Insane

Our front door is insane. It is metal so magnets stick to it. And since I don't really let Jack play in the kitchen, we "display" his artwork on the front door. Nifty, huh? It looks really strange when the house if clean. So most of the time, it fits right in.

Worst Mother on the Planet

Ok, maybe not the worst mother on the planet but certainly not the best. When I dropped Jackson off at preschool this morning the director said, "We missed you last night." I said, "What was last night?"

I missed my child's Open House! I totally forgot about it. They only sent about three notes home about it in the last month. I kept meaning to write it in my planner and since that didn't happen, we just didn't go. I feel pretty bad about it. But Jackson is totally oblivious to the whole thing... I think. He may come up to me a month from now and ask why we didn't go to Open House.

I'm sure I'll do many other things in his lifetime that will make me feel a little like a failure. I guess this is pretty minor in comparisson to the other things I will surely do to cause him to go on Dr. Phil someday. Oh well, atleast I don't have any regrets about what we were doing instead of Open House. We were laying on the couch together under a blanket watching Veggie Tales and having a tickle fight.

He will survive my inadequacies. He knows he is loved.

Who's Monica?

I got to work today to find a "My First Harmonica" on my desk. One of my friends and faithful readers decided to push me along in this journey of discovery. The thing to discover being "Can I learn to play the harmonica?" And how do I thank her? I called her a butthead. Sorry, Erin. So anyway, I brought the thing home and tried it out. It was absolutely awful. When I thought it couldn't get any worse, Jackson decided he wanted to try it out. I really wish you could see and hear him play this thing. It is beyond hideous....and very funny. And it's really loud. He frantically breathes in and out into it, with his little belly going in and out like a belly dancer. And sometimes, just for an added treat, he hums while he's doing it. So, if Jackson wants to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the "formonica" as he calls it, he will frantically blow in and out while humming the song. I told him he can only play it in the playroom and preferably with the door closed. I told him that he plays really good (I know that's poor grammar) but that it's just too loud for mommy's ears. So he has decided that it's his formonica and that I can only borrow it sometimes if he's not "practicing" on it.

More Church Stuff

I'm still reading The Present Fture by Reggie McNeal. So much of what he addresses in this book is to get away from the club mentality regarding church and more importantly, regarding Christianity.

"The scorecard is all about church membership, church participation, and church support. We are training people to be good club members, all the while wondering why our influence in the world is waning." (72)

I just want to preface my next few statements with this: I love our church. I do. The support that we have been given since we started going to our church has been unreal. We have witnessed a first-hand outpouring of God's divine love through people at our church. This is not meant to be a slam against our church or against church in general.

BUT...

Many of us certainly have a club member mentality. We take every opportunity we have to dote on our church and the great things it has to offer to the people who grace it's doors. We are proud to call ourselves "members." We spend more time talking about being a member of ________ than talking about being a follower of Christ Himself.

We had our annual ladies' retreat last weekend. It was great. There were many very good things about the retreat. The evening we spent in our cottages was a time to get to know one another. We had approximately 25 women in our cabin. After we played a couple of "get-to-know-you" games, we went around the room and introduced ourselves. The cabin host simply asked us to introduce ourselves to the other people that were there. That's all. Introduce yourselves.

Almost every single person in that room began with who they are, who makes up their family and how long they have been going to our church. How they started coming to our church. What they love about out church. No joke. The only people there who didn't give us their our church story were the two or three people who are not members of our church. And they felt the need to almost apologize for not being members of our church. It was weird. I hadn't even started reading this Reggie McNeal book and I thought, "This isn't right." Not one story about becoming a Christ follower. Not one story of a changed life. Not that I would expect someone to go into life-changing stories in an introduction, but I also wouldn't expect them to go into church affiliation either. It really was a strange phenomenon.

And even though I knew this didn't seem right, when it came to be my turn, I didn't really stop the trend. I didn't say how long we had been going or how long we had been members. But I did say that I work at the church office. What I said without actually saying it is, "It's cool. I'm a club member too."

Why do we do this? Why is it that when someone asks us something about our relationship with God we almost immediately go to church affiliation? Why is our thinking so screwed up that we cannot talk about faith or what God has brought to our day without throwing our membership into the mix? We think that for someone to experience a new life, they must "belong" to us. To US! To OUR CHURCH! It's wrong. I do not want to think like this anymore.

I hate that I was a part of making some beautiful people feel like they didn't fit. Like they weren't "in." I hate that I flaunted my "membership" because everyone else was. I hate that this is going to be a difficult mental shift for me to stop thinking like that.

This book is kicking my butt.

Church stuff

Phillip recently ordered the book The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal. I started reading it yesterday. Anyway, I just wanted to post a few quotes from the book that I thought were particularly challenging. I'm sure as I keep reading in it, I'll have more things to post about it.

"As He hung on the cross Jesus probably never thought the impact of His sacrifice would be reduced to an invitation for people to join and to support an institution." (1)

"Many church members feel they have been sold a bill of goods. They were promised that if they would be a good church member, if they would rediscover their gifts, or join a small group, sign up for a church ministry, give to the buliding program, lean to clap or dance in worship, or attend this or that, they would experience a full and meaningful life. Trouble is, we don't have much evidence to support the assumption that all this church activity has produced more mature followers of Christ." (8)

"In North America, these people have been led to believe that their Christian life is all about the church, so this failure of the church not only creates doubt about the church, it also leads them to all kinds of doubt about God and their relationship with Him." (8)

This is the one

I've made up my mind about the harmonica thing. This is the one.

Children's Beginning Harmonica

This is the perfect beginner's harmonica!

At 6 1/2" long and 2 1/4" wide, this children's harmonica by Playwell is easy to hold onto and easy to play! Diatonic harmonica has 16 tones.

Age: from 3 years

Harmonica

I think I want to try to learn to play the harmonica. I had one a long time ago in Intermediate School and I thought I was good then, but I'm sure I really stunk. I wonder if it's a difficult "instrument" to learn. Are there any harmonica players out there who read this who can tell me if it's worth trying. I guess anything's worth trying. I also have been wanting to learn to play Bass guitar. But Bass guitars are much more expensive than harmonicas.

House for Sale

Jack and I had a picnic lunch today in our front yard. Our very nice retired neighbour from across the street came over to say hi and to let me know that there is a house for sale down the road. He was just letting me know in case I knew of anybody that might be looking for a small house to start out in.

But he said some other things too.

He said something like, "We hope a family like yours moves in over there." He said something else like, "We want it to stay a nice, clean neighbourhood." Then he looked at me and said, "You know what I mean, right?" He gave me a look like he was trying to say something without actually saying something. I just thanked him and said if I heard of anyone looking for a house, I would let them know. I am ashamed to say that I know what he was trying to say without saying it. And I am embarrassed to have been a part of that conversation. I wanted so badly to say, "No, I don't know what you mean." or somehow asked him to be more specific so I could talk about his opinions with him. But Jackson was there and so I let it go. Maybe I read too much into what he was saying, but I don't think so.

I know with every generation, the racial lines become more blurred. I wish I could say that I am completely without any racist views. But I know that isn't true. But I do feel disgusted with myself when I think or say something judgemental about another race. I absolutely know that that type of mindset is wrong. I hope my children grow to be even further down this road than I am. I hope my children and my children's children are without racist views.

So, that having been said, there's a house for sale on Redwood St. in Lake Jackson. It has only had one owner. They bought the house new in about '54. It's in good shape but I think the asking price is a little high.

Mr. Matter of Fact

I know I write about Jackson a lot. I really wish I had some other interesting things going on, but I don't. Anyway, if you're sick of reading about Jack, then just skip this one.

I picked Jackson up from preschool on Thursday and I began to ask him the typical questions about his day. Like "What did you make?" "What did you do in music?" "Who did you play with?" Just stuff like that. When I got to the last question, Jackson said, "Mom, I play with Sloane everyday. Only Sloane. Please try to remember that from now on."

After I got home from work today, I started making my lunch and then sat down to eat. I sat at the table and said, "I sure am lonely. I sure wish somebody would come keep me company while I eat my lunch." And Jackson said, "Well, I'm sorry Mom. I would like to sit with you, but I just can't right now. I've got work to do."

Keep in mind, this child is three. He will be four in May. He is so funny and half the time, he's not even trying to be. And that makes it even funnier.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

I'm reading the novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. Anne Rice is the one who has written other inspiring books such as Interview with the Vampire, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, and Servant of the Bones, among others.

