Monday, December 25, 2006

The cat

Some pics of the cat. He still doesn't have a name. We'll try and decide on that pretty soon. The first picture was when Jackson saw him for the first time. He reached into the bag before he saw what was in there and it startled him. When Jack saw him in the bag he said, "A real cat!!" I think it was a big hit.








A few Christmas morning pictures

Here are just a few pictures from this morning. There will be more posted later.
I'm sure you can't wait.


This is Jackson's first time to try his new guitar. For a video of him playing his new guitar, check out Phillip's blog.


Here we have Jackson pushing the "try me" button on his Star Wars transformers. He stopped wrapping it to push the button for a while. We had to remind him to finish unwrapping it.


Some other Star Wars toy. Looks pretty cool, I guess.


This is a picture of the mess that Santa left on our table. Man, he's a slob. We were going to try to make cookies last night for Santa, but it didn't really work out too well. So Josh and Ashley saved the day and brought over some cookies so Santa wouldn't go hungry.
Thanks, guys.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

New Addition

Ok, it's not what you're thinking. Sorry to disappoint you. But we will be getting a new addition for Christmas. Phillip's brother, Josh and his finance, Ashley are getting Jackson (and me) a kitten for Christmas. We saw him yesterday. He's pretty cute. They're keeping him until we go to Phillip's parent's house on Christmas morning. I think Jackson is going to be pretty surprised by the whole thing. He's a little 12 week(?) gray/white/black tabby. He's got a few unique markings on his face and legs.

I think Jackson would like to get a cat that looks like Travis, but at Christmas time the pickins are slim. Jackson still talks about Travis pretty often. He prays for Travis almost every night. He says, "Thank you for Travis and help him to come back home." Isn't that pitiful? Poor "Devil Cat." Jackson says that we lost Travis instead of saying that Travis ran away.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Jackson will just play with him, I'll take care of him and clean up his messes, and Phillip will tolerate him. We're not sure if we're going to let Jackson do the naming or not. If Jack names him, he'll be named like Qui-Gon or Ki'adi or Mace Windu or something along those lines. Phillip and I are thinking about either Kiefer or Dander, both names we considered when naming Travis. We both think Kiefer is a pretty funny name for an animal.... or anyone for that matter. But with the popularity of 24, we may avoid that one. You know we'll be posting lots of pics Christmas day.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Jack's Christmas program

Here is a clip from Jackson's Christmas program. Jackson was a shepherd. He told me that morning that his shepherd costume was a big orange t-shirt.

It was taken with our digital camera at 10 frames/second and then scaled down to fit on you tube, so as you can imagine, the quality is not great. It's also like four minutes long. Anyway, we thought Jackson did pretty well considering he cried the first couple times they got on stage to practice. I don't know if you can tell from this or not, but the little girl next to Jack seems pretty annoyed with the whole thing. Pardon the horrible camera work.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Some pictures at the College

We went out to the college this afternoon to see if there are any decent places to take pictures. I'm going to be taking some pictures of some friends out there on Thursday and wanted to check it out beforehand. There's a pond out there that's pretty cool. Maury, is that your dad's name on that plaque? Anyway, here are some pictures of Jackson that I took today. He was being particularly uncooperative. I got a couple of good ones of Phillip looking very GQ (unintentionally), but he would get mad if I put them on here. So, I won't....today.







Kit Fisto Suit

As most of you know, Jackson loves Star Wars. He likes to pretend to be characters from the different movies. He has six different light sabers. If he has his green light saber, he's usually being Yoda. But if he's wearing his swim trunks with his green light saber, then he's being Kit Fisto. Kit Fisto is some character that lives in the water or something so that's where the swim trunks come in. I think it's just pretty funny. If he comes into the living room or whatever in his swim trunks, we're like, "Hey, Kit Fisto." And he usually just says "hi."

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Thursday's adventure

Today Jackson and I went to the Mall and visited a few places.
First of all, we went to Chuck E. Cheese. Here Jackson beat me in air hockey,

got his butt kicked in a Ninja Turtle video game,

And exchanged his tickets for some Bubba teeth.

After that, we went to the Dow plaything in the Mall where Jack tried his darnedest
to hide from the camera. This is the only picture he let me take. Great, huh?

