"J-A-C-K-S-O-N, That's Me! That's Me!"

Jack has been able to spell his name for a long time, but I never got around to getting a video of it until recently. It had slipped my mind that I wanted to record it, but about a month and a half ago, Jack spent a few days running around the house yelling "J-A-C-K-S-O-N, That's me! That's me!" Over and over and over and over. He wouldn't do the "That's me!" part for the camera, but he wanted me to make a video of him spelling his name quite loudly!

And yes, he has a very messy room.

First Words

Jack was a super-early talker. He started talking when he was 5 months old and hasn't stopped since. I had been trying to do the sign-language thing with him, but that never really caught on with him, as he'd learn to just say the word rather than make the sign!

So far, Sam seems to be following in his big brothers' footsteps. He is now 5 months old, and he already has two words! On the day he turned 4 months old (yes, 4 months!) he started saying "Ah-boo!" which is his absolute favorite thing. A few days after he turned 5 months old he started saying ma ma! Of course, his version of ma ma sounds more like MUAH-meh, but I know that he really means me when he says it! I haven't gotten a good video of him saying ma ma yet (Jack always wants to watch movies whenever he sees my video camera and that totally drains the batteries- but I can't resist him!), but I have one of the day he first started saying Ah-Boo! I was taking his 4 month bunny picture (yes, I'm doing those for Sam, too- same bunny!), and I was trying to get him to smile when all the sudden he started telling me "Ah-Boo" right back! I quickly grabbed the camera and captured this:

(Note: Jack is asking if it is Christmas time because he had just seen his Christmas Train in the garage and he really wanted to play with it!)

Smorgasbord... Again.

And I'm trying this again!

I really should be packing for Las Vegas. We're leaving tomorrow. And by we, I mean me, Jackson, Samuel, and my dad. One of my cousins and his wife is having a baby, and we're going out there for the baby shower! My mom is flying out on Saturday to meet us there, and I'm looking forward to showing the boys (well, Jack, really, as Sam won't know enough to care) some of the fun kid-friendly things to do on the strip. Dave isn't able to come with us, unfortunately, and I miss him already.

One of the reasons that Dave is unable to join us is because while we were gone on vacation last week, we acquired a very unwelcome house-guest (a mouse). Okay, that's not exactly true... I saw our unwelcome house-guest two days before we left on vacation, and we weren't able to do (much of) anything about it until after we got back. And because we weren't able to do anything, we're pretty sure that in the week we were gone, our house-guest invited a friend or two. Dave caught one, and we're hoping that we're wrong about there being more, but we're not holding our breaths. From Dave's description of the one he caught, I don't think it was the same one that I saw. Anyway, unless for some reason he doesn't get an over time and also changes his mind about taking advantage of the days without a three-year-old-that-gets-stuck-in-the-sticky-mousetraps (twice, by the way... poor kid. He is such a klutz!), Dave won't be joining us in Vegas.

He's still talking about joining us, though, because he really wants to bring the boat to Lake Mead. Oh, that's right, we bought a boat! More on that in an upcoming post, or a few upcoming posts, but we're super excited about it! Our vacation last week was our first trip out on the boat and I'm quite certain it was the most fun I've ever had at Shaver! Okay, it was the most fun I've ever had as an adult at Shaver. Cause I had a lot of fun when I was a kid, too.

