Another Snow Day

Jon has had a lot of time off lately due to the weather. Last week he had 2 snow days and 2 delays. This week he has 2 snow days and 1 delay. Plus his night classes have been cancelled. It has been awesome for me! It has messed up a lot of Jon's plans for work, but Jackson and I are soaking in the extra time. Plus I have been sick for over a week now so it has been very handy having Jon around. I have a cough from hades and it keeps me up every night. In fact, here I am blogging at 2:30am. Yesterday we played in the snow a lot. Jackson was so tired but seemed to enjoy it some. ( he woke up at 430, who does that on a snow day?!) The girls I babysit sure had a blast in the snow though!

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Family Pictures

I have been wanting to do family pictures for a long time. I finally decided with Jackson turning one, that would be the perfect time. What I wasn't thinking about, was the part where Jackson turns one in the middle of winter. Winters here are generally mild but it does get really cold for at least a few days/weeks. So we scheduled them for February 7th and of course it was FREEZING! We did them in the morning to get the best lighting and of course that happened to also be during nap time. I don't know what I was thinking. Plus, our photographer was good, but not amazing. So considering how unhappy Jackson was, I think the pictures turned out pretty good and we got a few that I like. His cheeks were red, his nose running and he was shivering like crazy. Luckily you can't see that in the pictures. Next time, we will do pictures in the summer, fall, or spring for sure. Here are some of the ones we like:

I hate the fur around us, it is SO not us. We learned from here on our we have to be more assertive.But I love the picture of us.

Documentary

Every night before bed, Jon and I talk about how much we love Jackson (and each other). We talk about how funny Jackson is and discuss all of his funny mannerisms. Jon frequently will say, we need to write that one down so that we can remember it. So here are some that I can think of. I can't believe our boy is 13 months now!

• Jackson loves to prop his feet up on everything. Lately we have noticed he likes to prop his feet up on the books as we are reading them. This makes turning pages challenging but is the cutest thing ever. He also has always loved to hook his toes on the end of his high chair tray while he eats. His first time in a high chair at a restaurant was in Canada at IHOP and of course he leaned back and propped his feet up.
• Jackson LOVES to read. It is so cute. He will bring us books and hand them to us and whine/grunt to get us to read. Sometimes he wants the same book read twice in a row. His favorites are The Little Blue Truck, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Dices Mu, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He can moo now which is awesome! 
• He still growls when happy, sad, silly, etc... It is so funny.
• We have a book all about Jesus that we use during sacrament. There is one picture in particular that Jackson smiles and laughs adoringly at every time. Lately he has started kissing the picture and leaning his head on my chest, as if to say "Awww." It makes me think that this picture is a good representation of Jesus because Jackson loves it and seems so happy every time he sees it. 
• Jackson throws food every time he eats and it drives us crazy. He will hurry and throw more when he knows we are about to take it away. He will look at us and then throw food. It feels so spiteful but I know it isn't. 
• He can now say, uh oh and it is adorable.

Ice Day

Today was a snow/ice day! We were expecting a huge storm and I was really excited for it. We barely got any snow but did get a thick layer of ice that took most of the day to melt. Our road is fairly clean now but the low temperatures tonight will freeze all the slush. The local schools are all out tomorrow but we are still waiting the hear about Jon's school.

We didn't do a lot today but I was able to can some black beans and Jon was able to do some planning for work and some homework. We went to Target and Harbor Freight and Tools this afternoon once the roads cleared. Oh I also napped for about an hour and a half today. That was awesome but left me with a headache. I love to sleep though!

Jon made the best snow day sandwiches in the history of snow day sandwiches.

This picture was taken when the storm first started.

Day of Love

Our Valentine's Day started out with a lovely 4:30am wake up call from Master Jackson. Jon bolted out of bed to get Jackson so that I could sleep. I had a hard time sleeping but it was nice to relax. I got up around 6 and Jon was cleaning the oven, had unloaded the dishes and was making muffins. I gave Jon his present, which was a book of our Facebook messages back and forth while we were dating. Jon got me a grapefruit and made me an egg to go with my muffin. Then, Jon napped while I tried to convince Jackson to nap which was unsuccessful. Eventually Jackson napped and we were able to get ready for our date which included building rockets. Jon had shown me the rockets the night before with the following note:

When the baby sitter arrived we had Jackson in a tuxedo onesie with a napkin rose Jon folded to give to her. I didn't get a picture, but it was cute. My rocket wouldn't stay glued right so when the baby sitter arrived we headed to the park with just one rocket. After getting there and setting up, the engines were too small for the rocket. We ran up to Hobby Lobby, 30 minutes away and got replacements and went to a local park. We had enough engines for 3 launches but we got the rocket stuck in a tree on the second launch. It was a lot of fun and I loved seeing Jon's excitement. He has talking about launching rockets for a date ever since I can remember. It will be fun to do it again sometime but I am sad we lost one of our rockets. :( doing the rockets reminded me a lot of Nathan launching rockets for 4-H when we were growing up. It made me a happy kind of sad. Here are some pictures from our day:

After our date we took Jackson to the dollar store and let him pick out a toy using his dollar that Grandma Kay and Grandpa Perry sent for Valentine's Day. I also got him a Valentine's balloon because he kept kicking and laughing at the balloons.

This is a picture the baby sitter, Cassidy, took of Jackson while we were gone.

After Jackson went to bed we had our traditional fondue dinner consisting of steak, cheese, veggies, chips, and bread. We opted out of doing chocolate this year and just had strawberries and whipped cream.

I love how happy Jon was while doing the rockets! And I love this guy more than I can ever say. He is seriously the best.