Jackson's Birthday and a visit from Aunt Shannon!

Jackson is finally 3!! At first I thought, I'm glad he is 3 because he looks like he is about 4 or 5 and so it was always annoying to have to explain that the reason he is not in school or reading or can't tell you his favorite flavor of ice cream is because he is actually only 2! But he has been 3 for less than a week and I've already had someone say "How old are you? 3? Are you turning 4 soon?" The kid is just so darn tall. And he is really getting smart! He always amazes us the things he knows!

Anyways, Jackson had a GREAT Buzz Lightyear birthday!! My sister, Shannon came up to help out and to celebrate with us since John was out of town at a training until Friday night. Thursday night, (even though the 19th is his actual b-day, we celebrated Friday so John could make it home for cake & ice cream!), after the kids went to bed, Shannon & I got busy decorating our front room with streamers and all kinds of Buzz stuff. We wrapped all his presents too, so he woke up Friday morning to all the decorations! Then, after he opened his presents (Little Buzz, big huge tall Buzz as he calls it, Buzz fake camera, Mr. & Mrs. potato Head + Baby Potato, Buzz pj's, Buzz & Woody t-shirt, some sweet sweatpants/coat, a new sweatshirt, and some cars of course!), we took Jackson to the Portland Children's museum. It is the cutest museum ever with so much to do! We spent a few hours there, grabbed some Five Guy's Burgers and Fries for lunch, and headed back home. Then, Jackson helped make his own birthday cake (we thought that would be more fun for him then me trying to make something all fancy and creative), and he LOVED doing that! He picked blue frosting and put LOTS of sprinkles all over and decided that 3 candles was not enough, so he added a lot more! It was definitely the ugliest cake I have seen, but he was really excited about all of it! Daddy made it home from his training in San Francisco just in time to sing to Jackson and give him his last present- a new airplane from the airport that Jackson LOVES. (It's his Big Jet for all you Little Einstein fans). Later that night my sister and I went and saw New Moon... so good! More on that and the sight-seeing we did with Shannon will come in the next post. :)

So Jackson had a great birthday! Here's pictures for proof:

this is what Jackson woke up to

taking a picture with his new Buzz camera

taking a picture of the baby "tato" that he made (he got the best set of 3 from my parents- Mr., Mrs., and Baby Potato Head). He of course loved it since it was from Toy Story

Grocery Shopping at the Children's Museum

Checking out my food for me

Driving the ambulance

Decorating the birthday cake!

All his Buzz presents, including new Buzz PJ's.... look at that smile

this is his "Big, huge, tall Buzz" as he calls it from Uncle Colby

Halloween Costumes

I know Halloween was 2 weeks ago, but here's some picture of the boys in costume... they are hard to get to sit still. Friday I dressed them up and we went trick-or-treating at John's office with the other spouses and kids. Baron decided there that he was going to officially walk from now on and therefore walked around the whole office in his pirate costume! Jackson was extremely excited to get a lot of candy and afterwards they had the kids decorate some cookies. He also loved seeing the other kid's costumes. We saw The Jensens at the building (they were treat-or-treating Tom's office a few floors up!), and Jackson was at first a little apprehensive to see his best bud, Jack, dressed as a monkey, but got over it once he realized it was his same old friend.

Halloween night, The Jensen's were nice enough to let us come hang out with them and watch the Ducks kick some Trojan butt and go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. The boys (Jack & Jackson) had a great time running from door to door getting lots of yummy treats! They were a little scared of some houses with scary decorations, but all in all they had a blast and scored on the candy!

Sadly, Baron for once in his life wasn't being super smiley when we went to take pictures of him Halloween night.... and I forgot to take any pictures the day before when we trick-or-treated John's office :(. My bad.... here's what we did get:

Giant Pumpkin Regatta Festival

Every year around the man-made lake we live around, they have a giant pumpkin regatta festival. What is that you ask? It is a great Fall Festival held around halloween with lots of games and events including free face painting, pumpkin painting, a ballon man, a clown show, live music, and some food! But the biggest event is the Giant Pumpkin Races in the lake! The local growers gut out their ginormous pumpkins, dress up in costume, sit in them, and row through a course in the lake! It is a lot of fun to watch and we had a great time! It was so nice just to walk out of our apartment and take a very short walk and we were there at the festival! Even if we are not living here next year, I think we will be back to visit and watch the giant pumpkin races again!

Here's some random pictures of Bear later that day... I just thought they were cute