Jackson's 1st Birthday!

CJ and I both can't believe that it has been a whole year since this little guy came into our life. How blessed we are to have him here and have the opportunity to raise him in the gospel. We truly have been blessed from having Jackson and we just love him to pieces.

We started out his birthday with giving him his present from us on Monday night so that he could play with it all day on Tuesday. This way CJ would be able to see his reaction to it. We got him a learning/music table. I brought it out to the family room and Jackson got this huge smile on his face and was so excited. He absolutely loved it and he walks around the whole thing over and over so he can play with all the toys. It is so funny to watch him.

When CJ and I went to Zurchers they had some really cute birthday things. We decided to do a Mickey Birthday. We bought really cute decorations and a Mickey cake pan that I was going to attempt to make. I am not crafty and have never decorated a cake before, but I really wanted to try. I make cupcakes also just in case my cake didn't turn out as well as I was hoping. I have to say that I am very proud of myself. It took me an hour to make the frosting, color it and frost the cake. It turned out awesome! All I did was use a cake decorating tip and made little stars around the whole thing.

We had both of our families over for dinner. There were around 30 people and not everyone was able to come. Our house was packed! We had taco soup and chicken noodle soup, rolls and salad. It was so yummy! After dinner we opened presents and Jackson was spoiled. He got a car race track and lots of reverent books from Grandma Connie, a basketball hoop from Cory, July and kids, a dump truck from Kimmy, Scott and kids, two Cars cars from Ryan, Amber and kids and a box of graham crackers from Kelly. He sure does have a lot of people who love him!

Playing on the boxes was definitely one of the highlights of the night...

After presents we did cake and ice cream. Jackson was getting a little anxious sitting in his high chair and he hates bibs so he didn't like that I had put one on him either. We sang Happy Birthday and he got even more upset while we sang. I put the Mickey cake on his tray so he could dig in. He definitely took his time. He stuck his fingers in it and licked them and decided that it tasted pretty good. He would only get the frosting and eat it. I broke off a piece of the cake and put it in his mouth and he spit it out. After a minute or two he took a chunk out of the cake and threw it on the floor. What a good boy he is...

He liked his cake, but didn't eat too much of it and was wanting to get out of the high chair after about five minutes. He looked funny with all the black on him. We wiped him up as best we could and stuck him in the bath.

After the bath, Kelly was holding him in the kitchen with his towel wrapped around him and he spit up quite a bit and it was all black! It was gross looking. I was worried he would have a tummy ache that night, but he slept fine. I was so grateful!

Jackson had a great 1st Birthday and is so very blessed to have so many people come help us celebrate. Jackson is very lucky to be growing up with so much family around. All I can say is we have the best family in the world!!

January 2012 and Lots of Pictures of Jackson

We didn't do a ton of things in January. Just hung out a lot hoping for warmer weather. CJ started traveling for his work and it is no fun. He was gone a total of a week and a half. Jackson and I were able to play with lots of family and even had a sleep over at Grandpa and Grandma Johnson's house. The first time CJ was gone, it was a full week. When he got back Jackson wasn't really sure if he wanted anything to do with Daddy. I think he was mad at him for leaving for so long. After about a day he was fine.

Jackson also got sick for the first time. He had a fever of 100, he had diarrhea and he was getting one of his front teeth. It took a full week for him to get back to his regular happy self. He just wanted to be held all the time. It was the saddest thing to just watch him be miserable. He wouldn't play much. He didn't cry a whole lot which I was happy for. He still slept great. The first couple of days he wouldn't eat anything, just drink water. Then he would eat baby food, but no bottle and then he would finally eat, but not as much as he used to. He had at least one bath everyday for that week because he just seemed to be happier when he was in there and plus he leaked out of his diaper quite a few times. And to top it off I got sick with a fever and threw up. It wasn't a good week, but mine only lasted a day.

Here is a bunch of pictures of my Sweet Jackson!

Jackson falls asleep in the funniest positions now. In this picture he has his left leg bent like he is sitting Indian style and the other one bent like he is kneeling. I think to myself "How is that even comfortable that he could fall asleep like that." Another day he was asleep on his back and had his right leg crossed over his left while his left leg was bent up. It is a good thing he is so flexible!

I had to put this picture up because he looks exactly like me when I was little. I will have to see if I can scan mine in and post it. I just started laughing when I saw this.

I didn't think Jackson knew how to open up the wipes, but apparently I was very wrong! I was in the kitchen and when I came back over to him he had pulled out the whole container of wipes and had them in a nice pile next to him. I thought it was so cute! I am okay with those kind of messed, not bigger ones though...

Jackson always does this with his tongue. He will stick it out while he plays. I think it is so cute!

Jackson loves to snuggle his blankie. He will lay on it and roll all over with it and he thinks it is the greatest thing. He likes to bite it too so when he comes up from laying down he usually has it hanging from his mouth.

Cory and July let us borrow Cooper's toy truck and Jackson loves it. The seat goes up so he can stand behind it and push it while he walks. He did it the first time, but after that he just grabs the side and pushes it while he crawls. He thought it was really fun when we put the seat down and had him sit on it while we pushed him. He laughed and laughed.

CJ's work has season tickets to the Jazz and they pass them around to the employees. CJ got tickets for the Kings game. The seats were awesome. We sat on the second row right behind the basket. The tickets came with dinner and free snacks at half time. The dinner was really good and it seemed so fancy. This was the game that Jimmer was going to be playing so I guess it was a big deal. It was funny because a lot of the fans had Jimmer jerseys on and were cheering louder for Jimmer when he made shots then they were for the Jazz. We didn't take our camera so we have no pictures of us there, but we are famous now because our family saw us on tv! The two blow up sticks that Jackson has were underneath our seats when we sat down. So we brought a bunch home and gave them to our nieces and nephews. Jackson was smart and started banging them together. He thought it was pretty cool. We had a great time at the game and it was so fun to go on a date.

This is Jackson's scrunchy face. He has started doing this all the time now. It makes CJ and I laugh every time. It reminds us of his cousin Kenzley who would do it when she was in distress or wanted something. At first Jackson only did it when he wanted something. He would point and scrunch his face. Now he does it for everything! He has the funniest expressions now.

He has started giving crusty looks. He will just stare at you with this ornery look for a long time. Don't be sad if he does it to you, he does it to everyone. He just needs to warm up first.

Jackson hasn't really gotten into anything. He will open his dresser drawers and only go in the bathroom if CJ or I are in there. He doesn't wander in there to explore which I am grateful for! He saw me get in the cupboard Saturday morning and pull out the griddle so he wanted to see what else was in there. He loved playing with the pitchers and cups.

Jackson is getting so big and he still loves the bath. He will stand up and crawl all over while in there. It scares me because one of these days he is going to fall and really get hurt!