Halloween

Ok so I know that Halloween is long gone and Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, but I still had my Halloween costume pics to post and they're just so darn cute I just had to put them up.

This year Jack was a caterpillar. His costume was a homemade job and I think it turned out pretty good. With the stripes down the back and the little hands going down the sides and the hat to top it off I think he made a cute little caterpillar.
Anyways, Friday before Halloween was the ward Trunk or Treat and Jack only lasted a few minutes with his hat on. But he got some good candy!

Monday, Halloween, Jack had some fun walking around the neighborhood. He wanted to hold his own bag and walk by himself (although he still did want to hold my hand while walking). But when we would get closer to a door, he would want me to pick him up, grab the candy himself, and then drop it into his bag. I think by having a trial run at the trunk or treat he knew what was going on and was able to have more fun for the real thing. We of course skipped the scary houses, but people love little kids so they would sometimes give him an extra piece of candy for being so cute! ;)





Overall I think Halloween was a success! Cute costume, good candy, and some fun while walking around and seeing all the decorations. Now I just have to prepare my stomach for Thanksgiving and get out the decorations and music for Christmas! Also, these last 2 pics are just of Jack getting his first "big boy" haircut. He's gotten a couple of trims before, but this was the real deal with clippers and styling all the way around. He's getting so big!

Pumpkin City

It's almost Halloween! Which means it's time to go to the Pumpkin Patch! Down at the Laguna Hills Mall parking lot, there is Pumpkin City. It's not the same as in Tennessee, but it's still a lot of fun. Yesterday we went and checked it out. Allyson had gotten some free tickets for rides and games from a friend and invited Jack and I to come along.
One of the rides was driving a little tractor around. Luke was driving and we thought Jack might have fun riding along with him. Well that was a mistake! He seemed alright once they started moving, but then something happened and Jack turned on the water works. We finally had to stop Luke for a minute so I could pull Jack off of the car. Oh well. We tried.
Once he was off the tractor, Jack was fine. Just wanted to be held some of the time and also wanted to go exploring around the pumpkins.
Logan chose to go on the train ride so all the other kids were standing watching the train go around.
Well Pumpkin City isn't quite like the pumpkin patches I loved in Tennessee, but it was still a good size and they did have some fun stuff for the kids.
The last thing the kids did before heading home was feed the ducks. Jack of course just wanted to watch them swim around, but at least he seemed to be having fun.
Happy Halloween (almost)!

Trying to keep up

Ahhh, yes... such a cute, loving, well behaved little boy. Well that's what you might be thinking as you see this first picture. Yes he is cute, and he is loving, but not always so well behaved (as he is currently crying in the background not wanting to fall asleep for his afternoon nap).

As any mom knows, keeping up with a little one is not always easy. Jack is almost 17 months, and full of energy! He loves to play outside, in the bathroom, and even in boxes. So it's usually not too hard to find him if he goes out of sight for a minute.
Halloween is almost here and Jack is going to be a little caterpillar. Nikki made this hat for him and this is the only picture I've gotten of it on him. He's doing better at wearing it, but this is the best I've gotten so far. Hopefully he will let me at least get a better picture with his full costume!
Of course... Jack is constantly running towards the computer wanting to sit on the chair and push all the buttons on the keyboard and move the mouse. It's a huge battle trying to get him away from it... every single day!
As I said before, Jack loves to play in the bathroom. And the first thing he goes for is my make-up bag. He walks in the bathroom, closes the door behind him, pulls my bag out of the drawer, and brings the bag into my room to pull everything out and play. He has even started to push some of the stuff under the bed as if to hide it from me. Sneaky sneaky.

Lazy Days and Party Nights

One thing to know about Jack...he loves dogs! We were wondering how he would do with a dog much bigger than little Jack and Molly, but he seems to be adjusting quite well.
This is just a random photo I took. It was just after the haircut I had tried to give him earlier this week. It's not a professional job, but I don't think it looks too bad ;)

One new thing that Jack likes to do is to crawl into my bed and lay against the pillows. It doesn't matter if I'm trying to make the bed, he just wants to get comfy.

Last night was Logan's 3rd birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's. It was a lot of fun with pizza, games, and cupcakes. This was also Jack's first time going so he was wanting to see everything.






This is one of the rides for little kids at Chuck E Cheese's. I thought it might be something fun for Jack to try, but I'm not sure what he thought of it. He pretty much just sat there looking around at everything. At least he didn't start to cry!

A few random things

I meant to put up these pics earlier and forgot. Before we came to CA we took (or tried to take) a few nicer pics of Jack. These are a few of what we got.