I don't really know much about her or why she decided to write a novel about Jesus after she has written so many other books about blood-sucking vampires. It seems kind of weird, but whatever.

This book is a work of fiction about Jesus as a child. Although we can't know much about the child Jesus, this book portays Him in a way that is very believable. It's cool to think about what He knew or didn't know about Himself and His own diety.

But there are so many characters in the book, it's really hard to keep up with what's going on. There are the obvious ones such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. But then there are many others like Cleopas, Alphaeus, Philo, Symeon, Salome, Zebedee, Zoker, and Esther. Zoker? I think I'll tuck that name away in the back of my mind to use some day for a future Hintze kiddo.

I'm kind of ashamed to say that this book has not been a real page turner for me like Interview with the Vampire was. But I do like it. I think this is one of those books that I should probably read again in a year or so to catch some of the things that I'm missing now. Reading this has really peaked my interest in reading more about Jesus' life from the Bible and that's cool. It sounds bad to say, but I haven't been real eager to read much about Jesus lately. It has seemed like I've heard and read so much about Him that the stories didn't seem fresh anymore. And that's sad. I'm hoping that even though this book is a work of fiction, it can help me to take new look at the life of Jesus and maybe learn some new things about Him and His life on earth.

RETREAT!!

I'll be going to our church's ladies' retreat this evening and will be back tomorrow. The term "ladies' retreat" sounds so goofy to me. It's almost embarrassing to say. I don't know what I expect them to call it but I don't feel like a lady most of the time. That's for sure.

Maybe I'll get to relax a little, but probably not. But atleast I'll get away from Jackson trying to boss me around for a little while. And I'll get away from Phillip giving me weird looks. I wonder what Phillip will feed Jackson while I'm gone.

I DON'T WANT TO

This is a phrase that Phillip and some of my other family members hear a little too often from me. It usually comes out sort of whiny and pathetic. I pretty much always say it when there is something I either have to do or am making myself do that I really don't want to do.

The thing now that I have to do is to start getting some exercise. And, you guessed it, I don't want to. But my thighs and butt are showing the early signs of horrible things yet to come and it scares the crap out of me.

So tomorrow morning, at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m., I'm going to (try) to get my lazy (enlarging) butt out of bed and go walk/jog half a mile. I realize that half a mile is nothing to most people. But I have had very little execise in the last couple of years and so I'm starting off small. I'm going to (try) to do this three times a week for now. No more excuses.

Just so all of you know, I don't respond well to traditional encouragement. I respond better to people saying "yeah, right!" and "you won't stick with it you sorry sack of...." ok, so that's a bit extreme, but you get what I'm saying. The ol' "I know you can do it" garbage doesn't do much for me. So for any of you that care about my health or big butt issues, please push me to actually stick with getting my (growing) butt in gear.

They Might Be Giants

Jackson has a They Might Be Giants DVD and it is pretty dang cool. As a former preschool music teacher, I can tell you it is really difficult to find clever children's songs. Most of them are super cheesy. There are some really funny songs on it. Most of the songs are sort of alphabet songs. There's one that I really like.

Pictures Of Pandas Painting

Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting Penguins

Penguins Proudly Parading Past
Penguins Proudly Parading Past
Penguins Proudly Parading Past

Skateboards, Skateboards
Skateboards, Skateboards

Hippos Hop from Helicopters
Hippos Hop from Helicopters
Hippos Hop from Helicopters
High

Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting
Pictures Of Pandas Painting Penguins

They also do the "Why Does the Sun Shine?" song. You may have heard it. I begins like....
The sun is mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace,
where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

Their stuff is so much cooler than "The Wheels on the Bus." My kid is too smart to be told that wheels go 'round and 'round.

Lesson #1: Home Row Keys

Jackson "types" like a maniac. As you can see, his hands are a blur in this picture.

Our first typing lesson lasted about 5 seconds....long enough for me to take the picture.

Then he went back to what he was doing before I rudely interrupted him.

Pause it

Now that we have DVR we can pause live t.v., which is pretty cool. So Jackson knows now that if we're watching t.v. and he has to go the the bathroom or something he can get us to pause what he's watching. Well, I was feeding Spiderman (the fish) and Jack was excited about watching Spiderman eat. But then he realized he needed to pee and he frantically told me to pause it.

