Jack's birthday

Okay, so I promised myself when Jack was born that I would make his cake every year for his birthday. If you know me, you know I am not a baker and man oh man, I sure don't cook! I figured that Jack would always know his mom loved him if I sacrificed and made him a cake. The cake for his first birthday, a Winnie the Pooh cake, took me 3 days. Last year, he wanted Lightening McQueen, and that I pounded out in 24 hours. You'd think with all the time I spend on them that they'd be these fabulous looking cakes, but they really are just pretty basic! This year, I asked Jack what kind of cake he wanted, and guess what he came up with? He wanted Lightening McQueen with Cactus on him!!!! There is a part in the Cars movie where Lightening McQueen crashes into some cactus, and comes up covered in cactus. Hysterical....and even more hysterical that this is what Jack wanted for his cake! I searched everywhere for some sort of cactus cake decorations, to no avail. I searched every possible store in New England, to no avail. Apparently, cactus plants are not a big deal here in New England! I finally resigned myself to some floral moss that I could put on the cake, then remove before we ate it. GROSS! Anyway, at the last possible moment in the most obscure part of Michaels, Megan found some little cactus cut-out things. We used those, and Jack LOVED it. He still plays with the little wooden cactus cut-outs. Hooray!
And now, my baby is all grown up. Jack's promotion from "baby" to "big boy" on this birthday was harder for me than my 30th birthday! He is just changing so fast......

Christmas 2008

Yesterday was a busy day for us. First, we were finally able to go to Yankee Candle Village to see Santa with Jack. The snow has been so bad that we have had to put it off for a little while! Every year since Jack has been in our little family, I have taken him to see Santa and returned with a picture of him screaming in fright. We thought this year might be different....and in a way, it was. The first time we walked by Santa, Jack refused to see him and cried when we tried to force him to say hello. He eventually warmed up to the idea, and Santa went to great effort to get him to at least be calm for the picture. As you can see, Santa succeeded! This is the first year Jack's Santa picture hasn't been a "crying" one. My little boy is growing up!
Yesterday evening, we went to a friend's house for Family Night. It was great! Jack loves the family's three kids. We all dressed up and acted out the nativity. The 7 year old girl of the family, Julia, had all of out costumes and parts planned out ahead of time. I was Mary, Brice was Joseph, Jack was a shepherd, and Megan was a shepherd too. Jack did such a good job! He was fascinated with Baby Jesus....he kept wanting to take the blankets off him so that he could see his face. We had such a good time, and it was so nice to feel the special spirit of this cute family and talk about the real reason for the Christmas season.

Thanksgiving 2008

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City! It was pretty chilly and we had to stand in the cold for a few hours, but Jack had a blast. We stayed in the city the night before, and we got to go see them blowing up the huge balloons. My mom came in for the week, and she got to go to the Parade with us. The news said there were about 3 1/2 million people watching the parade this year!!!!

HALLOWEEN 2008
For Halloween, we went with some neighbors to Westhampton. Westhampton is a small town, with literally 4 streets that come to a crossroads at the center of town. Every Halloween, the town blocks off the streets, buys a ton of candy, and lets the kids trick or treat in a safe environment. They also bring in a firetruck for the kids to see. It was so fun! Jack's highlight was obviously the firetruck. The firefighters were so pleased that he loved the truck so much they let him sit in the front seat and hold the steering wheel! He was SOOOO happy. The firefighter then let him walk around the truck, and he was absolutely in awe. The firefighters were also handing out treats and apples, and Jack didn't even want the treat, he just wanted the apple PLEASE. The firefighters LOVED him and his giraffe costume!
Jack had so much fun trick or treating. We had prepped him adn tried to teach him to say "trick or treat" and "thank you," and he did great saying "thank you" when he got the treat. What was so cute was that he walked up to the doors and said "trick or treating!" Everyone loved that!

Halloween Party

Jack had a little Halloween Party with his buddy, Rylan. He got to wear his giraffe costume, which he loves! They painted little pumpkins and had a pinata.

Forest Park

There is a park in the middle of our city - and it is HUGE!! There are ducks there for Jack to feed, and a small zoo. He and Megan spend a lot of time there. I went for the first time after class on Thursday. It was so beautiful! The leaves are absolutely amazing. The colors are so vibrant, plus Jack loves to feed the ducks. At Christmas time, we understand there is a light display that you can go to. The park is huge, so there are roads you drive on through the park to look at the lights. We saw them putting up some of the light displays already!

Fall in New England means loads of leaves! We spent forever raking the leaves in our front yard. Jack had so much fun! We borrowed a little rake from the neighbor for him to help. Brice and I would rake the leaves into one big pile, only to turn around and find Jack "moving" the pile. Jack's help may have contributed to the amount of time we spent raking the leaves. He also had so much fun jumping in the pile...as you can see from the smile on his face. The funny thing was, about 10 hours later, so many more leaves had fallen that you couldn't even tell we'd spent our Friday afternoon raking the leaves! UM...so we're not going to rake again. EVER!