Fall Fun

 I have to apologize to myself. I have been SOOO bad with pictures and I'm so sad about it. When I remember to take the camera, I am busy with Jax so I don't take it out to get pictures. So sorry for the lack of pictures and how crappy they are - some were done with my phone so I at least had SOMETHING. I am really trying to do better though!

I love fall! This year went a little different than I had hoped because Dan was doing some law school competitions that kept him at school until around 9:30-10:00pm each night so the days I had planned on us going to the pumpkin patch as a family didn't work out. So Jaxon and I went with our friends the Barry's and picked out 2 pumpkins and decided to wait until Dan could go with us to go pick out the 3rd pumpkin. We drove to the pumpkin patch we went to last year and ALL THE PUMPKINS WERE GONE! They had everything cleaned up! I couldn't believe it - we went a few days before Halloween so I figured they would still have them but no luck! Oh well - good thing we picked out the 2 earlier! I was just sad we didn't get our annual pumpkin patch family picture :(

Jaxon with his buddy Ryker

Also - I have seen these darling candy corn sugar cookies that I wanted to try - they were kind of a lot of work - but they turned out really cute. I know Halloween is over today - but if you want to try them - click HERE to go to the blog where I got the instructions from! 

Dan and I took Jaxon to pick out his Halloween costume. I thought he would either choose a cowboy, Buzz Lightyear, or dinosaur. When we got there we found a cute cowboy costume and buzz costume but no dinosaur. All Jax kept saying the entire time was dinosaur so we kept walking around to see if there was anything. Then Jax yelled "tail" and pointed down, he was pointing to a green tail that looked like a dinosaur tail - so I dug a little deeper and found this hat thing that might be a dinosaur hat. Jax got so excited and wanted to put it on. He wouldn't take it off the rest of the time we were shopping - he wears it every day. I was lucky to find some PJ's that have a dino on them and are similar coloring so it looks ok - lol - but this is what I get for letting my almost 2 1/2 year old pick out his costume. OH WELL - he LOVES it and that is the important thing! 

On Friday the 28th the Science Center here had a Halloween Carnival for little kids so of coarse we went! We went last year but Jax was so young that he didn't understand how to do the games, so this year was a lot more fun! He actually stood in line and played the games and got excited to get his prize. They have also been remodeling the kids space since the beginning of this year and they FINALLY had a sneak preview of it!!! Its officially opening tomorrow, November 1st! Jax loved it! They have a music room, a "vet" area where kids can play and learn about animals, they have a store they can shop in, a water area, a news area, all sorts of stuff! So it was great to get to go play in there too! 

He got hot and took his dinosaur hat off so he just looked like a kid in PJ's haha

I had my baby shower on the 29th and it was such a blast. The girls who threw it did a GREAT job and I got spoiled. So many cute clothes - bows/flowers, this little girl is going to be the cutest dressed girl ever haha! My friend Audrey did almost ALL the food and it was delicious MEXICAN! Yummy!!! We played some fun games that I have never played before - there were baby items presented to us and we had to guess how much they cost. I have purchased basically all the items before, but I didn't even get ONE right haha. The other game was baby food jars were passed around that had the labels taken off of them and we had to smell/taste the food and guess what kind it was. Sadly, I actually did pretty good at that game! I feel so lucky to have such good friends here in Lubbock, and a couple of girls that came haven't even met me - they just go to school with Dan and love Dan so they came to show their support. It was a great day and shower! THANKS EVERYONE! 

Delicious food that I remembered to get a picture of AFTER we ate LOL.

Opening gifts

Opening gifts

Yesterday, Sunday October 30th, the Law School had a Halloween Carnival that they open to up to everyone! I didn't know that until we showed up - I was thinking it was just for the students and their families, but it was such a blast! They had booths set up all over that had games and prizes for the kids! Jaxon got a little scared when he saw some of the scarier costumes with masks and stuff, but other than that we had a great time! After that we came home and carved our pumpkins. Jax didn't like touching the pumpkin guts like I thought he would - he just wanted to play with his cars instead - so Dan and I carved the pumpkins and I think they turned out great!