Just a little side note....
Before we got DVR and Jack was just starting to put words together He told us one day, "Can't pause it. Need Tivo." We had mentioned Tivo to him like one time weeks before that and he remembered it. It blew our minds. That's a phrase that we still say from time to time. It's funny how things that kids say will stay with you for years.

More Jackson poop quotes

"Stop messing with me, Mom. I'm trying to poop and it's hard work."

"I'm making a whole family, a whole family of poop turds."

-Jackson G. Hintze

Priceline rules!

I just got a really good deal on a room at the Hyatt Regency near Dallas DFW Airport through priceline.com. We're going to Dallas for a couple of days at the end of March for an adoption conference through the agency we're using. I saved about 60% of the original room cost. I love getting good deals on stuff!

Little Feet

I took a picture of the corner of Evan's memory book. The hospital put his footprints on it for us. Just for a size perspective, notice the thread in the left hand corner that's unraveling from our comforter.

At the Park

Jackson and I sent to Shy Pond this afternoon. We were only there for about 40 minutes and I somehow managed to take 164 pictures in that amount of time. Some of them turned out really cool if I do say so myself. I started a flikr page and put some on there so I don't have to put a buttload of pictures on here. Here are a few that I didn't have room for on the flikr thing. Ok, so maybe I did end up with a buttload on here anyway. This new camera is really cool. It's a good thing I was able to talk Phillip into buying it.

Cousins

My mom has my brother's boys for the weekend while they scope out Corpus Christi. Jack and I went over there for a little visit and I took some pictures. Most of the ones I took turned out blurry because they wouldn't stay still for a second. Jackson really likes to play with those guys.

Remembering Superman

The Stunz family gave us a sympathy card for the death of our fish, Superman. They included 12 cents to buy a replacement. Some of the loving comments included:

"Sorry to hear about Superman" - Jakeb

"My deepest sympathy, my thoughts and prayers are with you in this time" - Tori

"I know that your love for Superman can never be duplicated but perhaps you can grow to love another. We're here for you to help you through." - Andrea

"RIP Superman! Long live Spiderman!" - Tommy

Anna drew a picture of Spiderman the fish. It's a picture of a fish with a spider on it's head. She also drew a picture of a smiling Superman.

Also, Tommy and Andrea wore black to work today to mourn Superman.

It is so nice to know that people are hurting with us. Thanks, guys. (tear)

Jackson quote

Jackson just got finished using the potty. After he was done, he told me, "I pooped a mile!" Who taught him that? Donald, did you teach him that?

Superman RIP

Superman only lived with us for a few days. And yet he made such a difference in our lives for the short time he was here. We will celebrate his life and mourn his death for years to come.

Yeah, right! Stupid fish!

Jack

Just took some pictures of Jack today to try to get used to the new camera. He wasn't very cooperative, but I got a few cute ones.

ME

Phillip was trying out the new camera last night and snapped a few of me. Most of them were either horrible or ridiculous. I screwed around with some of them in iphoto. I have no idea what I'm doing really. This is the only one that isn't totally embarrassing. But I don't look like a very nice person.

Rhymes with...

This morning Jackson has been asking me questions like, "What does pillow rhyme with?" Or "What does bed rhyme with?" (that one was easy.) My favorite though is "What does t-shirt rhyme with?" How do you even answer that? I told him that "t-shirt" doesn't rhyme with anything. "Eat dirt" is about the only thing I can think of that kind of rhymes with t-shirt.

Meet our fish

Jackson and I went to Petco tonight while Phillip was doing Solo and Ensemble stuff. And I decided that we needed some fish. This is a decision (like many others) that I'm sure I will live to regret. But anyway, we got two goldfish that were 12 cents a piece. But once I got the little tank, rocks, a net, food, a fake plant, and some tablets for the water, it ended up costing more than I probably should have spent. But, oh well, what's done is done. So without further adieu, meet our new fish, Spiderman and Superman. The big one is Spiderman.

