The Perry Family

Perry Video Productions new website :)

2011-07-15T23:42:00.000-05:00

Perry Video Productions in Houston, Texas ... we launched our new website! Check it out when you get a chance and let us know what you think. We are fine tuning the details but like our new look.

Wedding videography - what a fun job we have!

You can also check out some of our favorite wedding films [high def] that are displayed at the top.

check out this mate

2009-09-29T14:52:00.004-05:00

Darn. Now I have to really learn how to play chess. Jackson calls it "chest".

He had to wake up and be at school at 7am - hence the bed head.

I have first day of school pictures I need to post....one day.

blog update

2009-06-17T23:39:00.004-05:00

Merry Merry from the Perrys [2008]

2008-12-24T01:21:00.002-06:00

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

We Are Family

2008-10-29T23:55:00.005-05:00

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

2008-08-27T13:41:00.005-05:00

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!

2008-08-26T13:00:00.004-05:00

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...

2008-08-14T09:46:00.002-05:00

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

2008-06-25T10:15:00.003-05:00

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

2008-06-04T17:40:00.004-05:00

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

2008-04-11T22:39:00.004-05:00

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

2008-03-19T21:47:00.003-05:00

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

"ketchup"

2008-03-18T00:38:00.003-05:00

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

2008-03-14T14:06:00.003-05:00

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

2008-02-13T03:14:00.007-06:00

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!

2008-02-03T22:45:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-02T23:56:00.001-06:00

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.

merry merry love the perrys

2007-12-23T14:53:00.000-06:00

hope you all have a merry christmas! we have our first christmas celebration tonight with cookie and the uncles and aunt emily. well...we had our first celebration this morning when everyone came to christ the king with us and then a fun cajun lunch at ragin cajun. fun, fun! we're cooking, cleaning, wrapping and trying to find time to get to the mall to visit santa before tuesday... i'm thinking tomorrow morning...early will be the best time. who knows...i'm sure we'll be met with crazy late minute shoppers - or not so crazy i heard stores are running sales tomorrow. i'll stay away from the stores...we'll just visit santa. thankfully, i got everything done 3 days ago. i really can't wrap gifts and leave them under the tree because annie doesn't understand that she can't open them until christmas. when i tell her to stop opening them she gets her feelings hurt and it's just a sad situation after that. so..we have zero gifts under our wilting tree. it's full of water but for some reason has already started to droop. it looks somewhat vintage?? [trying to put a positive spin on our dying tree].

i have many updates to do - jackson's basketball adventures, jackson's pj christmas party at school, another wedding we shot, christmas party in the country, all the shots that didn't make it to the christmas card, annie's new words, annie being a sweet angel...as always, the things that come out of jackson's mouth, fred, and more....maybe one of my new years resolutions should be to update this more.

eighteen - a smokin' hot age

2007-12-07T02:39:00.000-06:00

my only cousin on my mom's side turns 18 today! i'm super mad because i forgot to call him - so i'm up late and decided to write this post about him.

i remember the exact moment when i found out that i was going to have a cousin. i was 13 - a spoiled little princess - i was an only child and the only grandchild. gary and robin adopted colton when i was in 8th grade he was days old. truly i didn't know how to handle the fact that i was now going to have to share my grandparents - i think that was my first thought. oh how i wish i could tell you how i was wise beyond my years in 8th grade and overflowed with joy of the fact that i was blessed to have a cousin. now i have enough excitement that i have a cousin like colton to last a lifetime. the joy started the moment i meet him for the first time. i've always been good with kiddos and have always loved babies - so when we had a little one in the family and i got to spend lots of time with him before they moved to nacogdoches, texas then new iberia, la and then edina, mn but they are moving back soon!

18 things i love about colton:

1. he's my favorite cousin - i'm the closest to colton and have more of a connection with him because we are both laid back, relaxed and easy going people.

2. his sense of humor - he has a great sense of humor that i love to be around. he can do great imitations and he likes the same comedies and same dry sense of humor that i do.

3. he has a huge smile

4. likes to laugh. here's a specific memory...when he was a little guy in louisiana i remember making him laugh at the hospital during easter [i think i was in high school]. he was in his "barn" and cut his arm open on a nail and had to go get stitches. i wanted to go with him and i remember finding medical supplies in the room...maybe tape... and taping up my nose and eyes to make him laugh. anyways, he's always quick to laugh.

5. he is a talented, talented, talented musician. i love to watch him play his guitar.

6. he can sing. he has a deep, dry, melodious voice which i think is great as a singer-songwriter musician or for singing ballads. my musical talent stopped at the recorder in 5th grade so don't think this comment has any musical intellect. i do like to listen to him sing.

7. he gives good hugs

8. he talks to me when i ask him questions about his life and doesn't roll his eyes at my questions. rolling eyes is definitely a thing teenagers pick up so i know he does it but just not to me. his answers are honest. i specifically recall driving with him to a dinner that our granny and papa wanted to treat us to and i asked some personal questions and he never hesitated with the truth.

9. his cool sense of style - gotta love the checkered board shoes with holes - especially if they are your most comfortable pair of shoes! i like them - they are black and white - what other colors are there to wear?

10. he has some awesome hair! long or short it's a great head of hair.

11. i like our sing-a-longs at the ranch. whether it's gary singing some old country song or papa singing in czech to colton strumming his guitar - it's fun, entertaining and relaxing. i'll even sing with my horrible voice. i truly wish i had a great voice where i could belt out some songs while colton plays his guitar. i don't have a chance.

12. i never would have listened to the music he listens to on my own. he has a great classic taste for "old rock and roll" [again music intellect = low to nil]. but he doesn't like the music of today - rap and everything else that i'm sure he doesn't consider music. so he has opened my eyes up to what is good in music. i know he wouldn't like my work out tunes: shoop by salt and pepa, it's getting hot in here, moulin rouge, yeah, in da club, hey ya, etc - songs that increase my rate on the elliptical machine is what i look for.

13. he is creative [obviously - have you been reading]

14. he's good with our kiddos...especially jackson. he's patient with jackson and he'll take him on the gator at the ranch, ask him questions [sometimes just to hear jackson's funny answers] and he never seems as if he has something better to do than spend time with jackson. thankfully with jackson's energy you won't get tired of doing one activity with him because he's off to a new activity after a couple of minutes so colton gets jackson in a couple minutes here and there.

15. our fun trip from minnesota to texas in 1999 in a car. lots of memories - but he was shorter than me at that time - he towers over me today. he was super young and super fun. i'm sure if we had that trip to do again this year it would be more fulfilling and more quality - 8 years makes a huge difference from 10 years old to 18 years old.

16. he has a heart that likes to help. a couple of summers ago he went to mexico for a missions trip and really enjoyed doing that. it was wonderful to see him enjoying that. i hope my kiddos enjoy that when they are his age.

17. although we are 13 years apart...i feel as if it's not a huge difference in age and that it's more like 3 years apart. i can spend time with him, talk to him, hang out and relax with him. age doesn't seem to be a big factor in our relationship. he's also pretty mature for his age, in my eyes.

18. he's moving back to texas [well...his family is and he's graduating high school in minnesota in the spring...hopefully he comes back here also...i'm 99% sure that's the plan]

too tired to post pictures...i'll do that tomorrow.

we gobbled until we wobbled

2007-12-05T14:49:00.000-06:00

my sweet friend hilary asked for an update.

so here we go...i have alot of posts to do...so i'll start with thanksgiving - part one.

i think the kiddos had the best time at the farm! it is truly a great place for family - everytime we leave we are excited to return. it reminds me of what my papa always says, "take time going, but hurry back." so we are ready to hurry back anytime. well, it's just not the place it is the sweet, laid back, comfortable hosting from aunt trish! she's amazing. whether it's 25 or 15 [usual range of number of guests for thankgiving] trish creates this great thanksgiving spread - everything is warm and yummy! i can't forget to add that aunt jane also is in on the coordination also. but more importantly to our family [mostly to jack and jackson] aunt jane's turkey spread is the best!!!!

why the kiddos are so thankful of the farm:
1. there is a minature house just for the little people - complete with a kitchen, a living room, a play room and a bedroom loft
2. lots of grass to run, play football, play horseshoes or just explore
3. a trampoline
4. a swing set
5. a pool [not during thanksgiving]
6. turkey spread
7. a fire pit [not too sure if that's the right term]
8. lots of cousins mommy and daddys age who love them & who mommy and daddy get to talk to.
9. lots of aunts poppy and kk's age who love them & who mommy and daddy get to talk to.
10. all the fun, love and laughter.
11. beer [or bloody marys this time around][not for jackson and annie]

here is a collection of pictures from the day. we usually don't have anyone taking pictures at the farm so when i pulled out our honker of a camera i think everyone thought it was funny that i had brought it to the farm. oh well...we got some fun pictures. i put some effects on the pictures for you to see. enjoy...

boy cousins...

boy cousins + mary
[and for anyone who doesn't know there are 3 more boys...mary is the only girl]mary + chuckers

poppy [straight from ireland...not really] + kkuncle pootz + future aunt emily
[i think she'll be called auntie em - i'm know she will fill the shoes well of jack's auntie m - heard they are big shoes to fill]

here come the kiddos....
this pic looks like it's from the 1920s. there are always almost the same number of dogs at the farm as people.

my girlie-girl

having fun on the trampoline....