Law school Halloween Carnival looking for a game

Hard at work carving his pumpkin

Trying to get him to touch inside the pumpkin

Finished product - Lisa Spider, Dan Dragon

What Jax did while we carved pumpkins haha

Things Jaxon says

Just to document - lately he has been saying....

-Trick-or-treat! - He is going to be so sad when he says that and candy doesn't follow haha

-Clean up (sounds like keen up) - He sings the clean up song after he says it. I think this is from nursery haha!

-Your turn and My turn - he has been getting better about sharing so these phrases are great!

-MINE! - he has also been getting possessive of his toys and everything he thinks is his!

-Do not hit - he doesn't hit kids - just Dan, he thinks it is ok when they wrestle so we say this phrase A LOT and he is starting to copy!

-Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Teranodon, and Fossils - he loves everything dinosaur and is learning their names

-Fossil's - read statement above haha

-Daddy and baby - this might not seem funny but let me tell you why it is. He is associating big things with daddy's and little things with babies. The other day I was giving him some ketchup on his plate to dip his corn dog in and I just did a little bit - he said - "no mama, I want a daddy, not a baby" - I was confused by this since he was pointing to the ketchup while he was saying it. I realized he wanted more ketchup - a daddy sized ketchup, not a baby sized ketchup. He does this with everything now. Anything that is little is a baby and anything that is big is a daddy. LOL. 

-Daddy's at school 

-I can do it

-I did it - and he gets so excited when he says this - I love it

-Singing - this is said whenever we sing, he wants us to sing, or when he just hears music

-Volcano (sounds like A - cano) and "a-cano's HOT"

He also is starting to play make believe a lot right now! When we get in the car he likes to pretend we are riding on the dinosaur train. He also pretends there are dinosaurs, tigers, lions, all sorts of animals in our house and we have to WATCH OUT (said like wat ouch - haha, he is putting the "ch" sound at the end of the word. He can say it correctly, but when he is in the heat of the moment - he always says it like that lol)

Again, there is so much more, but I just want to document these few things that are on my mind right now. Love that little dino of mine! 

The name

Since Dan and I thought for sure this baby would be a boy - we had several boy names picked out that we really like. As far as girl names go, Dan and I would talk about names, but he didn't like the ones I did and I didn't like the ones he did. There was one name I mentioned when we were pregnant with Jaxon and we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl yet and we both liked the name. When we found out this baby was a girl, I brought up the name again and Dan said he loved it and that should be her name. We still talk about other options and we will wait until we see our sweet baby to make the final decision - but for now - we have been calling our sweet girl Addison. We both really like the name and it seems to fit. For her middle name, we thought if we are going to give her a middle name we want it to mean something or be after someone. There are several wonderful and amazing people in our lives that we would love to name our baby after - but when Dan brought this name up - I immediately loved it and love who and what it represents to us. Her middle name will be Rae - after Dan's sweet and wonderful Grandmother Betty Rae Lockhart. So as of right now - baby girl Garner's name could possibly be Addison Rae Garner. Again, the first name is not set in stone, but we do really like it and so far it's the only name we have both agreed on haha - but the middle name is a for sure thing! So any suggestions for our baby girls first name? It has to sound good with Rae! :) How did you pick names?

Tiger

Today at church Jaxon didn't match. He wore black church pants and an orange and blue striped polo shirt. Why? Because his orange and blue shirt is his TIGER shirt. Every time he sees that shirt he gets excited and says "I'm a tiger" and growls. I tried to get him to let me put on his white dress shirt with this super cute vest - and he threw a fit. So today at church, Jaxon was a tiger - can I just let him wear that as his Halloween costume? LOL.

A few of my favorite things

First of all - my friends Lindsay and Ally told me about this blog yesterday that I am now in LOVE with and obsessed with. I think I spent a few hours looking at everything on there last night. It seems like everyone BUT me knew about it... how sad! But in case you haven't heard about it - please go check it out. It is called Our Best Bites All the recipes on there seem easy but delicious! I already made one today and it turned out great! They also have so many cute ideas for the Holidays and so many other things!

