Merry Merry from the Perrys [2008]

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

We Are Family

Annie loves to sing. We have a CD from a Perry Family trip to Hunt this summer. There were 30 of us and everyone suggested a song to put on the CD. The first song on the CD is "We Are Family". We listen to the CD often because it has some fun songs to sing like "We Are Family", "Surfin' USA" and more. One day Annie started singing "We Are Family" on her own and this is the way she hears it...



We have 2 very dear Emilys in our life that Annie knows well.One is my sister-in-law and the other is one of my best friends.
Thankfully I know they won't get a complex.

we have issues

sleeping.

last night was incredible. i wish in the good sense of the word. but, not at the perry household. our sleep issues are all over the board. jack likes to sleep ALOT [as do his brothers - it's amazing how many hours these boys can sleep if given the opportunity], i have had some degree of insomnia since jackson was born [maybe because i want to relive my college fun days, maybe that's the only quiet time i have in a day or maybe those are the only hours i can get some solid work done]. it's pretty bad...i see 2am quite often. more often than i see my mom or my bestest of friends.

annie is good...usually. once she hears me start singing "good night sweetheart" her head goes on my shoulder and i get a few pats on the back from her [probably one of my favorite moments of each and every day...or to console me with my bad singing voice saying "mom it's ok you don't have to sing"] and i put her down and she lays on her side and goes to sleep. after our vacation she now asks for us to say a prayer with her [melt my heart] and always will add people [like recently we've been praying for my grandfather, "papa" because he is sick - he has shingles and if i forget to mention papa she will remind me] she always says [in her sweet raspy voice] "and Jesus". ok, so that's the sweetness of her new routine. the flip side is she wants us to sleep with her or she wants to lay in our bed with one of us and with jackson [as i did on vacation - 3 of us in a double bed - blog entry to come soon].

jackson...he's just been hard from the get go. i used to rock him to sleep...rocking for a LONG time. jack finally had to take over and let him cry it out. i couldn't handle that - i had to leave the house when he did that [i think jackson was 9 months]. i do baby my babies. for about a year he was good. then he got a big boy bed and would get out over and over...sometimes until midnight. since then he's just hard to wind down. he has more energy than i can fathom. last night was an all time high on the richter scale of energy. after waking up early, going to school, running errands with me, afternoon activities at home i thought for sure this little guy will be so tired. WRONG! he couldn't settle down. i'm sure he's trying to get used to this new schedule [of one day] after a relaxed bedtime during the summer. so, it might take a little time...more so than i had perceived.

so last night i laid with annie for 30 minutes until she was out. got up and tip toed into my room where jackson should have been...no jackson. went downstairs and jack said that jackson was having trouble going to sleep and that they were going for a walk. control freak took over and put jackson to bed and told him not to come out or he'd get in trouble. after 20 minutes of screaming, "daddy!!!" [which jack wanted to record because it was a first for him to choose this parent's name to shout] jackson was out...around 10:30pm...and then up at 7:45am. mom just needs to cool it a little and realize transitions are hard for 4 year olds. opps.
other issue...notice that jackson's head is about the size of his teacher's head! my kids have huge noggins.
other issue...think i broke my first bone in my body. this is true...i've never broken a bone until 2 nights ago. and when and if i did break a bone for the first time i do it in a very wimpy and non assuming place...my little toe. it's blue and purple and hurts a little. but, no little toe cast exists...there goes any sympathy i could have received [haha.]

no tears!

annie has a mouthful of blueberries

jackson's school - we're going public!

jackson had his first day of preK today.

i can cry like a baby at the drop of a hat but sometimes i amaze myself. today i didn't cry nor did i cry at my wedding but put "i am sam" on the t.v. and you'd think that something was really wrong in my life after that movie. oh...or on saturday we watched the bucket list and there's a part in the end where jack nicholson's character meets his granddaughter for the first time after being estranged from his daughter and he kissed her and then he marks off the list, "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world". [sidenote::jack also cried during this part and it's all because of the fact that we have annie::girl can make her daddy into a softie] but, 12 hours later at church after communion jack asks me, "do you know when i lost it during the movie last night?". i started crying. that was it...not even an answer from jack or me but i just start crying. so i cry e.a.s.y!

ok..back to preK. so we woke up at 7:45 so we could leave by 8:15. jackson isn't a morning person. takes him 5 or 10 minutes to get out of bed, isn't hungry until an hour or so later, just wants to take it easy for a little while when he wakes up. well, that wasn't happenin today. oh...totally gets his night owl, not a morning person traits from his mom. we tried to eat a bowl of blueberries on the way to school. annie ended up eating most of them because i forgot to give her breakfast [thinking i'd go home afterwards and then we could eat...but we went straight to target] notice the nap mat - good luck with getting this little live wire to settle down.
jackson was a little confident man walking into that classroom. he thrives on structure and being social. therefore, i'm not called to home school...thank you Lord.
dropping him off, i remembered his little round face when i dropped him off at chapelwood for the first time [crying...me not jackson]. i still remember what he wore, his chubby fingers, huge cheeks and the one thing that hasn't changed in 3 years...his big bed head. oh my little dude, i'm so excited for you, proud of you and can't wait to pick you up today. we're going to go to baskin & robbins to celebrate his first day of school. he'll eat it up!

i got so many errands run today than i did the entire summer. seriously, thanks preK...getting us out of the house at 8:15am did wonders to my to do list. that's where jackson and i are alike...we camp out in the morning until 10 or so and then we get going. not any more...at least until may.
here's jackson with is new teacher, mrs. seeta. get ready for some strong willed energy from this rascal. it'll be fun.annie just woke up from a great nap - she fell asleep at 11:30! she usually falls asleep at 2ish! i think she was worn out from all of our errands. i loved her early nap! what a great day.

what do you think of my blog...

i know! "lame, lame, lame, lame, lame"
that's the first thing that comes to mind.

does anyone know what incredible movie that is from?
we've watched it 10 or more times this summer.

updates coming soon...hopefully today!

sugar monsters

to get the kiddos to actually brush their teeth i always say, "we have to get all of those sugar monsters off of your teeth." otherwise they would suck on the tube of toothpaste because it tastes more like candy than toothpaste. i fear the day that i promote them to real toothpaste..which probably should have already happened. oh well, i just happy they brush their teeth every day.

so here are some cute sugar monsters at the museum. we went to see the grossology exibhit - we shot burgers into huge nostrils, made tooting sounds, created burps and some kids became poop as they climbed through the small intestine and out the tunnel onto an appropriate colored brown mat. ick or actually gross.

my everyday camera is still stuck in the "lens out" position and doesn't work. so sarah took this picture of our kiddos, aka sugar monsters. it was fun and it was FREE [thanks to the workings of sarah].

even though it was lots of fun, we were with 4 kiddos 4 and under so we had to have some margaritas afterwards!

gang perry hits the beach

ok...a quick post since it's been ages.

recently i keep hearing behind me, "i'm free to do what i want, any ol' time." that's how i feel since schools out - no more teaching. i've only put on makeup for church, i've only fixed my hair for church and an occasional dinner with family but i'm excited to not have to be "on" everyday for a group of 30 teenagers. jack's let me sleep in a couple of times...one time until 10am...i'm sure i was up until 3am that night but still...sleeping until 10am...glorious!

more appropriately, i'm sure that theme song is jackson's since he thinks he's pretty much in control of all things around him.

so here's our gang at the beach:annie perry, member of gang perry, in her adorable state. in about 5 hours she will start the gang perry yelling, lasting quite sometime which made her hoarse the next day.
jackson perry, member of gang perry, flashes our gang sign at the beach. he also is sporting his dragon tatoo, a marking of gang perry. he did look funny with this tatoo on his stomach at the beach. thankfully the other 2 had faded and we were just left with this one. and thankfully annie wears a one piece or you'd get to see her colorful stomach also.

here is the entire gang. check out how annie is using my hair as reigns to keep from falling backwards. it hurt.
believe it or not...this is the best picture we got as a family. it was right before we left so the kiddos were not cooperative at all...i'm sure it would have been the same story right when we got there or even half way through our visit. needless to say, this ones out of the running for our christmas picture.

we had so much fun at the beach...it was breezy and the time flew by! the kids made it pretty easy because they are somewhat afraid of the water so they'd run to the edge, never go past ankle deep water and run back, over and over. we'll head back again soon!

out come the uniforms

seems like anytime we go out to eat recently we see a swarm of baseball caps and baseball pants - it's baseball season and we are excited! tonight we went to skeeters and there were some 9 year old baseball players [maybe 9?] and a heard of parents all talking about this team and that team and their record. i'm sure we soon will turn into those parents. jack can't wait! he even went to chat with one of the dad's to get research on which league to put your son in.

oh...and matt, the manager at skeeters, decided to chat it up with us for a good 15 minutes while we ate. we go there way too often because we didn't mind it at all. and you can't forget clint the guy who always takes our order. our conversation always goes like this: "hey clint. i'll have the chicken quesadillas without onions." clint always responds, "ok, so chicken quesadillas, extra onions." haha, clint! you used that last time, and the time before that and the time....

ok...so i added to this blog entry which messed up my transitions...so before my revision the transition was pretty good...so i should have ended the last section with and jack can't wait.

in the meantime, jackson started t-ball and jack is coaching.
it's just flat out cute. hitter hits a grounder 10 feet in front of the plate, 5 3-foot-boys run after the ball and tackle each other trying to get to the ball, one boy emerges successful after pinning the ball under his glove [only purpose for a glove in tball is to trap a ball underneath], the other boys are visibly mad [especially my boy] that they didn't trap the ball first, all the parents yell "throw it to first!", the kid at first is picking his nose and doesn't notice, then all of a sudden the hitter is now running after the ball in right field...hilarious!

here is leo...he loves this red helmet that he can't see out of and he's super cute!had a few small mom tragedies this week: i missed jackson's first game to make a buck and take advantage of a great photo op. missing his game was followed by me missing his first field trip because i had to teach equations of circles to teenagers. anyways, no first tball game for me. instead i got to take pictures at a fundraiser for the houston junior forum. the guest speaker was oprah's old chef, art smith. how cool! he was a good sport and such a gentleman and had a good sense of humor. i'm sure he's a good cook too...come on, oprah...he must have talent. here he is:

he made cucumber soup while telling stories about oprah. he would act like he was oprah and say things like, "oh, girl, you gotta have some of this." it was great the way he imitated her.
then he made this salad lickety-split. yummy!

em has a fever and the doctor said the only cure is a blog! or is it cowbell

here you go...hope your fever goes away because i don't have cowbell

"ketchup"

spring is here and i feel the need to catch up on everything - catch up on our blog, clean out my entire house, catch up on LOST, finally write birthday thank yous, buy a new duvet cover for my bed along with pillows etc, get some spring clothes, the list goes on and on...as usually not only when spring has sprung.

probably the only thing that needs to be done is to purge our entire house and clean it - since our housekeeper ran away about 3 months ago after an afternoon with jack - the high maintenance home owner. and after she left i thought, "hey let's save some bucks and not find a new one." and since that thought we have not had anyone come over to our house to hang out and there's a reason for that. true...a lame reason - our house is quite the mess.

here are some pics from the kiddos birthday party at the ranch - and if aunt trish will allow us to come every year it's a no-brainer! this was fun, relaxing and the kiddos ran around everywhere and had a great time. none of my arts and crafts station things were utilized...oh well. my 3 foot cow that i drew never had a tailed pinned on - but now makes a great new addition to the artwork at the ranch. so...note to self for next year: bouncey house, one pinata, and some food and we'll have a boomin' party...oh and jack's sangria - his new addition to any party is his sangria. yummy!

more pics to come but here are my favorites from the day [none of jackson because he didn't know how to stand still long enough for a picture].
so here's our "love love" looking super sweet
a glimpse at annie's first date:
lizzie - annie's new obsession. she walks around our house talking about lizzie.
diego - careful when you see this darling - baby envy starts to get to you!
too late to post more pics...will do so soon!

4 on 2, 2 on 4, 31 on 14 and 7 on 17

this is our march madness - which like basketball's march madness occurs every year.

jackson turned 4 on march 2nd
annie turned 2 on march 4th
jack turned 31 on march 14th [today!]
we will celebrate 7 years of marriage on the 17th

here are some pictures at some of our celebrations:
jackson and annie's ranch party - i think that hat saw the light of day for the first time in 7 or so years.
all the grandparents [and a couple of great grandparents] at skeeters for annie's birthday - i won't make this one black and white so we can see jackson's teeth! he went crazy asking all of his grandparents and great grandparents for quarters - he won a blue gumball. we could have probably paid for college off of how many quarters he got.

off to the rodeo to celebreate jack's bday...yee haw! i'll have to pay major catch up this weekend on our blog. lots of pictures and stories to come.

happy birthday to my sweet hubby!

overboard with love

the pictures say it all...

the cause: myself + tea at 11pm and my odd love for projects

my fears:
1. tomorrow morning [it's super late right now]
2. valentines day 2009 [where do i go from here]
3. the palm of my hand after punching lots of holes [that were too small so i had to punch again to make them bigger - makes me excited about my manicure tomorrow]

we do what we can...thanks fred!

thought i'd start to catch up by telling you about fred - our elf. fred came to live with us right after thanksgiving. fred is an elf from the north pole. we could consider him our foreign exchange student. he sat in our house from thanksgiving to christmas and at night flew to the north pole to tell santa if jackson and annie were good that day. our realistic and idealistic disciplinary efforts sometimes are in need of a little creative discipline. fred was that. if jackson started acting up we'd have pretend [out loud] conversations with fred. [a little on the verge of social dysfunction, similar to schizophrenia] they'd sound something along the lines of "oh, what fred? you hear jackson whining?" etc...you get the idea. but it worked! so, now that fred returned home to the north pole we are missing him. oh the whacky-ness we teach our kiddos. oh and yes...fred is kinda freakish when your eyes catch him late at night.

my writer's strike is over

finally. 2008 has hit us hard with lots of fluin' around here. i'll try to update here and there not to hit you too hard with some crazy blogin'. seems like that's how i operate - 5th gear or 1st gear. it would be nice to be at a steady 3rd gear. i'll try it.

here's mimi with her angels [cheesy, i know but seriously mimi considers this close to heaven]. i was sick this day and didn't have energy to do anything. mimi and papa came over to watch the kiddos while i slept or crawled out of bed to do things. i felt pretty helpless. jackson got sick this day also. mimi loves this. this is a rare picture because jackson isn't pushing or kicking annie away and annie isn't screaming at jackson to "leave me alone" or "go away".
annie talks up a storm now. it's amazing what she likes to say. i was laying with her one night and she got out of bed and said, "be back, k?". oh..that's another update. the beginning of 2008 brought annie to our room late at night after she figured out how to scale her baby bed to pay us a visit. this led to about 5 sleepless nights [which probably led to the flu]. finally we converted her bed for safety and "lock" her in her room at night. we never had to deal with this with jackson. they are beginning to be very different. our "perfecta" as we endearingly called annie has become less perfecta lately. she doesn't sleep from 8pm to 8am anymore. she's up at 6am some mornings and she likes to fuss when going to bed nowadays. jack used to comment on how easy annie was to put to sleep...used to. as crazy active as jackson was he never climbed out of his crib. i think it's because he made a mental list of pros & cons while lying in bed and decided just to stay put. i'm now looking for a bed to match jackson's. just our luck the month annie decided to go to a "big girl" bed is the same month bombay shut down - that's where jackson's bed is from. oh well...i need to get over the fact that they aren't going to have matching beds.

here they are trying on their triple c ranch hat - making robin and gary proud. annie likes to dress up in anything. jackson likes to do what annie is doing just to make her mad. annie likes to color on anything with markers, put on mommy's shoes [jackson lets annie have this hobby], work in her kitchen that she got for christmas [christmas update coming soon] and carry around purses. jackson is liking puzzles, reading, irritating or teasing annie, doing "grown up" things with us [cooking, etc], and trying to think of clever ways to watch tv [maybe that's why he's been sick for over a week now]
here's annie smiling for the camera. she's never still so this is one rare shot.