How do I love thee...let me count the ways!

If there is one thing that is true, Jackson DEFINITELY, without a doubt, loves his sister...and that love is certainly returned by Kenzi.

One way to know this for sure...

I was using the blender tonight and Jackson was telling Kenzi to blow kisses.

Now, this doesn't sound all that loving...BUT, for those of you who know our spunky little love, she covers her ears when you ask her to blow kisses. (totally not sure how she put that together, but she did). So to protect his little sister's ears from the noise, without telling her to just cover her ears and boss her around, he told her to blow kisses.

And that, my friends, is love!

Birthday Mania

And our birthday weekend is now complete! With a crazy busy weekend, I am pleased to say that by 7:45, both kids were in bed and asleep before I walked down the stairs!!


Jackson had an awesome birthday party on the Tumblebus!! Miss Alisha did a wonderful job entertaining 7 small children! They jumped, tumbled, balanced and slid their way through one awesome hour!

 

 

Our Jack-man is now 5...and he celebrated with the best of 'em!

Happy Happy 5th Birthday, Jackson Conrad!!!

Today, our little boy turned 5.

Five years ago, Jon and I took a very nerve-wrecking trip to the hospital six weeks early. We didn't know what was going to happen...would this baby come tonight, would they be able to stop labor, would the baby be okay, would we be spending the next 6 weeks in the NICU...lots and LOTS of questions and worry!

Five years ago, God blessed us with a beautiful baby boy! Our little 4 lb 14 oz  boy spent 8 days in the NICU, with no long-term effects from being early, which makes us very blessed!!

This little man has changed our life in such an awesome way. He has taught us more than he'll ever know. Thank you, God, for giving this wonderful little person to us!!

 

6 months old

 

1 year old

2 years old

3 years old

4 years old 

5 years old
 

First Day of School

First Day of School...First Day of School (come on...do the Nemo thing with me!)
Jackson got up lickety split this morning! Alarm went off, he jumped out of bed and was dressed before either of us knew he was even up! He was so excited for the first day of school!

We waited for the bus, with the warning that it may be 30 minutes late. We were sitting there and I told Jack that I would meet him at school to make sure that he got to his classroom alright. He looked at me and said, "You don't have to do that Mom. I'll be okay!" (It really isn't as much for you as it is for me...thanks for the reassurance though buddy!) Much to our pleasant surprise, the bus was only 10 minutes behind schedule! Jack hopped on the bus, turned around and waved and off he went!

I'm glad I went to meet him, because he was pretty lost when he got off that bus! His buddy, Nolan, and his older sister, Lily, rode the same bus and Lily helped him find his classroom. We found his locker, unloaded his backpack and away he went!

He announced at supper that he's going to be really sad on the last day of school. Hopefully that holds true! Here's to a great first year of school!!

 

There's a first time for everything!

So yesterday, I participated in something I never, EVER expected myself to! A group of us from work put a team together and ran the 5K MudChug. Talk about terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time!! I forgot more like just didn't get around to it to train for this wonderful event and figured I wouldn't probably make it through any of the obstacles! I had three goals for this:

1. Don't hurt myself.

2. Don't fall.

3. Don't cry.

And I can proudly say that I accomplished all three goals!! Now, it took a while to get done, but hey, it wasn't about the time at this point!

There were 15 obstacles to get through, which included 2 straight 15' walls, 2- 15' inclined walls to get up and over, a nasty lake to wade through and climb over a wall halfway, a balance beam over ice water, an ice bath, lots of muddy muddy hills to climb up, a slip-n-slide and a barbed wire (which thankfully didn't have the sharp parts!) thing to army crawl through. There was only one obstacle that I couldn't quite do, simply because my arm strength was done after climbing 4 different walls! It was a high/low climbing walls thing. The high walls were about up to my chest and it just wasn't happening! I did go over all the low walls though!

A few of us ended up getting separated from our group, as someone had gotten hurt and the nurse in us couldn't leave until a medic arrived. Needless to say, it took an inappropriately long amount of time to get someone there, so we didn't finish with our group.

After all of that, my body was done! I was completely exhausted...slept for a few hours and am sorer than I've ever been in my whole life!! I'm fairly sure labor was easier than this...and not as long either! Everything from my neck to my ankles aches...muscles I didn't even know existed, hurt! And simple things like doing dishes...didn't know how many ab muscles were involved in wiping a dish! YIKES!! Tonight is a tidge better, but still not fun. Bring on the Icy Hot!!

Here's a slide show of pics. They're not all in order, since some are my mom's and some are from my camera! Jack slipped right when he got there and who, in their right mind, can keep an almost 5 year old boy out of the mud?!?! He went to take a picture with me after and his shoes sunk into the mud and when Nikki went to pick him up, off came the shoe! He had a great time, especially since he was allowed to play in mud with no consequences!!

School starts tomorrow...so they'll be lots of pics to come along with that!

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I'm terrible about updating this! My goal for this year is to make this our family journal..to make it our place for the quick stories, the funny sayings, and all of the new experiences this year will be creating for us!

In exactly 4 days, our lives with change immensely. No, we are not moving. No, neither Jon nor myself will be starting a new job. The big change...Jack will be heading to school and our lives will completely change! Our lives will no longer be "free as a bird" for traveling, hanging out, having late nights. Nope, that all changes now. We will now have to consult the school calendar when making any plans. We will have to coordinate appointments for after school or before school. We have a kindergartner (well, technically junior kindergarten) now.

And you'd think the most nervous person in the family would be Jack...but it's not. I'd have to say the most nervous person would be me. I have been fine all summer long...until tonight. I honestly feel like I could vomit! We had Jack's open house today. We met his teacher (who seems awesome and energetic), checked out his classroom, found his locker. Did all of the things we were supposed to (at least I sure hope so...we're rookies here!) but now I'm feeling incredibly unsettled and nervous. My stomach is in knots. I feel like I could puke and it's only Thursday! Not sure what really triggered it. Maybe it was the large amount of people that were there, maybe it was the fact that I still haven't met the principal of this school, maybe it's the fact that my little (almost) 5 year old is now going to have major responsibilities...I don't know. But the one thing I do know, is that I am a nervous wreck!! Nervous that Jack won't find his way to his classroom. Nervous that he won't speak up when he needs to. Nervous that he'll be in the principals office within the first week (let's admit it...the kid is no angel...it's certainly a possibility!) Nervous that he won't get back to daycare after school. Nervous that he'll get overwhelmed and scared. Nervous that everything we've done in the last 5 years won't be enough. Not sure exactly...but there will be lots of prayers between now and Monday that things will go smoothly and settle these Mommy nerves that are going berserk right now!!

So there's a secret activity that's going to be happening that I'd never in my right mind think I would ever be a part of...and you'll hear all about it...just not today! :)