A Safety Message From Jackson

To a man on a bike on a busy street:

J: Hey guy! Watch out! There's cars coming.

As we pass him:

J: Crash!

It starts...

Wow, going back to school after Spring Break has been tough! For me, it is blah - whatever! I can do it, wish I didn't have to, but I can do it. For Jackson though, it has been downright traumatic! When I woke him up yesterday morning, he was BEGGING to go back to his bed. A 2 year old wanting to sleep??? I told him we were getting to go to school and he can go tell all his friends how much fun he had at the beach with Hailey (he's been talking about it ever since we got back). He cried and said "I don't want to see Frankie & Tess." Frankie & Tess are 2 little twin girls in his class that evidently must terrorize him. Every time he has a new scratch or gets bitten I ask him how it happened - you know, the teachers can't tell you - and he usually says "Tess bite." I never know if he is right or just blames them because he doesn't like them, but he must really not like them because I hear him playing sometimes and he'll say "No no Tess. That's not nice!" or "Frankie, go to timeout!" LOL!

When we got to school on Monday, he started crying & backing up as soon as we entered the classroom and then he flung himself face first onto the ground and just laid there and cried while holding onto my leg. Ms. Yvette came over and said 2 other kids had a similar meltdown when they got there. She held Emme while I tried to console Jackson. I usually ignore his fits, but I can't stand to leave him at school while he is crying. I told Ms. Yvette about the conversation with Jackson about the twins and she laughed and said it was a constant battle with those girls with someone in the class. We got a good laugh out of it, but I could tell Ms. Yvette was pretty fed up with their behavior! Don't get me wrong, Jackson gets in his fair share of trouble at school too, but this is the first inclination I've seen of Jackson not liking someone and so it starts.....

Today was better once we got to school, but waking up was still rough & many tears were shed!

Spring Break

Our Spring Break is coming to an end, *tear* and we had a fabulous time! We just relaxed the first part of the week. It was beautiful, so we took many walks to see the ducks, played outside and worked in the yard. Tuesday we had Emme's 9 month well check, which went off pretty uneventfully. On Thursday, Tiffany, JC & Hailey came for a visit. We just hung out Thursday evening after Tiff & I went for a quick visit with some KDs that live in Houston. Then we went to eat. Friday was beach day. Aaron couldn't get off, so I braved taking both kids to the beach by myself -except that I was not by myself. Tiff, JC & Juliet were a tremendous help! The kids had a blast - I had a blast!

**WARNING: Lots of pictures - some stolen from Tiffany!**

I'm so sad to see Spring Break come to an end. Back to the grind tomorrow, but if this is any indication of what summer will be like, I'm in! 9 more weeks of school! Whoo hoo!

9 Months!

Emerson Kate turned 9 months on March 16th!

I cannot believe we have now had Emme longer than I was pregnant with her (she was 2 weeks early)! She continues to capture more & more of our hearts everyday. She has really begun to show her personality and will. She definitely knows what she wants when she wants it!

Eating: I must say mealtime with Emerson is not the most fun we've ever had! She squeals the most obnoxious sound if you don't feed her fast enough. Few people have the patience for it! It's tricky because we know that when we feed her after the squeal, she is learning that it gets what she wants, but if we don't she just squeals more and it's embarrassing in public! I guess the trick is to feed her faster than she can want it, but that is pretty tough. Emme prefers meat to anything else. Jackson is the complete opposite. She is down to 2-3 bottles a day. Usually two 7oz bottles and a 4oz bottle. We still haven't found anything she simply will not eat, but she will turn her nose up at peas, for example, if she can see something else. Since she now has 2 teeth, Aaron feels certain we will have to refinance the house to afford her appetite!

Sleep: Nothing new here - she is still a 12 hour baby at night and she typically takes 2 naps that last anywhere from 1 - 2 hours. She does now flip to her belly for some of the night.

Play: She has begun to pull up and gets so proud of herself when she does. She still needs a bit of help if she can't wrap her fingers around something. She is not at all steady once up, but can hold her own as long as she has a good grip. Since discovering this new skill, she prefers to be standing, which is sort of tiring for the rest of us. She and Jackson play so well together now. Jackson still grabs toys away from her sometimes, but we are working on that. He absolutely adores her and the first thing he says every morning is I want to see my Emme girl! *awww* Most toys still go straight to her mouth, but I have started seeing her putting blocks and such inside other toys and then take them back out again. As I've said before, she can wave and is now starting to clap. Emme loves to be outside. She is perfectly content in the Moby facing outward while I pull Jackson in the wagon on our walks. She sometimes even falls asleep while we are on a walk and then I freak wondering how long her head has been hanging!

Verbal skills: She really has those consanants down! She says mama when she cries, but I'm not sure it is truly connected in her mind. She babbles Bah ba ba ba baaaa or Lahlah-lahlah constantly.

She loves playing with her big brother!

She is smaller than Elmo.
She weighs 16 lbs 10 oz & is 26 1/2 inches long.
That's 10th & 25th percentiles.

Who needs a Blarney stone when you could
kiss this sweet leprechaun!

Or better yet, 2 sweet leprechauns!


Hey, Emme - what's with the tongue? Are you channeling Abigail?

She cut her first 2 teeth on March 13th.

Click on the picture for better view. She was NOT

happy with this particular shot!

or this one! but it shows her new standing skills!

Happy, sad, squealing, or napping we ADORE our baby girl! She gives us such joy everyday and it is hard to remember a time (just 9 months ago) that we didn't have this sweet, sassy, precious little one in our lives! We love you, Emme girl!

