Nine is fine

Jackson turned 9 on the 18th. Somehow I really didn't take very many pics...... that kind of makes me sad.   He is such a happy guy when it comes to birthdays :) He loves everything about them. We were planning a friend party this year so his day at home was pretty low key. We had strawberry shortcake for breakfast with candles in it (thought I had a pic of that.....) then he opened the presents we gave him. He was so excited about his nerf bow/arrow. It had also snowed the night before so school was cancelled. He thought that was a pretty awesome birthday present! We had his party the following Saturday. We invited his whole class so we had it at our church building. We invited them a little last minute though so not many could make it. Jackson still had a great time though. I was so worried about having everything ready for the party that I forgot my camera! I did take a picture of his cake with my phone so I will have to add that eventually. It was a Pokeball since he had a Pokemon themed party.
Jackson is an awesome kid and we are so happy to have him as a part of our family. He is creative, energetic, daring, caring, fun loving, adveturesome and smart!

Boxes

We have always used cardboard boxes for the kids to play with. Kind of nice that it's a toy you recycle when they are done with it. Hailey and Caleb wanted dog houses. Then they had to decorate them.....
We also taped up every box we had downstairs (we had saved a lot to use for shipping legos). Then the kids used them to build houses and castles and most impressively, a haunted house. That one carried over to babysitting the 6 kids and lasted a few hours!! Their creativity is pretty entertaining sometimes. Caleb really wanted me  to come with him to their haunted house but quickly changed his mind when Jackson cackled at him from inside a skeleton costume. They even had spooky halloween music on the CD player.

Game Boy

This kiddo loves games. There are certain games that he never wants to stop playing..... this one that he is holding is one of them. There are six different colored bracelets and one big die with each color on it. Each player puts on a bracelet and someone rolls the die. Whosever color it is runs and grabs the die, yells freeze, and then throws it at someone. If they hit them then they get their bracelet. This is a difficult game to play with a mix of kids ages 8 to 2 :) Caleb doesn't want to give up his bracelet, Jackson wants to nail everyone - even the little 2 year who never makes it more than 3 feet away..... but Caleb LOVES this game. I hate to get it out becaue it's so hard to get away from him to put it away and it can be frustrating for the others to always play Caleb rules. This picture above was when I told him it was time to be done.......
Hungry Hippos, Froggy Trap, Cranium Caribou, Saucer Sramble, Mouse Trap...... these are just some of his favorites. He would spend all day playing them and the rest of the day furious that you're not playing them with him :) Ah, 2 yr olds!!!

Bubble gun

Playing with a bubble gun that I found on clearance somewhere...... battery powered bubble toys were a pretty genius invention :) Although SOLAR powered would be even more awesome.

Vday

Guess I need to catch up a bit :) These are the Valentine cards that the kids handed out to their teachers. They just got regular cards for their classes because they were  25 cents a box at a local store but they wanted to do something a little more special for their teachers. Maggie and Jackson came up with the sayings on their cards. Pretty cute that they are getting old enough to do things like that.
Maggie, of course, wanted a special hairdo for Vday. My attempt was not quite what I envisioned but she was happy :)