Speaking of kids, have I mentioned how awesome mine are, lately? I'm sure I have, but it's definitely true that they are pretty freaking awesome. Sam is 5 1/2 months old, and he and Jack Jack still absolutely adore each other! They both are still pretty big momma's boys, too. Jack had Vacation Bible School at my mom's church this week, and I've been having to stick by him as a sort of security blanket. I really didn't want to do that, as I know it's important for him to learn to do without the momma, but after considering everything, I decided that while I really want him to be able to thrive even without me by his side, at this point, for this situation, it was much more important for him to participate with his class. I'd rather he learn to socialize and be in a classroom setting and absorb some of the bible lessons than learn that he doesn't need mommy with him all the time. At first I did leave him, but Jack's warming-up period is longer than most kids, and VBS is only a week long. If he was worried about mommy leaving him then he wasn't going to learn any of the lessons I wanted to teach him by having him participate in VBS. So I decided to stay, and I am glad that I did. Just knowing that I am there, Jack is able to feel more comfortable and absorb some of what I wanted to teach him by sending him to VBS... without me, that's just too much all at once for him. Tomorrow is his last day of it, and since we're leaving for Las Vegas right afterwards, hopefully I'll remember to bring my camera this time to take some pictures!!!

Oh, and speaking of pictures... remind me not to give Jack a blue/green fun-dip right before I try to get some pictures of them!

And to make sure that there are no squirrels on the roof to distract them...

And to put Sam in a color that will disguise spit-up/drool!

I'm sure I had more that I wanted to include in this smorgasbord, but I'm tired, and I need to pack!

Goodnight!

This Post Is Out Of Order

I just have to share this picture from my mom's camera from yesterday. Seriously, how stinkin' cute is this kid?!?!?

Jack-A-Randa

We had a playdate at the Botanical Gardens last month, and we had such a great time! There was a cute little garden area for kids to enjoy, lots of vast lawns for the kids to run around on and enjoy, a water fountain, a lake, and even some hiking trails! We had a lot of fun exploring and ended our trip with a picnic lunch and an impromptu photo shoot. Here are some photos from our day:

Fun story. Last year Jack was quite enamored of "purple trees". He'd get so excited when he saw them I loved to see his enthusiasm for them! They had been out of season for a while, but when we were at the botanical garden we were thrilled to see that the season for "purple trees" was back! He started exclaiming over them and my mom and I decided that we needed to find out the name of them while we were there. We found a tree that had a nameplate on it and discovered that they were called Jacarandas! Now whenever Jack sees one of these trees, instead of yelling "Look at the Purple Trees!" He yells " Look, it's a Jack-A-Randa!" I'm pretty sure that he thinks these trees were named just for him!

And now, the story of our photo shoot. It started with a plan to get a nice photo of the three boys together. Fathers' Day was coming up, and my mom wanted to get a photo of them to put on a shirt for my dad- he loves wearing his Jack FM shirts but felt bad that he didn't have shirts for Luke or Sam, so my mom was going to give him a shirt that represented all three of his grandsons! First, though, we had to have lunch. Sam and McKenna finished their lunches quickly, and so I started taking pictures of Sam chilling with his cute little girlfriend...

And then Jack Jack finished and saw that Sam was awake and in a huggable position!

See if you can decipher this picture puzzle:


That's right: Jack hearts Sam.

And Sam hearts Jack right back.

So while we waited for Luke to finish his lunch, I decided to get some photos of my boys! Jack didn't want me to take any pictures of him unless Sam was in it, too. I was thrilled, of course, as I really was hoping to get a nice picture of my boys together!

And since Sammy had just turned 4 months old, I needed to get a picture of him by himself! My first attempt didn't escape Jack's attention...

... but luckily Jack was distracted when Austin finished his lunch. While the two of them chased each other around the lawn, I managed to get a shot of Sam... even though he refused to stay on his tummy for me!

Then Luke finished his lunch!

It is never incredibly easy to get a 3 year old, a 10 month old or a 4 month old to cooperate to get their picture taken, but to get them all to cooperate at once is incredibly difficult! Imagine my surprise and delight when we managed to get this in the second frame!

I'd call that a success, wouldn't you?

"Our City Brings All The Kids To The Yard...

... and they're like 'Come play in our cars!'"

Or, you know, vehicles and machines and stuff.

