Keeping up with the Jacksons

The Insider

2009-04-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

I had a doctor's appointment today and all seems to be well with the wee one. The girls have never been to an appointment with me, however, I'm considering bringing them later on so that they can hear the heartbeat...so tonight we had this conversation:

Me: Mommy needs to take you to my doctor's appointment so that you can hear our baby's heart beating and hear it moving around.

Emma: Inside your tummy? How can we hear it?

Me: Yeah. The doctor will put a little machine on mommy's tummy and we'll be able to hear it.

Madelyn: We'll hear his heart and hear it talking to us?

Chad: Yeah. It's going to say, "Hey, let me out of here. Pleeeeaassseee let me out. I wanna get outta here. Pleeeeeeease. Maddie, give me your blankie....I want your thumb...give me your thumb....I want that thumb!"

She laughed but the look on her face said, "You must be crazy. You ain't gettin' my blankie or my thumb."

City Girl

2009-02-22T19:56:00.002-06:00

Tonight, while Chad worked on a sight word reader with Emma, I had Madelyn in the bedroom working on a deck of Brain Quest cards. We flipped to one with a picture of a barn and farm animals and the question was, "What is this place called?" She answered correctly by saying "a farm." On the next card were three pictures and it went something like this:

Me: What is this animal?

Madelyn: A cow

Me: What is the farmer doing? (he was milking the cow)

Madelyn: (pause, then pointing to the final picture that showed an empty can and a can full of milk) That's pee-pee milk.

I guess we should get her out of the city a little more often. And, yes, being the parent of the year, I laughed!

Money Lesson

2009-01-28T19:50:00.002-06:00

We started reading a few new books about money that I got through the school's scholastic book fair. I started with pennies and nickels. After reading both books I asked Emma and Madelyn questions about the them to see what they had picked up on.

I found out that Barack Obama was the president on the penny and Andrew Jackson's house was called Montijello.

I guess we'll need to keep working on that.

Growing in the Garden

2009-01-03T11:26:00.004-06:00

I am always amazed at what my kids say, but Emma has come out with some of the best things that I've heard in a while. Yesterday, I went to Walmart, alone after having been with children 24/7 for the past 13 days, and Emma noticed the vacuum cleaner sitting where the Christmas tree once stood. Chad took the tree out of the house on New Year's day and vacuumed the fallen needles.

She turned to Chad and said, "Daddy, are you finished with that vacuum?"

Chad said, "Yes, I am. Why?"

Emma then said, "Then daddy, are you gonna let it sit there forever?"

I MUST add that I haven't mentioned a WORD about that vacuum and, honestly, had forgotten that it was sitting there!

Also while I was at Walmart, Chad and Emma were playing outside when she said, "Daddy, I want to grow a baby around here."

He told me this when I got home and I asked her questions about who would carry the baby in their tummy and what kind of baby it would be. She decided that mommy would have the baby in her tummy and that it would be a pig baby.

Little does she know that that wish will come true in July!!!

Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-01T08:34:00.002-06:00

Wishing everyone a

HAPPY, HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

meeting a real Rockette!!!

Potato Head Pumpkins and the Sneaky Squirrel

2008-11-12T20:53:00.004-06:00

Here are the girls' pumpkins from halloween. Chad did carve one with them, but this was WAY easier! The last picture is from the halloween party at school...don't they look like they love each other! Emma was very proud to show off her little sister!

We apparently have a squirrel trying to move in. He found the hole in the screen that one of his squirrel friends made a while back. Chad rigged it with some clear tape (it looked real nice, BTW) and the tape fell off. The squirrel found the hole and jumped right in. More than once. I guess we'll have a visitor until the screen is fixed.

The Call

2008-11-05T20:49:00.003-06:00

So I got a phone call today from preschool. When the number came up on the callerID, my heart dropped. You never know what you'll hear. You never know what the news will be.

Me: Hello? holding breath
Mrs. Mary: Mrs. Jackson?
Me: yes

insert deep breath here, fearing the girls are ill or hurt themselves on the playground

Mrs. Mary: I'm calling to tell you that Madelyn....

Oh God, what happened I thought...

Mrs. Mary: Well, she decided to wash her hair in the bathroom sink today. laughing
Me: Oh, really! What did she say?
Mrs. Mary: Well, first it took all I had to keep a straight face, but then I asked her what happened and she said, "It just was like that." Hahahaha I asked her again and she said, "Well, my mommy does it."

Apparently after using the potty, she decided to pump a LARGE amount of soap into her hand, rub her hands together, and spread it all over her hair.......

...and today was PICTURE DAY!!!!!!!

