Gingerbread Houses

At our house we are trying to start little family Christmas traditions. One of those has been to make gingerbread houses on the first Family Home Evening in December. Last year  Shad made a gingerbread replica of the Kirtland temple (because he was teaching the Doctrine & Covenants in seminary) while Haken and I made our traditional little cottage. This year Shad is teaching the Old Testament so as you can guess, he made a replica of the tabernacle. Haken and I stuck with the traditional cottage style. Sometimes I wish I could just buy a kit or make my own gingerbread from a pattern, but with the crazy things Shad likes to build, it is just better if we stick with graham crackers. I think we got a lot more into it last year, maybe it was because I had my burst of energy right before Jack came, or it could be because Jack was at my heels whining most of the time (he sure did eat his share of graham crackers while we were building).This year we went with simple elegance and that is just fine with me. Although, I bought a load of candy that is now sitting in my cupboard taunting me everyday!

Courtesy smile :) He gets it from his father!

Ready to attack the house right before bedtime.

ONE year old!

I can not believe that I saw my little Jack for the first time only a year ago today. 

It feels like he has been in my life forever! It is honestly hard to remember what our life was like before we had him in our family.  Jack is such a genuinely happy baby. You wouldn't believe all of the comments that I get about him being happy all the time. He really is happy pretty much ALL the time.

Jack always has something sticking out of his mouth in the last week. I am hoping that maybe it is because he is FINALLY teething. He still doesn't have any teeth, although I can feel them in there somewhere. Among his favorites are a toy nail from a tool set and a duplo lego guy. He freaks out if you try to take them away. They must feel good on his gums.

One of his favorite activities is helping me out with laundry. If there is a laundry basket full of clothes on the floor, you can bet that he has climbed in there and started pulling everything out, whether they are folded already or not. He thinks it is SO funny.

Now on to the birthday festivities....

We threw a little family party for Jack the weekend before his birthday. We had it at my parent's house in Bountiful so that we would be closer to all of our family that we invited. I decided to do a frog theme. I thought it turned out pretty cute. I really could have gone overboard, but decided to try and keep it simple. We had a yummy lasagna dinner and of course cupcakes and ice cream. I couldn't have done it without my mom's help. I am also glad that so many of our family was able to be there. I could tell that Jack is very loved.

He didn't have a hard time digging into the cake, but I had to help him out when it came to eating it. Once he got some in his mouth he kept shoveling it in. However, his most favorite thing to do was take a handful and squeeze it as hard as he could in his hands.

Tonight, being his real birthday, we decided to give him a "little debbie" snack cake to celebrate. He took a gigantic first bite and after that it pretty much fell apart all over his tray. He loved squishing it in his hands once again. 

So glad we have made it through the first year! It flew by, which makes me a little sad. He has developed such a little personality and I love him more and more each day. 

Happy Birthday Jack-Jack!

Jack's First Haircut

On Tuesday we decided it was time for Jack to get a haircut. His hair was really getting "nappy" in the back and and also looked a bit like an old man with a comb-over at times. I actually can't believe that we waited this long to do it. On the crown of his head the hair was like 3 inches long. I had trimmed the very front a few times just so I could style it, but it was getting a bit ridiculous looking. Unfortunately I didn't think to get a picture of his hair before we cut it, but here is the during and after. He was such a good boy! The funny thing was it ended up being haircut day for everyone, including myself since I got one earlier that day. Haircuts all around! BTW....I am so grateful that my husband can cut my boys hair as well as his own. Sure does cut down on costs.

This is what I had to do before I had the genius idea of giving him a sucker.

Whoever created "dum dum" suckers is a genius! They last exactly long enough to give this boy a haircut!

Front- After

Back-After

Haken's fall wish granted

 It is amazing how much difference a year can make in the eyes of a child. Suddenly at 4 years old Haken is fascinated with everything. One thing that has been really fun is to watch is for him to get excited with the change in seasons and holidays. I don't remember him ever being so passionate about small things like crunching leaves underneath his shoes, or running at full speed into the snow to make a snow angel . Maybe he was too little to really care last year, or maybe it is because he knows a little bit more about how the world works. This year he really, really wanted to jump into a big pile of leaves. He asked me a few times during the past month and every time I told him that we didn't really have enough leaves to rake up and jump into. Our trees are still quite small. However, over Thanksgiving Haken got his wish and was able to jump into a big pile of leaves at my parents house. Grandpa raked them up into a big pile and let Haken have-at-it for probably almost an hour. I don't think it was quite as he had imagined but he was still giddy about the whole thing. He ended up totally filthy and wet since the leaves were pretty damp and dirty. In the end he came inside because he had dirt in his eye, but I think he still had the time of his life. Every kid should have the memories of doing this to live off of into adulthood!

Still clean. Waiting for Grandpa to rake up the leaves