Each year our city holds an open house in the city yard. This is like heaven for little boys, especially boys like Jack Jack who are obsessed with boy things like heavy machinery and other kinds of city vehicles... firetrucks, lawnmowers, buses, trash trucks, cranes, cherry pickers, bulldozers, police cars... this list goes on and on! We went last year (a trip that went unblogged), and Jack had such a great time that I wanted to make sure that we would go again this year! I was thrilled when it turned out that Dave had that day off and could go with us this time, and Jack was absolutely thrilled as well! He had quite a skip in his step as he walked hand-in-hand with his daddy on the way to the yard!

We walked into the yard and met up with my parents, my sister and Luke, and Steve, Eve, Savannah, Serena, and Sadie (three of my goddaughters). And the first vehicle we stopped at? The fire engine! Jack is no stranger to playing on firetrucks and he had fun showing it to Luke, too!

We went from vehicle to vehicle, machine to machine. Jack was in heaven with all of these fun toys to play with! He was such a good boy, too, waiting in line and taking turns. I was so proud of him.

He was so excited to get to sit on a police motorcycle, both because it was a motorcycle, and because of the lights and sirens! He even got to push the button to turn on the siren!

One of the things that Jack was most excited about, though, were the giant lawnmowers that we see at the park! Whenever he sees them he has such a hard time tearing his eyes away from them, and he was stoked that he got to 'drive' them!

Jack also really enjoyed the trash trucks. Why? Because the kids were allowed to honk the horn! Jack hopped right in, and no sooner had he sat in the seat when he asked "Okay daddy, what do I pull to make the noise?!" Once Dave showed him, he pulled it. Twice!

This thing was cool, too. I don't know what it is, but right after Jack's turn was over the guy hopped in and did a pretty cool demonstration for the news cameras!

This kid has the best imagination, and as he sat and 'drove' each vehicle, I could see his imagination going crazy! The best evidence of that was when we got to this piece of heavy machinery (I'd call it by name, but I never remember the difference between all of the -dozers and -loaders and -haulers)...

If his face didn't say it all, then he sure did, just after I took this photo:

Are you amazed that he cooperated for that shot? I mean, not only sitting where I asked him to sit, but looking at the camera and smiling, too? I was amazed, also! But as soon as he got back up I figured out why, because he looked at me and said with such awe in his voice "Mom, it was going to pick me up!" I love this kid!

And my favorite part? That Dave was able to come. Because this is what it's like when they're together:

Did you melt just now? Yeah, I did, too.

And after we were done with the city yard we went out to lunch... and I melted again.

Only for Jack would Dave ever let me take that photo!

Copycat

There is a style of blogging that is popular right now called Stream of Consciousness. It basically is not incredibly organized, and the author just types as she/he is thinking. For some reason, this appeals to me. I know, kind of shocking considering how I really like things to be organized (obviously we are not talking about my housekeeping, as my skills in that area are pretty much nonexistent and my organization skills have pretty much deserted me as far as that goes), but I like how this allows for the author to post about any number of things without making a formal post on each subject. So, I'm going to try it. I'll probably be slightly more organized than most people's Stream of Consciousness posts, (you know, because of the CDO) but it will still be a Smorgasbord of... um... stuff.

Here we go...

My external hard-drive is broken. I have ALL of my photos on it. I want to cry. It's horrible and I am so sad, but I found a new external hard-drive with tons of memory and hopefully (and prayerfully) the people at this computer place that was recommended to me will be able to get the files off of the broken one and onto the new one! If not, I probably will cry. I am just so freaking thankful that I have backed up [nearly] everything on Smugmug! Smugmug doesn't save the exact original file (it changes the color format so that the colors are not as vibrant... that part sucks), but it does save the original file size, so if they can't save the files from this pieceofcrap hard-drive, then at least I have a better-than-nothing backup!

And speaking of Smugmug... my mom says that when she opens my blog, then each photo I've psoted also opens up individually in Smugmug in new windows. Does that happen to anyone else? Does anyone know how to get her computer to stop doing that? She showed it to me, and it's really annoying. But if she's forced to look at photos a million times, at least they're photos of my adorable children ;)

My father-in-law passed away very recently. I am not going to say much about this, as I like to respect my husband's privacy and not post in depth about his family. I will, though, ask you to please pray for my husband, as he's really been put through the ringer these last 15 months.