jackson thought this was the most fun. uncle holden, uncle pootz and daddy would chase jackson with the football and then pretend to tackle him by diving for him and missing. jackson laughed and laughed.

uncle holden almost got him with ali in the background
[ali is uncle holden's daughter]

uncle holden recovering from trying to tackle jackson and daddy trying to get him.
[daddy looks like his balding in this picture]

uncle pootz looking on as daddy misses again. jackson loves it. frank is with uncle pootz. frank took up the entire back of our pilot going to the farm. we had a packed car. emily and julie were in the front, daddy between the 2 kiddos in the back and then frank taking up the entire back. it was fun. i think frank licked jack's ear a couple of times.here come the well-dressed dogs...first is chelsea with aunt jane.
chelsea is the cutest dog of the bunch.

this picture is hilarious. first, poppy was wearing so many colors that day. secondly, poppy got a new phone...an iphone and was trying to get a picture of coco. poppy ADORES coco! coco did have on a little hoodie. i think it got ruined when coco jumped into the pool. the hoodie looked like it was juicy couture. so funny!

finally...saving the best for last...
here's a picture of me [the photographer] with mimi and annie.
[the best referring to mimi]

thanksgiving part two - the crowes nest is coming

11.03.2007 - details, children and lovely bride + groom

2007-11-09T00:42:00.000-06:00

we had such a fun time on saturday shooting jessica + chris' wedding. she put lots of energy into every detail. i loved it! she is super cute loves to have pictures taken of her. i loved it! they had the cutest flowergirl + ring bearer. I loved it!

enjoy some of our pics from the night: let me know what you think of our pictures!

letters on the church doors

her pretty bouquet - including a beautiful broach. each bridesmaid's bouquet had one also. when everyone was getting ready the bridesmaids each had a shirt on that said "the maids". just to add to the detail of the wedding.i love this picture of her shoes. i couldn't find any other pretty place to take this picture. this is on a desk of the priest. i had to clear off all of his papers. i like the way it turned out!this cutie got me super excited to see annie as a sweet flowergirl in february!here comes the bride - she looked amazing! the newly newlyweds!

nice ring!

they had a guy rolling cigars - this was pretty cool to watch! he even made a cigar to fit their rings so i could take a picture. i guess they were good by the amount of guests outside smoking them. the smell reminded me of my grandfather when he used to smoke pipes. i never see pipes anymore!jack decided to have some fun and smoke and dance...and we caught him.thanks jessica + chris! what a fun couple to get to know!

lady BUGERS & tiGERMS

2007-11-01T17:43:00.001-05:00

i didn't take our nice camera trick or treatin' - thought that it would have been too much of a hassle running after jackson and making sure annie was close behind. so there is a huge difference in the quality of these pictures of the kiddos in their outfits! who cares, right?the words GERMS + BUGERS or BOOGERS have been well represented this past week. but, the kids wouldn't let some little colds stand in their way of getting some chocolate! daddy lost his battle and had to stay home and get better.

we had fun at aunt emily's parents house celebrating uncle pootz #2's birthday and halloween. ironically emily has a brother named will and jackson has warmly named him uncle pootz #2 [obviously will perry is uncle pootz #1]
this is the sweetest picture of annie + holden - including holden's bright blue cup. what's in that cup?
we had a group shot that sarah took and it looks so good...but we are all blurry. so we have no pictures of the fun girls - emily and sarah - that went trick or treating with us.

here's jackson eating his first piece of candy he got from joe - our neighbor. i don't think we'd know our neighbors as well as we do if it wasn't for our overly outgoing son. he makes regular trips to lynn's house and joe's house just to say hi. we have great neighbors and don't mind the visits...hopefully they feel the same way.i think we've reached the age now that jackson can safely eat any candy and "i want that" is a common phrase in any store [regarding candy or toys]. and any commercial that comes on - we don't watch any kid tv station that has commercials of toys - unfortunately our neighbors haven't done the same. it's really powerful to hear and witness the brain wash of kids toys. but, i think jackson has realized that most of his toys come from a four letter lady...mimi. we even have this conversation sometimes:
jackson: can we go visit mimi?
julie: no, mimi's working right now.
jackson: mimi works so she can make money to buy me some toys. she told me that.

we sure do have a fun time with our kiddos.

the official school picture day

2007-10-03T14:22:00.000-05:00

i have no idea why i get worked up over school pictures. i frantically try to find just the right outfit & plan what we'll do in the morning before we leave. for example...annie will eat b.fast without her clothes on and then i'll put on annie's clothes after she eats. there was a plan for school picture morning. i guess because it's like a free sitting fee...but don't we do that everyday?

this year i'm happy that the pictures will be with a white background & white floor. great sharp looking pictures are taken this way. we actually have one of these backdrops but just don't have the space to set it up. anyways, i think today was the first time i've ever wet jackson's hair to put it in place [usually he sports a nice, thick bed head] and i even IRONED outfits for school. jack even tried to tease me with giving me bug spray instead of starch. i probably would have used it if he didn't stand around and watch me to see if i was going to use it which made me think something was up. anyways, got some good pictures outside in case the school pics don't turn out. i even put a sign on annie's back that said "take off my shoes for my picture". i wanted to put one on jackson's back that said, "tuck in my shirt please." hopefully the photographer + teacher know to do that.

we'll have to wait and see if annie has 2 bows in her hair....

what a difference a year makes...this was picture day last year / this year:

Jack runs first triathlon - Cinco Ranch Sprint Triathalon September 30, 2007

2007-10-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

Decent athlete. What a photographer! (Thanks, Ju!)

just crossed the finished line. Ahh...

Julie and I got up around 5am. Well, I got up at 5pm to get my digestive system going before the big race. Julie woke up around 5:45am. Annie was already up smiling and laughing somehow. I guess she heard me get up. Julie got the kids dressed. I loaded the tri-gear into the car, and we were off on time around 6pm. We got there around 6:30. It was pitch black with hundreds of tri-athletes parking their cars and getting their bikes ready for the competition. Pretty cool to see such a large group of adult athletes dedicated to pushing themselves in an event like that. There were about 800 participants.

Julie left with the kiddos to take them to Katy at Mimi's house. I rode my bike into the transition area. Got my gear ready for the swim. Then, oh ya, headed to the port-o-potties to join the other 200+ people in line for 15 potties. I was in a bit of discomfort. I'll stop here :)

Went to get my chip for my ankle. They have these chips that log your time when you cross each transition. Very cool technology. It allows them to spit out the results of the races almost instantly.

I'm pretty nervous here at this point. My stomach is in knots. I'm anxious to get going. The time is about 7:15. The race starts at 7:30. I bumped into a friend John Cordes, a former classmate of Julie from Katy High. I joined him on the walk to the swim start.

They had some announcements, pledge of allegiance, and then the groups started. I was in the 30-34 age group. We were the 3rd to start. We waded in the water for a bit before starting. Not to trivialize war, because I have no idea what that feels like. But competitions like this are as close as a civilian will get. Nonetheless, it felt like D-day invasion. All of these men sitting there in the water. Very focused. Nervous. Then they sounded the gun. We were off!

I was at the front of the group, so I had a bit of a head start. Still, I was getting kicked and bumped into by all of these bodies. There were 62 in our group. Since it was an open water swim that weaved around bouys (sp?), this swim was much more challenging. Instead of focusing on the fundamentals of head down, arms extended, keep kicking, you were forced to have your head up alot to avoid going the wrong way or bumping into others.

400 meters later I was #20 out of 62 dudes!!! Alright! I felt disoriented. Dizzy. The picture says it all.

Unlucky for me, the swim is the shortest part. The bike, my weakest leg, is the longest. Races usually are won or lost here. Biking is cool. Just kinda boring to me. Lots of doing the same thing. Alot. 19 miles later, I had been passed up a bit, and I dropped to like 40th place.

On to the run. I like-a-the-run! I took it easy and paced myself for the first 2 miles. Then sped up for the last mile. Or maybe it was when I got passed up by that hot female triathlete who ended up winning her female class. Maybe that was motivation to run faster ;) There were quite a few hard bodies out there. Cool to see how normal folks take such good care of there body. Very motivating!

The last 100 yards, I sprinted in. I had the energy to kick it way up, so I did. You can see here that I was giving it 110%.

When I finished, I was dehydrated, dizzy, felt like puking, had headache, and FELT LIKE A COOL DUDE FOR FINISHING! What a mix of emotions!

I loved seeing Julie at the end. What is a race if you have noone there to cheer you in? I gave her a big kiss and we headed to get electrolytes, water, and pasta.

For the first 40 minutes, I felt physically worse than I have in recent adult memory. Maybe 2-a-day football practice or basketball practice comes close. I really pushed my body. I had to lie down in the shade. Slowly, I got rid of my puking sensation and headache. That was good.

From then, we just enjoyed each other and the scenery. After about 1.5 hr of laying around, eating pasta, and drinking water. We left to go pick up the kiddos in Katy.

This was my first experience at organized athletics like running or biking or swimming. It was a great experience. I'm very pumped about the next one!

If you've read this far, you either like my prose, are a cool friend, or are bored. In any case, thanks for reading about this cool experience. As you can tell, I had a great time.

-Jack

pitter patter to lots of chitter chatter

2007-09-22T09:12:00.000-05:00

a while back i wrote this [and never posted it]. i think it was around mid august because i do remember that annie first said mama for the first "real" time on august 18th. so here's what was going on a month ago:

annie has a few words she has added to her vocabulary...they are not your run of the mill first words. i don't think she has said momma in 6 months. her favorite word, of course, is jackson. she wakes up and tries to see if he's in his bed and repeats his name until she sees him. she also likes to say "ut oh", "peek boo", "tank you" - which also sounds like jackson for some reason. she said "kelsey" this weekend. and then a bunch of other things that i have no idea what she's saying. but, if i do ask her to say momma it comes out as "popo"[not to be mistaken with poo poo]??

now...only one month later we hear mama, dada, jackson, no, bye, juice, chicken, mimi, papa, cookie, book, toy, phone, tickle, peek a boo, mm mm mm [when she's eatting food], hi, up, thank you, please, dog, choo choo, train, car, truck, baby, poo poo, pee pee, annie, shoes, boom boom boom [when she falls down], purse, beep beep [when she pushes anyones belly button] and she tries to say her abc's. repitition is so good to get them to learn something like their abc's or 123s. [but she doesn't talk at school for some reason]
when jackson first learned to count he could count to 11. 11?? but then i found out that every time i carried him up the stairs i would count the stairs & there are 11 on our second step. for annie i sing the abc's everytime i put her hair in pig tails - so probably about 6 times a day i'll sing the abcs to her. but most of the time jackson wants to say them instead of me. annie tries to say them but i think that's expecting alot...but eventually she will because she hears them so regularly. hopefully when she's 18 going to prom and getting her hair done at the salon she won't start repeating her abc's while they're doing her hair. tee hee.

jackson likes to spell his name. i taught him to spell his name using a chant like cheer ja-ck-SON. it's fun to hear him randomly start chanting this. of course, i think he's brilliant and adorable all at the same time. kinda like how i like him to do more toddler things but i also like him to be a cute round face little kiddo who likes to cuddle.

i teach math

2007-09-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

perry video & photo +
part - time teaching [w. a new book...makes a world of ease into a world of hurt] +
jackson +
annie +
jack at greenwood king
EQUALS
one tired momma!

but one of my favorite thursday people came over today...sylvia so my house is straightened and clean enough for me to relax. these moments are great.check out jack's new hair style: man bangs...haha!
these black pants rock. they had my name written all over them...or just on the tag. they are called "julie" from ann taylor. i might wear these to teach up to 3 times a week. maybe that's horrible but i love them & i only teach for max 2.5 hours.

the kiddos started school about 2 weeks ago. here are some pictures we took that morning. jackson and annie really like to give each other hugs. it's quite the picturesque moment. but this moment can be followed by jackson dragging annie around the room by her arm as if he's a caveman and annie is his conquest. they both like school and are eager to go each monday, wednesday and friday. annie is a quiet, laid back observer in her classroom. doesn't say much just smiles alot and is curious. jackson is the leader of his class [his teacher told us this]. he has to be in charge of something or he gets in trouble. for instance, he wanted to open the door and his friend [i'd actually say best friend] colin opened the door. so, jackson bit him. he's pretty entergetic in class and mrs. padavoni has to tell him cool down sometimes. she's the most amazing teacher i've seen with 3 1/2 year olds. each day i realize how much i LOVE sending my kiddos to school. the patience these women have to help teach and mold my child for the better and their sweet love the have for kids is such an amazing gift.

school tomorrow for all of us...so i have to go and make lunches, prepare my notes for tomorrow and pack bags.

read my blog

2007-08-29T23:44:00.000-05:00

sorry for the lack of updates to all of you who sit in a cube all day and check out our blog. i started teaching [part time] and the kiddos don't start school until september 5th. so these past 3 weeks are kinda crazy at our house. pretty much everything has been put on hold - errands, editing, cooking, chores, etc. one week until a routine sets in...hooray!

but for anyone that does blog...check out blurb.com...you can turn your blog into a book. pretty cool. also... enter PARENTSMAG07 in the promotional code for 10% off

Jack and Jackson camping in Brazos Bend State Park

2007-08-03T13:37:00.000-05:00

Jackson first waking up Thursday morn

Daddy cooks bacon and biscuik biscuits. Yummy!

Jackso, eggs, and biscuits.

eggs and biscuits
Jackson licks his lips before eating daddy's cooking.

campsite first night. before the ambush.

The Ambush. Jackson bravely shining light on them. He was great!

Jackson digging in Wednesday night to his chicken, peas, corn, and beans.

Daddy making the most of his short reach to include himself in the picture.

More of daddy's short reach with the camera. chest hair anyone?

