Romney's Milestone

At Romney's last soccer game he achieved greatness and hit a personal milestone. 

This is Rom's first year in soccer and he has been very eager to score a goal.  The good news is he finally did it!  He scored two goals!  The bad news?  One of them was for the other team. 

My new favorite part of Saturday mornings.....if only it were not every Saturday. 

You may now call me......

So last night something happened.  Something Big.  Last night I went to my last class!  So, despite that I "walked" for graduation a few months ago - Rom referred to this as "fake graduation" - yesterday I walked out of class and officially graduated.  I would prefer from now on that you all refer to me as Master. 

Of course, someone once told me that an MBA is someone that knows a little about a lot of things so I'm not really sure what I'm the master of....but either way Master Jackson has a nice ring to it. 

Want to know something else really cool?  In about three weeks my mom will graduate with her Masters degree also.  Don't worry mom - I'll call you master too.  Can I just call you MM for Master Mom?

Want to know something lame?  I wrote a most of a blog about a month ago about one of Marie's amazing accomplishments that is really equal to my graduation.  I promise to finish it and post it soon. 

fun fun fun.....

Day 1 - Saturday
Beach fun.  Lainey said she wanted to break the world record for number of times getting thrown off of the dock.  Later she changed her mind.  Here was a little toss before a mountain bike ride.  She got over it quickly.

 Boat ride to see a moose across the bay

 Why is Rom always laying down?

Day 2
no pictures.  Turns out Rom is always laying down because he has a strep throat and a fever of 105.  Oops.  Drive to Idaho Falls and get some antibiotics and hope we don't all get sick.

Day 3
Marie's Birthday!  Yeah!  Party!

 ROOT BEER FLOATS!  Marie's favorite.  Looks like L likes them too. 

 

 Rom feels good enough to chase people down with his water sprayer thing.  

  

 Most of the time.....

  

Day 4

Cousin Matching Jammie Day...you know - in honor of the pioneers

 Still recovering....sometimes.  Temp hits 105 again but then never comes back.

 if he is just going to lay there we might as well bury him....

 Feeling Brave.....

Day 5
more and more cousin fun (3rd cousins technically.  Who plays with their third cousins?)

First official mountain bike ride for the Hurricane.  (slightly overshadowed by huckleberries and toads)

Day 6
Baby lunch 

 My girls...

 Really feeling better

 Style points

Day 7
More fun

 More fun

 More Fun

Day 8
Still fun...

 Waterski!

Happy?  Me?  yeah

 Marie gets brave

Day 9
New cousins come to take our place.....

 bye bye cabin.  we miss you already. 

Happy Father's Day

At church today I got an awesome cookie because I'm such a good dad.  Joanie was hanging on to it for me because she is so helpful.  I was happy to let her play with it because she seemed to enjoy the sound of the plastic bag and was having a good time shaking it around.  I didn't realize she had more nefarious intentions.  Next time I saw her she looked like this.  If only you could see all the places I found chocolate.  I still can't figure out how she ate the whole cookie so fast.  This is really what father's day is all about.....

Calvin

(if you want the short version of this blog - skip to the bottom.  Whatever you do don't miss that video.  It will change your life.)  

For years I loved reading the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.  Who doesn't really?  The comic was funny because it mimicked the real live of the average 6 year old boy.  Well my friends, I now live with a six year old boy and I can easily see where the inspiration for the comic came from.  What you are about to see is not a pre-scripted simulation.  This is all real, spontaneous creation of our six year old also known as the Wombat. 

Fist there was the night I came home to find the babysitter feeling satisfied at a job well done.  She, in fact, had done a great job and we would love her to babysit anytime.  She told me they had a great night with the kids and they had done face painting.  YES!  You gotta love a babysitter that plays with the kids.  No problem, I thought.  She did warn me that Romney didn't want to take off his face paint.  Again - no problem.  When I went down for the night to check on him before I went to bed I expected to see a spider on his cheek or maybe a snake or lightning bolt.  Instead, I found this kid looking like the old WWF Ultimate Warrior....or maybe a little like Stupendous Man!

The other day I found this in our family room.  "DO NOT TOUCH PLEASE!" The writing immediately reminded me of Calvin.  I couldn't find a picture but I'm sure there is a comic somewhere with Calvin trying to keep Suzie out of the G.R.O.S.S club with a sign that looks something like this...

This was Romney's latest costume.  He LOVES creating stuff with tin foil.  We go through a lot.  

He also loves this hat.  He wanted to wear "his cowboy hat" to the natural history museum with his white button up shirt and slacks because he wanted to "look nice."  He cried when we wouldn't let him wear his OTHER had that is even bigger than this one to a rodeo recently.  We were concerned no one would be able to sit next to him.  

 It is great when he gets the camera all to himself....

  And nobody has moves like my six year old.

 

The little things

In our family we feel like we should celebrate small milestones.  For example....Joanie is over a year old now and her life has been hardly recorded at all.  The first year primarily consisted of sleeping, eating, laughing, and crying.  She was/is the sweetest of babies.  At some point around the 9/10/11 month mark she developed a loud screech that basically stated...I WANT.  Guess what?  SHE GOT.  I don't know what it is about the girls in our family but they come with STRONG opinions. 

Here are a few milestones we celebrated recently in Joanie's life...
 FIRST BIRTHDAY!

FIRST BED HEAD!  Lets be honest...some us in the family struggle to grow hair on our heads.

FIRST SUSHI NIGHT WITH PICKLED GINGER!  Hmmm...many significant milestones in our family involve food.  (I couldn't figure out how to get the video to download.  Too bad for you.  She loved the ginger and kept asking for more...but she always made this face between each bite.)

FIRST MEXI-NIGHT WITH SPICY SALSA!  I told you we liked food. 

FIRST SLOT CANYON!  Dangerous?  Depends on who you ask.

 

FIRST PRACTICING....

 

FIRST MISCHIEF (this is clearly her favorite drawer.  Her 459th mischief was when she turned off the computer while I was writing this post...TWICE....A little passive aggressive if you ask me.)

And while there is no picture to mark the occasion, yesterday our little J Bird, Bright Eyes, JJ, Baby J, Joanie Baby....took her first consecutive steps.  We couldn't be more proud.