Created for

What was I created for? Why was I put here? Am I doing what I'm really supposed to be doing with my life? I guess these are questions that everyone asks. I've been asking them a lot lately. I like my job. I'm blessed to have it. But I feel very unfulfilled lately. Am I just searching for something that can't exist here on earth? Am I longing for heaven? I feel like I'm missing something. I guess everyone feels like this. But what if I go through my whole life and don't do the most important thing or things that I was put here to do? Sometimes I just feel like I was created for more.

Idiot

Just as Jackson was finishing up his lunch (finally), he decided to call me an idiot. He didn't want to take a bite of his pineapples like I suggested and he very quitely said, "You're an idiot." I took him in his room and asked him to tell me what he just said. And he said that he didn't remember a couple of times. Then he picked up a pencil from his dresser and said, "I said that this pencil is great." Anyway, he finally admited that he did indeed call me an idiot and he got a nice little spanking.

I would like to believe that he's never heard that word from either of his parents, but I'm not sure that's the case. Phillip and I do say that on occasion, but not in front of Jack (or so I thought).

Phillip and I both thought the pencil comment was particularly clever of him. I didn't laugh when he said it but Phillip and I both laughed about it afterward.

He can think that I'm an idiot all he wants, but he better not ever say it to my face again.

Jeremiah

I've been reading in Jeremiah the last few days and there's lots of cool stuff in there. I started kind of at the end and now I'm trying to go back and start from the beginning. It's amazing to see the compassionate and merciful side of God. But I think it's also good to try to grasp God's wrath as well.

I don't think we should be too quick to forget or ignore that God punishes sin. That God hates sin. In my search to learn more about God's character, I've discovered that I'm drawn more to stories in the Old Testament than the New Testament for some reason. I'm drawn to the stories that remind me that God is not this nice neat little grandpa person that just wants to hug us up all the time. I need to be reminded that He expects and desires obedience. That He feels anger. And more importantly, that He feels anger with me. I don't think sweaty yelling and pulpit banging is the thing we need to do necessarily.

But we cannot ignore certain aspects of Christianity and God's character just because it is not comfortable or fun to talk about. He is entirely who He is whether we choose to talk about it or not.

"Do not fear, O Jacob my servant, for I am with you," declares the Lord. "Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished."
-Jeremiah 46:28 NIV

"Have you not just called to me: 'My father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will your wrath continue forever?' This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can." -Jeremiah 3;4-5 NIV

Check out these melons...I mean lemons!

Are these not the biggest lemons you've ever seen in your life?? A couple from our church grows these monsters in their yard. Thought I'd take a picture to demonstrate their size.

A girl can dream, can't she? A little lopsided, though.

New Stanley Baby

We went over to Chris and Pennie Stanley's house to see their new baby, Kennedy. Jack didn't seem terribly interested in the baby. When I asked Jack if he wanted to touch her he said , "No, I'm afraid she might bite me."

Step of Faith

After several months of thinking it over, Phillip and I have decided to get the adoption ball rolling. We've decided to go with the Dillon Adoption Agency and we hope to adopt a baby from South Korea. Before we mail out the initial paperwork, we want to feel as sure as we can that we're doing the right thing. We will have months of paperwork, questions, social worker visits, and who knows what else. From the time we mail out the initial application to the time we get our baby could be from 12 to 18 months. It's going to be exciting and also very stressful. I've started a journal to document the process and I hope to give it to our child someday when he or she is old enough to appreciate it's meaning. Please pray for us a we begin this new journey.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday. I am 28 years old today.

So, I know all of you are in a hurry to wish me a happy birthday. I'll let you get to it.

What a Beauty

I hope I look this good in about 100 years!

Meticulous

Jackson does things sometimes that make me wonder whose kid he really is. He's very particular about getting stuff on his hands. He only eats the icing off of cupcakes becuase he can do that without picking it up with his hands. He just sticks his face near the cupcake and carefully licks the icing off. He doesn't like using glue at school. The other day he really wanted to paint but quit after a few minutes because it was getting on his fingers.

He's extremely cautious when it comes to physical activities like climbing on things, jumping off of stuff,etc. But he is getting a little more adventurous. I'm sure part of that is our doing. It's difficult to let your first kid fall. We were almost always there holding his hands or making sure we would catch him if he fell.

He is also very patient and will stick with things much longer than most three year olds. He most certainly did not get that from me.