_______

Raccoons 1
Jack 0

Thanks to our good friends, Ben and Henry Wise, I took a camping trip with my son. Jackson and I spent some male bonding time on a spontaneous camp out in Brazos Bend State Park. Ran to Academy, spent $220 on camping gear, and headed to Brazos Bend State Park. Beautiful Place.

We arrived around 7pm Wednesday, August 1, 2007. We rushed to put the tent up and just as I was putting the tent up, Jackson yelled, "Yook, Daddy, small animals." We were surrounded by 5 raccoons jumping in our car, picking up our food, and more approaching. Like an ambush. This went on every 30 mins until 5am. I did not sleep more than 2 hrs as they attacked our tent. Jackson slept fine.

Lots of funny "WHY?" questions by Jackson:

Why did God make people?
Why did God make rain?
Why did God make our car break down? ( we left the lights on a bit to long while illuminating our fire at night)
Why are we here?
Why did we come to sleep here?

Great to get away from the city and spend some time listening to his "why's"

Happy camping,
Jack

how sweet is it...

2007-08-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

here are some pictures from will & emily's engagement session. they are so cute - and i think they had a fun time. will made emily laugh alot. we had everything planned out as to where we wanted to take the pictures....but we went no where we had planned. but, i loved the pictures we took and the places we went.

class of 2026 and 2028

2007-07-15T23:16:00.000-05:00

we went to college station at the end of our austin weekend. it was great to go back - i loved college and it always brings back fun memories to visit. it was a quick visit - mostly for me to go to my dear friend's baby shower. sadly enough it was my maid of honor - whom i haven't seen in 2 years! it was great to see her. i wish i had taken a picture with her and her belly. for any aggies you can empathize with this: krista is a staff advisor for fish camp - she'll be at camp 8 months pregnant for about a month. i can't wait to visit her again during football season and meet baby girl bailey!
with lots of universities represented in our family we won't try to persuade our kiddos TOO much to go to a&m. we'll see in 2022 and 2024 if they make the right decision...

austin, texas - mucho fun

2007-07-13T17:38:00.000-05:00

who doesn't like austin? jack and i met in austin, it's a great short trip and it's laid back and fun. good food, biking, friends, ice cream and family.

we had a fun time...kinda crazy with 2 kiddos but we managed through breakfast with a squirmy annie, avoiding the ongoing rain in order to catch a very quick swim and fun dinners with our austinite friends.we had dinner with the boones...like old times [minus the wises]. i still remember our fun flying pig dinner when it was calm and we all had big bellies. now it's not so calm...well maybe if you are a boone. they are such sweet girls - i think my kiddos scared them with running around, climbing on things and going 90 miles an hour. funny story that sabra told me is that both her girls [3 years and 17ish months] both weigh 27 pounds. that's so cute. you can see the demeanor in the kid's picture...the boone gals just sat there and we had to act like monkeys to get our kids to pay attention. jackson and lt took a good picture - i think he was trying to hit on her...good thing boone was there to straighten out the situation with a few, "hey, watch it, jackson."
brad [match-maker of julie and jack] came also. i think we wore him out because jack and brad were supposed to hit 6th street that night and brad didn't make it past his couch when he got home.
we went biking around town lake and had a fun time with a few wrong turns. but, it was fun to enjoy austin as if we lived there. jack overheard someone saying, "keep austin weird" as we past with our bikes and buggy. don't know if they thought we were weird or telling us to leave because it was too normal to have a buggy. maybe if we had a dog sitting on top of the buggy then i could see us being a picture of weird. who knows...weird story.

we got some cute pics on our bike ride of the kiddos at our stopping point:
here's jackson's "natural" smile...
jackson made a friend who was feeding the squirrels. his new friend gave his a piece of bread to feed the squirrels. he must have been hungry because he ate the bread instead.here's a disappointment to us...annie hates swimming pools [and baths for that matter]. jackson loves swimming pools...maybe next year she'll warm up to them because it's way to warm outside of them during the summer.
we stayed at the omni - which caters to kiddos. they knew our kids by the time we left. [or maybe after being there for 5 minutes] i'm thinking it was their job...but maybe it was because how much our kids make themselves known at the hotel. but the swimming pool is on top of the hotel [not kid friendly]. but they were extremely catering down in the lobby. they gave us kids backpacks when we got there and always were offering us water or whatever we wanted. i tend to think that i'm a pretty easy-to-please person but i am a self-proclaimed hotel-snob...and i like staying in nice hotels and the omni was really nice. as compared to the last hotel we stayed at in austin. jackson was about 6 months old and we went to a ut game with holden. holden made us some reservations at the super 8 hotel. never go there...and believe me - you do not want any stories except that i would have rather stayed at holden's house with his 4 male roommates.
we ate dinner with my oldest friend critter - or amy stoker if i want to be proper - & her fam. it was "fun" and she knows why i included the quotes. we have a list at home of things or people that make us laugh so if we are ever in a bad mood we can go look at the list and crack up. after a night with the stokers and others we added a new name to our list....story not included.

