC the day after my birthday to stay at the Grand America and if that wasn't enough Brett had a dozen roses waiting in our room and they had pre-arranged a full day spa experience too it was over the top!

Sept- Jaxson potty trained! Hip Hip Hooray! He basically did it all on his own. Sept. 24 he was having a bath and told us he needed to pee, we got him out, he went potty and diapers were no more. Brett and I were shocked with how easily it happened but also very happy and grateful. It's so nice to not be doing diaper changes.

Oct.-Jaxson was a dinosaur for Halloween. We had a hard time coming up with the right costume idea but once we mentioned a dinosaur to Jaxson he was SOLD. From then on he has been in love with dinosaurs, it's a very nice break from the balls, bats, footballs, etc. Don't get me wrong Jaxson is still playing basketball, football, baseball and soccer daily He loves to see the dinosaurs in our town and sometimes talks about them being his brothers and family.

Nov-We found a home to buy. So exciting! It's being built and it's just a few houses down from our current home we are renting. It's fun to drive by it daily and see the progress. We are picking out things for it and Brett's getting to do the finish work on it. I couldn't be more happy to be getting into a home let alone on the street that I think is the VERY best street in the world. The land use to be a spot that I along with all the neighborhood kids would built forks and play and I think it's so special to raise Jaxson and live on that same spot of land I played hours on as a kid. Also the dinning window has a view of my grandparent's farmland, priceless memories! We are in high hopes of it being done the first part of 2011 and would love for you stop by.

Dec.- Jaxson asked Santa for a dinosaur. I can hardly wait for Christmas morning with him it's going to be too much fun. Brett and I each took him separately to pick out a present for mom and dad and Jaxson is just as excited for his surprises for us and he is for his gifts. He received a letter from Santa a week or so ago in the mail (I'm pretty sure my Uncle sent them out but I'm not 100% sure) telling him that Santa is checking his list and that Jaxson is on the nice list. Jaxson has talked and talked about being on the nice list since that letter but sometimes when he is doing something not so nice, on his own he will tell me that he is on the naughty list. I was telling him the different kinds of cookies and drinks we could leave Santa and he picked Sugar Cookies and water so that is what Santa will find at our home when he drops off Jax dinosaur. I'm not much a winter person and really do not like snow but for Jaxson the snow has been the very best treat. He absolutely LOVES to eat the snow and asks me all the time if he can go get some snow to eat. I myself was never a snow eater child so it's a little crazy to see my son so in love with snow but hey it's protein free so eat as much as you like Jaxson!=)

Brett got a new job in December and now works Monday through Friday. He no longer has to get up at 4am and now has every weekend off which is very nice. He coached our ward YM basketball team this season and they won all the wards in our town so they were the Region Champions. It was a pretty exciting thing for Brett. It made me feel old to watch Brett as the coach since we meet and started liking each other when he was playing church basketball. He is still the YM leader and is currently helping the boys plan a snowboarding trip in Jan which he is very excited for. In fact I think he is more excited for that then Christmas.

Between Jaxson, family life, house work, primary, food and play dates life keeps me pretty busy but I love almost every part of it. I started a new card group in Oct and I'm loving that. I enjoy being a part of my ward's primary presidency but never knew primary could be so busy. It was a huge relief to get the program over with in Nov. and now we are in the mist of getting everything ready and lined out for the 2011 year along with a primary activity before the kids go back from break. The Wednesday after Christmas I'll be cooking over 72 mini muffins for our activity, wish me luck. I also in the last 5 months lost 20lbs but the Christmas goodies do me in every year so I'll need to recommit next week. =)

So that's us in the last 5 months. Merry Christmas!

Our 4th

We stared celebrating the 4th on Saturday evening with a bbq at my parents house. After eating my parents filled up their 3 kiddie pools with warm 110 degrees water. Jaxson is in love with swimming at grandma's and asks me everyday to put his swim diaper on and take him to grandma's to splash. He can't get enough this summer. Elizabeth brought down her red, white and blue polish and did all of our toes so that we were ready for the 4th!

Later that night we joined the Erickson's at MarShel's headstone. Nicki brought some flowers, Carolee brought some 4th of July balloons and we even did a few sparklers for Auntie MarShel.

Jaxson thinks Grandpa Darwin is the coolest with his leathers and motorcycles that he rides!