Me: Well, at least you know that I wash her hair!

And before I could ask...

Mrs. Mary: At least it was AFTER her pictures this morning! hahaha I tried to wash it out, but the more water I added, the worse it got, so we are letting it dry. I won't be in the pick-up line today, so I wanted to tell you in case you didn't get the message from the other teachers. At least you'll know what's up with her hair!

You just NEVER know what 3-year-olds are capable of...

I would've taken a picture, but by the time I picked her up, her hair just looked messy. There really wasn't much to see!

I'm baaaAAAAAck!!!

2008-09-22T20:06:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the very long blogging hiatus...It's just that we've been really busy. The girls are back in school, and I have a little more time these days. The girls and I took a trip down to Louisiana back in August and had a wonderful time actually getting to visit with people. I flew with them for the first time by myself, and they were perfect angels for the entire flight. My prayers were answered! Here are some of the highlights of our trip-

Madeline, Emma, and Bella loved dancing to the "chanky-chank," aka French music.

A major accomplishment...Emma swimming with her face in the water and holding her breath!!

Getting to spend time with MawMaw.

Face-painting with make-up...Nana spoils us!!!

Cheering for the team

On the flight down there, Emma kept me entertained with her innocent questions:

"Mommy, when do we get to say blast-off?"

"Is the plane going to fall out of the sky?"

We returned home just in time to start preschool. Emma goes every day, and Madelyn goes MWF. They are loving it, and I am enjoying spending some Mommy/Maddie time (something I've never had).

That's all for now. I'll post more pictures as I come across them.

Madelyn Turns 3!!!

2008-07-22T21:13:00.004-05:00

In case you couldn't tell...this is Cinderella hair.

This is Madelyn's birthday breakfast of choice-cinnamon rolls. Mmmmm!!!

Madelyn chose the Wizard of Oz cake, surprising, I know. She identified all of the characters and then when I asked her who was is the middle, she said a girl. Yes, even a 3-year-old knows that Dorothy doesn't have yellow hair and doesn't wear a red dress with a purple shirt. Oh well, the cake was great any way!

We had this slide set up in the backyard. The party started at 3:30, and the sky fell out from about 3:00 until 3:15. We were able to go on with the show and the kids had a ball.

The birthday girl thinks, Where should I poke my finger first?

Our attempt at a shot with the birthday girl...ALL of these pictures had a finger in the nose!

Where do chicken nuggets come from?

2008-07-09T19:51:00.003-05:00

Monday afternoon, I took Emma and Madelyn to visit the nurses at Chad's office. Dr. Bob was there and told the girls that they could come to his house to help him pick vegetables in his garden.

Fast-forward to tonight. The four of us were sitting at the table eating dinner, and our conversation went a little something like this:

E: Daddy, when can we go to Dr. Bob's?
Me: You mean to pick vegetables?
E: Yeah.
C: Well, we can't go tonight because it's raining, but maybe we can go to Dr. Bob and Mrs. Debbie's this weekend.
M: I don't like vegetables. (insert 'we know that' look on my face to Chad) Does he have (inaudible)?
C: What Maddie?
M: Does he have chicken nuggets?
C and me at the same time: In his garden?
M: Yeah.

laugh, laugh, laugh....

She was DEAD serious!!!! What does she think? McDonald's has a chicken nugget garden?

Like, Totally

2008-07-02T20:44:00.002-05:00

Sunday night, Chad was putting Emma to bed. After he read to her they had this conversation:

C: Emma, did you have fun at Maddie's party? (pictures soon to follow)

E: Her party was totally cool.

C: Really? Did you like the slide? (we had a water slide)

E: It was genius.

We'll never know who she heard that from!

Good, Clean Fun, part 2

2008-06-14T10:58:00.004-05:00

The girls wanted to help me wash off their stamps since they were full of layers of ink. I said yes and stepped away to answer the phone and a few minutes later found this. Keep in mind that they really aren't able to actually wring out a washcloth...

Good, Clean Fun, part 1

2008-06-14T10:51:00.004-05:00

Our friends, Elizabeth and Stephen, came over last week for some wet backyard fun. The backyard quickly became very muddy when the kids were sliding into the sprinkler onto the grass. They would then jump into the pool to rinse off. The last picture is the result of that...and look at the mud splattered on Emma's face.

I'm a big kid now!

2008-06-12T07:45:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a big day for Madelyn. She graduated from a crib to a big girl bed. She only got out of it 5 times for nap time...I consider that to be great!

