Our Week in Review

Now that Jack is getting older, our weeks are getting busier and busier. I try to take as many pictures as I can, but sometimes it's hard to work the camera and chase after Jack. We had playgroup at Case and Keeton's house Thursday, and I took my camera, but never took pictures. The memory of that fun day will just have to live in our minds. Jack is really getting to be a big boy. He has little friends in the neighborhood. He knows their names and where they live. He loves for us to walk to their houseand visit. Especially two sweet, little girls - Peyton and Carly Brooke. We walked to their house Friday afternoon and the entire time Jack was saying, "I go see Carly Brooke." They are so sweet and play so well with Jack. This is a great neighborhood for kids.

I've told you before, Jack will wear anything as a hat.

Even the Happy Meal box. He used this box as a hat

for about two days (before I threw it away). And it took me about two

shampoos to get the smell out of his hair.

Look at his ear in this picture.


Friday night, our neighbor Karen
(aka - Lady) informed me of the big, beautiful,
full moon. This weekend the moon
was the brightest and closest to the earth
that we are suppose to see until the year 2029.
So, I had to get everyone outside to see it. I got
Jack out of bed and John was about half asleep
in his chair, as you can probably tell in this picture.
We headed out and I am so glad we did. Jack loved
the big moon and all of the stars.

They finally woke up enough to

enjoy it. Saturday night Jack wanted to

go outside and see the moon again. So we did,

but we had a lot of clouds hanging around and

every time we went outside we couldn't see the

moon. He cried and cried. The clouds finally cleared

around 10:30 and it was a beautiful moon. But we decided

not to wake Jack. It would have taken him for-ever

to get back to sleep.

Enjoying some good tv.

Saturday was a warm, beautiful day.

I bought Jack three strawberry plants

and got them planted. I filled his water bucket

so he could water them. And that lead to this.

Jack stripped down to his diaper, soaking wet,

playing in the water.

He tripped over second base and slid across the grass.

John is trying to clean him up.

I thought since we were outside

and Jack was having so much fun

pouring water over his head,

I might as well pull out the baby shampoo

and give him a good head washing.

And that's what I did.
It saved us time in the bath tub later that night.

He loved for John to squirt him

with the hose.

Look at the water in his diaper!

Saturday, at lunch, I asked Jack what he and his dad

wanted me to fix for dinner that night.

Jack answered, "Pizza and happy birthday cake!"

When I was putting him down for his afternoon

nap, he told me he wanted chocolate birthday cake.

So for dinner Saturday night, after he had a good

warm bath, Jack enjoyed Pizza Hut pizza

and a piece of chocolate birthday cake.

And yes, we had to have candles!

And yes, we had to sing "Happy Birthday".

Here he is blowing out his candles.

John thought we were silly. But as I told

him, I celebrate the day Jack was born

everyday in my heart, so why not have cake and candles?

Wordless Wednesday

Busy, Busy, Busy

That's the best way to describe our lives these days. And it's not that we go somewhere everyday, it's just that Jack is always on the go. Running, dancing, talking, exploring, getting into things he shouldn't. If he didn't crash every afternoon from 1:00 until 4:00, I would probably be in the looney bin.

This month, we experienced another first! Our first trip to the emergency room. One morning we were getting ready to go into town and Jack found a Q-Tip in the bathroom cabinet and jammed it in his ear. He screamed an awful scream, one I had not heard before and I knew it was bad. So I ran to the firstt aid cabinet and got my ear scope (yes, I have an ear scope) and looked in his ear. All I could see was a gush of blood from his inner ear. So, I grabbed Jack and off to town we went in search of medical treatment. By the time I got him in the car he had settled down and was laughing at me for acting so crazy. We first went to a doctor here in town that I have used for years. We were turned away by his receptionist and nurse. The receptionist was upset because Jack was going to be a new patient and she would have to put a chart together for him. And in her own words, "Do you know how long that will take me?". And the nurse, I guess, wanted to help her out and told us this doctor was not qualified to look into a child's ear and tell if the ear drum had been busted or was still intact. And while all of this was going on we could all see the blood dripping out of Jack's ear. But still, they denied my bleeding two year old medical treatment and we went on our way. And by the way, we have excellent medical insurance. We then headed to GLMC emergency room. By the time we got there I was a wreck. Partly because I was worried about Jack, although he was acting fine, and partly because of the run in I had just had at the doctor's office. I guess the nice, young EMT could see I was about at the end of my rope, so he came around to help me with Jack. And I will stop right here and tell you, if you have to use GLMC ER, try to go in the morning. Never have we been treated so nice by the staff. And for those of you who have had to go late in the day or at night, you know that's saying a lot. We had to wait about 20 minutes before we saw a doctor (yes, I said 20 minutes!) The EMT had looked in Jack's ear and the bleeding had stopped and he said his ear drum looked good. So the EMT could tell the ear drum was intact, but the first doctor would not have been able to? The ER doctor came in, said all looked good and we could go home. He took a whole 23 seconds to meet with us!! We left and I came home and immediately called Dr. Ellison's office (Jack's Pediatrician in Madison). I talked to his nurse for a long time and she made me feel so much better. But we decided that my mom and I should take Jack to Madison and have him look at the ear (if nothing else, just to make me feel at ease). John agreed. It would just make us feel better. So, a couple of days later, that's what we did and he got a clean bill of health! No damage to the ear or ear drum. Thankfully we have survived another first!

Jack had a great time visiting with everyone

and playing at the ER. Later on

that day, he crashed. I called John on our way into town

to tell him what had happened. He was working in Tchula

that morning, so by the time he got back to his office

and was able to get to Grenada, we were already home.