My next favorite thing...my little man! He is so funny! When he is eating cereal in the morning he wants to be reading something. His favorite thing to read seems to be the coupon ads we get in the mail. He finds them, puts them next to his bowl and "reads" between bites. Sometimes he picks it up and holds it closer to his face and then sets it down to eat. I didn't get the camera until he was almost done eating so I only got this one shot before he ran off to play - but hopefully I capture him holding the paper soon because it is adorable!

He has also been very into being a cowboy lately! He has his own horse thanks to my amazing mother and father in law that made him his first rocking horse last Christmas. He loves riding it and yelling "Yeee-haaa", I just need to get him a cowboy hat! :) Don't mind the garlic press he is holding LOL, he likes to go through the kitchen drawers and use things in his make believe world! :)

Last but not least, little girl Garner in my belly! I am 25 1/2 weeks now and I figured I should probably take a pregnant shot. Dan said the dress I was wearing showed off my belly pretty good so we decided to do a pic. I am not a fan of me in pregnant pics haha so I try to take as few as possible but want to document the pregnancy so I'm glad we did this one. I should have turned more to the side so you could get a better view, but oh well! And don't mind the toys and cords all over - Dan is doing homework and has his computer stuff out and on a table we set up in the living room and Jax, well Jax of coarse plays with toys all over the house. Seeing it actually makes me happy and could be another one of my favorite things - I used to dread seeing the toys everywhere - but after women's conference I have change my outlook and now love seeing that we are fortunate to have toys scattered everywhere and I have a healthy active son that loves to play!

 We are very blessed! 

Decisions...decisions

Wow - well without giving details right now - Dan has had the opportunity to interview with some great companies over the last little bit for a summer internship and he has a couple more this week that I am REALLY excited about. With that being said, there is also something else that we have seriously been considering and can I just say - I hate the uncertainty of not knowing where we are going to be this summer. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this time we will not just be moving our little family of three, but there will be another little baby with us - baby girl Garner will only be 4 months old and moving last summer back to Utah was great but our one car didn't even fit everything we needed for the 3 of us - next summer we will have an almost 3 year old and 4 month old baby - and everyone that has kids knows that you need A LOT of stuff for kids and especially babies! Where will we stay? Will we rent out our house again here for the summer? If so - to who - last summer everything just worked out so perfectly and it all just fell into place and into our laps, this year there are so many more options and big decisions I just feel very overwhelmed. I'm probably feeling this way because I'm pregnant and all my emotions seem to be amplified 1000% haha but I just want to know RIGHT NOW what is going to happen. Apparently I am not very patient. I am such a planner that this kind of stuff is so stressful for me - I have already started looking for living arrangements in all the locations we could possibly be this summer and I'm pretty sure that doing that is making me go more crazy because hello... we wouldn't be moving for 7ish months and we don't even know where yet. I need to stop - I just wanted to document my feelings about this time of uncertainty in our lives and even though it is uncertain, it  is also very exciting and I just need to focus on the excitement of it all!

Conference

I LOVE Conference. It has been harder to listen to now that we have little energetic Jaxon in our lives - but I still love it and love the messages! Women's conference last weekend was amazing and I'm sure everyone has seen the pictures circling around with the forget-me-not flowers and the 5 things President Uchtdorf talked about. His talk was amazing. Although I love ALL the talks, there are a few general authorities that are just AMAZING - Uchtdorf was added to this list awhile ago and I love it when he speaks. In today's morning session he said something that hit me REALLY hard for some reason. I was actually in the other room when he said it and so I don't know if I got the quote down exactly right, but it went something like...

Compared to God, we are nothing, but to God, we are everything.

Wow - I think I have always focused on the compared to God we are nothing part - but his talk was such a wonderful reminder that everything God does is FOR us. The world was created FOR us. He wants us to succeed and be happy. To God - we are everything! How amazing! I can't wait for the rest tomorrow!