I guess with all of the excitement, she had some what of a stressed afternoon. After swimming at the YMCA for two hours, Chad and I took them to eat at Toot's. Emma will eat the fried shrimp there and Madelyn get a free kids meal. M needed to potty, so off we went. I then proceeded to help her wash her hands which she wanted to do "all by myself!" When she was spilling the soap everywhere, I picked her up and stuck her hands under the water. She looked at me and said, "Stop it, stop it. Stop it you little rat!" What do you think I did...turned my face so that I could laugh, then told her not to say that.

Fast-forward to this morning-I'm sitting at the computer, which is just outside her bedroom. When she woke up, I heard her say with a most enthusiastic voice, "WOOOW! My big girl bed! Oh, my gosh, my big girl bed." I'd say that she redeemed herself!

Sisters on Stage

2008-06-10T22:04:00.003-05:00

The girls had their performance at school at the end of May. They both sang and danced like they were pros. After that night, I decided that they were ready for the big stage. Emma and I went to see a few dance recitals, and I'm going to sign them up for fall dance classes.....can't wait!

Here is a photo of Emma and her two teachers, Christy and Kathy. These ladies were AMAZING to say the least. We'll miss them next year! BTW, they had a luau party the last day of school.

This is just of us being silly. We were about to go for a swim and the girls love to make silly faces for the camera, so there you go!

I promise I'll catch up with posts. I've been busy downloading pictures to snapfish. I hadn't had pictures printed since Madelyn was about 6 months old. Now, I'm up to date and almost organized into photo albums. I will never wait that long again!!!

House Call

2008-05-30T21:44:00.002-05:00

This afternoon, the girls and I were playing on the swing set and the mosquitos were eating me alive. I managed to coax the kids inside where we sat on the floor and they dabbed my legs with Benedryl Itch Relief sticks (which I highly recommend). As Madelyn was taking care of my left leg, I thanked her for taking such good care of me and this is what she said: "Mommy, I duh beautiful doctor and I gonna sabe you." It made my heart melt!

Strawberry Pickin' and fine art

2008-05-26T22:26:00.003-05:00

First off, take a look at this bunny that Emma made at school. She is so proud of it!

A few weeks ago, my friend and I took the kids to pick strawberries. This is something that we did last year and had so much fun. Here are a few of my favorites of the girls. Don't be deceived-Madelyn has quite a few...I was helping her pick the really red ones.

Slacker...

2008-05-22T22:08:00.001-05:00

Update coming soon with pictures-things have been busy around here as we've been approaching the end of "school."

More soon, I promise!

Good Times

2008-05-07T15:43:00.003-05:00

On Monday night, we were playing with some of the features of our computer, one of which was something called "photo booth." There were all of these different ways to distort the image, as you can see above. Emma was sitting on Chad's right thigh, and Madelyn was sitting on his left thigh. Because Madelyn is smaller than Emma, she was in the lower corner of the picture at first. After about ten minutes of us laughing at what we looked like, Chad picked Madelyn up so that her face could be distorted. When she saw herself on the screen she began screaming, "No, no, noooooo!" She grabbed her nose thinking that it had become 6 inches long. Well, Chad and I started laughing at how she thought that her face actually looked like the photo on the screen. She jumped off of his lap and ran to her room sobbing, and of course we were on the floor rolling and crying in laughter at all that had taken place.

Hopefully we haven't ruined her body image...

Two princesses in the palace

2008-05-06T22:22:00.002-05:00

Last night I listened to this conversation between Emma and Madelyn:

E: Maddie, do you have a secret?
M: Do you have a majesty?
E: No, do you want to be the prince?
M: No, the princess.
E: Ok, I'm the princess and you're the prince.

I guess that makes me the evil stepmother, right? I don't think this castle is big enough for the two of them...

Maybe her future is in pet grooming?

2008-04-17T11:07:00.002-05:00

So after the Barbie haircutting incident, I hid all of the scissors. Emma managed to remember that there was a tiny pair of scissors in a compartment on the front of my embroidery machine, under a cover. You see where this is going....

this is what the horse looked like before-

Here is after...

After the grooming session, there was hair everywhere! I rolled the vacuum out of the closet and gave it to her. I stood there while she vacuumed all of the hair. I should also mention here that she's not a huge fan of loud noise unless she is generating it. She was not thrilled to be vacuuming the hair, and needless to say, she hasn't tried to cut the hair of anything since. It's been almost 2 weeks.

Out with the old, in with the new...

2008-04-16T14:51:00.003-05:00

So today, Emma summoned be to the bathroom. I squatted down to be eye level with her because she was trying to tell me something. She stopped telling me her story and said this:

Emma: Mommy, sometimes your knees crack.
Me: Yes, sometimes they do. It's because mommy is getting older.
Emma: Yeah, then we'll have to get a new mommy.

Bathing Beauties

2008-04-14T21:14:00.002-05:00

We were so lucky to be able to travel down to Panama City Beach with Chad's aunt and her 2 youngest daughters. It was a little wild at times with 4 children ages 5 and under, but we had a great time. The weather was much warmer than it was in Tennessee!

Here is everyone dressed and ready for a day at the pool. Victoria is on the left and Samantha on the right.

We took the girls to a kiddie amusement park one morning when it was a little overcast. The spinning ride was definately a favorite. Believe it or not, not one of them got sick!

Here is Emma on the pre-school go-karts.

She wasn't a huge fan...especially after she ran into the track wall.

One thing she did LOVE-the sand!!!

These are pettiskirts that Santa found for the girls. We had a blast playing on the beach with them, and of course I had the camera in hand. Take a look at that sassy little girl...is this a glimpse of the future?

Having fun in the sand...

I'll leave you with this one. Does this not look like an ad for something?

P.S. You may wonder why most of the pictures are of Emma. Madelyn won't look at the camera, and Emma is a camera hog. So, so typical!

Louisiana Trip, Part 2

2008-04-14T20:23:00.002-05:00

I caught a fish, and it was this big!!!

Madelyn wanted to kiss the fish, but she settled for petting it!

This was our first fishing trip with the girls. They had so much fun. It helped that it was a stocked pond that has so many fish, you don't even have to bait the hook. A very special 'thank you' to Vickie and Cecil for letting us fish their pond and making more memories with our girls.

Our Louisiana Visit, Part 1

2008-04-03T10:27:00.018-05:00

The Easter bunny brought these
really cool sunglasses since he knew
that they would need them for the
long trip. Man that rabbit is smart!

Emma and Madelyn met their cousin, Nathan,

for the first time. They loved holding him even though he wasn't thrilled. Now if only they could be that sweet to each other...

Emma plays with her clawless crawfish before he went for a swim in
the red waters of a big stainless steel pot. Don't worry, he did get to swim in nice clean water inside the house, on the kitchen counter, in a giant measuring
cup before he met his fate.

Emma LOVED eating crawfish. She perched herself at the head of the table
and managed to eat them without getting her hands dirty. Everyone at the
table peeled them for her. She's a smart cookie!

Josh, Emma, Zack, Matt, & Madelyn had so much fun together. It was amazing to watch these "tough" boys entertain our little girls!

On to Baton Rouge to meet our friends and their children, Greg, Tonya, Connor, and Mary Catherine. We walked FOREVER all over LSUs campus and reminisced about our college days there. We walked through the quad during class change. I'm afraid that this time around we were not mistaken for college kids! Boy did we feel old!

By late afternoon, the girls had had just about all they could take and went to sleep before we left campus. They were able to take a nap while we drove to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner.

Part 2 will have to wait...the girls and I leave for the beach tomorrow! And just maybe, I'll have this blogger thing figured out!

She just might have a future cutting hair!

2008-04-01T16:54:00.005-05:00

Wedding Day Barbie recently visited Salon Emma.

This is what she looked like before she sat in the chair:

This is the cut that she left with:

At least is wasn't her own hair, right?

Anybody seen a doctor?

2008-03-31T20:01:00.005-05:00

During our prayers tonight, our conversation went something like this:

Emma: Mommy, are all the people sick?

Me: um, no.

Emma: Who is sick so that we can pray for them?

Me: Uh, well daddy is sick, remember, he has a sore throat.

Emma: Oh yeah, he has a sword froat, just like you had a pickle (i.e. tickle) in your froat.

My "Activia"

2008-03-17T22:06:00.003-05:00

Here is Emma with her handmade "activia," aka nativity. Despite my continued correction to her mispronunciation, her version still remains.

Winter Wonderland

2008-03-17T21:48:00.005-05:00

So we made it outside before all of the snow
had melted. The snow was wet...perfect for making snow balls to throw at each other.

Emma thought it was so fun.

Madelyn, on the other hand, wasn't thrilled.

We did manage to build a snowman. He was about 6" tall and only had arms. At least we tried!

After 10 minutes of cold, wet fun, I bribed the girls with some hot chocolate so that I could defrost!

Swaddling for Toddlers

2008-03-17T20:47:00.005-05:00

So the girls wanted to be swaddled like a baby. They got their favorite blankets, and I rolled them up tight. The couldn't move at all...but you know what? They loved it! What's even better-I loved it...they were playing together but separated and couldn't fight.

Oh Boy, this will be so fun...

2007-12-28T23:09:00.000-06:00

if only any body reads this...