Christmas Catch up

This year we went home to Canada for Christmas. We stayed with Amber's parents but were able to visit Bryan's often. It's so nice to have both families close.

Family Picture, not the best, but it will do. I just love Jackson's smile here:)

We stayed with Dave and Shirley (bryan's mom and dad) our first night home. We left at about 7:30 am and didn't get home until about 10 pm. Normally a 12 hour drive, it wasn't extended by Jackson being a crank, but by our tire blowing out in Idaho. Talk about crummy luck! We had to stop in a little town called Hamer for 2.5 hours to get 4 new tired put on our car. Good thing Bryan and i hadn't gotten anything for one another for christmas... because that was it.

Here's Jackson playing with Grandma Burrows

He loved trying to open the presents grandma and grandpa burrows gave him. Though we soon discovered he liked the paper the most.
Christmas eve was also spent with my side of the family. Here's my mom with Jackson and his second cousin, Austin. They're about 4 months apart.

Christmas morning with Grandpa Schaalje

My mom bought Jackson a little Santa hat- so cute!!

opening presents with mom

Playing with uncle mo and all of his new toys

Jackson's spiffy new outfit from grandma and hat from aunt Kerri and uncle Bryn

Riding on his new walk'n'ride. He sits really well on it- not tipsy at all. But when we turn it into a walker, it moved to fast for him still and he does a nice little face plant.

Every morning Jackson would wake up have a bottle and his breakfast and then grandpa would get up and feed him yogurt while he ate breakfast. Jackson really looked forward to it.

Jackson had his first experience with stairs our first night in Canada at grandma and grandpa burrows'. But he really mastered the art of going up them while we were at grandma and grandpa schaalje's. No luck with the going down the stairs yet though.

Jackson also figured out how to crawl on his hands and knees while we were in Canada, whereas he was only rocking on them down here. He also figured out how to pull himself up to furniture that is higher than he can reach on his stomach. He is now doing kissed in the air too- grandpa schaalje taught him that one. It is so cute!He can even sit from laying down now!He's waving more, but it's still inconsistent. And he started feeding himself for the first time! All of that in just under 2 weeks. I'd say that's progress, and a good reason to have gone back to Canada.

Opening presents with grandpa on his Birthday. The two Jacks together :)
We are back home in Provo now. Our drive back home took much loner than expected too. We got stopped at the border for just over an hour. Then we stopped in greatfalls to get some shoes for bryan that were on sale and when we came out somebody had smashed our driver's side door with their door. Our handle is no longer on the car and there is a big dent in the door. We get that assessed tomorrow. In addition to the hit-and-run adn tire blowing out, we also hit a dead deer on a drive from cardston to lethbridge and damaged the plastic under our car so that needs to be fixed too. We also all have colds- i'm the worst right now, Jackson is about over his, but still a bit stuffy. He also has the worst diaper rash ever!!! His little bum has raw spots on it! It happened when he first got sick. I went to change him one morning and his entire bottom was red and puffy. Poor little guy wouldn't even let us hold him cuz you have to touch his bum to do it. He's getting better though.

P.S. If anyone wants to co-sign for Bryan's student loan for dental school we could really use a hand :) We just found out that to get a student loan for a school not in Canada we need a co-signer and we don't have anyone eligible yet. Isn't that a stinky deal? But we figure with the bad luck we've had in the past couple of weeks we're in for a blessing soon and we hope this is it.

P.S. if you go to http://thatsitmommy.com/2010/01/11/baby-eggi-review-giveaway/ there is a kid's clothing give away contest. There are some super cute clothes so it's worth a look!