Ms America 2010!=)

SUNDAY we went to church and afterwards both my boys crashed for a 3 hour nap--LOVED it.=) I got around to watching a lot of shows on my DVR it was fabulous and made for a very relaxing holiday!=) That evening we went to my parents for dinner, did a few fireworks before going to the big fireworks up town after those we went to Nicki's for more fireworks! Jaxson LOVED all the fireworks in fact since the 4th he will ask me from time to time to take him to see the fireworks.

We got Jaxson and Kole matching 4th of July shirts. When I saw this 4th of July baseball shirt it screamed Jaxson to me.

Having a midnight snack before bed.

MONDAY--we watch the good old 4th of July parade. Jaxson actually watched the parade sitting on his cousin Braden's lap. When the 15 year old all-star team came by Braden's friend dumped a full water cooler from the top of firetruck right on them but Jax didn't seem to mind getting wet. After the parade we went shopping, Jaxson's napped, Brett went golfing and I cleaned our house. Not too much celebrating Monday but that was okay we had already had a great 4th of July weekend!

Brett got Jax this hat in Grand Junction (another thing I need to blog about) Jaxson adores this hat and wears it all day and even would even like to wear it to bed if I would let him. He thinks it's his helmet and he must wear it to play baseball and since we do baseball all day he wears it all day.=)

Our Family SLC Trip

For a few months I have wanted to take Jaxson to the Hogle Zoo, Jungle Jims Playground and This Is The Place Heritage Park in SLC. When we went out to SLC every Friday for 2 months for Jaxson's hospital visits either the weather would be bad or we would run out of time. So I finally decided that we just needed to plan a trip with the only purpose being going to these places. When I was telling Brett about this future summer trip I mentioned it might be fun to invite his side of the family since it's always more fun with family right and also they have kids close to Jaxson age. So In June Jaxson's Grandma Carolee, Aunt Nicki, Aunt Roxanna, Aunt Heidi, Uncle Jeff and cousins-Kaysia, Kylen, RyLee, Payton and Jayden joined us for our trip. We left early on a Friday and went straight to Hogle Zoo after the zoo we went to Jungle Jim's Playground then to dinner and then to our hotel . The hotel was really neat I wish we could have gotten there a little earlier but we still had fun. The pool was actually a water park with a miniature play area for the kids, a water slide that went outside of the hotel and then came back into a swimming pool and a hot tub shaped as Mickey Mouse. Saturday we went to This Is The Place which ended up being Brett and my favorite stop of the trip and then ended our trip on a perfect note-Cold Stone ice cream in Park City! It was a wonderful family trip we had a blast and can't wait for the next one!

HOGLE ZOO Waiting with Kaysia for our tickets to get into the zoo. That morning Jaxson told Brett and I, "I can't wait I want to see tiger"

Having fun with the water ball
Cousins! Getting fantastic perfect smiling face forward pictures was a little hard to say the least with this group but we still snapped some great memories

Jax wasn't so sure about this elephant but it made for a neat family shot. I think he thought it was real and it was way too big to be standing near it let alone on it's trunk.

This year Jaxson wanted to ride the tiger. He was all about the tigers this year sorry Zebras.

Aunt Nicki bought Kylen and Jaxson zoo motorcycles and after that they were ready to just play and could have cared less about seeing the zoo. Such boys!

JUNGLE JIMS PLAYGROUND

Jungle Jims has these really neat kid amusement rides, soft playground and carnival games. You can google them if you want to see more they are located in Midvile. We mostly recorded while we were there but I did take a picture. It was fun and there was hardly anyone there so it almost seemed like we had it for a private party but without the cost.

Crazy drivers! Only 14 more years and this sight could be real yikes!

OUR HOTEL

Ready to swim!

Most kids would want to play here but not our little guy

he was all about the hoop and making baskets he's such a sports nut!

After swimming we were exhausted and needed to just chilled. Brett and I got the biggest kick out of Jaxson just laying on his pillow in this big queen bed all by himself with his motorcycle in one hand and his treats in the other he was so adorable.

This Is The Place

Doing a little art work

Petting one of the horse that gives wagon rides

Playing school at one of the old school houses

Riding a pony. Jaxson loved it! The whole time he keep saying "giddy up horsey"

The petting zoo the goats loved Jaxson and he loved feeding them the wood chip

They had a couple of mini play houses that were super cute and replicas of old houses or cabins back in the day for the kids to play in so much fun!

In the play house area they had this really neat wooden train. Jaxson LOVED driving it!

All Aboard!!

Myself, Jaxson, Heidi, Payton and RyLee ready for the

mini train ride around the pond and tunnel