the boys had fun with their bathtub mohawks...that never gets old. sometimes i find jack making his hair into a mohawk in the shower. [i'm trying to see if jack reads these...so far no comments from him]at the end of the trip we went to "God's country"....next post...

what else i found

2007-07-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

first of all...i'm waiting patiently for my new favorite thing to arrive. so in the meantime i thought i'd update a little more...

we went to baton rouge for [jack's cousin] paul's wedding on april 20th. so, we haven't had our everyday camera since that day. at least there were pictures on our camera so they knew who it belonged to. wonder what they thought of jackson posing in his underoos...at least it wasn't jack posing in his underwear...haha...just kidding. but once i did dare jack to run outside on our porch naked and he did, i locked him out and took pictures of him. i'll post those tomorrow. what? no way...i think i deleted them.
we took uncle pootz' car because it had a dvd player. that is the reason we had a calm trip...they loved the dvd player. mind you it is now july 11th and in this picture jackson was potty trained on april 19th. today he is still struggling with going #1 on the potty. i think we have #2 down...but i said that about #1 in april. this little guy likes to do what he wants to do. jack is introducing him to peeing in the bushes. jackson loved it. if only i had a green thumb he might be fully potty trained - but we'd have dead plants. we took jackson to lsu [cookie's alma mater] to see mike the tiger. unfortunately this one passed away a month or so ago - maybe it was from all the energy he exerted trying to get jackson while holden put him over the cage. haha...just kidding...that one was for my mom. she probably had a heart attack right now. feel free to check on her: dascrowe@consolidated.net
sidenote: jackson can say the lsu fight song which most of the sages will be proud to hear and he's in the process of learning hot boudin, cold couscous, come on tigers, push, push, push. i tried to teach him the a&m fight song but yelling "sounds like hell" will have to wait until later. we'll let his uncle teach him the ut fight song next and then save the best for last.

we had a blast at the crawfish boil - it was so good [understatement]. they know how to do it there. the process of boiling crawfish is like us scrambling eggs. they make it seem so effortless and just part of their every week routine [during crawfish season] - andy [paul's brother] even made a special table for paul as a wedding gift...a table just for eat ting crawfish. it was a table for 12 or more to stand at with a hole in the middle for the trash. coolest table ever.

jackson played with cars that nancy had given him and annie just had fun exploring and maybe eating some rocks. they both ate lots of raising cane's. we had a brief bout of addiction of raising canes right before going to louisiana...mostly because it reminded me of layne's from a&m. anyhow...funny situation that the owner was a groomsman in paul's wedding. yummy!no pictures from the wedding - but a funny story. jackson had a great time at the wedding. he loved dancing, eating the food and running around with wes [his 4 year old cousin]. well, he saw what he thought was coke. this was holden's coke so it had some crown in it. jackson took a tiny sip from the straw and instead of the little attitude look he thought he was going to give me of "i just had a sip of coke" looked at me with this horrible look of "that's not what coke is supposed to taste like" with his eyes in almost a teary state. he was so confused. i think he slept pretty soundly that night...haha...again just kidding. but he probably did sleep well in his king size bed. jack and i had to leave at 5am the next morning to head to houston for a wedding so we slept on the pull-out couch to not wake the kids up in the morning. so, i'm sure jackson got a good night's rest.

what i found

2007-07-10T23:56:00.001-05:00

on my camera...the correct way to wear underoos when you are 3 - makes sense - you want to see "sarge" on your underwear. i won't show you the picture of the backside...looks too uncomfortable.
annie is always this happy if she has food in front of her. if you are eating something near her...watch out. soon you'll see a tiny person running towards you with her mouth open wide. she loves to eat.

these 2 are my favorite pictures of all that was on the camera - so glad we found it to get these cute pics!
these were taken when sabra came to houston and we met at the park. boone crew, sims crew and perry crew had fun playing again and wishing we could do this more often. it was a crazy park day for us...jackson went #2 in his pants, fell off of a swing and performed a bellyflop on the ground and annie ate dirt when she fell face first into the sand.

i think mary eliza somehow knows that jackson used to be a little bully when we were all pregnant because she was the boss of the tree house and thinks she is bigger than anyone else. she was pushing jackson out of the tree house so that only her and lt were in it. she definitely is the strong willed child of the boones.
for anyone who looks at our blog...we are going to be playing catch up for awhile. we haven't updated our blog in a long time.

thanks to aunt nancy...

