This Week...

was filled with...

chillin' out and playing with dice...

reading...


lots of loud screaming and talking...

lots of smiles (always)...
walking and exploring...

hanging out with mom...

... and dad too!

...kisses, kisses, kisses

... and lots of LOVIN'!

1 Year Old

Jackson's 1 Year Stats:

Weight: 18 pounds 9 ounces- 3%

Height: 29.5 inches- 50%

Head Circumference: 18 inches- 50%

Jackson at 1 Year Old:

(**I don't really expect anyone to read this VERY long post... it's mostly for our records and memories of Jackson...=))

• You started taking your 1st steps at 11 months... you progressively got better and better each week until at about 1 you decided walking was better than crawling and you now walk like you've been doing it for years! ;)
• You say dada, mama, uh oh!, and your personal favorite "Hi!" to anyone or anything (especially stuffed animals) that enters the room.
• Your favorite thing to do is to open all the drawers and empty them, playing with spoons and spatulas, emptying mommy's make-up bag, brushes, your LEGO pushing cart, the remote control, and ANY ball.
• You despise getting your diaper changed... or anything that interrupts your playing time.
• You are a horrible eater and very picky. Right now you pretty much still eat a lot of baby food... bananas, peaches, mixed fruits, squash, corn, and sweet potato. You also love bananas, apples, waffles, and just recently (depending on your mood) toast. You also like gold fish, animal crackers, and pretzels. Your favorite foods are yogurt (something you will always eat) and graham crackers. You haven't liked most meat we have given you... or for that matter most solid foods. We think you aren't a big fan of different textures. Because you are so skinny and picky the doctor told me to put some Instant Breakfast in your milk, which you love and sip throughout the day.
• When you first turned 1 you still didn't sleep through the night and we kept bringing you into our bed until my Aunt Carol gave me some tough love and told me to "pat your tummy and say see you in the morning" or in other words let you cry it out a little. So, WE DID and our LIVES have CHANGED for the better... we now get a normal night sleep and are happy people again (except for daddy who has to get up at 4:30am to commute to Park City! Poor guy!).
• When you are tired or just want to give us some loves you'll snuggle your head on our shoulders... we LOVE when you do that.
• You LOVE picture books... especially the one with pictures of babies.
• If we say "Give me kisses!" you'll lean over and give us a big open mouth kiss! =)
• You understand "no" and do a pretty good job at listening (unless it involves the stereo!)
• You point at EVERYTHING all day long! You are very curious
• You LOVE when we play on the floor with you.
• You still love getting rides around the house from daddy
• You LOVE your toothbrush and ours... and are always stare in fascination when we brush our teeth (you've been doing that for awhile now).
• You're going through a phase right now that you only want to be held by mommy and daddy and don't like to be left alone with anyone else. Although you do pretty well with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen... especially Grandma.
• YOU LOVE music! Every time any toy or the radio plays any music that you like you start humming to it and bouncing/dancing... it is SOOOOOO darn cute!
• Lately you've been looking at us and doing these silly/hilarious smiles (see picture above!)
• Every time we cheer "Yay!" you clap your hands together!
• Every phase you go through it just gets better and better... and we absolutely LOVE being your parents and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOU!:)

Fun in the SNOW

After a day of feeling like this... (Jackson has become fascinated with his old carseat and will often hang out in it while we are on the computer... and his content and happy, until he wants out)

We got bundled up and went to play outside! Jackson wore his new coat and hat from his great

grandparents (thanks Grandma and Grandpa!). We even attempted to go to the park, but it was covered in SNOW. I can't wait for SUMMER!! You'll find us living outside once it is nice and warm!

Future Baller

Grandma & Grandpa Bevans...

...came to visit for their new granddaughter, Alexa's blessing. Unfortunately I have no pictures of Alexa for some reason (She's a cutie... she has TONS of beautiful dark hair. She's a year younger than Jackson, but has WAY more hair than him already!), but here is a picture of Jackson with Grandma and Grandpa Bevans (for some reason it came out really dark... I guess the flash didn't go off)!

All By Myself

We got this organizer from IKEA last week. Since I knew Mark had a ton of grading and planning to do for his classes and wouldn't be able to put it together for awhile... I did it myself! It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be... just VERY time consuming. It felt AWESOME to have all of Jackson's toys (he got like 1,201,000 toys from his grandparents this Christmas) ORGANIZED.

In other "do it yourself" news... we fixed our toilet by ourselves. This is a BIG deal... we are in no way "do it yourself" people. We had called a plumber out who said it was going to cost $165 to FIX our leaking toilet. NO WAY! RIDICULOUS! So, I went to Lowes on Saturday with some pics of our toilet to get some parts to show my old roommate Allison's dad (who, being the incredibly nice and generous guy that he is, was going to come all the way out from Provo to see if he could fix our toilet). While I was pointing to the picture on my camera to a very helpful Lowe's worker at what I thought the plumber said was the problem... he stated that it was a simple job and explained how to fix it. The part cost $3.50! I went home, explained how to fix the toilet to Mark, and then went into the bathroom and we started fixing it ourselves. At this point I started having visions of a "Home Improvement" moment (remember that show... Tim the Tool Man Taylor?) and our toilet leaking mass quantities of water. I thought hmm... maybe we should wait for Allison's expert dad to come instead. But, Mark instead took matters into his own hands and 15 minutes later... PROBLEM FIXED! AMAZING! Savings... $161.50... even MORE AMAZING!

