Watermelon Festival

We had the pleasure of enjoying some time with the Congletons this past weekend. We had a great time catching up, and letting the boys spend time playing together. Jackson is still talking about what a big boy he is now that he knows how to drive a motorcycle. Jackson and Kaleb rode an umbrella ride at the Watermelon Festival, and they were able to ride the motorcycle. It's so refreshing to see them laugh and have a good time together.

Thank you Congletons for having us down. We had a great time and will have to get the boys together again soon!

Whew!

WOW! What a week it has been! School is back in full force, and it's taking some adjusting to get used to all this schoolwork again and clinicals have begun once again. We're making it, and things are settling in a little bit now that I'm getting used to it, but the first few days were a little intense. I'll be posting some of the things that we have been up to in the next few days, now that I have time to sit down and catch up a little at a time.

Little Boys

So, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth, but we have been rather busy here lately! I've been trying to accomplish a few things around the house, and spend extra special time with a special little man before I return to school tomorrow and clinicals on Thursday. Jackson and I have spent lots of time doing boy things. What do boys like to do? This special little boy LOVES tractors (we've spent countless hours playing with tractors), reading (he has a definite love of reading some of his new books. We often read each one 10-12 times a day. Actually, I just pretend to read them while he looks at the pictures because I have them memorized!), playing outside, playing with Mr. Potato Head (We had all 100 parts laid out on the floor yesterday so he could decide what combination made the absolute best potato head. So maybe it wasn't 100, but there sure were a lot of parts!), and of course getting ready for Pirate football season! We have been practicing the Pirate sound (ARRGGGGHH!), saying different Pirate cheers, and talking about our love of the Pirates (well, especially daddy's love of the Pirates). Not sure if Jackson will head to a football game with us this season, but he already has the football outfit, and he's been invited to join the rest of us for at least 1 game, so we'll just have to see. Not sure he would enjoy sitting there for that amount of time without actually playing something. He's definitely a participant not a spectator. He asks me to "Play Ball" everyday at least 5 times, but this usually refers to the sport of baseball because he's been practicing since he could stand up how to hit that ball with a bat, and now he's quite good at it.

As previously mentioned, I begin school tomorrow and clinicals on Thursday. This will be one of my hardest semesters yet, but it will hopefully be my last intense semester. The Spring is shaping up to be a much easier semester before GRADUATION! I have enjoyed this special time with Jackson this Summer. We haven't gone a lot, but have spent a lot of time around our house which for Jackson is a vacation because we go so much the rest of the year. He enjoys his time here with his toys, his things, and his schedule. It's kinda sad to see the summer go, but I do enjoy Fall weather, and I'm excited about some of the things we have planned for the Fall.

Boxtops for Education

Just a note:

If anyone is not collecting Boxtops for Education and would be willing to spend a few seconds clipping them to save for a school, I gladly collect them, and donate them to schools across the U.S. About a year ago, I joined with several other mothers who don't have children old enough to attend school yet, but would like to help out the school system by adding a few dollars here and there to their budget. We generally are able to send at least $50 a month to a school to help a little. We all know the education system is under a tight budget, and a little extra money from Boxtops for education assists in some of the extra expenditures. If you're interested in collecting, you can message me, and I'll send you my address to send them to.

**We also collect Labels for Education from Campbells products (worth $.05) , and the Tyson box pieces which are worth $.24
Thanks for helping this cause by just using your scissors =)

Watering Flowers

Tonight, Jackson was able to get in his swimming pool for a bit after dinner. It was a little later than we had hoped by the time Donald got home and we had dinner, but he still had a blast. He decided to use his pool to water the flowers in the yard, so that's exactly what he spent majority of his time doing.

I love the face in the first one. =)

The train station

Jackson loves things that go, move, or make noise. His current loves include trains, motorcycles, big trucks, etc. You get the idea....He loves boyish things! This week my nephew was taking a train back home, so we had the pleasure of seeing him off at the train station. Here's a few pics from Jackson's first interaction with a real life train. (Not so sure he realized just how big they were, and that you can't hold them like you do your toys.) Thanks Mimi for making this such a special adventure on the big trains. He's enjoyed talking about them for a few days!

Lunch with Daddy

So, yesterday Jackson and I ventured to Holly Springs to enjoy lunch with Donald. Jackson was so excited all morning to eat lunch with daddy. We try to do this every so often so Jackson can visit where daddy works and say hello to all of Donald's co-workers.

We had a wonderful lunch at a cute little Mexican restaurant in town, and Jackson enjoyed the chips as always! Once it was time to take daddy back to work, the scene turned ugly. Jackson was VERY upset that daddy wasn't coming home with us and instead had to work. I snapped this image of Jackson as we were about to drive off. Daddy gots lots of hugs and kisses before leaving, but it simply wasn't enough for Jackson. I heard Jackson scream in octaves I have never heard from him before.

Guess he's a daddy's boy! (I know deep down inside he's a momma's boy too, but there's just something so special to him about his daddy at this time in his life. It's a beautiful thing.)

I'm also including a video of him talking while playing about loving his daddy. These moments are priceless!

Sweet summertime!

So....it's been a while. We had a hectic week last week, but we're starting to get everything back together. Unfortunately, my laptop died last week, so it took us a few days to get things going with our older computer. As you may or may not remember, Jackson threw a remote control back in February and cracked the screen on my laptop that I had purchased for graduate school, so we were forced to buy a new one back in February, so we've only had this laptop for 5 months. On Thursday, the motherboard apparently went out on the laptop, so after talking with the super helpful employees at Best Buy, they've sent it off for service, and it should be back in 1-2 weeks. Thank goodness! In the meantime, Donald and I have been working to replace the hard drive on our old computer to get it back up and running. This was our first baby. I remember this computer being our first big purchase after being married for only a few months. Boy does time fly!

Donald had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off work this week, so we've enjoyed him being home this weekend! Jackson will be upset when he wakes up to find Daddy is at work again and not home with us, but I'm sure him and mommy will have lots of fun things planned for tomorrow to make up for it =) Today, I started our day by making homemade blueberry biscuits from scratch for the first time. It was a success, and everyone loved them, so I will definitely do that again! We used the blueberries that Jackson picked while at Mimi's house on Friday, so they were even better, because they were picked with love. We took Jackson to the park tonight after eating dinner, and he had a great time playing and making a new friend with another little boy that was out there. We try to take him to the park several times a week since it's very close by and it has lots of great play equipment.

Well, that's all for us right now. I'm enjoying being home for a few weeks, and frantically trying to get everything done that I had hoped to accomplish while on break, but before long I will begin school again and an internship at a local hospital. I'm excited but have so many things to get in place before then!