A First

Jackson had his first sleepover at Nana & Papa's house on Saturday night!  They said he did great, although I'm sure they wouldn't tell us if he was horrible!  BJ and I were a little worried about how he would do as we both watched our cell phones all night waiting for the phone call.  In fact, we talked about it for a while on Saturday trying to determine if we should give it a shot.  The only other time he's stayed without one of us was when he was little and my Mom took him for the night as we celebrated BJ's Dad's 50th.  Haylee and Kyla were going to be at Nana & Papa's too which we figured would go over well as he loves them.  So we packed up his camping blow up mattress and headed down to drop him off.

This allowed BJ and I to grab some dinner and spend some quality time together (although we missed the movie we were going to see).  Thank you Nana & Papa for being brave enough to have all three grandkids stay the night.  Jackson had so much fun... so much in fact, he passed out while we were at Lowe's the next morning as we were shopping!

Back a couple days... it had been a while since I had taken pictures, so Friday night I grabbed my camera after we got home from work to do some catch up!  BJ was doing yard work so Jackson and I hung out in the front yard and talked with our neighbor John.  John and his wife Pam are the best neighbors.  They are the nicest people and are just so pleasant to be around.  And we found out they will be grandparents soon... so excited for them!

I'm in LOVE with this picture - but where did my baby go?  :(

   Playing hide & seek with John. He is so great with Jackson - he even pitched him a couple balls Saturday morning so Jackson could hit when we were weeding in our front yard.



Since we are coming to a close on Memorial Day weekend, I also want to note that we have now spent seven years in our house!  Wow... where has all that time gone?!  So many fun memories in our house- I'm thankful for it everyday.  Hopefully many more to come... 

All About Ball

"Jackson, Daddy loves ball but I think you love ball more" (BJ talking to Jackson last night)

BJ had another softball tournament this weekend so we spent some time down at the fields. And I know I said in the last post but it is crazy how Jackson will sit at BJ's softball games and cheer on each batter. Then as soon as we get home, we have to play ball for HOURS. Everything revolves around ball with this kid. Here's an example... when he's hanging out with me in the mornings when I get ready, he uses BJ's comb as a bat. :) That's just how it is in our house right now.

I tried to get some live footage of Jackson cheering at one of the games on Saturday. When you watch, you will hear him cheering for Mikey while he is at bat and then towards the end, Jackson starts screaming when he gets a hit. This is what he does ALL game. :)

Pasco Softball Tournament

Wow, what a crazy weekend!  We packed up our trailer and headed to the Tri-Cities last Friday for a softball tournament in Pasco.  We knew rain was in the forecast but what we didn't know was the wind that was going to go along with it!  Saturday night around 6:30, Angel heard an emergency radio announcement saying to beware of a severe storm with winds up to 60 mph. Yikes!  At that time, BJ's team was done playing (thank goodness) and we were all hanging out on the grass watching one of the games. We could see some nasty looking clouds in the distance and we watched as they quickly came at us.  It was the fastest I've ever seen a storm move and it was creepy.  This picture says it all (compliments of Angel - yours turned out way better than the ones I took).

Other than the crazy storm which left lakes of water where we were camping, we also had some other interesting things happen.  Saturday morning Jackson was his normal happy self for about the first hour after waking up and then suddenly you could tell he didn't feel good.  By the time I took his temp, it was already at 102 degrees. :(  I was so bummed as he was having such a good time camping and I wanted him to be able to go watch the games.  Thank goodness for ibuprofen!  It took about 1/2 hour to kick in and he was good to go again.  We even made it to both of BJ's games and he sat attentively and cheered each batter (I've never seen a kid his age get into the games like he does).  It's fun to watch him - I have a feeling he is going to be quite the baller. :)

Saturday morning - pre fever

An hour later :(

A couple hours later we watched the first game

Post game back at camp (BJ looks thrilled) :)

In addition to the softball tournament, there was also a horse show in the pavilion next to our campsite.  There were over a hundred horses hanging out in the various parking lots which Jackson thought was great.  This was our view from where our tailer was parked.  Jackson was in heaven!

And this picture is of Steve flirting with one of the horse girls... "can my nephew pet your horse?"  Using my cute child as bait. Crazy Steve! Jackson wasn't so sure about actually petting the horse. :)

Even with everything that went on, it was still a fun weekend with LOTS of great memories.  I can't wait to go back to that park when Jackson feels better and the weather isn't so crazy!



Some Things That Make Me Happy...

Yesterday was Mother's Day and looking at the two pictures I took make me really happy.  BJ and I are so lucky to have such wonderful, supportive, always there for us Moms.  And we were able to visit both of them yesterday.  It made for a great day!

And on another happy note, we are now at almost a week of no binkies.  :)  I've been so proud of Jackson... he has been a big trooper.  He has barely asked for a "Bs" and when he does we just tell him they went bye-bye.  I'm amazed that he is totally fine with it!  A big thanks to Grandma Pat for starting the trend!

Here they are... getting ready to be packed up and put in storage

Apple Blossom

Today, we took part in some Apple Blossom Festival festivities!  That included watching some of the parade and then hitting the carnival.  We were unsure of how Jackson would react... would he like the rides, would he be scared, etc?  We almost just kept doing yard work but we decided to try it out and I'm so glad we did.  Jackson LOVED it!  We met BJ's parents, Angel, Haylee and Kyla which made it even more fun for him.  Cousin Kyla was great... she willingly rode on the kiddie rides with Jackson which made BJ and I a lot more comfortable.  He cried when he had to get off the first ride but got the hang of things as he figured out he got to go on another different ride. :)

Just when we had finished up the kiddie rides and were heading to the bigger rides for Haylee and Kyla, it started to rain.  I was thinking it was going to be the normal Wenatchee rain - a couple minutes and then done.  Well, not so much.... it poured and left us running to our car (which was a ways away).  It was beating down so hard that I had to stop at one point because I was getting so much water in my eyes I couldn't see.  By the time we all made it to the car, we were soaked through all of our layers.  I have never gotten so wet from a rain storm.  Poor Jackson did not like it at all - it was a pretty crazy ride in the stroller!

Watching the parade - Jackson's favorites were the horses and the Blue Thunder :)

    Dad made sure he could see the parade

Sweet face

On to the carnival. This was Jackson's first ride.

Loving it!

Turning the wheel

Pausing for a quick photo with Mom

Jackson's second ride... riding in a boat

Trying to figure out if he is tall enough to go on the last ride

Riding the bikes with Kyla

He made sure we were watching him every time he came around :)

Champs

Last night, my women's league volleyball team won our end of the season tournament! This was the third year we have played with the same team and I think it shows in the way we play.  We peaked at the right time... just before the tournament started. :) It was tons of fun this year - I will miss playing every Tuesday.

Here is a picture of our team.  After looking at it, I realized how much I am in need of some sun.  As you can tell, the majority of my team hits the tanning bed!

From L to R: Dez, Tasha, Me, Jacque, Danelle, Megan & Missy

Alta Lake

Well, our first camping trip of the year is in the books and boy it was fun!  We returned today from four days up at the Alta Lake Group Campsite (which is a great site with lots of grass for the kids) near Pateros.  The weather was interesting... it ranged from hail the day we got up there to really windy to beautiful, sunny skies yesterday.  Thursday night when we went to bed, BJ checked our outdoor temperature gage and it was a whopping 23 degrees.  Yikes!  I was so thankful for our trailer and HEAT!

Jackson had SO MUCH FUN and it was really fun for BJ and I to sit back the last night we were there and watch him play with the bigger kids (instead of chasing him around everywhere).  I can't even begin to count how many times he gave them high fives or knuckles.  They were so good with him and it made our hearts happy to see how much fun he was having.  However, we struggled with bed time every night.... we would have big tears followed by "I wanna go outside" over and over.  Since Jackson is too big for his pack and play, we had him sleep in a "big boy" bed which consisted of an air mattress on our fold out couch.  He thought it was pretty cool and we were proud of how well he slept (once we got him to go to sleep!).  Check it out... the lizards had to go to bed with him every night too!

And here are some other pictures from the long weekend.  I tried not to go overboard but like usual, I still ended up with lots of pics. :)

Heading down to the lake - Jackson carried the bat the whole way :)

Beautiful day

Back at camp... playing some ball

 

Picture with Mom - BJ wanted to make sure I was at least in one picture

Trying to talk Papa into something

My favorite picture of the trip - Fathers/Sons :)