A few new firsts for Emme

Emme is showing signs of starting to pull up. She will grab my thumbs and push right up. She gets so excited when she does it - I can tell she is really proud of herself. She tries to pull up on other things too, like her Pottery Barn chair and one of those wooden bead toy things (what the heck are they called?). Of course, the thing just toppled over on her and made her mad! Funny that she is reaching this milestone before she can even crawl. Maybe she'll skip that step all together.

Emme is also getting her first & second teeth. They are both on the bottom and they just cut through the skin today. This would explain her nose continuing to run after she has recovered from the RSV & double ear infections she had earlier in the week. It also explains her extreme fussiness and clingy behavior. As I type this, she is sitting in the floor screaming. Guess I should go give her some Tylenol.....

Stick horse Rodeo

It's rodeo time in Houston! Even at Jackson & Emerson's school. Friday was their annual Stick Horse Rodeo. All the kids brought their stick horses, most were homemade, including ours. My two buckaroos looked so adorable! I ate every second of it up!

Yee-haw!
She looks so chunky in this picture. I made her hairbow & socks.

Jackson & his horse

In line for the pony rides.

Ropin' steer

About to eat hay.

Weird lighting.

Petting zoo - Jackson LOVED the chicken & rabbit and tolerated the rest.

The best we could do

Emme's horse

Jackson's horse that I made last year. I plan on revamping it next year.

Sick bitty

My bitty baby, Emme is sick again. She doesn't really act like it, but after a day & a half of hearing a very strange cough and then Saturday morning a bit of wheezing, I decided we better go on in to the doctor. I'm so glad we did because she was diagnosed with either Bronchiolitis or RSV. They aren't really sure since her lungs don't sound that bad, but just to err on the side of caution, we did an 8 minute nebulizer treatment in office and her lungs immediately sounded better. So now we are doing breathing treatments at home every 4 hours with an inhaler & an AeroChamber. Emme hated every second of the 8 minute nebulizer treatment and hates the at home breathing treatments too, but the good news is that these treatments last 2-3 minutes. Like I said she isn't showing in other symptoms except the cough & a little bit of a runny nose - no fever, eating well (really well), sleeping well, not overly fussy and she is smiley as usual. She weighed in at 16.09 lbs. Proof that she is eating well. I just pray that this virus runs its course quickly and leaves my baby's body soon!

It's about time!

Emme's 9 month photo shoot has been scheduled! I can't wait to get pictures taken of her. I have not been very good about getting professional pictures made of either of the kids, but we'll do 9 month pictures and then turn right around & do 1 year pictures in June. Our normal photographer has quit doing stuff on her own and is now part of a studio. That studio is FOREVER away, so we are trying someone new. Ashley Allen comes highly recommended to me by one of the other teachers I work with. She does beautiful work and I can't wait to see what she does for us! March 18th is the day. Smile pretty, Emme!

Big Little Man!

27 Months old

2/27/10

Jackson is becoming such a little man. He does & says things on a daily basis that amaze the heck out of us! The other day while waiting endlessly for Jackson to finish dinner, I was complaining to Aaron that my back hurt and that I couldn't sit in that chair anymore. Jackson said Mommy need go to doctor? I asked him who is doctor was and he said Pewop (Pielop). I had mentioned his doctor's name to him about 3 or 4 days before, but really just in passing. He picks up everything and hangs on to it. I love that!

• He can now say his ABC's up to G, then says P, T, YZ! We're working on it. He can tell you train starts with T, pig starts with P, Jackson starts with J, & Emme starts with E.
• Colors: He knows black, brown, white, blue, red, purple, green, yellow, orange & pink. He constantly points them out.
• He can count to 3, sometimes 5, but more importantly, he understands the concept. He can look at something and tell you there are 3 cows, or he wants 2 cookies (usually, I'll hand him two and then he'll say, no, I want three). If there is more than 3, he assumes there are 5, lol! We will continue to work on this, but I bet he'll be counting to 10 in no time!
• I have to admit, I have not worked with him on shapes too much, but he knows circle, triangle & square.
• He can tell you if someone is a girl or not, and recognizes that he is not a girl, but refuses to believe he is a boy. The other day when we were talking about it, I said You're a boy just like Daddy is a boy. To this he replied, No, Daddy is Aaron.
• He has just recently started to tell me when things hurt. He told me on Thursday that his tummy hurt and he needed to go to the doctor. Then on Saturday he was bouncing off the walls in the car on the way to the zoo - he was so excited - and all of the sudden we hear him said Jackson sick. Sure enough, he had thrown up a little bit - it was more like spit up, except that he is too old for spit up, but anyway he realized he had gotten sick.
• He does not like potatoes in any form!
• He loves to be outside. Huge screaming fits when we have to come back inside.
• Recently has been very fussy in the afternoons. I think this is his terrible two time. He changes his mind in a split second and finds it very irritating that you were not 2 steps ahead of him. I find this very irritating! We give him 2 choices and he can take his pick - that's our strategy. You can sit at the table or at the bar. You can wear your dinosaur shirt or the striped shirt. You can eat dinner & then have bananas or you can eat nothing. It seems pretty effective.
• He has a strange fascination with Spiderman. He has never seen Spiderman, doesn't have any toys, clothes, etc with Spiderman on them, but he still plays Spiderman. If he's mad at us, he will throw his hand out at us and say Spiderman like he's throwing web at us. It is too funny!
• Since his fall down the stairs, he is terrified of going down the stairs. I have to coax him down if I am not holding his hand and sometimes he will just flat out refuse and want to be carried. I give him massive praise each time he goes down by himself successfully! I guess it is good he has a healthy respect for them, but it is mighty annoying that he wants to be carried everytime.

Jackson Dean, Mommy & Daddy adore you! You keep being amazing littlw you - we love every bit of you!