Usually when we give him candy, he lines it all out and counts it. I took a picture of this occurance today. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he placed each Sweet Tart with the "S" side up. He likes to sort and group things according to color.

Phillip and I are somewhat disorganized people. We can tollerate a certain amount of disarray. Neither one of us are detail oriented people at all. We have to force ourselves to be organized and do things in a timely fashion.

Most of the time we just sit back and shake out heads at him. He just seems so funny and unusual to us. We are really enjoying this age. It will be interesting to see what kind of adult he becomes some day.

Picking up Forks

As Phillip said on his blog, last night some unnamed assailants forked our yard and wrapped our car with saran wrap. I deserved it, I suppose. Anyway, it was an amusing ending to a pretty crappy day. But today, Jack got out there and picked most of them up. He thought it was pretty cool. And if you ask him what we're going to do with the forks, he'll tell you that we're going to put them in somebody else's yard. He's not really sick anymore, by the way. I wouldn't have made him do that if he was. When we were almost done, one of the guilty forkers came and helped us pick the rest of them up.







The mailman was kind of confused by the whole thing.



They even stuck one right in the middle of an ant pile.

That's sick

Jackson is sick. I think this mess has been going around. Fever, vomiting, and.....other stuff. Right now he has a fever of about 101.5. He hasn't thrown up yet, but he's had the other stuff. Right now I'm just waiting for him to puke all over the couch. He's watching Napoleon Dynamite right now and laughing like crazy. But he doesn't want to eat or play. He's milking the fact that he's sick. He wanted me to feed him his dinner on the couch. He keeps grinning when I say things like, "Oh, my poor baby. He's so sick." It's pretty funny. But it won't be funny when he pukes. He said, "I'm ready for my sick to be done." Well put, little buddy.

So, anyway, I'm sure Phillip and I will have it in a few days. Yippeee!

Phillip told him to make a sick face. This is what we got.

Cheap Soup

Since I was a kid I've liked Campbell's Cream of Potato, Tomato, and even Cream of Chicken Soups. I like them less now than I did when I was younger but I still think they're just fine for a quick lunch. At H.E.B. a few days ago I noticed some new soup flavors that Campbell's has to offer. I picked up a can of Creamy Chicken Verde and thought I would try it. I wasn't expecting it to be very good but I wanted to taste it anyway to see if it would be worth using to cook with. And much to my surprise, it was quite good. I added some cheese and a little cilantro and ate it with crackers. I certainly wouldn't compare it to real soup that you would get at a restaurant or anything. But for $1.00, I think it's totally worth it. And it would probably be very good to cook with.

New Table

We got a new (used) table recently. It has been at Phillip's parent's house until the Christmas tree was out of the way and we could put it in our house. I really like it. it looks SO much better than the one we had. We passed our old table down to Phillip's brother, Josh. It actually looks like grown ups live here now. The chairs will need to be replaced in the next few months, but they're fine for now. They are a little too small for the table and are a little scratched up.
The doorway you see behind the table leads to the (always messy) playroom. We'll be putting in French doors there in a month or so....I hope. That will then be our bedroom and we will move the playroom to another room in the house. But anyway, that's our new table. And it's perfect for marbles games. Added bonus.

Christmas '05

We had a really good Christmas. Jack got more stuff than any kid could need and he had a blast. Here are a few pictures for you to check out. Phillip has more pictures on his blog.


This is a picture of Jackson kind of wearing his Spiderman mask. He says that it's hard to breathe in so he pulls it up like this. It looks kind of like a bonnet. By the way, I tried the mask on and wore it for a little while and it's not really hard to breathe in at all. Just in case you were curious.


This is Jackson looking very excited about his wiki stix. Debbie bought him like 50 of them or something. They are staying at Nana and Granddad's house. I'm not a big wiki stix fan.


I stole Jack's remote control Jeep. It's pretty cool.

It's been a while

We spent part of this evening with my oldest sister and her two grown sons. The live in Alabama and I haven't seen my sister in over five years and I haven't seen one of my nephews in about 10 years. My sister and I haven't even spoken on the phone since right before Jackson was born 3 1/2 years ago. We haven't really been angry with each other or anything. We just don't really know one another and there's no real relationship. I was really pretty annoyed when I found out she was coming for a visit. I just thought it was weird after all these years that I was going to be seeing her again. I don't like being fake nice. And I knew I wouldn't have anything significant to say to her.