Bread Crumbs, Spatulas, & Rides

Spatulas and spoons on the floor of the kitchen? Pretty common sight during the day since one of Jackson's favorite things to do is pull everything out of the drawers.
Bread crumbs? Not so common. Found 10 minutes after Mark gave Jackson a piece of bread... at least he ate some of it!


One of Jackson's favorite things to do with his dad is to be pushed around in this thing (actual "thing" use is for Jackson to push around... which he does all day... until dad comes home and he wants a break...)

Last Week's Communication...

looked like this...

Last week Mark had laryngitis... in order to make the most of the days he took off of school, he kept talking to a minimum. Our forms of communication consisted mostly of written notes and our personal favorite, charades (which usually ended up with us laughing hysterically since we quickly found out that attempting to act out entire sentences and paragraphs was nearly impossible).

Bevans 2010 Motto

A couple of weeks ago I went to the beginning of the year youth fast for our church. After a yummy dinner to kick off the fast they introduced the Youth's theme for 2010, BE STRONG. It is based off the following scripture found in Joshua 1:9

"Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

They showed a very inspiration DVD for the youth that night... you can see it here... but I thought what a wonderful theme/motto for OUR family as well! So, this scripture now hangs on our fridge as a reminder to be strong this year. Already, during times of frustration or times when I am feeling down I just look over to the fridge and it has given me courage to BE STRONG =).

P.S Don't judge my sloppy looking display of our family motto... it was done after making something for YW's and I was done being "crafty"... when I'm in a crafty mood again and don't have little hands grasping at any project I pull out... I'll make a new one;)!

Wrap-up of 2009

Here's what the end of 2009 looked like for us:

December 19

Jackson turned 1!!! WHAT? It came upon us so quickly. I think that the first year of his life was the fastest year in my life. He's just growing up so quickly and I'm trying to soak in every moment. Above are some pictures from his birthday... although most of the pictures are on my mom's camera since (of course) we ran out of memory on our camera in the middle of taking some pics. Jackson was a lucky boy and got 2 birthday celebrations. On his actual birthday his grandparents came over to celebrate and the next day we all went over to his grandparents to celebrate with extended family. He LOVED the chocolate cupcake... he kept sucking the icing on the top of the cupcake instead of actually eating it... it was hilarious. After we sang happy birthday to him we all started clapping and shouting praises at him and he just soaked it all in... he even started clapping along with us with a big smile on his face. He didn't quite get the part of unwrapping the presents... but definitely enjoyed playing with all the presents his grandparents gave him.

December 23

(I love this picture... he just looks so old sitting there "reading" his book)

We drove out to OR. Normally it takes about 13 hours (give or take). The way there took 16 HOURS!! We had to keep stopping to give Jackson a break from his car seat. He handled the road trip pretty darn well without any major meltdowns. On the way back he was just sick of the whole thing and had a tougher time sitting in his car seat for such a long time... so there were a few more tears... who can blame him? We almost started crying ourselves ;)!!

December 24

Christmas Eve in OR was filled with caroling and recreating the nativity scene.


Notice my cute Christmas Minnie ears? Mark's mom got them for us girls to wear... she's pretty much Mrs. Santa Claus... staying up into the wee hours of the morning wrapping presents, making cinnamon rolls from scratch, etc., etc. to make sure Christmas is wonderful for her family.


Mark was Joseph (a very handsome one I might add), Natalie was Mary... Leah was baby Jesus, and every one else were wiseman or angels.


December 25

Santa must really love the Bevans family(we found out Mark's mom is very close friends with Santa...bosom buddies as she says) because he really drops off A LOT of presents... for A LOT of people (see picture below). As you can imagine we spent HOURS upon HOURS opening all those presents! I had never seen so many presents before until I spent my first Christmas at the Bevans house... I still did a double take when I walked out into the family room! It is crazy, but lots of fun!

The amazing Bevans family Christmas tree on Christmas morning!

Here we are! This isn't just a pose for the picture... this was how we sat while opening presents. Remember Mark comes from a family of 9 kids... 7 of those kids were home for Christmas plus all their spouses and children... all in 1 living room opening a million presents!

Jackson and I smiling for the camera! Don't you love Jackson's goofy smile!?

Our niece Leah- this is pretty much how we all felt after unwrapping

occasionally gives this goofy smile... I love it! all those presents... completely overjoyed and totally exhausted!

It was a wonderful Holiday season and a great way to end 2009! I still have some more updates, but after this long post I'm taking a break! 2010 is going to be a GREAT year... I can feel it!