Jete Jete turns four!

We got to go home to Idaho for Kenzie's (Hadley's little sister) wedding for a couple of weeks. It was tons of fun, and I think we played just about every minute while we were there, but that will be another post. Right now I want to talk about Jeter, cuz he's my little birthday boy.

We were lucky to be around family, so close to his birthday (we flew back to Texas on the 19th and his birthday is on the 20th), and everyone spoiled him.

First he had a birthday party at Grandpa and Grandma McArthur's. I told him we were going to his birthday party and he was like, "Yay!!! I'm four now!"

Well... not quite yet, little dude.

I explained to him how it wasn't his real birthday yet, so he's not actually 4 for a few more day, but we were just celebrating it that day cuz we wouldn't be with them on his real birthday.
He seemed to get it, and I didn't think anything of it.

We had ice cream sundaes and the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever to get to make their own, and put all the sprinkles and candy they wanted on it.

When we said it was time to open presents, he said, "No! Those aren't mine. It's not my birthday yet."

Woopsies. I guess I did too much explaining. HAHA We finally convinced him that they were his and he gets to open them, and then he LOVED it and thought it was the greatest day ever.

Then we had another birthday party for him and Maycee (Had's little sister), with the Pococks and Crapos out at the sand dunes. He had a monster truck cake, which he couldn't stop talking about, got to play in the sand for hours, along with rides on the four wheelers and razors. He was one happy little boy.


Grandpa and Grandma Fuller gave him some fun little birthday presents that he could play with on the plane ride home. So his birthday lasted a long time.
Well, we got back from Texas, and the next morning was his actual birthday. He didn't seem very excited. So I tried to help out the situation by telling him he gets a special birthday breakfast where I would make him anything he wants. He chose pancakes. But not just any pancakes.
Dirt bike pancakes.
What in the? How in the?
Sweet Jete. Sweet request. I had no idea what to do. But I wanted him to feel special, so I tried my hardest. (By the way, Jerzi requested a helmet. Awesome.)





I let him pick out what kind of cake he wanted me to make.
Here it is in all its glory.....

A bowling cake!
HAHA



I figured we can just have a little bowling themed birthday, and go bowling as a family. Cute right?
Well....that's not quite how the story went. We didn't have any eggs when I went to make the cake, so instead of going to the store, then making a cake, we decided to just stay and hang out together, and play with Jete's new presents for the rest of the night, and I would make his cake the next day. It was really fun, and we loved being back together as a family.
However, when we asked Jete how old he was, he responded,
"I'm still three."
"No, Jete, you're four now remember, today is your birthday."
"No I'm still three!" he said getting ticked, with tears starting to form in his eyes.
"Jete, you turned four today, why do you keep saying you're still three?"
"Cuz I don't have a birthday cake to make me turn four."

Oh man, we did bad. It made me so sad.
But eventually the cake got made, and he loved his bowling cake. (Had on the other hand couldn't figure out why I agreed to Jete's request for a bowling cake. He said I should have helped change his mind.) And now Jeter is finally four!






Now I want to hurry and write a few things about my little Jeter boy that I want to remember. Feel free to ignore all this.

-Jeter is a sweet little boy, most of the time. Sometimes he says to me, "Mom, I'm trying to be good so you'll be happy."
-His favorite game to play is "Beat Jete"
-He observes things very intently, and pays attention to the littlest details.
-He loves people. When we were in Idaho, he told me a few times, "Mom, I just love everybody here." Then he went on to name everyone that we had visited.
-He loves to "work". He informed me that he doesn't like my kind of work though (referring to cleaning), only Daddy's (referring to working with tools, and working outside).
-He loves four wheelers, dirt bikes, motorcycles, and monster trucks. In fact, he's kind of obsessed with them.

-He is very competitive. Everything is a race. And if he's not gonna win the race, then "it wasn't really a race." Oh dear. I know.... it's our own faults. HAHA

-He gives us hand signs every night before he goes to bed. (Hi, Love you, pork and beans, peace out)

-He is out of control. He flips and flails his body as if nothing hurts him, and he gets more bonks and bruises than I've ever seen any other kid his age.

-He is very daring and is always trying to climb to the highest thing and then jump off.

-He has a hard time walking anywhere. He always wants to run.
-He likes to be around older kids.

-Every kid that is outside playing is his "friend".
-His favorite movies are Bolt and Sandlot.

-He has a hard time playing by himself. He wants someone (usually me) to play with him or to be there, just watching him play.

-He finally likes the water, and wants to go swimming all the time. He lets Had launch him up in the air and go flying into the pool.

-He is always happy.
-He gets crazy hyper when he gets tired.

-His favorite foods are steak and bacon.

-He is a good sharer.

-When he gets hurt he wants to watch a movie.

-He still doesn't eat potatoes. (We told them that they will make him get bigger and stronger.) He told us that he doesn't need to eat them because Linds told him that she wants him to stay little forever.

