Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!!! We have had a wonderful father's day weekend.  Friday night, we took Jack to a Pheasant's baseball game in Sioux Falls.  He had soooo much fun!!  One of the kids near us had a baseball glove and was talking about catching a ball, so Jack asked where his glove was.  Well, we told him that if a ball flew our way, he could just catch it in his hat!  Needless to say, he sat the rest of the night with his hat ready to catch that ball.  The cute part was that any foul ball that was hit, it was always a long ways away...he'd reach out his hat as if it was coming his way!  He certainly kept our row well entertained with that.  The Pheasant's played a good game, hit a few homers and won the game.  They had fireworks after that, which Jack thought was really loud, but thought were cool. 

Jackson was so excited for today!  Yesterday, I worked on setting up a treasure hunt for Jon and Jack to do this morning.  Lucky for me, Jon went to bed before me last night (rarely happens...I was busy doing Arbonne things!) so I could go hide all of the clues and presents while he was in bed.  All of the clues were Jack-isms that he says commonly (such as 'don't push me' when he's on his tryke, so the clue went in the basket on his tryke).  Jack and I made monkey bread this morning and took Jon breakfast in bed.  Jack thought that was really cool to eat in our bed.  Good thing we only do that a few times a year!!  So then we gave Daddy his cards and away they went on their treasure hunt.  Jon would say the phrase and then you could see Jack's wheels spinning and off they'd go!  It was cute to watch them work together and find the next present. 
                           
So after that, we went to church and then headed to town for lunch.  Since it was Father's Day, we took Daddy to Red Lobster (gasp....what, Libby went to Red Lobster?!?!  yes, I can handle it once in a blue moon...just not often!!)  One of the waitresses even got a lobster out of the tank for Jack to hear.  He thought they were really cool crawling in the tank...not so much when it was out of the tank!  She showed him the tail and his legs and talked about his nose being long to protect its eyes, but Jack was most interested in putting it back!  It was very cool for the waitress to do that though...Jack talked about it most of the way home!  After a long nap by a few of us, (Jon watched the US Open, I fell asleep on the couch) Jack woke up and immediately requested to go on a bike ride.  So we packed up a picnic lunch and headed on our bikes for the pool.  Jack wasn't so sure he liked the big pool, but was much happier at the wading pool.  Bike trip home, a few quick books and then off to bed.  What a great day!! 

Thank you, Jon, for being such an amazing father!  You far exceed the typical dad and Jack is so lucky to have you!!  From all of the extra snuggles you give, to helping out around the house, to putting us before your job, to all of the sand castles you've built, to all of the love you give us...we both say thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!  We love you!!

Yucky Kisses!!

So yucky kisses started getting passed around this house a few weeks ago.  Let me explain...Jack started refusing kisses from Daddy stating they are yucky!  He wouldn't let Jon kiss him at ALL...and for those of you who know Jon, it almost killed him!!  After a few weeks of this, Jon came up with a solution...trick the toddler...tell Jack HIS kisses are yucky and see what happens.  What do you know, the intelligence of the adult took over...works every time!  If Daddy refuses yucky kisses from Jack, the kisses only increase!!  Now he'll only kiss Daddy if Jon says Jack's kisses are yucky.  If he tells them they're nice, Jack stops.  So night after night, Daddy tricks Jack into bedtime kisses by throwing a "fit" about getting yucky kisses!  Ah...the innocence of toddlers!  No complaints here...he dishes out the kisses if they're yucky enough!  : )

We went to see Luke and Talia's new little guy, Beckett, this last week.  Jack thought it was so much fun to hold Beckett and give him kisses!  He held him quite a while without letting anyone take Beckett from him.  He's certainly growing up!! 

More Jack-isms

So a couple more Jack-isms from tonight!  We were driving into town and I was asking him what everyone's favorite color was.  I got to Aunt Nikki and he sat there for a little bit.  "Uhhhhhhh....i don't remember how to say it!"  :)  He didn't say he didn't know it, just that he couldn't remember how to say it!

And then a few minutes later, I got "When big boys drink beer, they laugh at other big boys."  So I inquire a little more and he told me that's what happened with Daddy at the softball game.  Guess our little boy is very observant!! 

Big Ambitions!

