on second thought maybe i shouldn't sing "i'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair" while washing the boys hair. jackson sang it the rest of the night.

i don't know if i've recorded some of sams cuter phrases recently. he doesn't say "yes" he says "i do" with the cutest southern accent on the I I've ever heard. sam do you want down? i do! sam do you want a bath? i do! he is also very funny about what names he'll say and which he won't. no matter how much i try i can't get him to say grandma or sam. he does call all of jacksons friends iris though and recognizes the neighborhood as soon as we turn in. his favorite person to point out in pictures used to be scott but brittany (nienie) has replaced him now. he can also be confusing when asking for buzz lightyear. for some reason buzz is zoom and tangled is buzz. ??? chocolate milk is chalk. bear and hair are brrr and hrrrr. he loves kerus judge (curious george) and choo choo. he has just started trying to identify colors which was a surprise to me. i was shocked when he picked up an orange lego and called it orange.

there's no way i can remember it all. it may not be the best stuff he's said but its something.

"swords are bad. except when you're going to kill somebody then they're good."

he really really wants to name the baby marsha.

(embarrassing) we were playing lil piggies and after the 5th one he said "why is home my privacy?" "no no sweetie home is under your neck!!! let's not play that anymore." we had company over.

i was looking at his preschool drawings and having him explain them to me. he drew a picture of him and a snowman shooting guns at a volcano. There was one picture he didn't color and when i asked him why he said it was because she's a girl.

sam is so cute now. he doesn't say the funny or bizarre things that jackson says but amazingly, just about every time he talks we all crack up.

last saturday we were playing in our bedroom trying to convince daddy to get up. all sam said was "jackson i want bear" which was really more like "akon i wan brrr" but we all laughed for 5 minutes and repeated it all day. i love how he calls blanket leelee or gleeglee. he loves trains and always calls them choochoo. i feel thomas making a stronger showing this time around. as I was pulling out baby clothes a friend gave me he told me with every new piece "cute." jackson does the same but with a really overly exaggerated voice "oh that is so cuuuuute. she will loooove that."

my boys are AWESOME!

he is passionate

so today jackson bargained with me that if he ate all of his sandwich we would turn our house into a restaurant. i told him today was a perfect day because we were having the missionaries over for dinner tonight. i asked him how we could make it a restaurant and he told me he really wanted to make menus and give them their food.

we named our restaurant "jackson's restaurant" because that's what he wanted. We decided he could draw a picture of all of the food i was making for dinner (after getting very upset that he couldn't make a menu of all of the foods he liked then i would just have to make whatever the missionaries ordered.) He drew a picture of meatloaf, salad, potatoes, and cake.

When I started making the salad a few minutes before they were scheduled to arrive I realized that i had accidentally bought cabbage instead of lettuce. I thought i'd improvise and cut up some oranges and cucumber to have on the side. When jackson saw me cutting up the oranges he asked why i didn't tell him that so he could put it on the menu. i told him my predicament and he was very upset about his menu having salad when we didn't have it. i told him that the cucumbers are green so it looks the same but then he pointed out that they would wonder what the red (tomatoes) was on top of the green. i told him if he wanted he could just cross out the salad and add the new items. we worked on it together and i thought it was settled but he could not get over the black scribble on his menu. he was crying that his menu had black on it and the missionaries wouldn't know why it was there. i sent him to his room to calm down and he threw his menus (i picture him doing this in a very exasperated fashion) then ran back to his room and slammed the door. he was upstairs at least 5 minutes before the missionaries arrived. When they got here he wouldn't come downstairs. i went up and explained that menus have black marks on them when the chef has to change it. he asked "do they have black marks when they accidentally draw the wrong food?"

"yes dear"

he came downstairs as happy and cute as ever. he gave them their menus. he carried their food. (he dropped some oranges but mom ate those) and was very happy with the opening night of jacksons restaurant.

in moments like those where i get exasperated thinking that i'm doing this great nice thing for my kids and they lose their temper but when it ends well i'm so incredibly thankful for hopefully a happy dinner memory we've created. i hope the positive sticks and not the negative.

jackson is reading

i'm so surprised he sat down and read this so calmly. i was a bit nervous when we started filming because the first 2 times he read this i had to keep telling him to sit still and to put the toys down. i didn't want to sound mean on video! i dont know if its the fact that we were making a video (which he is constantly wanting to make of himself) or if it was because it was for grandma jan but he was so calm and serious. way to go jackson!

jackson said "you told me to put on my jammies so i put on all my jammies!" he was wearing 7 pajama pants and 3 pajama shirts. it was hilarious. i was so sad brent had him take it all off before the picture. he was super thick.

also, today brent told me that a new study came out that kids under the age of 2 shouldn't watch tv. he said people think baby einstein is fine but its not and you should limit the amount of background tv they see. i told him i had heard that just yesterday.....from jackson. jackson told me that "we let sam watch tv even though he's under 2. but when he's 2 then he won't be under 2 and he can watch tv." when i asked him where he heard that he said he heard it on the news. "brian williams said that." so, i guess you can say jackson is more up on current events than i am!

doctrinal question

Jackson asked me today if Jesus pooped.

I don't know.

On Monday I took the boys in for well check ups and I just thought I would document that here to remember. Jackson weighed 39.8 lbs which is the 50th percentile and he was 41.25 inches tall which is the 48th percentile. His eyes were 20/40 which they said was normal for his age. We had to fill out a paper with what he can and and can't do and he could do everything on the paper which went up to 5 yrs and some months. Really, he made me so happy. He was so cheerful the whole time. He's very talkative and social. He is the child that will say something loud and a little offthat makes all the adults in the room laugh. When I told the nurse I wanted to have the Dr. look at a cut he's had on his mouth for a long time that we couldn't explain he said in a very loud whisper "Can I take off my sock and show her the owie on my foot?" So he did and then told the nurse "I have these cuts on my foot and I don't know where they come from. It's a mystery." He had to get two shots which he was scared of but did. He would try to scoot away but nothing like holding him down to do it. I cried to watch him try to be strong. Way to go supportive mom.

Sam weighed 23 lbs 6 oz which is the 12th percentile. He is 32 inches tall which is 25th percentile. Both of my kids have started big then gotten smaller percentile wise. After having jacksons numbers though I not really concerned about them being too small forever. Who knows?? Sam was so giggly through the whole Dr.'s office procedure. He had no problem sharing my attention but didn't shy away from the nurses either. He would laugh and dance and try to do whatever Jackson did (including jumping off the examining table.) Jackson I don't think ever would have crawled up to that table at Sam's age but Sam is much more fearless watching Jacksons example.

It's so fun to watch their personality differences and yet to watch them play happily together too. Sam wants to be and do whatever Jackson is. He's started playing with what I consider "older" kid toys just because that's what Jackson is doing. He builds towers with duplos but jackson didn't even get them for christmas until he was 3. Sam is much more interested in sports and the rougher side of boyhood. Jackson basks in the attention of others. He is very strong-willed and sees things as black and white. It's fun to see him get more adventuresome though as he gets older. He's noticing sports and competition more. He's always had a lot of girl friends in the ward and I'm beginning to see differences with some of them in playtime. He'll agree to play house but not choose it then want to switch to chase, or pirates, or building. Sam does much better than Jackson did alone. He'll entertain himself and he's much more passive. ahhh.... motherhood