Thursday, August 28, 2008

Story Time

The boys and I met my mom at story time today at Border's. When my mom use to keep Jackson, she would often take him to story time, so I thought it would be something nice to continue. Jackson really enjoys it!
Today the Tooth Fairy was there. She gave a lesson about how to take care of your teeth, read a story, and then the kids got to practice brushing a stuffed animal's teeth with a big tooth brush. Afterwards, the kids got milk, cookies, and a coloring sheet. Jackson really enjoyed it and did a great job! I love that I am home now and able to enjoy these types of activities with the boys! It is so much fun!

Waiting for his turn to practice brushing....



Showing Garrett his sticker from the Tooth Fairy....


Back at home -




Video -

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Today starts the last month of being one.

Jackson is 23 months today.
This is his last month of being one.
This is my last month to say I have two kids under the age of two.
Where does time go?

A lot of boys seem to be strong with their gross motor skills, but not so strong with their fine motor skills.
I have started doing little projects with Jackson during the day to help develop his fine motor skills. (See Mom and Dad, I am using my Early Childhood Degree after all)
Today I came up with the idea of putting colorful beads on a string....however, I didn't have colorful beads or string. So, I used what I had! A shoe string and Cheerios. He really enjoyed doing this until he discovered that he could eat the Cheerios off of the shoe string. The "teacher and female in me" wanted to see a finished product....a cute little Cheerio necklace. We never got to that point due to the Cheerios being so yummy off of the string.

Put a few on the string...eat them off of the string....put a few on the string...eat them off of the string....




I had to keep Garrett in his Bumbo seat as a spectator only. Jackson got a little frustrated with him yanking on his string.
Rigley enjoyed it as well.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Friday, the boys and I went down to my parent's house to spend the weekend. Aaron worked for the railroad Friday night, and then had irrigation work to do all weekend. He got down there on Saturday night, but worked on their neighbor's sprinkler all day Sunday. He is busy, but we are lucky and glad that he is! That's how I get to be home. :) When you ask Jackson where daddy is he says "Daddy, Choo Choo!"

The boys, my mom, and I drove to a bakery in Athens on Saturday to order Jackson's Elmo birthday cake. Yep....Elmo. I wish when I planned his 1st birthday party I would have known that would be the last "theme" that was up to me. I have been trying to show Jackson everything. "Jackson, let's have a YEE-HAW party!!!!"....."Elmo." "Jackson, let's have a baseball party!!!"...."Elmo." So...I have accepted Elmo. Good ole' Elmo. I can't believe he is going to be 2! He has been making so many sentences lately. It is so much fun!

Here are some videos and pictures of the boys swinging at my parent's-






As we were sitting in the backyard watching the boys swing a storm started blowing in. The wind picked up like crazy and it look like rain was coming, so we quickly gathered everything up and moved to the porch. (there is a reason why I am telling you this....keep reading)

The storm was gone. We took some pictures. As always, Rigley chased birds, squirrels, ducks,etc.

Rigley wondered off to the next door neighbors yard, so my mom walked over to get him. My mom watched Rigley as he was acting weird and doing circles around something. Mom was trying to get Rigley to listen (which he isn't good at) but Rigley was intensely doing circles around what appeared to be leaves. Then....I heard my mom make the sound and do the motions she does when she finds something gross. You know - rubbing her arms, jumping around...ewww,ewww,ewww. She said "There is an animal over there." We ran over there to find this -
Do you know what this is? We didn't.
I know, I know...you are probably thinking a baby dinosaur. I thought the same thing. Although it does look like a dinosaur, I'm afraid that is not what it is. Maybe a puppy? Someones dog had a litter of puppies and instead of trying to sell them in a box at the local Wal-Mart, they decided to just throw them out? The tail looks like a mouse, but not the feet. Maybe an opossum? About this time, we started hearing a loud animal sound. We realized they were baby squirrels when the mother squirrel was up in the tree wanting to attack us. We think the strong wind knocked the babies out of the nest.

We quietly moved to the porch and watched. The momma squirrel came down and picked up one baby.....licked it off and carried it up the tree....came back down for the 2nd baby.... licked it off and carried it up the tree.....came down for the 3rd baby....looked around........... We knew where is was, but it was away from the other two. It was closer to where Rigley plays. We wonder if Rigley picked one up when he found them and moved it to the other location. ewwww.yuck.
The momma looked and looked, but never found it. She went back up the tree. I told my dad to get a shovel and move the squirrel closer to the tree so she would find it when she came back down. But she never came back down. :(

I spent the night searching on the internet "How to take care of a baby squirrel." It was sad to watch a helpless, alive, little thing. Ugly or not - it was sad. I however, never took action. I left it in the yard.

