How Popular Are Our Names?

Here's how our family's first names rank the year of said person's birth:

Nathaniel (1975)- 132
Jennifer (1977)- 1
Jefferson (2002)- 706
Jackson (2005)- 44
Mason (2006)- 39

Wanna know where your name ranks? Go here!

Showing No Fear

To avoid going to bed, Jackson decided that that falling onto the couch was a lot of fun and Mason decided to join in. Here they are having a blast:

Ikea

We went to Ikea on Saturday. Jefferson was upset that the kid playroom was full so he couldn't play, which made the trip around the store less fun, and Jackson and Mason wanted to climb on EVERYTHING. Jackson's favorite thing to do was climb up on the beds and settle in:

Jackson's Last Day of Class

Yesterday was the last day of the playgroup Jackson has been going to at Kids On The Move. He's had a lot of fun since he started in January and made a lot of progress.

Preparing For The Terrible Twos

I gave Mason's blanket and dogs a "bath" on Friday. Mason WAS NOT HAPPY with me. He didn't care that his dog smelled so bad you could practically smell it across the room. So, for almost 2 hours Mason cried or sulked around, while waiting for his precious dogs to be free. I had to take some pictures and video of his tantrum because I just couldn't resist capturing the event.
Here's a picture and some video after he realized that I put his dogs in the washing machine:

Here he is right after I switched the load over to the dryer:

Here he is a bit calmer, waiting for the dryer to finish:

Fun At The Park!

We went over to the park by Grandma and Grandpa's house so that we could spend some time with them before they leave for a whole month to visit family and friends in Virginia. Jackson is in love with slides (although the tube kind freak him out, so I had to slide down with him), Mason is a daredevil, and Jefferson is just all over the place. It was lots of fun!

Check Out These Eyelashes!

Okay, so I keep seeing posts about amazingly long eyelashes on kids/babies and so I had to post a picture of Mason's eyelashes. Although he started out with hardly any at birth (which was quite the opposite of Jefferson- his eyelashes are very easy to see in his newborn portrait), he has more than made up for that. Here are his eyelashes now (the ends are fairly light, so hard to see, but really, they go on forever!):

Scout Expo

I currently serve in the Cub Scouts - Wolves, to be exact. It wasn't a calling I expected, although being the mother of 3 boys, I should have. It's been pretty fun- we have a great group of boys- and Jefferson loves to come to cub scouts with me (I'm not sure the wolves like him coming though- he can get a bit overexcited). This past Saturday was the Scout Expo, and our den was in charge of our troop's booth for 2 hours. The theme was "Physically Strong" or something like that, so our troop set up a fitness obstacle course. We had lots of kids stop by and participate and I think it was a success. Most troops had great set-ups and some of the older troops had quite the elaborate set-ups (our ward is less than a year old so we don't have the money for much and we haven't had time to acquire much). A couple troops even rented some big inflatable slides and such. Jefferson couldn't wait until my shift was over so that he could go on the slides. All in all I thought the Scout Expo was better than the county fair. You still got some good food options (although I didn't bring any cash for that), there were lots of activities (almost all free!), and only a few booths selling stuff. Some of the army guys from Camp Williams even brought over a few army vehicles- including an Apache helicopter and a Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzer (which the kids were allowed to climb in and all over). Nate had to go into work on Saturday, so he didn't get to come to the expo (and Jackson and Mason stayed home with Grandma), but he was bummed he missed it when I told him about the army vehicles. I'm looking forward to next year's!

Here are some pictures of the inflatable slides and the army vehicles:
(Once again taken with the camera phone because silly me forgot the camera)

Does Anyone Else's Kids Do This?

It drives me crazy. My kids love putting their foreheads on the ground and then crawl across the room with their heads pushed to the ground.
(Like this:)


I'm sure Jackson and Mason mainly do it because they've watched Jefferson do it so many times. But the result of them doing it all the time (no matter how many times I tell them to not do it) is rug-burned foreheads. Poor Mason currently looks like this, after his last forehead rubbing across the room:
(Yesterday and Today)


Jackson still has signs of his last forehead rubbing. I'm afraid that eventually their foreheads will stop healing and they will have scars!

*Edit- Jefferson has enough hair on his head that he doesn't really get the rug burns anymore. Mason doesn't even seem to know he hurt himself. He never even reacted to the rug burn. Mason's current rug burn is the worst one I've seen from this. And Shayla described it well as "bulldozing."