But we were still glad to see him.

If you think he looks frazzled in this

picture, you should have seen me!

I love this picture, because it reminds me of this...

When Jack was a new born, John would come home from work,

eat dinner, then sit and hold Jack for hours. Seeing

these two pictures really shows me how fast time is

passing by. I wish it would slow down a little bit.

This is our new way of posing for pictures.

I don't know if you can tell, but he's saying,

"CHEEEEEESE".

It was time once again to host playgroup at out house!!
I was so excited, because I think I've told you before,
that I love having people over. And I love feeding people.
The week of, John and I scrubbed the house to make
sure it was clean. John did most of the work for me.
The night before, as he was mopping our bathroom
and I was sitting in the bed reading a magazine,
he turned to me and said, "I know you love to throw
parties, but it sure is a lot of work for me."

For refreshments, we had Toy Story cheese crackers,
honey Teddy Grahams, pretzels, and grapes.


For the sweet tooth that we all have, we had
Jelly Bellies and M&Ms. YUUUMMMM

Jack LOVES grapes!
Or as he calls them, "Gapes".

Jack is still obsessed with hats.

Here he is trying on Elizabeth's baby

bottle top. Although it's a little small, I have to

give him an A+ for imagination.

Case and Bradley

I don't know where these two thought they were going,

but they were going to have a fun time getting there.

Bradley playing some

"Rock 'n Roll".

He loves the drums and is going to be a good

musician one day. We all got tickled when he

was talking about playing rock 'n roll, because his dad

is currently in seminary studying to

become a church minister of music.

Case brought a baseball hard hat with him

and Jack ended up wearing it the entire time.

It was so nice of Case to share. (Case is really great

at sharing.) And, as I have said before, Jack is

obsessed with hats. All hats!! We wear them and talk about

them all day, everyday.

Sweet, sweet baby Keeton.
Keeton turned 1 this weekend.

Happy Birthday!

By the time all was said and done, Bradley had

the drum sticks, Case and Jack had my wooden

spoons and everything was a drum. It got loud

(really loud), but they were

having a ball, so we just rolled with it.
After all, it's rock 'n roll!

Jack took several breaks to go around to

every one's plates and eat their leftovers.

This weekend, we enjoyed a picnic outside

in the sun. I knew rain was coming in Monday,

so we tried to get Jack outside as much as we could.

He loves being outside. We can't wait until

everyday is sunny and dry.

Thinking about what he wanted to do after his picnic.
He decided to play a little t-ball. I was raking leaves,

John was helping Jack, so we didn't get any pictures.

I walked into the den yesterday and saw

Jack looking like this and he

looked so sad. I asked him if anything was

wrong and he told me he was thinking.

He's been thinking a lot lately.

I wish I knew what went on inside that sweet,

smart head of his.

Catching Up

Last week was fun and busy. It seems like we had somewhere to go everyday. We are loving the weather! The wind is a little strong from time to time, but the sunshine more than makes up for it. Last Thursday, Jack's play group got together at Case and Keeton's house. And a good time was had by all. I think the boys enjoy going from house to house each week because it gives them different things to see and different toys to play with. Jack found a hat to wear first thing. Hats are a big deal right now. Any and all hats. I've been teaching him that you do not wear hats at the table. So if he is wearing a hat when it's time to eat, he will take it off and set it on the buffet until he's done. It makes me very proud that he is starting to use his manners on his own.


Below are our play group pictures.

Two Cowboys!

Jack & Case

Jack loved playing with the cash register.

Baby Keeton!

He is Case's younger brother and so cute.

He's very good and enjoys watching the

big boys play. It won't be long before he's

right in the middle of them.

Snack Time!!

The Knights of the Round Table.

Case

Jack loves slides.

This is how he gets up them. We've tried

to get him to go up the right way, but he

likes his way the best.

The backs of Truett and Bradley.
It was hard to get good pictures of faces

because all of the boys were so busy.

Sir Winston Churchill
a.k.a Winston

That night, John came out of the shower to find

this. Jack loves to sit in laundry baskets. And

as you can tell in this picture, I had let my laundry

pile up! It was clean, just not folded.

Friday we bought Jack a T-Ball set.

And this was his reaction!

Lovely!! We don't know why,

just because.

Along with the tears was a very nasty attitude.
So, after a stearn talking to, he was sent to time out

until he could get his attitude in check. This took about 20

minutes of sitting in his bed.

T-Ball take two.
After time out and apologizing

for his behavior, he was fine.
See how he holds the bat? He hits the ball

with the handle of the bat. This bugs John,

but I told him we can work on that later. I didn't want

him poking the bear after the earlier episode.

There's plenty of time to learn.

He had to stop the game to

watch an airplane fly over the house.

Jack gets so excited when he sees or hears

an airplane.

Third base.

Saturday was my sister Nicole's birthday.

So we traveled to Tupelo to celebrate her birthday and

John's belated birthday. We all met at the

James E. Ballard Park for a picnic and fun.

I wish Grenada had a park like this. It's in the middle

of town and has a huge walking trail around the entire park.

You feel very safe while you're there.

It would be a great place for us to have our

play groups in the summer.

As I mentioned before, Jack loves slides!
On his tummy is his favorite way to get down.

Opening presents.

Sweet Baby Harrison.
Next year he will be right in the thick of things.

Walking to go feed the ducks.

Faster Cookie

We haven't come across anything Jack is afraid of yet.

Especially water. He loves getting in water.

John caught him right before he stepped

into the pond. And this set off an hysterical

meltdown. He could not understand why we would not

let him in the water. And that's why he is already signed up

for swimming lessons this summer.

The End!