Our Little Sports Star!

Spring means.........Shopping?

• Sunshine, Check.
• Sixty degree temps, Check.
• Mommy and Daddy off from work, Check.
• Shopping list ready,.......umm, say again?

Jack wanted to go shopping today. Mommy mentioned yesterday that the family might go look for new swim trunks for Jackson, so this morning Jack pops out of bed asking if we are ready to go shopping. Most kids enjoy playing outside on a great spring day - Jack wants to go to the mall!

We all hopped into the 3B Machine (Big Blue Buick) and headed out to the fabulous Potomac Mills Outlet Mall. First on the list of stops was The Children's Place. Great fun. Moms running all over the place hollering at their kids, grandmas slinging t-shirts from one sales table to another... luckily Mommy and Jack didn't find much to look at and we moved quickly on to stop two, Stride Rite shoes. Leather sandals were found in a size that sorta fit Jack, and Mommy took advantage of the BOGO 50% sale to buy a 2nd pair of sandals for late in the summer or next year, depending on how quickly Jax' feet grow.

After a few other stops and some playing around on the coin operated cars in the middle of the mall, the whining started. After much crying and fussing, Mommy and Jackson got Daddy to settle down and stop complaining with the promise of lunch.

After a greasy burger and a milkshake Daddy was feeling better so everyone hopped back into the BBB for a trip to Target. Daddy likes to call Target shopping trips "Recycling Shopping" as we are just giving the paycheck back to the source.

The shopping ended soon after Target, and Daddy was able to play in the workshop for a bit and enjoy the beautiful weather. Jackson came out after a nap and helped Daddy fix a mini trampoline for Jack to jump on, instead of the downstairs sofa. Mommy cooked a great dinner (the third in as many days - a truly miraculous thing indeed! Not Mommy's cooking, which is fine, but the fact that the family was home three nights in a row!)

Coloring Easter Eggs

Easter is just a few days away so Mommy and Daddy thought it would be a good idea for Jackson to decorate a few eggs. After all, we remember the wonderfully fun times we had coloring eggs during our own childhoods and we want Jack to have great memories as well.

(Let us just get this out of the way now...the reason we have wonderful memories of dying Easter eggs as children is that we didn't do any of the prep work, any of the delicate drawings on the eggs, nor any of the clean-up! Thank you Grandma C. and Grandma L. for your hard work when doing projects like this for us as kids as it lets us have the memories we do!)

Back to creating childhood memories for Jax... Daddy had visions of drawing neato things on the eggs with a wax crayon and creating mini works of art to display. Daddy must have forgotten that he can not draw. His egg drawings resulted in shaky, uneven messes. Mommy managed to pull off several nicer looking solid color eggs. Jackson was happy to simply splash around in the dye buckets with his egg holding stick, mixing colors and painting the newsprint that was covering the table.

So in several days Daddy will get to crack open and eat the strangely colored hard boiled eggs and hope that Jack remembers this evening as fondly as his parents remember coloring their Easter eggs long ago!

Jax Early Easter Egg Extravaganza

Jackson and Daddy went to a "Jeep Party" this afternoon at a friend's house in the woods near Warrenton. This party is an annual tradition of the Northern Virginia Jeepers Association, a group of our Jeep owning friends, and brings together families and friends for food, fun, and of course an Easter egg hunt!

Jack had a blast! He chased the other kids across the large yard, kicked a soccer ball back and forth, climbed a gravel mountain, and stayed busy for hours.

After lunch the Easter egg hunt began. Plastic eggs filled with candy, toys, and money(!) were scattered all over the front yard and quite a few were cleverly hidden. Jackson was the youngest by a year or two so he was allowed to go into the front yard first. He very quickly found many eggs and filled his basket half full. The other children were brought into the egg hunt soon after Jack started and everyone raced around grabbing eggs and having fun. Miss Tara helped direct Jack to some of the well-hidden eggs, and donated her pockets to carrying eggs that would not fit into Jack's now full bucket. (Thanks Tara!)

After all of the eggs were found the kids gathered on the front porch to examine their loot and trade for favorite candies.

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing and watching Jeeps traverse the mini rock garden at the back of the property. Jack helped spot several Jeeps over the tricky rocks and also drove Daddy's radio controlled Jeep across the rocks.

A great day with NovaJeepers!