August

Since I haven't updated for a month I'm catching up on a months worth of activity! We have had a lot of family time these past couple of weeks and it has been great. A couple of weekends ago we used our Edgewood ID's and were able to rent a kayak from Lake Wingra for free. Jackson did AMAZING on it. He was so still and loved looking at the ducks, lilly pads, birds and other boats.

Then a couple of Sundays ago we spent the night with our dear friends the Heinrichs who have a pool in the their backyard. They had their kids and grandkids over and are so gracious to have us along to! We spent a great amount of time in the pool and Jackson was independent in the pool for the first time!! With the life jacket and arm floaties he could go anywhere and that he did. He jumped off the side of the pool, went off the slide and paddled all through the water. It was such a great moment for us to see his independence in that. And it made our experience in the water much more relaxed! I think swim lessons are in order soon...

Kenzie has officially moved out and started a great job in Des Moines. We celebrated her with a little get together at our place and it was bittersweet. We'll always have great memories of Jacksons first year with Aunt Kenzie!

Jackson has not been to excited about the potty thing in the past couple of months and we haven't pushed it. But every once in a while he will say potty and we will go in and try. I came from work on Friday and this happened. I went to snap his potty chair onto the toilet and in the midst of doing so the plastic piece that shields him fell off and went flushing down the toilet. . .AGH!!! Had to take the entire toilet apart and dig it out. Two hours later and I had found the piece and put the toilet back together. What an adventure!

Uncle Dillon came up for a quick visit. Jackson had fun spending some quality time with his Godfather and we appreciated the handy man he is to fix a few things while he was here. :)

Our babysitter was on vacation in Florida so we had Grandma Joan up for a week to help watch Jackson. She was so great helping out and took a huge load off our minds-but I think she was pretty tired. Jackson takes a lot of energy! We did go to Circus World with her and Jackson totally loved it!

I started back at work the first week of August and it has been good to transition back. Michael is gearing up to get Young Life going in Verona and that has been so inspiring. We really feel God is moving in that direction and that great things will happen. He is also preparing and excited to start teaching at Edgewood. Everyone who finds out he is teaching comments that he will be great at it, I totally agree. It's fun to watch him anticipate and be excited about those things coming up.

Things Jackson has been doing:

• Funny. This is something Jackson loves to say. He'll do something and look at us and say, "Funny?" in the form of a question.
• Today we went to the park and stopped to play in a big puddle. He fell down twice and was soaked by the time we came home.
• He loves to gallup around the house.
• He is pretty finicky about what he eats so we do our best but sometimes mealtime is challenging.
• He continues to demonstrate a true sense of independence and determination. He is starting to jump off of furniture in true little boy style.
• His new favorite word is No. No. No. No. No. No. We are trying to teach him No, Thank You but it hasn't quite caught on yet!
• He has turned into a crazy climber. Up on EVERYTHING. We can't turn our backs for a second!