Fearsome Foursome

Yesterday Uncle Andrew bought himself a brand new bike.  Maria brought his old bike and they headed over to our house to get some pointers from two bike-riding pros.

Since the weather has been nice, we've started riding bikes every afternoon around our neighborhood.  These two love it.  It's great exercise and wears them out, too.  Bonus!  They were super excited when Andrew and Maria asked them if they'd like to take their bikes up to Breckinridge Park to ride around.  I stayed home with Lila while she napped, but I heard they had a great time. 
When I asked Jackson about it he said, "we had a really, really, fun time, mom!"  Thanks Andrew and Maria for spending time with J Man and Miss Maddie.  They had a blast.

101

Friday marked the 101st day of school.  I'm pretty sure that this is for all elementary school kids, but Jackson's pre-K class got to celebrate nonetheless.  They went all out with the 101 Dalmations theme,

painting t-shirts, making dog ears and collars,

and even painting their faces!

The kids loved it and had a really great Friday:)

"Me Gym Class!"

Lila and I started attending a Mommy & Me class at gymnastics a few weeks ago.  Since brother's birthday was last Friday, I just got so busy that I flat forgot about her class.  So she had to wait a whole two weeks to return.  I felt terrible!  She was so excited that all I heard from her this morning was, "me gym class!"

She really came out of her shell today and enjoyed almost everything in the gym.  She had fun walking on the colorful beams...

loved hanging from the bars like a little monkey...

had fun swinging from the rings with her feet up in the air...

and even crawled through the tunnel during the warm-up.

It's hard to say that one thing was her favorite, but my guess is that tramploine running took the cake.  She'd say, "ready, set, go!" and take off down the track.  Then she'd wait for me to tell her to come back and she'd take off running again.  She'd go full throttle...

and then collapse on the big blue cush mat when she was done.  The smile just says it all.  After tramp time we went over to do the bars.  Lila did really well on one of the skills with her teacher and when she got down, she clapped her hands together and said, "Good job, Yiya!"
We had such a fun time today and she got two stamps on her feet before we left. 
She was a very happy girl.

Fantastic February Day

It's February 22 and 78 degrees outside.  It doesn't really get much nicer than that!

Lila Lou and I just had to hang out in our backyard today.  She asked if she could pour me some iced tea.  She did a great job getting it into the cup...

and was so happy when I told her it was perfect.  We love this weather.  Please stay this way all spring!!

Healthy as a Horse...

and almost as big as one, too!  We went for Jackson's 5 year check-up at the doctor this week and he got a glowing report.  His favorite part was when the doctor told him that he didn't need any more vaccines until he turns 11.  Woo hoo!!

J man's stats:
Vision: 20/20
Hearing: great (has selective hearing at home, but his ears work perfectly)
Blood Pressure: 97/51
Height: 46 inches (over 95%)
Weight: 46 lbs. (75th-90th%)

Jackson wrote his name very well for Dr. Betty.  He also drew a circle, square and triangle all very nicely.  He knows all of his letters and sounds, our home address, can bathe and dress himself, and is becoming quite self-sufficient.  In fact, the other night, Jared came home to find Jackson in the kitchen just making himself a ham sandwich.  I was rocking Lila to sleep and he was hungry.  Instead of disturbing anyone, he just took care of things himself!  He rides a bike with 18 inch training wheels, although I bet those come off by this summer.  He is a good swimmer and loves sports, especially baseball, football and soccer.  We are starting his second season of t-ball in a month and he is pumped!  He also loves playing his wii games and can pretty much beat the pants off of anyone in baseball.  He's getting better at reading all the time and can sound out many words all on his own.  He loves playing Checkers and Tic Tac Toe.  He's a math whiz!  Seriously--the kid can do multiplication!  When we were at the doctor's office, I asked him to tell Dr. Betty how much five 20s is.  He thought for a few seconds, then said, "100" so confidently.  She was so impressed that she told me to make sure that his elementary school has a program called Math Rocks.  She said that if it doesn't, then we need to find one that does b/c it could really benefit him. 

Jackson is definitely a rough and tumble little boy and loves to wrestle with his friends all the time.  He gets in trouble at school for wrestling and for playing "girl catch."  He also has about 3 girlfriends at any given time.  Right now, he says that Hailey and Peyton are his girlfriends, but he also likes Madeleine from Madison's class.  I gotta hand it to him, he knows which girls are cute.  These three are all so precious. 

Jackson usually sleeps in his bed all night, although sometimes he will come down and climb in bed with us.  He is a good cuddler, so I don't mind one bit.  He sleeps from about 8:15 pm - 7:00am and has been on that schedule for a while.  Naps are long gone.  He is a good eater and can put down some food!  He loves cheeseburgers, meatballs, pizza, drinkable yogurt and chips.  Lots of chips.  He also will choose candy over chocolate any day of the week.  Definitely didn't get that from me! 