As I said in a previous post, this past Monday Kyle left to go back to TN. So I took a picture of Kyle and Jack before he left and I just think it's so cute! I'm wanting to get it printed and put it up so Jack can see daddy each day. We've also gotten to webcam a few times and I love technology! It's so great to be able to talk to each other and actually see a face. Jack's been doing pretty good with it too. He gets distracted at times, but does good at saying hi and talking (in his jibber-jabber) for a minute into the computer.

Also, last night was bath time and I let him play around for a few minutes. He loves to play in the water and was getting a little silly too. He just thinks he is so funny :)

Moved to California

So a lot has changed recently. I am now living in California. Kyle, Jack and I got to California last Tuesday night and it's been a really busy week. We came Tuesday, then Wednesday was when Kyle's brother, Trent, came home from his mission. So we all went to get him at the airport. Another day we all went to the Irvine Spectrum and did a little shopping and got some lunch. One night Kyle and I even got to go out on a date. We went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then walked along the beach. It's been a while since we've gotten to go out like that so it was quite nice. Kyle's family was nice enough to watch Jack for us and put him to bed. On Saturday Kyle's nephew, Luke, was supposed to have a soccer game, but with miscommunication the game was cancelled. So we just went and walked the mall. Sunday was church and then a relaxing afternoon. And now it's Monday.

We have done a lot this week and it's been a lot of fun, but it has been hard being away from my family as well. Just before we left Tennessee we took some family pics and spent a few days just relaxing and enjoying each others company. One thing I really enjoyed was going to Miller's Grocery for dinner. It was amazing! They had live music and Jack danced and clapped for every song. The food was great and the whole evening was so much fun. I will miss that country food. And I will miss being around all of my family.

So right now it is just me and Jack here in California, living with Kyle's parents for now. This morning was hard though because Kyle had to fly back to Tennessee. I am going to be starting a new job tomorrow and Kyle had to go back to finish his last semester at MTSU. When he graduates in December, I will fly back to Tennessee and we will drive all of our stuff back to California. Right now I only have the necessities for Jack and I, so the rest is coming later. So the next couple of months will be difficult, but I think we will survive. I'm hoping the time goes fast so we can all be together.

End of Summer Fun

The last bit of the summer we've gotten to do some fun stuff. One thing I've been wanting to do for a long time, but just never got around to it was the Smyrna water park. There are water fountains and water guns for kids to run around in. We decided to take Jack there because he loves water and we all had a lot of fun. He didn't run around much, but found one fountain he liked and pretty much stayed there the whole time.

Jack loves to play in the pool and we can't always make it over to the big swimming pools, so sometimes the small one in the back has to work. Either way I think as long as he's in the water then he's fine. I think we were out there for about an hour and he probably could've been there all day.

The Nashville Sounds in the local minor league baseball team and we've never gotten to see them play until a couple of weeks ago. Nikki got some free tickets and invited us to go. How can you turn down a baseball game?! And we were in about the 5th row on the first base line. We were so close to everything. We left in only the 4th inning because Jack was getting tired and it was already past his bedtime. It would've been nice to see the whole game, but that's ok. It was still a fun evening.

Jack loves to get Ethan and Cody's toys and play with them like a "big boy".

Doesn't he look like such a boy! He doesn't have that baby face anymore

He also likes to steal my phone and push all the buttons. He's gonna be a texting machine when he's older.

We went to the Discovery Center here in Murfreesboro last week. I had never been but I wish I would've gone more. It was so fun! There's so much for little kids to do and touch. There's a kitchen, grocery store, music room, post office, and a whole bunch of mats for the kids to crawl around on.

Here in the grocery store Jack was having fun pushing all the buttons on the cash register and putting all the food in the basket.

There was tic-tac-toe where you could velcro the shapes onto the wall. We didn't actually end up playing the game, but sticking everything on the wall was good enough.

The drums and guitar and little bead shakers were really fun for him to play beautiful music on ;)

One thing Jack loves to help me with at home is doing the laundry. So this was his chance to do it all by himself!

The room with all of the mats was so cool. Jack was being so goofy on this little slide. He really wanted to go down it, but kept sticking his feet out funny.

The big fire truck was neat. I think he enjoyed being able to sit in there and "drive".

This summer has been pretty fun with all the different activities we've been able to do. I can't believe it's already September though. Next thing we know it will be Christmas!

Here are a few videos that go with all the pictures. The first video is from the Smyrna water park. The second is of Jack cheering. We were watching the little league world series on tv and we were cheering when one of the teams scored. Jack was acting goofy and was imitating us cheering. Such a silly boy. The third video is of Jack trying to go down the slide at the Discovery Center. It's pretty funny.