An Awwww moment

A couple of days ago I was playing with Mikey in the living room. I was putting some toy on my head and then putting it on his head. Anyway, Jackson came and started to play the silly game with us. After a couple of minutes Jackson said, "Mom, I think you're going to be a good mommy for Mikey." I thought it was pretty funny and cute. I think I said something snide to ruin the moment like, "Well, I might as well be. I'm the only mommy he's got." He's really a pretty sweet kid...most of the time.

First Love

It seems that Jackson has developed a little crush on one of the girls in his class. In fact, it might be more than a crush because he has decided he wants to marry this girl. Her name is Emma. Phillip met the bride-to-be on Monday when he ate lunch with Jackson. He said she talks a lot. Jackson has made his "feelings" known to Emma and I don't think she's very flattered. He drew a picture today of two stick figures holding hands and wrote "Jackson" above one and "Emma" above the other. Jackson and I were talking about this stuff on the way home from school and he asked me how old a boy has to be before he leaves his mommy. I told him 20. I really hope he's not totally harassing this little girl. I told him he needs to give her some space.

Lazy

We talked about being a disciple tonight in small group. Not just being a "Christian" but a true disciple of Jesus. About living a life that is reflective of who God actually wants us to be and living out a life that is representative of that. (That's kind of redundant....anyway.)

I feel the tug almost every day to break open the Bible or read something that will teach me something about the Bible or church or Christianity or whatever. But I've been finding myself far too lazy lately to read or write anything significant. I am pretty busy most of the day, but there are frequent windows of opportunity that I blow off. I need to stop doing that. It's like I read stuff in spurts. I'll read a lot really quickly for a couple of weeks or so and then I won't read anything for a month or more. I'm kind of in a funk about what to read. I want to become more acquainted and familiar with the stories of the New Testament. But my mind begins to wander when I sit down and try to actually read parts of the Bible. Maybe I need to read The Message translation or something. I read the book of Acts a couple of months or so ago and that was cool. I started Matthew and I just got bored. And I know there's more to being a disciple than reading the Bible. But that's something that I know I need to be doing more of and I just can't seem to find the desire to do it. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions to get me out of this lazy funk? Are there any good books out there that might intrigue me?

I'm looking for serious suggestions here. Don't fill my comments full of useless crap.

Park pictures

First Steps

Mikey took two steps yesterday. It wasn't very graceful, but he did it. And Phillip, Jackson, and I all saw it. The kid will be walking for real very soon. That's all the time I have to write right now.

We finally have a termination date

I just found out that Mikey's parental termination hearing is scheduled for December 11th. Even though mom relinquished, the state still has to have a termination hearing for mom and "unknown father." I'm glad they finally set a date, but I was hoping it would be sooner than this. So after that date, we have to wait 90 days to adopt. That puts us adopting in March. So we went from everyone telling us it would be November to them telling us end of January or early February to March. Needless to say, I'll believe it when I see it. I don't mean to sound negative about the whole thing. It is good that we have a real date in mind. Things with Mikey have gone about as good as you can hope for with a newborn baby. It's just been a slow process.

Mikey's boo boo

Mikey got a pretty good little "owie" today. He's gotten little bumps and bruises before but this is the worst so far. He lost his balance and hit his eyebrow on the corner of the coffee table. It bled a lot! It was pretty scary because I couldn't really tell where the blood was coming from at first. A nurse at the pediatrician's office took a look at it. She said it could possibly use a stitch or two, but she didn't really think it was necessary. She just told me to cut strips from the sticky part of a band aid and put it over the cut to keep it together. Poor little guy. When it happened he screamed for about 20 seconds and then he was ready to keep playing. This kid is crazy so I know it's just a matter of time before something like this or worse happens again. Jackson made it to almost 5 before he had to get stitches. And Mikey almost had to get them at 9 months. Anyway, hopefully it heals up and he doesn't have a noticeable scar.

Jackson's loot

We decided to just do the neighborhood trick-or-treat thing this year. I think Jackson really enjoyed himself. He did pretty good on the whole candy thing. Too bad we only let him have about 5 pieces a day....maybe....if he eats his meals. Phillip and I don't really eat much candy. Between Halloween and all the other holidays where Jackson gets candy, we always end up throwing candy away after we've had it for a while. Anyway, here are some pics.

What to be for Halloween.....

Jackson has lots of costumes. He has red and black Spiderman, Raphael (The Ninja Turtle), Batman, Darth Vader, doctor, SWAT team officer. I think that's it, but I could be missing something. He has been planning on being Raphael but now he says he's going to be Darth Vader. I need to try to throw some kind of costume together for myself. I have a clown wig and clown makeup (thanks to Rachel). I'm not sure where the nose is and I don't really have any clown clothes. Maybe I'll wear one of Jackson's Spiderman masks with the clown wig. So anyway, I'll probably be posting some ridiculous pictures later.

Worst School Picture Ever

Ok, maybe it's not the worst school picture ever, but it's certainly Jackson's worst school picture ever.

