A Child's Prayer

Raylee has been doing a good job of saying prayers by herself, although they often end up being quite entertaining for me and Corey. Tonight was definitely one of those times, and I wanted to write it down before I forget it. It was her turn for our family prayers, and this is how it went...

"Heavenly Father,

Thank you for this day

thank you for our many blessings

thank you for our family

bless we can be safe tomorrow

something about feeling better

something about santa

we love you,

in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen"

Corey and I were both trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. I think Heavenly Father must love listening to toddler's prayers :)

Birthday Boy!

I'm not exactly sure how this has happened, but my little Jackson turned 1 on the 14th! So Crazy!! I love this little guy more than I can possible say and it is so hard for me to believe that he is so big already!

The lucky birthday boy got to have visitors all day long. First Coreys sister and her family came by as well as his parents on their way down to mesquite. Then that night we had a party for him with my family. He got to have pizza for dinner which is one of his favorite foods. Then the rest of the night was filled with presents, and cake, as well as a few tears mixed in :) Big days like this one are definitely overwhelming for a certain little boy who didn't really get any naps that day!

He was so cute when he was opening his presents and you could definitely tell he was tired. He would get so frustrated after he had opened the present that I wasn't getting the toys out of their packages fast enough.

Cute little Bailey made sure everyone had a hat on!

Jackson took a few minutes to get into his cake, but after he figured out what he was doing he was really enjoying himself! There aren't to many problems that a whole cake won't fix, after all :)

Some things about Jackson at 1:

• He Loves Hair! Some kids are attached to blankies or stuffed animals, but Jackson loves to hold my hair (or whoever's is holding him) in his hand and rub his thumb across the ends of it. If he can't find someone elses hair to hold, then he will reach up and grab his.
• He is not the greatest eater. He is pretty picky about what finger foods he eats, and it just depends on the day as to what foods he will eat, but he will still eat any kind of baby food and he still loves rice cereal.
• He mainly communicates through growling and grunting.
• The only words that he says (which he uses very sparingly) are mama, hi, and ought oh. After all, why speak if you can growl :)
• He is a total mama's boy, and I absolutely LOVE it!
• He can give kisses, blow kisses, clap his hands, gives five, waves hi and bye, does "it's good", and plays peek a boo (although he generally misses covering up his eyes and puts his hands on the side of his head instead).
• His favorite toys are definitely balls. He also likes cars and blocks.
• He loves when people sing songs to him. His favorite is a song that Raylee made up called Bubble Bath. He also likes itsy bitsy spider, and 3 little monkeys swinging in the tree.
• He ADORES Raylee. He is usually up an hour before Raylee wakes up and as soon as he hears her coming down the stairs he gets the biggest smile on his face. He loves to play whatever she is playing even if that means he plays princesses (Corey does not approve of this!) He follows her around all day!
• He just took his first two steps on the a couple of days ago!
• He finally started sleeping through the night in the last month, thank goodness!
• His nicknames are Jacks, Mr. J, Buddy, and Buddy Boy

I'm pretty sure I could go on for a lot longer so I better quit now :) I haven't taken him in for is checkup yet, so his stats are still to come!

I love this little boy SO much, and I wonder every day how I was ever blessed with such a sweet and adorable little boy!

So this is Christmas....

Christmas was lots of fun this year, especially since it was Jackson's first Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at my aunts house, and then spent Christmas Eve night at my parents house. Raylee took a little while to warm up on Christmas morning, and didn't really want anything to do with the dress-ups that Santa brought her. She did have fun playing with the toys that Santa had brought for Jackson though. Eventually she started putting some of her dress-ups on and had lots of fun after that. Both Raylee and Jackson got spoiled like CRAZY!

The one thing Raylee asked Santa for was some Ariel chapstick, and so I had to put this picture on of Raylee putting on some of her chapstick :)

After we spent some time at my parents house on Christmas we headed up north to meet up with Corey's family. We went to a movie that afternoon with his fam, which was something new for both Corey and I, and then after that we went to his parents house to open more presents, have dinner, and play games!

