Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving in St. George, Utah this year. We drove on Wednesday and got there about 8PM local time. John's mom had 2 units at an awesome time share reserved for our family and John's sister Lisa's family. We got there and had lots of wonderful family there to greet us and help us carry our stuff in. I didn't take as many pictures as I should have. Darn. After raining all day Thursday, the weather was beautiful on Friday and Saturday. We had a super fun time hanging out with everyone and especially playing the Rage card game with the Hamblins until 2AM every night.

Ethan Hamblin, Jared and Jacey

We had a wonderful spread of food. SOOO much food. Still a ton of food left in the fridge after most of us left on Saturday.
After dinner- Emma Hamblin, Mia Hart, Saya Hart, Lisa, Ross and Adam

Grandma, John and Kenny

Jacey LOVES her sweet cousin Emma

Jared and Isaac found lots of time for game playing.

We ventured out Friday night to Tuacahn to see a live nativity. What a great way to start off the holidays. Poor Jackson didn't get to come out that night--he was sick and John decided to stay back with him--

Same picture but Jaden decided to jump in.

Pretending to fall in the water fall.

A ride on the train/tractor

We had no plans to shop on Black Friday, but holiday traffic came to a complete stop on the way home on Saturday at State Line. We decided to get off the freeway and walk around the outlet mall for a few hours. It worked! By the time we got back on the road, the traffic had cleared up. It made for a loooooooonnnnnngggg day though. Poor Jackson wasn't feeling well and moaned pretty much the whole way home. We got home about 11:30PM.

Even though it was a short trip, we had a great time and made lots of fun memories.

First Haircut

It was finally time to take this little boy for his first haircut. His hair looked good only right after a bath when it was curly and combed. As soon as he slept on it, it became a case of serious bed head. Here's the before and after:

He looks a little boy now. And he started walking this week! When he was born, I predicted he would walk by Thanksgiving. Good job Jackson!

Oh What a SIght...

We had a gorgeous sunset the other night. We had to capture it on camera, and Jacey was happy to pose.

Super Kids Get Super Awards

This is the award Jaden received yesterday at the Student of the Month assembly at his school. Way to go Jaden! Jaden is a typical middle child. Oh so typical. I hate to say anything negative about my child on this blog, but let's just say he challenges me in EVERY way. He is an awesome student though and perfectly behaved at school. In fact, at his parent/teacher conference his teacher said he is the best student in class. That is so refreshing to hear as I struggle to have patience with him every single day. It seems to get worse with him around his half birthday, so I'm hoping as that comes and goes this month, he will begin to behave better with me too. He is amazingly smart and so focused. I can count on him to start his homework the minute he gets home from school and whip it out in 10 minutes or less.
So yesterday was the assembly and parents receive a letter in the mail saying their child is getting an award on this day at this time and to keep it a secret. So Jackson and I are in the cafeteria and it's crowded and I can see Jaden's class from where I am but I haven't spotted Jaden, but I'm sure he is up there- I just can't see him. His name gets called and Jaden does not go up on the stage. Hmmmm. Where is he? I dropped him off for school this morning. I go around to talk to his teacher and she tells me he's in the office with a headache. So we go to the office to find Jaden, and he is lying down in the nurse's room. I tell him, "Jaden, the principal just called your name. You won an award!" Too bad he had to miss his big moment on stage. We went back into the cafeteria to collect his award from his teacher. He has had to come along and watch Jared get awards for 3 years and was waiting for his opportunity and he missed it. I'm sure the smarty will get another one.

I captured a of couple pictures as we left school. The awards assembly was still going on. He felt fine by the time we got home. :)

Happy Halloween

We had a great month of October here in the the Hartland. Grandma and Papa Johnson took the kids to the pumpkin patch. (yay! I didn't have to!) Jared, Jaden and Jacey all picked a pumpkin to take home, and they brought one home for Jackson too.

It's a big one.

Fun with Grandma

They did pretty well cleaning out their own pumpkins. Interest started to fade out though and John ended up pratically carving all of them. This is not my favorite part of Halloween, and I tried to rush them through it. I'm looking forward to not having a baby/toddler whining and crying during this part and trying to grab things off the edges of the table.

John got the carving, and I got the clean up.

Yay- All Done!

For Halloween, we decided to go to Pioneer Village. It's a "safe" Halloween, with lots of treat stations, costume contests, food, activities etc. My dad watched Jackson back at his house, so we didn't even have him with us. I didn't even dress him up that night hence no picture of the cutie. He did get to go to one Family Home Evening party at some friends' house, and he wore a dalmatian costume, but I didn't even get a picture of it. Bad mom. It was SOO warm on Halloween. I loved it. It was the warmest Halloween I can remember which made it nice not to have to worry about jackets etc.

Jacey trying to give me a mean witch face.

John got stuck holding the hats, masks and props (light sabers).

He practiced his light saber moves

They had a gazebo where the Disney princesses danced. Jacey loved it.

Jared, Morgan, Jacey, Tyler, Jaden

Happy Halloween and onto Thanksgiving!