But anyway, the visit was fine. It wasn't that weird at all. I didn't even have to be fake nice. It was good to see them. It's just so strange to see my nephews as grown men. It's really a shame that we weren't all more a part of each other's lives. I think it's kind of too late now to try and build any meaningful relationships with them. But I guess many of the relationships I have with extended family are kind of superficial.

I'm not talking about the ones of you that bother reading my blog. You see the real me, I'm afraid.

Narnia book

We have this little easy reader book for Jack with pictures from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe movie. Anyway, Phillip asked Jack tonight if he wanted to read "The Narnia book." And Jack said, "It's actually called the Chronicles of Narnia." Phillip asked him where he heard that and he said he just made it up (not true of course). Then he said something like, "Well, actually I like to say it like that now." The word "actually" actually comes out something like "akshawy." He also likes to say, "in fact" from time to time. Little nerd.

Raw Cookie Dough

Family and coworkers, prepare to be stunned.

After all my warnings, rantings, and disapproving looks... After years of insistence that no one should eat raw cookie dough, I just gave some to my son. Yes, I let him eat raw cookie dough. Not much, just a couple of bites. It specifically says on the package, "Bake before consuming." And I gave him some anyway. And he loved it. He wanted more and I told him it wasn't good for his tummy.

My (irrational) fear of eating raw cookie dough comes from my(irrational) fear of possible salmonella in raw eggs, which is destryed during the cooking process. This is also why I'm really grossed out by handling raw chicken. But as you are probably thinking and as many people have told me repeatedly, "I've been eating raw cookie dough for years and I've never gotten sick." And so, here in typed print, I will admit there's probably nothing wrong with eating a little bit of it occasionally.

If some of my family (you know who you are) now think it's perfectly ok to fill Jack's belly with gobs of it, this is not the case. I still don't really think it's a great idea to eat it. And I will still choose not to eat it myself. But if he eats a little bit once in a while, I guess it's ok.

Now really all this means is that I'm giving you my permission to do something that you would do or have already done anyway.

Cookie Party

Jackson got invited to a cookie making party by a little girl in his class at school. According to Jackson, she is his "best friend." There are seven boys in his class and only one girl and she's the one he wants to play with all the time. Anyway, this party is Wednesday morning and I have to work. So I think Phillip should take him to the party. If he did, he would likely be the only daddy there. It would mostly be chatty, loud women and they would probably really get on his nerves. And he would have to make himself be nice. But I think he should take him anyway. What do you think? Keep in mind, no one can talk Phillip into acutally doing this. Personally, I wouldn't want to go either. For the most part, women annoy me.

My Son, the Donkey

Jackson's Preschool Christmas Program was this morning. He was a donkey. He stood up there with his chin to his chest, shrugging his shoulders (for some reason) the whole time. He didn't cry, which is good. But he also didn't sing or even make eye contact with anyone. But he was cute. He has been crying in all the practices they have had in the last couple of weeks so I didn't really know what to expect. I'm debating putting this picture on Christmas cards but I'm not sure anybody would know what he is supposed to be. It looks like he only has one ear.

bugging daddy

Here's another kind of funny picture. Our camera really stinks, but the pictures look much better in black and white. Jackson likes to get on Phillip's back like this sometimes. Phillip doesn't really like it. I don't imagine it feels great on his back. Jack weighs about 40 lbs. now.

Three year olds and pacifiers

I took this picture of Jackson a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to post it and I just kept forgetting. He came across one of his old pacifiers in a bag of baby stuff. He didn't know what to do with it. He didn't even know what it was. I washed it for him and anyway, he popped it in his mouth and I took a picture. He wanted to take a nap with it. I drew the line there. I won't have my three year old getting attached to a binky. He hasn't used one since he was about 9 months old. It's a pretty cool picture, though. Notice the piles of laundry in the background. Somewhat typical, I'm afraid.

We forked Erin's house

Ok, since she already knows it was me, (along with some other people) I figured I would post the picture on my blog. Friday night myself and some other crazy women went and forked Erin Martin's house. She was having a grown up slumber party at her house so we thought we should do something juvenile to make it more authentic. The picture is not very good, but it's all I got. (And, yes, I realize that is incorrect grammar to all those grammar police out there.)