Although Christmas was a crazy busy day, it was So much fun!

Temple Square

I love seeing the lights at Temple Square, but unfortunately it's been a few years since I've been. This year we went with my parents and had a lot of fun. We picked a good night since it wasn't too cold, or too terrible crowded. Raylee kept getting confused with Mary and getting married since she know that you get married in the temple, so everytime we said something about Mary, she would tell us that she was going to get married in that temple. Too cute!

Thanksgiving in St. George

For Thanksgiving we went to St. George with Corey's family. Usually we are only able to go for a couple of days, but since Corey's new job didn't start until Dec. 1, we were able to go for the whole time. We rented the same house that we rented over the fourth of July, and it was so much more fun than a hotel since we all get to be together, plus we got to have a pool in the backyard! Raylee had lots of fun with all her cousins, and had fun playing with all the girl cousins that are around her age.

We spent the time doing what we always do in St. George: eating, hanging out, swimming, shopping, and golfing! Definitely some of my favorite things!

Poor Jackson got pink eye right before we left, but he was a trooper and was pretty food the whole time! He got spoiled from all the attention from everyone!

One night we stayed up late playing games, and poor Raylee was so exhausted she fell asleep on Dusty's lap.

Even though it was November, and pretty chilly outside, we were luckily able to heat the pool to nice 95 degrees and so we had tons of fun in the pool that felt more like a really warm bath! Raylee is still a chicken when it comes to the water, but she is getting a little braver.

The weather was a little scary coming home, but all in all it was an awesome trip! Can't wait to go again!

Spooktacular Halloween!

We had lots of fun celebrating Halloween this year! Raylee and Jackson both had Halloween shirts this year, so I tried to get a picture of both of them together, but Jackson would NOT hold still! He is constantly wanting to be on the move. The picture above is the best I got, although he is still trying to get out of his sisters arm so he can make his escape! Raylee found a witch's hat in the Target dollar section and wouldn't take it off. I could barely get it off her to pay for it! She wore it around constantly for like a week.

Carving pumpkins was fun, as always, but I think I will be glad when my kids can carve their own pumpkins! Raylee was excited to get the "guts" out of the pumpkin by herself, but didn't like the way they felt, so it was daddy to the rescue!

After Corey was done carving Raylee's pumkin, we let her paint the back side of it while we carved our pumpkins.

We ended up with an itsy bitsy spider, a cat, Cinderella, and a "mean" pumpkin!

For Halloween, Raylee was Tinkerbell and Jackson was a monkey. I had a hard time getting a picture of Raylee because she kept trying to fly like Tinkerbell, so all my pictures kept ending up blurry. And Jackson wasn't any better. My little monkey wouldn't hold still, and kept trying to escape!

Since Halloween was on a Sunday, we celebrated on Saturday which just happened to be Corey's dads birthday. We started out in Tremonton to have a quick birthday party, and then Raylee went trick-or-treating with some of her cousins. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of all the cousins together, but I did get one with Bella and Aurie.

After trick-or-treating we headed down to my sisters house for our annual Halloween party. We tried to get a picture of all the cousing together, but it wasn't happening so this is the best I got!

Halloween was blast, and Raylee came home with tons of candy which she unknowingly shared with her mom ;)

The cabin!

We went to the cabin for the first time this year in October. It had been over a year since I had been there, and so it was a long overdue trip up to High Valley! We had a blast as usual, and since this was our first trip since getting our new camera we took tons and tons of pictures.

The time seemed to pass way too quickly, but we filled it up with lots of fun activites. We did lots of ATV riding, and since we went during the deer hunt, any time we went outside our little cabin community we had to wear some sort of orange just to be sure we wouldn't get shot :)

Raylee got to spend tons of time with all her cousins, and had so much fun! They went on ATV rides, the tire swing, painted rocks, went on walks, and she even got to sleep in the same bed as 3 of her cousins. Jackson turned 9 months while we were up there, got to have his first piece of licorice thanks to his grandpa :), and started crawling while we were up there.

Instead of rambling on some more I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking....