Dare to Dream {Big}

cute kids

 

giving thanks for all our blessings

 

 
 

 

happy thanksgiving

 

Hope everyone has a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday today!

 

5 more days for 5 whole days

 

Five more days until we go to St. George for Thanksgiving.  Kaiden and Keaton are so excited to see each other for five whole days.  

thankful: november 20

I am thankful for apples right now.  It's the one fruit that they will both eat.  We've been eating at least one a day and our favorite kind is the honeycrisp.  Crisp. Sweet & Juicy!  That basically sums it up!

differences of opinion #1

 

I think about the similarities and differences between Jacek and Keaton all the time.  Most of their likes and dislikes are polar opposites.  I've always wanted to write them all down and so now I'm going to do it on my blog.  Why not?  It's the new scrapbooking and journaling all rolled up into one.  

Jacek~ We didn't have a TV when Jacek was born and for the first year of his life.  We would watch movies periodically, but not often.  I remember Lion King came out on video right before Jacek's birthday.  I bought it and played it at his first birthday party because the theme was Lion King.  He could have cared less. 

When we moved to St. George, we lived with my parents for 3 months and had it there, but I don't remember watching it a whole lot and Jacek didn't watch anything because he was too little.  Then we moved to the temple house.  We must have bought a nice new television, but we didn't have cable or any regular television stations.  We could watch movies though.  Jacek's first real movie that he watched and loved was Beauty and the Beast.  Oh my, was he hooked!  He would wake up in the middle of the night and say "Beast! Beast!" over and over again.  Cory would sometimes get up with him and watch it with him.  From then on, it was Disney movies or bust for Jacek.  

We moved into the townhouse when Jacek was 2 1/2 and that was our first experience to cable tv.  He loved Blues Clues, Gullah Gullah Island, Rugrats and other little shows on Nick Jr.  He didn't like Sesame Street or any other kid's show.  Videos were big for Jacek.  His favorite movie at 3 years old was Jurassic Park.  That started his obsession with dinosaurs. Power Rangers were a huge hit too.  He LOVED Power Rangers and wanted to watch it all the time.  I even recorded some episodes so he could watch them whenever he wanted and not only during the scheduled time.  All of Jacek's favorite movies are Disney videos.  We started buying some DVDs in the little Salt Lake house we rented for four years.

Keaton~ Eight years makes a huge difference in technology, movies and television watching abilities. Keaton was watching Baby Einstein on DVD when he was just a few months old.  Neptune was our favorite.  He really didn't watch anything else when he was little, but he grew to love all of the Baby Einstein movies.  We had both video and DVD versions of the movies because I had a video in the car and a video machine in the spare bedroom.

When Keaton got older he loved Sesame Street.  He loved the Cookie Monster, the Count, Bert and Ernie. I would TiVo some of his favorite episodes from Little Bill, Max and Ruby, Dora the Explorer and many more from Nick Jr.  Keaton loved Blues Clues even more than Jacek did.  He was pretty obsessed with it for a while when he was about two years old.  In eight years, the host of the show Steve changed into his brother Joe, so it wasn't even the same guy after eight years.  Keaton's collection of movies are mostly DVDs with some videos just because he has Jacek's old video tv in his room.

 

Funny how 8 years can make that much difference, but it does and did!

 

flashback friday~the justin edition

This photo was taken almost 6 years ago on January 14, 2004.  Alecia, Bryan and Justin came over to our house because Jackie was visiting from Denver.  Justin was 12 years old.

This photo was taken on March 31, 2006 and Alecia, Ryleigh and Justin came over to visit because it was Ryleigh's birthday and Grandma Jackie was in town again.  Justin was 14 1/2 years old then.

This photo was taken on September 22, 2007.  Jackie, Julie and I were working the What Women Want Expo for Poga Mooga at the South Town Expo Center.  Alecia brought the two kids over to see us in action.  Justin was on crutches from a football injury.  I love his Cyprus High School baseball cap!

This photo was taken on December 17, 2007.  We had a family dinner with Jackie, Alecia and her two kids, Julie and some of her kids and grandkids & Grandma and Grandpa Wall.  Again, I love that he loved his school so much that he's sporting the apparel in these past two photos I took of him.

My heart aches every single day for my sister Jackie and my beautiful niece Alecia and for the rest of Justin's family and friends.

   

it's been a long week

so much sadness.

so many tears.

so much love.

so many memories.

so many friends and family.

gone too soon!