Jackson's First Birthday

Though Jackson spent his 1st Birthday in Germany, we decided that it wouldn't be right if we didn't celebrate witha birthday cake. A few weeks ago, we celebrated the right way and let him chow down on his first birthday cake. Enjoy the pics!

So much to tell you!

We are finally home from our trip over seas. It was a wonderful trip. We saw so much in the time we were there...it was a whirlwind but a fabulous vacation and great to see Brock's parents. I swear we saw everything there was to see in Germany, plus a little of France and Austria. Frankfurt, Koln, Triberg, Titisee, Salzburg, Strassbourg, Rottenburg, Heidelburg...all the Burg's!! The country is beautfiul, filled with lots of castles and romantic streets. The pictures just don't do it justice. I'll finish posting my pictures online, but here are a few of my favorites. I included some from the Sound of Music tour...I thought you'd enjoy!!












Oh yah...and for those of you who haven't figured it out yet...you're going to be Aunts and Uncles again. I'm due May 17th!

Such is Life

As promised, here are some new pictures of Milly. Sorry that some of them are a little blurry! We don't have a fabulous camera like some of you! Milly can now sit, lay down and stay. She still stuggles with her lease. She would rather chew it than go on a walk. Casey is still her favorite chew toy!
As for Kevin and I, we are doing well. Kevin had chemo last week (as you already knew) and had to speak in church, set apart 7 people, and get tithing entered. All in all, he was at church for about 6 hours. What a trooper. The Lord has surely blessed us in our trials! Kevin still looks pretty good for having a week of chemo. We are still waiting for him to lose his hair. I pull out 5 or 6 hairs each day. If only we all had such nicely shaped heads!

We are so lucky to have nurses among us--namely mom! She took such good care of us this past week. We are glad to be so close and to be able to stay at Mom and Dad's. We aren't the easiest house guests, but I think everyone survived!

School is, well, school. The kids are still chatty as ever! I have tried all the tricks I know, and things seem to be getting a little better. I guess time will tell. Construction starts on the school next week, so now we will have tons of noise right outside our window. That will be lovely, I am sure!

Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers! We love you all!

End of summer...blues?

This Saturday is the last day I can use my Cherry Hill pass. As much as Jackson and I would like to go one more time, our day will be filled with BYU Football (which is a good thing too)! Without Cherry Hill to fill the days, I'm feeling a little blue...that was kindof my life-saver living up here in the FAR North :)! I loved that we all gotto be together. I loved having Allie, Troy and Katelyn here for awhile, Tera and Kevin off for the summer, Mom, Kelsi and Keegan home, and for the first time I wasn't working for the summer (wishing Brock & Dad weren't). I love the family vacations, the BBQ's, lunch up the canyon, boating, wake-boarding (I can say that now), swimming, stayinig out late because it's still light outside, being a nice shade of tan instead of pasty white, Millie being little...I could keep going. Thinking of this makes me a little sad. However....attempting to be positive, I am very excited for Fall. There is just something about the changing colors, the crispness in the air that I just Love. As much as I wish we were all in Provo, knowing we're all busy with our own things makes it easier for me to get involved up here, actually accomplish things and feel like I have a life. Another thing to look forward to is the fact that the bees will go away!!
I'm actually getting the domestic bug...believe it or not, I can't stand when my house is messy. Especially when there's Jackson's leftovers all over the floor. I have to sweep three times a day! I'm considering canning peaches, since we have delicious peaches on our tree! Maybe I'll even start sewing again :)
I want to say thanks again to everyone for helping me when I got my gallbladder out. I'm feeling a huge difference today than I did a week ago!

Baby Signing Time

Kim, I will be forever grateful for introducing us to Baby Signing Time. Troy thinks otherwise (he cringes everytime I flip it on, only because he gets the songs stuck in his head and starts singing them at school!) :) But with 6 teeth now trying to break through and a very tired and grouchy Katelyn, Baby Signing time has saved me! She starts squealing the second she hears the music and runs into the living room with a big grin on her face. It is so cute! She has even learned to sign a few things just from watching it this week! She can sign "eat", "bird", "fish", "dog", and "all done". If we start singing any of the songs, she starts doing all the signs she knows how. It really is funny. I forgot that we had it but I am sure glad we do because she loves it!

Cheeeeese!

Katelyn has 4 teeth now, with 4 more on the way!... It doesn't make for a very happy baby! She never sleeps and likes to make us as miserable as she is in the night! Just wanted to post some pics... we would love to see more pics of you all, including Milly!

Brock Graduates*

*(kind of... I still have one
moretest to take) ;)

Yesterday was an exciting
and relieving day in the
Blake family. After catching
the entrepreneurial bug,
most people didn't think
that I was ever going to
graduate. With Kim's help
and reminders, I have
been studying at night
to finish up my last
independent study class.
To be honest, I can't stand
the subject or the class...
so Kim's motivation is really
what helped me get it over with.

Anyway, it's over now and
I'm grateful for the
learning experience I had
at BYU. BYU is a sacred
school that is dear to my heart.
I can honestly say that the
greatest lessons that I learned
were outside the classroom.

Thanks again to Mom for coming to Graduation and for the generous gift! Tera and Kevin, the cake was delicious! You know just what I like!

Go Cougs!

Thanks to all of you!

