At 9

At 9...

 

He is an extremely slow eater. He always has at least half of his food left when we are all finished eating.

He would rather snack all day than eat a big meal.

 

 

He has become a great swimmer this year. His favorite stroke is the breaststroke.

If pressed he would probably say his favorite sports to play are basketball and soccer.

 

His favorite color is blue.

He loves to read. He finished all of the Harry Potter books this past year, and although he has read a lot of books since, they continue to be his favorite.

 

 

The kid is electronics obsessed. DS, Wii, iPhones, tablets.....He loves them all.

He has no favorite food, but reports his favorite candy to be Snickers.

 

 

He is soda obsessed.

He is incapable of opening or closing doors in a quiet manor. He wakes everyone (meaning me, Sadie and Megan) up every morning when he comes out of his room.

 

Before we purchased new slow close toilet seats, he was also incapable of closing it in a quiet manor.

 

He is a crazy sleeper. His blankets are wrapped around him like straitjacket each night.

 

He has gone through a growth spurt this past year and a half (I forgot to measure him last July), and he has grown almost 4 inches during that time.

 

He has a really hard time keeping his eyes open for pictures.

 

He wishes he had a friend in our neighborhood to play with all the time.

He is not a huge fan of television.

 

 

He is a non-clothes wearer. If you stopped by my house in the middle of the day there would be a 90% chance Jackson would only be wearing his underwear.

He continues to love and try to build a relationship with Tucker, even though Tucker does not seem open to the idea.

 

 

He can make fart (a word I am sure I have never typed and never say out loud) sounds with his armpit and knee pit.

He loves to play board games, and often plays against himself.

 

 

He is obsessed with roller coasters and thrill rides. He spends hours researching different roller coasters and amusement parks throughout the country.

 

He has a great memory for peoples names. Especially reality T.V. stars.

 

Boys just don't come better.

24th of July - 2013

I must start off by saying that this was THE BEST pioneer days I have ever spent in Las Vegas. It had everything you could want in an adventure, including high drama (in the form of dicey weather) and intense completion (in the form of a highly contested tug-of-war match).

In order to maintain happiness (for me) we now arrive after 7 pm for the celebration. The heat isn't so intense, and you still have time to do all of the things you want to do.

This is the only picture I have of Megan. As soon as we arrived, she found friends, and we did not see her again. Teens!



Sade and Jackson started off by playing a number of games. Including Plinko. Sade could not wrap her brain around the game last year, but this year her cognitive development has apparently caught up and she mastered it.



Other events:







During this game I made TWO baskets the entire time. The kid running it tried to make me feel better by telling me it had a "really unforgiving rim."



I'm sure that was the problem.




We now eat before coming, but we still leave a little room for treats:



Then the magic happened: The Tug-of-War competition. Our ward (Shadow Creek) took it extra serious, instructing everyone to wear cleats and to bring gloves.



Sixteen 8-man teams battled it out. Shadow Creek was strong and made it to the final round against the Samoan Branch, which having a team made up of all men over 300 pounds, and being the  defending champions from last year, was of course favored to win.

But not so fast Samoan Branch! They underestimated the heart of Shadow Creek, who claimed victory!!!! Suck it!

The winning team:



I am unable to accurately characterize the excitement (and will not be posting a video, as I am portrayed like a crazy lady in it), but it was akin to winning the Superbowl. Seriously. It was ridiculously thrilling.

Very soon after the tug-of-war they started the fireworks:



They were about 3/4ths of the way finished when they had to stop due to inclement weather.

The walk out to the car:



When I cleaned out my ears the next morning mounds of dirt came out on the Q-tip. TMI?

Seven On Sunday

Just some miscellany picture business to catch up on.

1. It is always kind of a melancholy event taking birthday streamers down.



 Happily Jackson's bday is next week, so new ones will be up soon.

2. Speaking of Jackson, we have had quite a bit of large scale track building taking place in the living room:



3. The kids visited the dentist. No cavities, no referral for braces. Very good visit!



4. The fire sun, due to the wildfire was so very incredible to see. I wish I had pictures that accurately portrayed the awesomeness:



5. While shopping one morning I happened to notice that Jackson and Sadie had an unintentional clothing match that made my heart happy.



I wasn't sure if I had taken a good picture of them on my phone so I asked them to pose for a couple more. As you can tell by his face and body language, Jackson didn't take to the idea:



Needless to say the best one ended up being the one I took without their knowledge.

6. We were eating at Red Robin last week and were seated next to Sadie's very favorite poster in the entire restaurant:



She thinks it is hilarious (which it is) and took about 15 pics of it. She also took other gems like this:



7. Monsoon season seems to have hit a bit early this year and we have had some major lightning filled storms the last few nights. On Friday evening the kids and I were visiting Wet-n-Wild when quite suddenly the storm blew in.



We made it out to the car just in time, but that was one lightning filled, pouring rain, nail biting ride home.

Better Than Average Swimming

 Any pool is great, but in the past couple of weeks we have been able to visit a couple of pools that have been even better than great.

First the pool at the Rio, which is free to get into if you are a Las Vegas local! Cha-ching.

They have 3 pools open during the weekdays, including a sand filled, fairly shallow (but very warm) pool for the kids:





And then this week we were able to visit a mammoth pool that is located in a backyard. The family that lives there rents it out for $50 an hour (all of us that went split the cost so it was downright cheap!). We had a water slide, cliff-jumping fabulous time.



Sade, who we shall say can be timid at slide related events, was a slide riding, cliff jumping fool. You just never know with that girl.








Of course the rest of us were in on the fun too:










It was a smile filled day.



There have also been some Wet-n-Wild visits, and there just may be another one this afternoon/evening if I can get my act together.



I just love it there.