The next morning, I was excited to wake up and had hopes the little baby would still be laying in the grass so the momma squirrel could find it. My dad however, informed me that the neighbor threw it away because it was dead. ????????? I wish I had a chance to say goodbye. haha!
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Aaron was mowing the yard this afternoon, so I let Jackson go outside with his lawn mower to "help."



Garrett started eating rice cereal and now he is trying out veggies. Last week was squash and today he started green beans. He LOVES green beans. At one point I was playing airplane with the spoon and he yanked my hand down to his face and opened his mouth really big. I couldn't get it into his mouth fast enough.


Jackson is forming a new habit. He sticks his tongue out when he is really concentrating. He needs to stop or his lips are going to start getting chapped, but I know if I draw attention to it he will think it is funny and do it more. The odd thing is, I still remember when I was in 4th grade and my best friend Kristin would laugh at me in class because everything time I was focused on my work I would lick my lips. So...I understand!

You have to enlarge this picture to see, but his tongue is out while he is mowing as well.

Happy Back to School to you all! It feels good to be at home this year, but I am thinking about all of you who had to leave your little ones to go to work or those of you that have to drop your little ones off at school. My day will come. I wish I could protect them forever, but I know that is not the case.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Gran's 80th Birthday!

These are some pictures from Gran's (Aaron's Grandmother) 80th Birthday Party. I went wedding shopping with my sister on this day, so that it why you don't see me. Aaron's Uncle sent these to me and I thought I would share....



Practicing...




Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Our night....

YEA!! Garrett slept from 8PM-8AM! That's 12 hours!! YEA YEA YEA!!!

I however didn't have such a pleasant night. Before going to bed, I opened the back door to make sure the garage was closed. As I was shutting the back door, it hit my toe and ripped my toe nail off of my big toe. It is not very pretty or comfortable. Lovely....

Monday, August 18, 2008

I hate Onions!

My eyes water very easily, therefore I HATE cutting onions. It seemed like it took me FOREVER to cut this one onion for a recipe I was making. After doing all the "onion tricks" they say to do and taking many breaks, I simply couldn't take it any longer. I told Aaron I wish I had a big pair of goggles to protect my eyes! Much to my surprise, he told me he did have a pair from when he swam a lot a few years ago. ummmmmmm????????? Does anyone else recall this event? I'm sorry, but I don't remember Aaron swimming a lot a few years ago.

Anyways, the goggles worked perfectly! Every woman should have a pair of goggles in their kitchen! Maybe since Aaron isn't currently swimming (I can't help but laugh as I type that) I can keep his in the kitchen.


Jackson liked my goggles! Garrett was sitting at the table with Aaron, but started rubbing his eyes, so they moved to the living room.
We are trying to find Jackson a wood swing set for his birthday. Some catalogs came in the mail today. He thought he would take a moment to look through them all to figure out what he would like.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Baseball Weekend

The boys couldn't take their eyes off of the game for a quick picture.
Being silly...can you tell?
"Goooooooooo Jus-in. Yeaaaaaa Jus-in!" (that's how Jackson said it)
Jackson, Shelly, and popcorn
Jackson and G-Mom
This is the scary horse! Jackson DID NOT like this horse at all. He started walking up towards us and Jackson SCREAMED and grabbed Aaron as fast as he could. But just like Chuck E Cheese, he is kind of scary looking. He got in mine and Shelly's face and scared us as well. Another little toddler started crying when he saw him too. This video is of Jackson telling the horse to "shooooo shooooo shooooo."

The rest of the night, Jackson was on horse lookout. This happened at the game on Friday night, but he still remembered it at the game on Saturday. He was on horse lookout. Any time he started to want to get up and walk around, we said "The horse is going to get you..." and he would sit in our lap real fast. So, the horse kind of worked in our favor.
Garrett pretty much stayed awake the whole time. He would get hot and fussy at times, but luckily there was a great breezeway right by our seats. When he was up in the breezeway he was fine. This picture was at the end of the game when he decided he would call it a night!