So a quick post about the ever-so-hilarious Jackson!  Yesterday, we were sitting at the table and all of the sudden he announced "When I am a big person, I'm going to get gum, eat flower seeds (sunflower seeds), get a girlfriend like Uncle Adam, and play football with my friends and wear a helmet!"  And that was that...he has some big ambitions in life!! :) 

As the Wheels Turn

Well ladies and gentlemen...we have a rider!! Jack can officially ride his trike!! He's been working since last summer to get his little legs long enough to hit the pedals and put himself into motion! He did it once for Jon about a month ago and hasn't done it since then. I caught him one time doing a 3-pedal around but he wouldn't do it again for me to catch it on video. Well, tonight...same story, different day! I pull up and he's pedaling his little heart out down the sidewalk with Oma. I run inside to get the video camera...he won't do it for me again. Soooooooooo....major bribing on mom's part...I offered ice cream for riding his trike for the video. And it worked!! So here's the little guy riding his trike...big accomplishment in the little man's life!
So on a side note: I've been driving my mom's Bug this week so she can have the van if need be. Let's just say there's 2 problems with that: #1- It's a stick shift. #2- I haven't driven a stick shift in a LONG time!! Now this stick shift is a little different that what I was "raised" on...the reverse is right next to 1st gear...totally throws me off and makes me nervous!! Yesterday, I had to parallel park on a hill...MAJOR disaster for Libby. Oh yeah...when I pulled in I had to reverse to try and get closer...that wasn't working well...I reved the engine, rolled forward...not a good situation! And then to top it off, I watched someone park right in front of me...and get incredibly close. I just kept hoping and praying that the car was gone by the time I got off work...no such luck! So i sat in the Bug for a while and thought maybe if I just wait, they'll show up and drive away. Now I just have to try...so I crank the wheel, very slooooooooowly get going and start moving, get nervous that I'm too close and slam on the breaks. So I'm thinking, great, now I have to reverse and I'm not good at that (remember, rolled forward earlier in the day trying to do that exact thing!). So I take a deep breath, inch slowly forward, luckily did not scratch the car in front of me and got out...sigh of relief!! Well tonight I'm driving home, pull up to a stoplight, which also happens to be on a small hill. And then the dreaded...a car pulls up behind me! I'm almost in a panic attack thinking I'm going to roll into this guy. The car in front of me turns right, so it's, of course, my turn to pull up to the light. STAGE FRIGHT!!! I try once, roll backwards...get nervous, so I flag the guy to go around me. Talk about mortifying...I was almost in tears!!! So he pulls up next to me, still can't get into the turning lane, so there I sit...frozen....great. So I finally got up the little hill, made it home with only one stall (had two on the way in!). Maybe Jon should take the bug tomorrow so I can be safe in my wonderful little Honda...

Happy Month of May!!

Once again, I need to get back on the ball with blogging and keeping this up-to-date! We've had a crazy couple of weeks up here! Three weekends ago, Grandma and Grandpa came up for a visit. Jackson got a new sandbox that weekend and boy was that a hit!! It took convincing Daddy that it would be worthwhile to get it and it has proven it's point all by itself. Brandon has a local group called the Brandon Edge (combo of Jaycees and the Optimist Club) and every year they do a sand drive. $15 for 4 wheel barrels of sand = more fun than Jack ever realized!! He spent the entire afternoon out there, most of the next day and it took some major convincing to keep him inside on Monday when we got home as well!! He loves it and it was certainly well worth the $15!!

The next weekend Oma and Opa came up to help stain our deck. Jack wanted to be a helper himself, so we had to come up with some other activities for him...which included running through the sprinkler and "painting" the neighbor's fence...with water, of course!! The deck turned out great, thanks to some extra sunshine on Sunday. We almost missed being able to do it because it rained Sunday morning, but God sent us some sunshine and we stained away!

This last weekend, we took an extra special trip down to see Dawn, Ryan, Dylan and Austin. Jackson was superb in the car!! I was fairly nervous for the 6 hour drive, but Jack proved us otherwise!! He even drove the whole way over in his big boy underwear, warned us when he needed to go, held it in until we got to a gas station...impressed me!! We had a great time over in Williamsburg. Dawn and Ryan have certainly found a wonderful town to live in and raise those two boys!! When we got there on Friday, we ate supper and then they had their neighborhood Friday Night Lights, where everyone gets together at one house, has a fire pit and the kids all play. Man how I wish our neighborhood was like that!! Saturday, we got to enjoy the park, Java Lounge, and later swimming. Saturday night, we headed into Iowa City and ate at a great pizza place. The boys had a lot of fun entertaining each other and there were lots of laughs! Adam and his girlfriend, Bethany, came down on Sunday which was great to see them!! Sunday afternoon we went golfing and then had a family softball game, which proved the point that this lady isn't so hot at sports!! :) It gave me a decent workout though!! Monday morning, the ladies took a quick trip to the outlet mall in Williamsburg and then we were on our way back. A quick trip to Acute Care and then safely into our driveway. Poor little Jack contracted Hand, Foot, Mouth disease from somewhere, but managed to hang in there and not be too cranky! He had some mild fevers and a rash, but overall did alright. There wasn't much sleeping, but luckily, with lots of flexibility from the other Burns family, we managed just fine!! Thank you for such a fun, relaxing and enjoyable weekend guys!! We miss you already and can't wait to see you again!!