He's still a shy kid by nature, but is coming out of his shell more and more.  He hugged his teacher the other day and told her Happy Valentine's Day.  It was a really sweet moment and would have been a real struggle to get him to do only a year ago.  He still loves his mama and is excited about our upcoming date nights when I get to take him to ball practice and then dinner afterwards.  He loves it when his daddy makes it home from work before he goes to bed.  Jackson runs to give him a huge hug right after he walks in the door. 

I love this little boy so very much and cannot wait to see him blossom this year. 

Calling All Superheroes!

We put out the word that all superheroes would be needed at our house this past Saturday.

We were all so excited to be able to celebrate Jackson's (I mean, Batman's) birthday!

I made a sign for our front door letting everyone know that this was party headquarters.

By 2:00 Spidergirl, Batman and Wonder Woman were ready to roll!

Spidergirl and Batman were even flexing their muscles in preparation for the upcoming obstacle course.

Jared and I got into the theme, too, with our Superwoman and Justice League t-shirts...

and Boom came as Superman as well!

We had lots of yummy snacks for our guests to enjoy.

Since it was raining, our first event was the Kryptonite Toss, formerly known as Bean Bag Toss.  There were two teams and the idea was for the first team to finish to get a prize.  Well, not long after we started the teams blended together a bit, so after everyone had had a turn I just gave them all a prize. 
It's tough keeping up with 20 plus kids!

After that, it was time to hit the Batman pinata out on our back patio. 
Batman went first and did a good job--he even knocked a small hole in the pinata so I had to tape it up in order to let the rest of the kids have a chance to hit it!

Spidergirl did good as well, although she wasn't nearly as rough as Batman. 
Almost everyone got a turn before all the candy began spilling out.

Then it was like a gold rush!  Get the candy, get the candy, get the candy!!

Little Wonder Woman wouldn't have gotten any, but her mama swooped in and scooped up two pieces.  She was so excited about her Kit Kat.

After we came back inside it was time to sing to the birthday boy.

He was very concerned about Madison not helping him blow out any of his 5 candles. 
Thank goodness she complied!

All the kids enjoyed their cupcakes...

and ice cream...

while the adults got to savor the oh-so-delicious mexican chocolate cake. 

Thanks, everyone for getting into the theme so much.  Sarah Ruth even wore her cape!

Since it rained throughout the entire party, we weren't able to go run the obstacle course outside.  Boo!  Instead, Batman got to open his gifts, which he loved doing.  Thank you for all of the awesome presents for my little superhero--y'all were way too generous.

We loved seeing our littlest friends...

as well as our cool older friends!

This kid is still working on getting to all of his new toys.  He is so pumped about all of them that it would be silly for me to try and name his favorites.

We hope that y'all had fun and enjoyed your Jackson M&Ms.

Thanks again for making his party really great!  Y'all rock!

Birthday boy festivities

After school on Friday, we all went to Chuck E Cheese to begin Jackson's birthday celebrations.  It was so nice since we got there before the masses.  We stayed for a few hours and the kids had a blast.

They hopped in the monster truck right away.  Lila liked it until it started moving up and down. 
She made a very quick exit after that happened!

It was the same way with horseback riding.  "Get me off, now!!"

The stationary bike was much more suitable for little Miss Priss.

Meanwhile, big brother was off playing football...

while Maddie was showing Lila that the toddler slide was really fun.  She still wanted no part of it though.  Go figure.

We finally convinced her to sit on the Barney Train, but she hopped off before he had a chance to start talking to her.

After toddler area play-fail, we went to look for Memaw and Jackson. 
They were rocking out to Guitar Hero.  Just look at Memaw's concentration!

After pretending that we were real firefighters, we set off to try our hand at racecar driving.  Let's just say that neither of us will probably ever be recruited for Nascar racing.

After a few more games, we finally found something that all of us could do.  Skeeball!!  This was my fave back when I was little and it was really fun getting to play with all three kids.  Lila was throwing two balls at once, Maddie's ball would often times end up in my lane and Jackson had a few wild pitches himself, but we got a ton of tickets and I saw many smiles.

Two hours later we were on our way out of Chuck E Cheese.  Jackson's Gigi bought him a birthday crown to wear and he loved it. 

Tokens: $20
Time spent playing: 2 hours
No one fighting or crying!!: Priceless

That evening we went to Napoli's for Jackson's family birthday dinner.  Afterwards, we came home and let him open his presents.  He got so many cool toys--like this transformer and his hot wheels track.

He was having so much fun opening all of his gifts that he was actually the last one to eat cake and ice cream.  When he was finally done, he told me that it was really good.  I think I'd call that a great first day of being 5.  Stay tuned for party pics. 

5

Five years ago to the day, almost to the hour, this is what I was doing. 

Holding our precious baby boy who had been born that morning.

I was convinced that he was perfection and he immediately stole my heart.  Forever.

Fast forward 5 years and that sweet little baby will be starting Kindergarten soon.  Whoa! 

We love you, J man!  Hope you had a great first day being 5!!