-He constantly tries to do new tricks on his Harley, fourwheeler, and bike.

-He is a great big brother to Jerzi. He loves her so much. He is always giving her hugs and kisses on her forehead, and has to give her hugs before bed each night.

Jeter has been so much fun to have in our family. He's always wild and crazy, and every day he says something or does something that cracks us up. We love him so much.

Happy Birthday Jete Jete!

If He Can Learn It At Four.....

So I was upset at Jeter yesterday for not listening to me. I started getting mad at him, and giving him a little lecture on how he needs to listen to me and blah blah blah. As I was talking, he was looking at me with these scared, sad puppy dog eyes, like..."Am I gonna get in trouble? Please don't get mad at me" look.

In the middle of my rambling, he gets this cute little grin on his face and his eyes change to the look he gives me when he's just thought up a great idea. Then he interrupts me and says,

"Mommy, you look so cute today!"

Oh you sneaky little devil!

It totally worked though. I couldn't be mad at him anymore. Instead I laughed out loud at him and thought about how funny it was that he thought that up all by himelf.

Then it got me thinking..... if he is four years old and figured out what to say to girls when they're upset, how come it takes other boys so long to learn it? (boys in general Had, of course I'm not talking about you here.)

Before Graduation (continuation part 3)

Even though graduation and moving to Texas were happening on the same day, we managed to put aside the stress and anxiety we were feeling (mainly Had), and have a little fun.

CAMPING

The week before Hadley graduated, a bunch of us 4th years decided we should go up to the lovely

John Johnson Farm (church history site where Joseph Smith was pulled out of bed, and tarred and feathered) to go camping. It had been raining every day, so we knew it was gonna be muddy, and rainy, but decided that it would be a fun little adventure anyway.

Notice the mud around the fire pit. It's not just wet, hard, packed-in dirt. It was the kind that was gooey and sloshy, where you sink an inch with every step. Yeah, we had a few (or a lot) of kids get stuck and fall in it.

We roasted hot dogs, and the kids ate them up like a champ. Jeter never usually eats his hot dog with a bun, but he tried it that night, and loved it.

Jerzi, wow, have I mentioned before how this girl can eat?!!

She ate her entire hot dog with the bun, half of my hot dog, chips, watermelon and drink.

This is her, opening up for more, cuz I can't get it tore up fast enough. (She didn't have any molars at the time, so she ate all this with mainly just her gums.)

Let the note burning begin!

(If you want to see how excited these guys are to burn their notes, just go ahead and double click on this pic. A little happy I'd say!)




Jete thought roastin marshmallows was pretty cool.

Then he tried smores and he hasn't stopped asking for them since that night. He was pretty excited to try these after watching Sandlot. He totally told us how to make them from watching that show. HAHA

"First you take the gram...."

One of the main reasons we decided to have a camp out...

to burn their white coats!

When they first started podiatry school, they got a short white coat. They have been wearing these coats for the past 4 years. Now that they are officially doctors, they get to wear a long white coat, so they were super excited to burn these, and all that they represent.

It took the flames all but about 5 seconds to catch hold of all those nasty chemicals that have been caking on them for all of this time, and the flames were huge!

They loved every second of it!

Jeter and his buddy Gabe.

They were inseperable that weekend, and wow, oh so muddy!

(They are both wearing shoes, the mud just blends into the ground)

While those two were doing boy things like playing in the mud and catching frogs.....

we caught Gabe's little brother trying to put the moves on Jerzi back behind the cars.
When I went back there, he was trying to hold her hand. This better not be a sign of things to come!

We put the kids to bed and went out by the fire and hung out and talked till like 2 in the morning. When we went back in the tent, Jerzi woke up from the zippers opening and stands up and says, "Hi Daddy". Well, Had's a sucker for that, so instead of laying her back down, he decides to have a little conversation with her. So then she's up and fully awake, and wants to play. Finally I put the pillows over our heads so she couldn't see us, so she continued to have a conversation with herself. Then an owl started hooting, and she mimicked him for awhile. It was super cute, and super hard to not laugh at her and let her know that we were awake and listening to her. Anyway, the next morning, she was a little wiped out. So while Had and the others went and cooked us breakfast, I was on Jerzi duty, just relaxing, listening to the sound of rain hit the tent.

Crazy kids!

DINNER CRUISE

We got to go on a little dinner cruise on Lake Erie with Had's graduating class a few days before graduation. Most of us LDS peeps referred to it as the Booze Cruise, cuz it was free alcohol for everyone. For us though, it was one last night out together in Cleveland, without kids, with some of our really good friends.

Here's most of our group of guys that all started this podiatry journey together.

And the wives that survived it!

Aww, we're gonna miss everyone so much!

Great night out on the lake.

We even won a giftcard to Starbucks! Wohoo!!!

The class of 2011!