Sam is 4 months old now! He's so amazing and I love him so much. I adore how he adores his big brother and it is so much fun to see his face light up when he see Jack Jack, or watch him search about the room when he suddenly hears Jack Jack's voice. Sam's momma's-boy ness is pretty strong (sometimes I worry that it's progressing into if-you-aren't-my-momma-then-get-the-eff-away-from-me ness), but unless he's really tired or hungry this doesn't apply as far as Jack is concerned. He's also looking a lot less worried when Jack decides he wants his cuddles from Sam... rather than fear that Jack's love may squish him, he is starting to grab Jack's face and give him some good squishing-love right back. And yes, this melts me. Seriously.

Sam is a peanut! I love it, and even though I wouldn't have changed one single thing about Jack's rate of growth (save for wishing for super-stretchy clothes that would have fit him longer), I am thrilled to have a normal sized baby this time around! It is a little weird for me to get used to, but I'm absolutely loving it... and I'm stoked that Sam is actually getting to wear all these clothes that Jack and Luke outgrew so fast! At Sam's 4 month appointment he was 14 lbs and 24.5 inches long. At Jack's 4 month appointment he was 18.5 lbs and 27.5 inches long. That's a difference of 4.5 lbs and 3 inches, which is a lot at this age!!!

We are totally enjoying summer. We've been doing a lot of really fun things, and Dave has even been able to join us for some of them! Sometimes it's hard to get Jack to want to leave his trains (he adores playing trains in his room... he has a lot of trains), but once we are out of the house he has a blast! I do try to make sure that our plans include time for him to play with his trains each day, as I know how much it relaxed him to run them on his track. His imagination has completely astounded me lately and he is always coming up with some really fun games and stories.

My parents celebrated their 35 wedding anniversary last month and are currently on the second of their two celebratory vacations. I am so used to talking to my mom every day and I miss her! They'll be gone for another week and a half, and hopefully Jack and I can last that long. Every time something happens or we see something cool Jack says "We better be sure to tell grandma/grandpa about it!"

Sam graduated from his physical therapy this week! Sam has mild Acquired Torticollis, and we've been doing physical therapy (basically massaging and stretching his right sternocleidomastoid) for 3 months. It is already so much better, and his therapist says that we can do the therapy every other day now, rather than 3 times each day. I am supposed to keep an eye on him, as it is possible for it to get a little worse as he grows, but unless we notice something weird, she won't need to see us anymore!

However, Sam's pooping issues are getting worse. He's always had slow bowels, but in the last month he's been unable to move anything on his own (only with the help of a suppository- I wait a week or so to see if he'll go on his own, but he doesn't). His sad grunts and groans of discomfort are heart-wrenching. His pediatrician wants us to try one more thing before she sends us to a GI specialist. We're really hoping that this last thing works, so for the last two days I've been giving him 2 teaspoons of prune juice each day with a medicine dropper. Please pray that this works!
It's amazing how two kids with the same parents, being fed from the same boobies, can have such different bowels- Jack was a pooping machine! Even now he poops like a man. I'm sure you wanted to know that. You're welcome.

My next post is supposed to be about our trip to the City Yard... they had an open house. I've had the photos ready to go for 2 weeks, but no time to post them. And when I do get time, I find myself editing more photos instead. They'll be up soon... probably.

It's July, and the sun is on strike. I don't handle heat well and so I'm not asking for our regular July temps, but seriously, is a little sunshine so much to ask? Just enough so that I can pull out Jack's pool?

I'm bored of this now. And I can't think of anything else to say. And my room looks like my scrap/craft closet threw up in there since I stopped in the middle of organizing it in order to feed my kids and put them to bed and write this post, so I better go take care of that.

I'm not sure how to end a post like this.

The End.

There, that should do it.