The Kids

The other night at dinner, I asked Jackson to say a blessing on the food. He proceeded to say a very nice prayer and, as usual, ended with, "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." After saying, "Amen" he looked up said, "Christ....Is that like a piece of bread?" Justin and I started laughing and had to explain that, "No, you're thinking of crust!"

Today was a beautifully sunny day (a much needed break from the cold snap we were going through!) and Justin had the day off so he decided to take the boys out to practice skateboarding. This time he put the boys (individually) on the board (instead of riding with them) and let them go down the very slight slope at the beginning of our cul-de-sac. He ran beside them to catch them if they felt like they were going to fall or if they started going too fast. (I got some great video on our video camera, but it's a dinosaur and can't be directly uploaded onto the computer.) They spent all afternoon doing this (I could only watch for so long... I know that Justin would NEVER put them in harms way, but I just can't handle watching them going that fast. Boys will be boys. :). To be honest, I was pretty impressed with their balance! Even Eddie was able to stay on the board for the length of the cul-de-sac!

At one point our neighbor came out to watch and he started chatting with Justin. He then commented about Justin putting Jackson on the board right foot forward (i.e. goofy footed) and Justin laughed and told him he didn't even realize he was doing that since he's goofy-footed and was just naturally teaching Jack and Eddie the same. Later, though, after coming down the slope again, he asked Jackson, "Hey, buddy. Do you like riding this way (he was standing goofy) or does it feel more comfortable this way (he turned him around to be regular)?" Jackson immediately turned back to goofy stance and said, "No, I like it this way better!"

Justin then replied, "Good! You're goofy just like dad!"

To which Jack adamantly responded, "No I'm not goofy! I'm good!"

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Eddie has also been cracking us up lately. He's truly Jackson's little side-kick, though he can pack a punch when Jack goes too far. He's also entered the most trying age range (so far) of 2.5 - 3.5. (Where they want to be independent, but can't yet be trusted to be independent.) This has led to some frustration on his end (if only he knew how frustrated he can make me, though! LOL!), to which he has developed some hilarious responses. Our favorite is when he clenches his teeth and kind of angrily growls an, "Oh, Boy!"

Some other Eddie classics:

1. When he comes into our room (before dawn) EVERY morning, gets right in our faces, and wakes us up by excitedly announcing, "Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!" Then Justin or I will scoop him up under the covers with us to snuggle and he'll giggle and cuddle-up close and say with a big smile, "I so happy with you!" (He says this a lot throughout the day, too. I can guarantee this response if I give him chocolate milk, a bowl of pretzels, or turn on Curious George.)

2. He does a wicked gorilla impression. And he likes to pretend that he's a cat.

3. Eddie loves carrying around his animals. Everywhere. He always has several with him in the car, at the store, in bed, in the tub, etc. (Usually a collection of a few beanie babies, plastic farm animals, and plastic dinosaurs.) He's very sweet with them (most of the time) wrapping them in clean diapers (which he uses as blankets) and holding them close to his chest and quietly shushing them saying, "Ohh, ohhh. Shhh." Then he'll whisper to me, "She's fweeping. My baby is fweeping." He also pushes them around in Norah's baby-doll stroller and makes 'nests' for them out of blankets.

4. Eddison is still unbelievably ticklish and has the most beautiful laugh I've ever heard! (I need to get it on video!)

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And how is our little hummingbird?

1. In just the past week she finally got two new teeth bringing her total count to three! :)

2. She is also now walking 90%+ of the time and getting faster at it every day.

3. She can wave 'hello' and 'bye-bye'.

4. And just a few weeks ago Norah started to say, "Mama" (actually to me, not just in babbling which she's been doing for months) in the most adorable little voice. (Finally, I had a child whose first word is 'mama' instead of 'dada'! LOL!) It's so cute and so heart-breaking at the same time when she falls or gets upset and starts crying and looking for me saying, "Mama! Mama!"

5. And now for pictures! She had her 1 year pictures taken at Portrait Innovations - here are a few of the out-takes: