A good sign

This is one of the tulips coming up by my front door and physical evidence that winter will someday end! I actually like winter, but this year I am really done. Sickness alone has made me impatient for spring. Despite my obsessive compulsive sanitizing wipes usage, Jackson has been sick on and off since Thanksgiving. As soon as he gets over one thing, he's caught something else a few days later. Poor kid. Crossing my fingers for spring! And... I am pretty darn excited about the tulips.

Watch out world-- here he comes!

Jackson started walking Wednesday night! We were all hanging out in our living room and I called for him to come over to me in the chair. To my surprise he took his first steps instead of crawling like usual. I knew he was close to walking but I didn't know he was that close!

After his first steps, Sean took him across the room to see if he would do it again. He thought it was so much fun! He walked across the room over and over. We were all giggling and it was a lot of fun to see our little man upright :)

Uh oh

27!

I had such a great birthday this year. Sean asked me what I wanted and I told him I wanted a shopping trip to one of my favorite stores-- H&M! We spent last weekend visiting with family in Vegas and I got my wish :) I found a cute new skirt and a few other things to add to my wardrobe (which is in dire need of an update). It was so much fun spending time with Sean's aunt Diane and cousin Rachel. Rachel gave Jackson some sweet new Vegas shirts, including one that looks like a little tux! Diane helped us out by babysitting so Sean and I could go see a show. We saw the Cirque Du Soleil show "KA" and loved it-- there were points in the show where Sean and I just looked at each other in amazement. Although it was tempting since luck seems to follow him, we did not take Jackson (aka "Jackpot") to the blackjack tables :)

We did take him to see the fountains at the Bellagio though and we all loved it.

Diane spoiled us all weekend and even made me an AWESOME cake. It was a chocolate cake with a cream cheese filling, then frosted and covered in coconut. It was SO good.
Yesterday was my actual birthday and I had an awesome day. I woke up to breakfast in bed and Sean did such a good job! Eggs, bacon and the sweetest grapefruit I've ever tasted. My sweet friend Heidi took me out to lunch and I loved all of the phone calls and messages I received throughout the day. My sister babysat for us so Sean and I could go out to dinner. We went to Biaggi's in Salt Lake and it was SO GOOD! We will be going back for sure. Finally, we ended the night with two kinds of cake at my sister's house with her family and my brother Todd and his family. (We missed you Thomas and Megan but are excited to see you this weekend!)

Cute Hayley who made my night by telling me happy birthday multiple times and helping pick out a way cute new watch for me:
These are two big boys! My arms were burning! The sweetest little boys you'll ever meet :)
I love how Brinley is looking so concered for Jackson. Cute kids!
Overall, one of the best birthdays yet!

Jackson's one-year pictures

We got Jackson's pictures back and thought we'd share our favorites! We LOVE them! Chantri Keele from Studio CK Photography (http://www.studiockphotography.com/) did an awesome job for us again. She also took Jackson's newborn photos. I think she did a great job capturing his personality and she was very patient considering he was not at all interested in keeping still :) I love them all and I think the cake pictures are so much fun!

And then the party REALLY started...



I think this is such a perfect "cake eating" shot!
I can't decide which I like better... this one in color or in black & white. I love them both.

I love his little smirk in this last one :)

Nike sportband

I've heard a lot of buzz about people starting to train for marathons, 10k's, relays, etc. lately and I wanted to share my opinion about a product I really like.

After running my half marathon last August, Sean surprised me with this Nike sportband. It is a little watch you wear on your wrist that keeps track of distance, calories, average time, total time, etc. It also keeps track of your entire running total. It works by coordinating with a micro chip in the sole of your shoe. It's extremely lightweight and user friendly. You do have to buy Nike running shoes, but the ones I got were relatively inexpensive and I LOVE them. I know everyone says Asics are the best running shoes, but I would highly recommend the LunarLites from Nike (cheaper too...).

The coolest part about the sportband is that the face detaches from the watch and plugs into your computer. It pulls up the Nike sportband Web site and keeps track of all of your runs, your fastest times, calories burned, etc. When you look at an individual run you can see on a graph the parts of your run where you ran faster, slower, etc. For example, here is my run from this morning:

You can also set goals for yourself, compete against other sportband users, etc. One of my favorite features is what they call "levels." You make it to certain color-coded levels depending on how many total miles you have run. For instance, I am currently on the second level, or the "orange" level. I have about 20 miles to run until I hit level three, or the "green" level which covers 155-620 total miles. The levels go all the way up to "black" which is anything over 3,107 miles-- yeah, not getting there any time soon. It's funny to me that something as simple as wanting to make it to the next level helps keep me motivated.

Anyway, I know this sounds like an ad for Nike, but I've really loved this thing and thought some of you who are training may be interested. Now, with all this running talk I think it's time for a cookie... hahaha!

Sledding!

After all of the snow storms rolled through last week, we decided it was a good time to go sledding. We ended up at the golf course in Cedar Hills. It turned out to be a great spot! Here are a couple of videos and pictures:

I love how you can hear Jackson giggling in the video with Sean!

Big horn sheep!