Then we got some cookies and Jackson thought we should save the last two for Santa. For the first time in about three years, Jackson sat on Santa's lap. This is the first time in his life he has spoken to Santa. He told Santa that he wants a gold guitar and an amp for Christmas. Then he gave Santa the cookies. You can tell that Jackson was pretty nervous about the whole thing.



Then he "rode" a roller coaster.


I think he had a good time.

Greedo Hat


I bought this hat for Jackson recently for the colder weather. He likes to wear it and pretend to be Greedo from Star Wars, Episode IV. I don't even know what Greedo looks like or why he thinks this hat makes him look like Greedo. Whatever, I'm just glad he'll wear it if he needs to. Even if he does growl very strangely while he's wearing it.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

From Santa

We ordered a Christmas present for Jack on Tuesday afternoon and it came the next day....from Oklahoma. Anyway, go to Phillip's blog to see what Santa will be bringing Jackson. I think he's going to be pretty excited....until the lessons start. We'll see how that goes.

For Sale

I noticed this nativity scene for sale on Monday and I finally got a picture of it. When I first saw it, I just thought it was an outdated, tacky nativity scene that these people were using to decorate their yard. But, oh no....it's for SALE! These people that live in this house are always selling stuff. Most of it looks like junk to me. It seems like they always have something in the front yard with a "for sale" sign on it. I guess they thought they would decorate for the season and make a few bucks at the same time. Is that synergy? So, anyway, if you're in the market for a nativity that's missing the baby Jesus, just drive down Sycamore towards Oyster Creek Drive. You can't miss it. I gotta wonder why they even put the broken (empty) little cradle thing there. I guess just the right person could fix it or something.






There was one day that they were selling some black box things. I don't know what they were. They looked like some boxes made of plywood and painted black or something. Anyway, I was driving home and passed by their house and this very nicely dressed man in a Lexus was out buying those boxes. It's like he was driving by and thought, "Hey, that's just what I need." Weird. Anyway, from old stationary bicycles to nativity scenes, if you need it, they'll probably be selling it in their yard eventually.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Still Waiting

Well, I got a call a few minutes ago from our agency worker. We are not in the group that was narrowed down for the 10 month old girl I posted about a couple of weeks ago. So, I'm pretty disappointed. But, that's just the way it goes. This could happen several more times before we're actually selected. The main thing that upsets me about this whole thing is that I feel like we were misled from the beginning. We were told that there were lots of babies available and that just doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well, we've waited this long and we can wait some more.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Mismatched

I think I wore mismatched flip flops the other day out in public. Of course, I didn't mean to. I have two pairs of flip flops that are both kind of teal on the bottom but the top parts are not really the same at all. Jack and I just went to the teacher supply store so it's like it was a big deal or anything. But I still think it's kind of funny. I didn't realize it until I got home and took my flip flops off before putting my feet on the couch. When I got up later I discovered that the flip flops in front of the couch did not match and that their partners were somewhere else. I wonder if anyone noticed. I think if I noticed a woman wearing mismatched shoes in public, I would tell her.

Friday, December 01, 2006

"Live or die, succeed or fail..."

I'm reading The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus. I'm almost done with it. It's a pretty quick little book to read. Anyway, lately I've been toying with a couple of things (in my mind) that I want to try to accomplish....someday. And there's a part in this book that jumped out at me and made me want to commit.

"To be filled with the Spirit of God is to be filled with dreams and visions that are too compelling to ignore. Live or die, succeed or fail, barbarians must pursue and attempt such dreams and visions. The barbarian spirit dreams great dreams and finds the courage to live them." (100)

"For the Spirit of God to unleash dreams and visions within our souls, we must become free to risk and to fail. Every dream born of God is fueled by love. Every conversation to be had with God challenges the boundaries of our imagination." (101)

So, anyway, I've decided on a couple of things I want to have accomplished by my 30th birthday. And no, I'm not going to post what they are here. That's really beside the point...plus, I think you have to be careful who you share your dreams with...no offense. I told Phillip and I'm documenting it here for my own benefit. On January 15th, 2008 I'll be 30. And when that day comes, I'll let you know if I have accomplished what I want to accomplish.

What do you dream of doing? What is the thing you won't attempt because you are afraid you will fail? What keeps you up at night?