It's been awhile

When I first started this blog it was so exciting and I couldn't wait until I had something to post about. And now it is starting to feel like such a burden...does anyone else feel the same way? Well anyways, it has been awhile so here are some highlights from the last month or two of our lives.
Gus and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary in March, so to celebrate we planned a weekend get-a-way to Park City in April. Due mainly to my fear of leaving Jackson overnight it turned into a family get-a-way, which actually turned out great and I am glad we brought him. Jackson loved the condo, and especially loved the shower and huge soaker tub. He kept walking into the glass shower door because he couldn't see it...funny and sad. We spent a lot of time and too much money at the outlets, swam, went for walks, went site seeing, and ate a ton.
This was the view from our bed...too cool.

Jackson is now 18 months and full of personallity. He recently decided that it would be super cool to have an attitude and LOVES the word no. You know how on cartoons they ask the viewers questions, like Mickey Mouse asks "do you want to come inside my playhouse"? Well Jackson even responses to that with a solid, non-waivering "NO".

My sister-in-law Melissa and I took all 5 boys to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. I felt like all I did was yell their names and constantly count to make sure we hadn't lost one. But it was a lot of fun and the boys loved it. Somehow we got them all to sit in one place to get a picture of all 5 grandsons...arent they too cute? I just love these boys.

I had a great mother's day. I recently started playing soccer again so I got new soccer cleats and flowers. Here is a picture of Jackson and Grandma Russell. My poor mom...everytime we go over there all he does is brings her book after to book to read.
Jackson absolutely loves to play outside. First thing he does every morning is go find his shoes and bring them to me. Then he goes to the door and pounds on it. So needless to say, we have been spending a ton of time outside.

Here is our recently finished sandbox which provides hours of entertainment.
So there is a snapshot of the last 2 months or so of the Hytonen family...thrilling isnt it?

Easter

Happy Easter Everyone! I hope eveyone had a great day and weekend. We spent Saturday going to two different Easter Egg Hunts. Jackson did better than expected and actually got what was going on and enjoyed it...even though he only got 2 or 3 eggs at each hunt. Here are some pictures from our first hunt.

Here is Rusty, who is an egg hunt expert, giving Jackson some pointers.

Next we headed over to Doug's neighborhood for our second hunt of the day. We got there a little early, so to keep Jackson away from the eggs we hung out at the playground.

Easter was a great a day. I got a new calling at church, I am the Young Women's sectretary, so that should be fun. Here is Jackson's Easter Basket (which he got after church). He is obsessed with playing outside, so I got him some toys for his soon to be finished sandbox.

Then we headed over to my parent's for dinner and the best egg hunt of all. The kid to egg ratio was much higher ( 4 kids, and there were at least 125 eggs...way to go Grandma and Grandpa!).

The weather outside is....

Constantly changing!!! About a week and a half a ago we had a huge snow storm. We got at least a foot of snow in about 5 hours...it was rediculous. And there is something about South Weber that causes us to get way more snow than anyone else. Here is the tree in out front yard...I think it looks so cool covered in snow:
And this is our back/side yard. Those are trees behind the swing set, not bushes. There was so much snow, the trees were bent over to the ground.
Gus taking a break while shoveling the steps.
Jackson absolutely loves being outside no matter the weather.
Doesn't he look cute in his snow bibs?After being buried in snow, we were blessed with a few days of nice, warm, sunny weather. I have been so grateful for the nice weather...both Jackson and I get cabin fever, so it has been so nice to be able to get outside.

We even made it to the park. All of the parks in our neighborhood are still buried in snow, so we went to the duck pond in Layton with our nieghbors.

I usually dont really mind the winter, but now that I have a child, I just cant wait until spring so we can be outside more!

All about me!

So because Jackson is pretty much all I blog about, here is a post all about me! As promised, here are some pictures of the bag I made:It was so fun to make. I love the feeling of accomplishment after taking pieces of fabric and turning them into something you can use and like! I had a bunch of fabric left over and I made a wallet using a pattern my friend showed me online (thanks Cambria). The flowers on the front are already starting to fray, so I am trying to come up with anther way to make them.
It needs some work, but now that I have made one, and taught myself how to install a zipper I am going to try again.

This past Saturday Devon and I "competed" in a team triathlon. We were actually on different teams but we both did the swimming leg. We were both so nervous which was silly because it was just for fun and we only had to swim 500 yards (10 laps (down and back=one lap)). I actually surprised myself and swam it about a minute and a half faster than I thought I would and ended up finishing 6th out of 30 swimmers.

So there you have it...a post all about me!

Melissa's Devil Tag

My sister Devon tagged me on her blog so here it goes...

1. Go to my documents/pictures.

2. Go to my 6th file folder.

3. Go to my 6th picture.

4. Blog about it.

5. Tag 6 people to do the same.Is it bad that I was hoping it wasn't a picture of Jackson? It just seems like he is all I ever blog about so I was kind of hoping this tag would give me inspiration to blog about something else. Oh well. So this picture was taken on October 1st. That was actually the day that Jackson took his first step. I love that this picture really captures the chubbiness of his cheeks.

I tag Marguerite, Kirsten, Cambria, Chennell, Rachel, and Lisa.

Quilt Update

Because I know you are all dying to see the progress I have made on my quilt...I thought I would post an update. Here are some pictures of the completed top.

It turned out kind of busy, but I like it anyways. I am currently in the process of quilting it using my sewing machine. Its pretty tricky to do (for me at least) but fun. I also just bought a pattern and material to make a bag/purse...so stay tuned for more craftiness in the future!

My little Jackson is growing up way to fast. As you can see in this picture, he LOVES to take baths.He has discovered how to climb on top of things and will climb onto anything he can get his little knee up onto.

And he loves stuffed animals. We went to Ikea a couple of weeks ago and they had this bin of huge hippos by the door as you walk in. We handed him one as we walked in and he bear hugged it the whole time we were there. Then of course we had to buy it considering that Jackson had drooled all over it. Luckily it was Ikea so it was only 7 bucks.

And just because I think it is hillarious...

Going for a ride!

Since Jackson's birthday was fairly close to Christmas, he didnt really need a lot of toys for Christmas. So we decided to get him something he can use and enjoy this spring and summer, so we got him this little buggy car. He was pretty excited about it and Gus and I were getting pretty tired of pushing him in it up and down the hallway. So I decided that Gus should take him for a ride down to the mail box (we live in a cul-de-sac and the mailbox is about 50 yards away). So here are some pictures of Jack's reaction to his Christmas presents and their little trip.