We used about 400 plastic forks or so. That's just a guess. Oh, yeah, and a few knives. She only knows three of the six culprits and I am not going to rat them out. But I know she saved the forks for some other occasion. I'm pretty sure she isn't saving them for Christmas dinner.

Someone got pulled over!

I hear that someone I know got pulled over today on the way to work. You know who you are. So, did you get a ticket? You can't hide in this town. Someone is always watching.

Concert Pet Peeves

Phillip had his Christmas concert tonight with the High School Orchestra. The L.J.I. orchestra also performed. So my mom and I went in and found good seats right in the middle not too close to anybody. And a few minutes after we sat down two different families with small children came and sat right behind us. Kids are cool and all but there are just some places that kids really shouldn't be brought to in my opinion. And some of it depends on the kid. But man, there was this kid right behind me about 6 years old or so and he was driving me nuts. He was talking way above a whisper, kicking the back of my chair (which makes my blood boil), standing up right behind me, etc. The adults that were with him kept telling him to be quiet but of course it did not work. So I'm trying to think of the things I could do to get this kid to shut up. I wasn't really considering doing any of these things but you know, ideas just run through your head. I could:

A. turn around and smack the kid
B. turn around and smack the kid's mom
C. politely ask them to keep it down
D. turn around and glare at them (which I did once)
E. move to a different seat while the groups were switching out

I decided that once the Intermediate School was done we would just move to keep myself from doing anything I would later regret. But thankfully after the Intermediate School was done that family left, which leads into another pet peeve. People were just getting up all through out the concert, coming in and going out. Right in the middle of the pieces. That is so rude! And if you go to a concert shouldn't you respect all the groups performing enough to stay through them? I was there at the beginning to listen to the not-so-great Intermediate School groups. Shouldn't they have the courtesy to stay and listen to the other groups? Oh well, whatever. I'm just glad that family with that bratty kid left.

Phillip did a good job by the way.

Different Voice, Different Color

As Phillip wrote on his blog, we rented March of the Penguins for Jack to watch. It was very cool. I liked it alot. But anyway, while I was watching it with Jackson on Sunday afternoon, Jack said, "Who is that guy?" I asked him what guy he was talking about. And he said, "The guy that's talkig." The movie is narrated by Morgan Freeman, who is a pretty cool African American actor with a very distinct voice. There's a picture of him just in case you're really bad about putting names with faces like I am.



Anyway, I told Jack that the man's name is Morgan Freeman. Then Jackson asked, "Is his skin the same color like ours?" Now keep in mind, Morgan Freeman narrates the movie. You never see him. I thought it was really weird. This is the first comment I've ever heard him make regarding different skin color. I told him that his skin is not the same color as ours and that his skin is brown. I asked Jack why he asked if his skin was the same color as ours and he said he didn't know. I'm wondering if he saw him on a commercial or something and remembered his voice. Or could Jack detect something in his voice or the way he speaks that sounded different from ours? Anyway, it was just kind of an interesting question for him to ask. I wish I knew what goes on in his head.

Need Christmas Cards?

Hey if you're looking for someone to make some photo (or non-photo) Christmas cards or other kind of cards/invitations I have a friend who's starting up a small business doing just that. Here is a link to her website. She also does web page design. I better get moving and figure out what we're going to do for Christmas cards this year. And, hey, Mindy, I am not doing this for a discount!! Don't hold your breath about getting any business from my blog, but hey, it can't hurt.

Ok, this is really making me mad. My thing that lets me say what time it is is gone. It will probably put some ridiculous time on here like 3:00 a.m. Phillip, fix it!

Snakes and Strangers

The other night at dinner we had a very important discussion with Jackson about the dangers of snakes. Then I figured since we were on the subject of being careful, I'd go into the stranger talk as well. Jackson stated mind blowing comments such as, "Do nice snakes talk?", "Can we get a snake?", "There are strangers on Toy Story." (he was confusing the word stranger with the word soldier). "I would beat a stranger up." There were other things he said that were pretty funny. I can't remember them now. I think he understands not to touch a snake and to go get a grown up if you see one. But I'm not sure he gets the whole stranger thing. We'll address it again in a few months.

(Where in the world is my time and date thing?)