Mommy's Little Helper

While we have been in the house letting little Jackson recover, Katie has AMAZED me with some spontaneous, "Let me help you Mommy" time! Here she is making some Banana Bread for Mrs. Laura.
Later that night Katie wanted to make the pizza all by herself. I only got to spray the pan and then put the pan in the oven. She rolled out the dough, spread the sauce, put on the pepperonis and put on the cheese.

Here she is practicing roping a cow for Western Day at Sonshine School.

And today...she helped me mop.

I am so proud of her helpfulness, still kind of shocked about it too, but very proud.

This is her "I'm a helper" face.

Moms and Waffle Sticks?

Collin thinks that the muffins at "Moms and Muffins" are not like mine. Ah, so sweet...those Martha White packages are so easy! So he decided to eat the waffle sticks served in the cafeteria that morning and have me tag along.
The Chick-fil-A cow was on site this morning and instead of Collin wanting his picture with the cow, he wanted me. Unshowered. Unfixedup. Me. Oh, the things we do for our kids. But he does prefer my "homemade" muffins to the store-bought danishes so I did owe him.

Here he is at Charge-Up singing You Are My Sunshine, The Presidents Song, and Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night (or whatever the name of that song is). Stay tuned...Katie's Moms and Muffins is coming up!

Hello old friend

The nebulizer is back to work. We've had this thing since Katie was 8 weeks old when she had pneumonia. Jackson used it when he was 3 months when he had croup and again around 9 months when we was having breathing difficulties due to food allergies (we believe). Now Jumpin J has been diagnosed with RSV. So we are under breathing treatments every 4 hours.

We all had a scary evening last night. Jackson was coughing, stopped breathing, turned bluish/purple, eyes rolled back in head, slumped over. I called 911. Matt banged on his back. After a couple of hits, he started breathing again. The firemen came. EMSA came. He checked out ok. I got out the air mattress to sleep on the floor in his room so I could hear every cough, sneeze, wheeze through the night. Took him to the pediatrician this morning and she could still hear a wheeze but he was looking better. In other news: he is officially 20 pounds 0 ounces!! Yea! We are ready to see him playing cars again.

Or even getting into sister's stuff.

What we've been up to

Shopping with Texas Santa's money...Collin took a little trip to the Lego store. He bought "Freeing Dobby." And has a new interest for Christmas 2011...Diagon Alley!
Here he is with Hogwarts, the Hogwarts Express, Quidditch and now...Freeing Dobby. Oh the joy of Legos!

I must admit that I love to go in and see what position my children are sleeping. My mom took a lot of sleeping pictures and I do too. I adore them. Jackson must sleep with part of his face covered...

and he likes to throw his socks and passy out.

Sunday morning pictures. Jackson is thrilled.

Catching snowflakes.

ditto

Here is Katie flying the simulator at the Omniplex. She crashed once and then kept doing circles...a future pilot?

The new area at our science museum...a tease on the eyes. It's very fun and bold in there.

Love.

Grammy - Katie is having a phone conversation with you. I think this is where she is telling you that you don't know much about science. And that she will teach you when you come to Oklahoma. (To my friends that read: my mom taught Chemistry, Physics and PreCalculus at my high school, so this should be an interesting conversation between the two of them.)

Katie playing at the treehouse.

Visiting with a scientist.

Choo-choo - exhausted after a big day at the Science museum.

Another Sunday morning photo...it's been a while since I blogged, no?

On Martin Luther King Day, we all bundled up and headed out to the zoo.

My kids have a facination for the STATUES at the zoo, the real-live animals are a bonus. Here they are posing with the bunny doing a "bunny-run". This is something Katie made up and I've forgotten when and why.

So snuggy-bundled at the zoo!

Jackson seeing the fishies.

Katie on the pygmy hippo statue. Do you notice Katie has some little bangs now? Yep, we've had some fun with scissors around our house. I'm not quite sure I can bring myself to blog about ALL the incidents but let's just say her scissor practice is going to put off for quite some time.

I think we are going to need to get a swingset for the backyard! He loves to swing!!

Celebrating a day of fun with a ride on the little carousel. Yes, we did spring the 50 cents and take a real ride. It was thrilling!

Our Jackson...sockless and enjoying the ride. He's got a lot of "I'mgonnadoitmyself" personality in him. But alas, he had to be held onto by mom.

So parents, friends, that is what we have been up to lately.

The BIG Day!

I started out my 2 day I-stopped-nursing-and-my-sister's-having-a-baby vacation by driving down to Dallas to see my best friend, Laura. We have known each other since I was a sophomore in high school and she was a freshman. We went to different high schools but were in the youth group together. She is fun, funny, a great conversationalist, a snazzy-hip dresser (I think I just made up a new hyphenated word), smart and thoughtful. I like her mostly because she says words like faunchin. We both have a deep love for Coke and agree that you MUST drink coke while eating pizza or hamburgers. We stayed in a great hotel, ate lots of great food and did lots of shopping! Yea!
Then I headed over to see the BIG nephew. My blessed sister gave birth via c-section to Greyson Lawrence at 10 POUNDS 13 OUNCES and 21 3/4 inches long! Bless her. Bless c-sections.

Here is the hours-old babe.

And here are his "paw" prints. WOW!

And here they are! Woo-hoo! I love being an aunt! I also love having babies too but being an aunt has it's own special benefits.

The proud Poppa and Momma. Brother Chandler had already gone home by the time I started snapping pictures. Congrats sis! We are so excited to welcome Greyson to the family!

The way we started the new year

I slept in until 8:30!! I heard lots of talking on the baby monitor. Things like, "This is what we should do: read to Jackson until Mom comes in here." "No, I'm playing soccer in here." "Mom won't like it." "Mom's not in here." I decided I should head upstairs. And these three cuties are what I found (soccer ball was quickly hidden under the crib).
Dad raked the leaves. Collin helped put them into the trash can.

Yes, he is wearing his pajamas outside.

And this is how we ended the day.