Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to my Amazing Mom!

My mom is such an absolutely amazing Lady! I love her so much and she is truly one of my best friends. I have always been able to tell my mom anything that is going on in my life. She knows all of my little secrets. I think it's pretty awesome that I can trust her enough to tell her things i wouldnt tell anyone else. She knows me better than anyone! (ok, she may tie with my husband). But how many girls can truly say that they can just talk to their mom about anything that is on their mind and know that she will not be judging you. She'll offer advice, and sometimes she's just quietly there listening. But she is always available to lend a listening ear.

I have not made life easy on her. Even starting out... i was her first baby and was a whopping 9 lbs 3oz at birth and put her through a very long labour. But even after that she loved me.

My mom is one of the funnest people I know. We have so many little jokes. It is so fun to be around her. She will surprise you with her awesome sense of humor and crazy jokes.

One of the hardest thinngs in my life was moving away from lethbridge for the first time, to Utah, 2 years ago. Leaving my family was so rough. I called my mom nearly every day for about a month i think. And just because the phone calls slowed down does not mean i wasnt thinking i wanted to call her.

Mom wasn't able to be at the hospital when Jackson was born. She had to wait until he was about 3 weeks old and our family moved back to canada for the summer. When we arrived home at the end of April there was still snow on the ground and my mom came running out to the car as soon as we pulled up, in STOCKING FEET no less, to meet her first grandbaby for the first time. She is so sweet and she loves jackson so much. We couldnt ask for her to be a better grandma. She radiates love when she is with Jackson.

Now we are in Indianapolis. Its a minimum 2 day car trip, and more likely 3 days, to get back home to her and the rest of my family. It is so hard to be so far away. And now my longing-for-home has been amplified as i can tell how much jackson truly misses her too.

I am one lucky lady to have my mom, as MY mom. I think God maybe spoiled me a bit by letting me come stay with her. I love you mom. Happy Birthday! We miss you so much and wish we could be there to celebrate with you!

Happy First Birthday Jackson!

On April 6 we celebrated Jackson's first birthday! Happy birthday little man! We love him soo sooo much! He is such a huge blessing in our lives. It's hard to think that We've been parents for one full year! It's scary to think of too- i hope we're doing an OK job of it!

Since we don't have much family around we had a little party for him in the afternoon with a few friends. Tomorrow Bryan's parents will be here with his brother and family so we'll have a second little bash then.

I made Jackson a football cake to destroy ( it turned out rather well in my opinion). He didn't exactly demolish the cake, but he did enjoy the icing very very much. I was scared he'd get sick from all the sugar but he did good. In fact, he wouldn't eat any vegetables later and we think it's because he just wanted more cake.

Thankyou to everyone who came out to celebrate Jackson's special day with us. We really appreciate it and love you all! You made the day even better!

Here are a few pictures from the big day!

Turning one!

What a good looking family :)

This picture was taken at 10:24 am on April 6- exactly 1 year old!! And so happy about it too!

Here's the football cake i made for Jackson as well as a few of the cupcakes i made for everyone else to eat. I love the footballs!!! I think jackson is cursed to grow up to play and watch football.

The first taste...

And it's GOOD!

The damage done

Trying to share with Jared

Getting a hug from Noah

Checking out the toy box with the littler Jared and Hannah

Noah, Jared and Lauren helped Jackson figure out how to open presents. Hannah and brigden are coming to help out in the background

After the party, playing with his new toys from mom and dad. He loved sitting in his play tent and trying to build things with his mega blocks. Later i gave him a book that sings to him and he sat in there reading it. So cute.

It was a wonderful day! We can't wait for all the fun years to come!

P.S. Jackson had his one year check-up today. He is 21lbs 10oz, 30.5 inches long and of course his head is in the 75-90 percentile :) He's a healthy boy.

computer crash

I am very sad to tell you that our desktop comupter crashed yesterday. In actuality it's not nearly as bad as it could be, and when Bryan came home and gave it the diagnosis last night,i think i handled it really well. The saddest part is that all of my scrapbooking stuff was on there and i hadn't saved a backup for a looong time! so out of the 30 or so pages i've made since Jackson was born, about 20 are gone and i'll have to start over- blah! And my only other real disappointment about it is that i had made birthday invitations for jackson's 1st birthday as well, and was just waiting for a go ahead with the time before printing them. And since photoshop doesn't exist on this computer, i will end up with some not-as-cute ones.
Jackson will be one year old in exactly 1 week! I am so excited! Since we dont really have a lot of family down here I'm going to make cupcakes and invite all of jackson's friends (and parents too, of course) to come outside and play with us. I hope Jackson enjoys the cake- i'm sure he will. As far as we can tell he has a bit of a sweet tooth like his mom. It may be bad later in llife, but it will be awesome for his birthday. So i'll be making some kind of invite this week and passing them out, but if i miss you, please come eat cake and play with us on April 6th at 1:00 pm outside in the quad (the play area outside our apartment).