Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for the many blessings we have had this year and for all of our family and friends. Here are Jackson and Kaitlyn wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Short and Sweet - Pictures!

Kaitlyn has now mastered making funny faces. She can even put her legs next to her head while she is making a funny face. Talk about America's Most Talented!


Well, Kaitlyn can now take a shower, in fact, she prefers them. She can almost do this all by herself. Where has our little baby girl gone?

Jackson is going to be rooting for A&M this Thanksgiving. Of course, we had to give daddy a little cheering up, especially after Baylor just killed A&M! Yahooooooooo! (The little scratch on his nose is from falling while trying to walk over his play lawn mower. He fell on his little nose. These little guys sure fall a lot learning to go faster and faster.)

Jackson was smiling up a storm after his first haircut. He can really be a ham! Lately, he has been enjoying turning himself around in a circle, just twisting around and around. Like I have said before, we are really trying to train our kids to be our entertainers, especially since we don't get as much anymore.

5 Cheap Ways to Entertain our Kids

Here are our Top 10 Cheap Ways to Entertain Our Kids:

5. Library Books and Library Times

4. The famous Couch Tent with flashlights

3. Clipping coupons. Kaitlyn loves helping to cut things now.

2. Rake leaves and jump in the piles.

1. Stay up a little later and have fun outside in the dark looking at the moon and stars. Because they hardly ever do this, it is a fun and exciting treat to play in the dark with a few lights on.

My Conversation with Kaitlyn

Besides being the 200th post to this blog, my impromptu conversation tonight with Kaitlyn was deep and so sweet. I was putting her to bed tonight and had told her a Captain Hook story as she requests every night before bed. I could tell she still wasn't ready to be left alone.

I told her that I had to go do some work and that I couldn't stay in her room or she wouldn't be able to go to sleep. She kept saying not to leave her and Jackson and that they needed someone to take care of them. I forgot, she associates "work" with me leaving for 7-Eleven. I reassured her and then she wanted me to ring the wind chime hanging in her room. It gives her some comfort sometimes. This little wind chime is a pretty decoration that my grandmother (Gran) bought for me as a wedding present. I told the history and that I had given it to her to keep. Then she inquired about Gran. She had visited Gran several times before Gran past away in late 2006.

Kaitlyn asked where she was and acted like she remembered her. I said that she was in heaven. I could tell Kaitlyn was thinking really hard and wanted to know more. I told her she was with Jesus and that if you looked up in the sky that this is where heaven was. When I was little, this is where I thought heaven was. And she asked if she could see it. I said it was very far away. She put her arms out wide and said, "This far?" I said yes and some more.

It was so cute to have this little conversation. I had to write this down to not forget it. It is amazing how the powers of conversation just open up and spill over.

Handing Us Books and Growing UP

As much as we all wonder where the time goes, I really wonder how kids change overnight. Jackson is 14 months! He has started dropping things and saying Uh-Oh right after. It is so cute because he says it very softly. He is also loving talking with p sounds and dada, bath and ball. His new favorite thing to do is to hand us a book and climb up on our lap to have us read to him. What Brandon and I really like about this new trick is that he hands us everything. He helped me with laundry just the other day and handed me all the dirty clothes on the ground to put in the washer. He thought it was very fun game.

Favorite toys right now: Balls, Remotes, Phones and Books

He is teething and this time a couple of molars are trying to come through. He has been a little fussy, and he has slowed down on eating. On Thursday, he hardly ate anything. That was huge!! This guy can eat a lot or wants to eat what we have usually.

He is our little copycat too. He loves to copy Kaitlyn when she gives us a strawberry on the cheek. He tries too, but usually not on the cheek.

This week has been crazy with the time change. I asked in Jackson's Kindermusik class if anyone else had this issue and they all said their kids get up at 10 am. Oh man, I was like what time do these kiddos go to sleep. Right now, I just wish mine would stop waking up at 6 am and sleep until 7 or 8 am.

This is the calm before the storm of the holidays. I am definitely trying to take advantage of getting some stuff done early. Maybe it will work. Who knows.

Kaitlyn is about to be 4. Wow! And she is really turning into a little girl. I ask her about what she does at school and she talks about the other kids in the class. She raves about playing tag all of the time. She is even saying things like magic and Presto!

Favorite Things to Do: Color and play games, go to the park

Here are some photos from a little playdate with friends, Ian and Emily. It was tough to get photos of Emily and Jackson as they were running around. Ian and Kaitlyn have been friends since they were babies and definitely miss being in Mother's Day Out together. Emily is four months older than Jackson. Jackson went straight for the pots as he loves to play in dirt.