Here is Jackson's kindergarten picture. Lame. I'm glad I didn't order some big package deal. I just bought the "Photo Adventure CD" which was not real cheap. The CD came with a bunk of games and junk on it, but I'm not thinking it works on a Mac. I don't know. Anyway, I don't think we'll be getting any of these printed.

Kroger tour tomorrow morning

Mikey is on WIC because he is a "foster child." I hate calling him that, but unfortunately he still is. Anyway, I have to go to silly little training classes every two or three months to learn about proper nutrition and infant care and that kind of garbage. Tomorrow I will be joining the Brazoria County WIC folks and other women and children who are on WIC at Kroger for a tour. We will be learning about how to choose healthy foods for our families. In particular, we will be learning about saturated fats. Sweet! I am just so excited and cannot wait! I would much rather just go to one of their silly little training classes at the office, but they do training at 5:00 p.m. and Phillip is not home from work at that time. And I would rather not have to take both kids. So anyway, that's what I'll be doing tomorrow. Everyday there is something to look forward to.

Cute little Jackson

I paid Jackson $3.00 yesterday to let me take some pictures of him. It was really too sunny and the sun was way too reflective off of his little white face. But a few of them turned out kind of cute. He really doesn't like to pose for pictures and he was ready to leave after about 5 minutes. I like the mud all over his shoes in the first picture.

White balance mishap

Jackson put some stickers on his face and I wanted to take a picture of it. I did not color correct either of these pictures. I upped the contrast a little, but that's it. In the first picture I had the white balance on my camera set to the fluorescent light setting and I got this really cool blue effect....totally by accident. The second picture the white balance was just on auto. Everything else is exactly the same except for the white balance. I was really surprised at the difference. I think the first one is way cool and kinda freaky.

Jackson Chalk Collage

It is after midnight. And for the last hour I've been taking several not terribly interesting pictures of Jackson and turning them into something cool. At least I think it's cool. I think he'll think it's cool.

New haircut

I decided to get my hair cut today. And I got it pretty short. I like it.

Tina Fey Visits Sesame Street

Tina Fey from 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live helps Elmo get excited about reading on Sesame Street. Mikey and I are watching it right now. Here is a TV Guide Interview with Fey about her appearance on Sesame Street in case you care.

Napkin Predicament Revisited

On Thursday evening last week, Jackson and I took an hour or so and worked on several napkins together. I decided if the kid wants colored on napkins then he can color them his own dang self. I used the last one today and so we need to sit down and do some more. Here is a sample of Jackson's napkin art. It's kind of blurry, but you get the picture. He drew all four Ninja Turtles with the first letter of their names above their heads. And also a tree. Isn't that nice? By the way, Cyndi, the sticker thing is a great idea.

Halloween Babies

I took this picture the other day of some friends' babies. Let's not talk about the identities of any of these babies. Because it's possible there might be one who is not supposed to be posted on-line. But, they're all in disguise, right? Aren't they cute?

The Napkin Predicament

The first or second week of school I started writing and drawing stuff on Jackson's napkins for his lunch. I just stared doing it to make him feel a little more at home while he was at school. Well, now he has come to expect it and looks forward to what surprise will be on his napkin every day. But I'm tired of writing and drawing on his napkins. We're one month into his first school year and I've gotten myself into a situation I don't want to be in. Every morning I spend entirely too much time contemplating and carrying out my lunch napkin plan. And what makes it worse is that he's so appreciative of the whole thing. And he tells me that I'm "the best drawer" in the world. I don't feel like I can quit doing it now because he'll be disappointed. I told him this morning that I really didn't have time to draw on his napkin and that I didn't have any good ideas. And he said something like, "I don't care what you draw. Just draw anything and I'll like it." UHHHH!! How do you argue with that? I think next Tuesday evening (date night) Phillip and I need to have a napkin drawing party and draw pictures and stuff on about 100 napkins so I can just grab a pre-drawn napkin and stuff it in his lunch box. Like it's not enough that the kid is so picky that I have to make him the same exact lunch every day, but now I'm stuck drawing on his dang napkin. I do realize, of course, that I created this situation. And just in case you've never tried it, it's not all that easy to color a picture on a napkin. And what makes it worse is that the last napkins I bought were cheapo crappy napkins that tear really easily. Man, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Pumpkin Patch 2007 Attempt #1

We went to the Pumpkin Patch this evening to get a few pictures and let Jackson run around like a fool. It was 7:00 when we got around to getting over there so the pictures turned out less than great. But that's okay, we've got several more weeks to get some better ones. Anyway, I thought I would post a few here anyway. I got some pretty cute ones of Mikey, but I can only post one where you can't see his face. So dumb, I'll be glad when I don't have to worry about that anymore. Can you even imagine my frustration with not being able to post pictures of my kid online?? Anyway, here are some pictures.






We tried to get some of the boys together, but Jackson was not being very cooperative. Neither was Mikey, but that goes without saying. Jackson's idea of cooperating is sitting still and staring off into space. Here are some Jackson faces that I cropped out of some pictures so you can see how goofy he is. Maybe we'll have better luck next time.