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Mark and I got married in June 2002. We have a sweet little girl Brooklyn who came to our family in 2007 and we also have three adorable boys Brady, Jackson and Tyson. Mark works for Monsanto as an Account Manager and I am a stay at home mom of 4 kids under 5 1/2.
Saturday, August 20, 2011

Happy Birthday Jackson!

This is a week late but I wanted to make sure I blogged about Jackson having his first birthday! Last Saturday, we celebrated his birthday by having a little party with some friends. We had cupcakes and Jackson actually tried it and tasted it unlike Brooklyn who cried and wouldn't touch hers and Brady who threw his on the floor. After cupcakes we opened presents. Jackson didn't get much of a chance to open them before his siblings decided to help him out. Overall it was a great day. The weather was nice and not too hot and humid and Jackson enjoyed playing with his new toys. To make the day even better we finished it off by getting a babysitter and going to the Taylor Swift concert.  We had a wonderful time at the concert.

Back to Jackson. Here are his stats from his one year checkup:
Weight:17 lbs 2 oz.  less than 3%
Height: 28 1/4 inches  8%
Head: 17 1/4inches 3%

As you can see from his weight he is still super small for his age. In fact he isn't even on the charts. He is still wearing size two diapers. The Dr. is running a bunch of blood tests this week to see if there are any reasons why his weight is so low. Jackson had a Developmental Assessment done and we found out that he is behind in many areas but especially with his physical. They found that he has increased muscle tone in his right arm and leg. This causes them to be stiffer and harder to move. We found out that this was probably why he wasn't able to sit until now and sits his own special way. He will now be working with a physical therapist twice a month and has daily exercieses that we do with him. Jackson has learned to crawl as well as pull himself to a standing postion. He can also cruise around the couch or the train table. We cut his hair and now he looks so different and so much like Brady. Here are some recent pictures of Jackson.








Thursday, August 11, 2011

Girls Camp


Ever since I graduated from high school and young womens, I have wanted to go to Girls Camp as a leader. Ten years later my wish finally came true and I was called as the Ward Camp Director. Camp was way back in June but I had such a great time I couldn't pass up blogging about it. First off, camping in Missouri is way different then camping out west. Reason #1: It cools off out west and you build a fire to sit around and keep warm. In Missouri it never cools off and the only reason to build a fire is to make smores and you sit as far away from it as possible. Reason #2: It's so humid and hot. Do I need to say more. Reason #3: The bugs and spiders are 100 times bigger and gross. So going as a leader is so much different than a girl as far as the animals and bugs go. The girls wanted me to get rid of and kill all the interesting things we found that week which included: bats, racoons, snakes, cicadas, spiders, spiders, and more spiders (including three poisonous ones). I did my best to help the girls out in killing the spiders but a few of the girls were much braver. Besides the creepy crawly things and the heat and humidity camp was a blast. We had so much fun, grew closer together and were spiritually strengthened.    The girls taught me so much and I was so impressed by their courage to overcome things and the love they showed for each other. On our last night there a couple of the girls (Rosie and Marina) decided to play a prank on me. While I was using the lovely latrine the girls dumped a bucket of water over the top and drenched me. I had a good attitude about it and laughed it off but threatened to get them back. Several weeks later I was able to get Marina back by dumping water on her, and Rosie finally got her payback when she came home to find her whole room covered in post it notes. Thanks to Elise and Anna for helping me get them back.  Overall, I had a wonderful week at camp with wonderful girls and I can't wait for next year!!!