Fall

There is a reason why fall is my favorite season. Wow is it beautiful or what? We have totally enjoyed this past month and as always Jackson continues to keep us going! Here are a few updates on our life this past month:

We headed up north with Jackie, Andre and family! What an incredible time-we believe we hit the 'peak' weekend for trees. It was a wonderful weekend of family time, two dogs reuniting, an escape from reality and fellowship with great friends. What a great tradition and one we hope continues...

Tuesday afternoon ended a long stretch of work for me. We finished our second Edgewood College LIFE Retreat. What an incredible event! There wasn't a night last week that ended before 1:30am for me...it was absolutely insane. BUT - I felt the prayers of SO many around us. And I had an INCREDIBLE team of students, adults and my husband helping to make the event so amazing. God showed up. It was unbelievable. I am still somewhat processing it all-and will probably continue to do so for the next couple of weeks. But make no mistake it was an absolutely wonderful experience. And once again I was reminded of how blessed Michael and I are to get to do this together.

Funny story-we have program on the retreat like Young Life does. Twenty minutes before Michael and our student MP were supposed to go on as the Spartan cheerleaders from SNL, MP sprains her ankle. Oh my goodness...needless to say, Michael took one look at me and said, "You gotta fill in..." And I did-it was quite humorous...and quite humbling to realize how hard program is. Once again, thankful for a husband who can so willingly laugh at himself-he was an awesome cheerleader... :) My mom and grandma came up to watch Jackson while we went on the retreat. It was the best ever. I came home to a clean house, a meal ready to be put in the oven and little gifts all over the house. My mom's love language is DEFINITELY acts of service and gifts. And honestly-at that moment of exhaustion NOTHING could have been better!

Life with Jackson continues to be absolutely amazing. He gives us such joy. Him and I snuck away this past Saturday as Michael was in the Quad Cities to go to a pumpkin patch. I think I scarred him. First-he stepped in a rotten pumpkin and had pumpkin crap all over his feet and jeans. Then in the middle of the patch as I was pulling him on the little red wagon I was moving along and stopped when I heard screams and look back to see him face planted in the ground-somehow the wagon had dumped him...THEN when I was putting his pumpkin in the Murano I shut the hatchback on his head...Poor kid. Luckily the two pumpkins we got were a distraction.

Here are a few of the other things that Jackson has been up to lately:

• He spent a lot of time shopping with us for the retreat. When we were shopping last week he started repeating after us and saying, "Going on a roadtrip." He informed my mom of this this past weekend when they got in the car to go to the mall. :)
• He knows about 3/4ths of the alphabet and can identify letters. He LOVES to look at books and pretend to read. I guess this weekend my mom couldn't find him and she yelled for him, he was in our bedroom and when she asked him what he was doing he said, "reading books Grandma." That makes his daddy happy!
• Jackson still loves his daddy so much. "Go home see daddy." "Hold you daddy." "Wake up daddy." are among some of his favorite phrases.
• I told Jackson that the blue line on the gym floor was water with fish and sharks in it. He was paralyzed...and we had so much fun using imaginative play! What a cool new thing in him...
  
• He has become more of a snuggler. It is such a wonderful thing. He used to be anti-touch. Now he will ask you to hold his hand or actually enjoy rocking. It melts my heart when we are driving and he says, "hold hand mommy." Alrighty beautiful child, I'll make it work while I'm driving...probably not the safest thing in the world but definitely a wonderful feeling.
• He LOVES Cooper. There isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't mention him or usually chase him around the house and then belly laugh when Cooper runs away in fear. It is so stinking cute.

I try to take times in my day to just stop and appreciate this phase of life. Tonight it was when I was putting him to bed and we were reading a book. . .I just know that twenty years from now I'll look back and wonder where it went. . .but at least in the moment I know that I'm not taking for granted what an incredible blessing our family is.