Yes, this is me! You all didn't ever think I would try wakeboarding, but there you have it. I look like a professional right? I'll admit that I didn't really think I'd like it, but I actually loved it and can't wait to get back in the water...as long as it's Lake Powell water, not Provo scum!

Brock and I had a great time at Lake Powell these last couple of days, thanks to all of you! We couldn't have left Jackson behind if we didn't know how much you love him. After being there for the first 10 minutes, we realized how hard it would have been for him to be on the house boat.

I've decided that it's a good thing we go to the hotels!! Brock and his brothers do a great job at manuevering that big houseboat, but there were a few times when I feared for my life. We decided to move the houseboat to a "better" spot at 8:00 in the P.M. in the middle of a storm! However, with the Blake boys skills, we arrived in safety. I just think that with our family, we better stick to the hotel!

As much fun as we had we did miss Jackson terribly (even though he didn't really miss us at all)! And...it made me really sad that we all weren't able to go to the Jackson family Lake Powell trip. Next year, we all better be there!

Katelyn turns ONE!

Can you believe it? Katelyn is now one year old! We soooooo wish that you all could have been here to celebrate. We had a good time though and our friends were nice to put up with us!! Surprisingly, Katelyn enjoyed herself as well! The pictures explain it, but we will be sending a video clip shortly so that you can see her mangle her cake! It was so funny. When we first put the cake in front of her, it was like she was thinking "are mom and dad really going to let me do this?" She put her hands in it and just left them sitting there for a few minutes and then whamo!... she started eating and eating and almost ate the whole cake! She was so cute and didn't even cry, even with 20 people staring and laughing at her!

Troy and I got Katelyn a doll for her birthday and she won't let the dolly out of her sight! What a good mommy she will be someday...lol! We wrapped all the books and toys you gave her, mom and dad, and even though she wasn't the one to open them (all the other kids ripped them to pieces!) she is very excited to have some new toys to play with and books to finger through! Thank you!

Back to School...BOREDOM!!!

I have actually been looking forward to the beginning of school. A fresh start is always nice. I had these visions of having these past 3 days all to myself--to plan, straighten my room, etc. Well, that is not the idea others had, because Friday, Monday and today have been BORING! Friday I sat through meetings at my school. Monday I sat through meetings at Timpview. They taught us that we should always teach in 20 minutes segments, and then they proceeded through 3 long hours of meetings with no breaks! Then today I sat through meetings again (except this time I was in charge of about 2 hours--they were not so boring)! SO, I have tomorrow and Thursday to finish getting my room ready and prepare for Back to School Night. I didn't ever really think I would say this, but I am sure excited for the kids to come on Monday! I need something to look forward to. I get a little jealous when Kevin gets to stay home and "play golf" all day. He made $40,000 today. If only that were real life!

Restroom Woes

So, I really hope I'm not the only one who's going to post a little something on the blog! I challenge everyone to write something each week.... that's right, I CHALLENGE YOU! It would be so fun if we'd all do it, and maybe it would make you take more pictures with all of your lovely digital cameras as well, right??!

Church was somewhat difficult today. Katelyn wanted to do anything but stay in my arms. So, we pretty much spent most of church out in the foyer, letting her crawl around (which isn't very easy in a dress!) Then to make it even more exciting, some little punk in our ward thought it would be funny to switch the men's and women's bathroom signs around! I started walking into what I thought was the women's restroom when a man walked out the door! He gave me a funny look and luckily I wasn't actually through the door!....ughhh! Obviously, I don't use the restroom much at church!

Life back in Arizona

Life back in Arizona, is well, dreadfully boring and hot! After spending so much time with you all, Katelyn and I don't know what to do with ourselves! On top of that, it is miserably hot outside so we can't even go enjoy the sunny weather! I could keep complaining... but I'll just keep it to myself! Thus, the pictures explain it all. We eat, sleep, and then eat and sleep some more. It really is the life.........yeah, right!

Troy is back in the routine and has even made an entire set of dentures since returning to school. He keeps telling me that he NEVER wants to make dentures all day, says its pretty boring. He has been playing ball with his classmates and the new "D1's" (first year dental students...Troy is now a D2 and likes to gloat about it!) Anyways, let's just say Troy has already made a few enemies. He was playing rough and almost broke a D1's nose! I told him that maybe he should just stick with running on the treadmill at the gym!

Sadly, Katelyn is regressing in her walking skills! She stands up and just cries if we let go of her hands, making a really funny face to go with it. AND she won't stop crying until we pick her up! She just stands there with her hands in the air, balancing and crying at the same time, and won't move an inch. It's pretty funny and I hope she'll catch on soon. Thanks to Jackson's example, she tries every chance she gets to try and crawl up the stairs! She'll wait till I'm not looking and make a mad run (or crawl, rather) for the stairs!

We stopped to see the Grand Canyon on our drive home...$25 later! I thought that was outrageous! Probably because I knew we were only staying for a few hours. It was fun to see though, especially since Troy had never been there. Do you remember when we went to the Grand Canyon because Lake Powell was stormy? Do you remember the really funny glasses we all were wearing? I thought about that as we posed to take this picture, so I took my sunglasses off!

We sure miss you all and hope you come to visit us soon!

Welcome

Welcome to the Wade Jackson Family Blog! This is a place for each family to post pictures, news, ideas, and whatever else you might want to share with the rest of the family. Anyone from the family can post information and share pictures.