2007-06-28T15:58:00.001-05:00

our camera is not lost!

we left it in baton rouge. we understand it wanting to stay because baton rouge was tons of fun. but, we are super excited to have a camera to capture those everyday activities and events. otherwise my kiddos might grow up thinking they are celebrities if we pull out the big camera everyday.

uncle pootz bday

2007-06-27T23:28:00.000-05:00

opps...it's been a little too long. so i'll do alot of blogging this week to catch up on our pictures. soon after uncle pootz and emily got engaged we had fun celebrating will's bday at texadelphia.

oppps...

nique is a natural with the kiddos. annie loved her - well half of it was the fact that nique is a super cool person and half of it was that she was feeding annie cookie's texas sheet cake with ice cream. in this picture below annie is saying, "i guess i HAVE to eat this cake."

jackson had to blow out everyone's candles. for those of you who have been at a bday party with jackson - he wails if he doesn't get to blow out the candles. this has been going on for a year now. at most parties i secretly go off and relight a candle and let him blow it out. i'm sure that might be a proven wrong technique...oh well.

poop, sweat and tears

2007-06-10T13:43:00.000-05:00

is how i'd describe our visit to the blueberry farm to pick some blueberries. it was a sweltering heat amongst the blueberry bushes. there are no pictures because they would scare you - my kids hair was soaking wet, annie was crying 75% of the time and many times jackson would just squat down and put his head in his hands. but, it was an experience...jackson would pick them and eat them so we left with maybe a pound of blueberries for about $2.

about 5 minutes into it jackson said, "i have to poopy." so...he had to go in his pullups. then after we were done we were in line to get snow cones - the snow cone stand probably makes a killing in june and july because everyone is attracted to it like a magnet after you are soaking wet in sweat. anyways, all of these people started smelling their pits because they could smell jackson and thought it was them. oh well...it made for a funny situation as i stood there and watched everyone start smelling themselves.

well...my goal was to get a load of berries and give them to people...but i came away with probably 1/5 of what i wanted to get. if i forget this experience, then maybe next time...

my friend erin took this picture of the kiddos before our outting. we had just arrived at the blueberry farm when she was leaving [we were supposed to be there at the same time]. we were looking like a bunch of city folk coming to the farm. everyone there was in tanks, tennis shoes and visors. i wore a comfy cotton skirt (one that i wear frequently with the kids - nothing nice), a white fitted shirt (imagine that..i must have 20) and flip flops. anyways, the kids look awfully cute to end up as i described above...but it was true...they and i were disgusting about 1 hour later.

tats and pig tails

2007-06-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

annie's hair is long enough and finally looks cute in pig tails. and jackson is into getting tattos and showing us his muscles. [which the tatoos obviously enhance]

annie is growing up fast. she has her own language which jackson reinforces and repeats and then translates for us. sometimes to his own gain, "annie said that she wants you to get out the cookies so he can have one." [jackson refers to annie as he]. she's getting a fun, fun personality. she gives you the best welcome when you come in a room - lots of excitment. she's a huge climber...she'll find anything she can step on, bring it to the couch or coffee table and climb up.

jackson is a typical three year old - lots of whys, lots of interest in things and asking why something is what it is, likes to read books and ask you what each person/animal is saying in the picture...which takes hours when he has richard scarry books as his personal favorite. he has the tendency to enjoy debating with us and starts of lots of his sentences with a drawn out "but... or so..." he makes us laugh every single day.

perfect timing

2007-05-29T21:36:00.000-05:00

two sprites, two hotdogs a big tub of popcorn. jack was holding all of this and jackson and jack were walking to our friday seats when jackson announces, "i have to pee pee!!!". so who knows what happened but things just happen when you get in these situations.

jackson had fun at the game. he doesn't like to sit for very long to watch the game so he had fun socializing with all of our baseball neighbors. somehow he got ahold of a soft baseball and had fun throwing that around the stands. luckily everyone around us thought he was cute and not annoying. people who don't think jackson is cute frequent central market. we make enemies every time we go to central market to eat lunch. it's become quite amusing.

hilary - an avid fan - told jackson to show his support of the stros with "thumbs up"

we were rescued by bret from the cheap seats and we joined pwc people on the first level, first base line. jackson enjoyed walking there because reese's mommy (as jackson calls hilary) grabbed his other hand let him swing. one day she'll understand the obligations that go along with holding both of reese's hand.

our family is growing....

2007-05-25T13:41:00.000-05:00

i get a "sister"! being an only child i could not ask for better brothers in my brother-in-laws! i could not have hand picked better "brothers". they are the coolest uncles to jackson and annie and it's an understatement that they are so fun to be around.

but now...we get to have the best sister-in-law and aunt we could have asked for - will and emily got engaged last night! waa-hooo!! we could not be more happy! we've been praying hard that this would be "the one" for uncle pootz (for over 2 years) and a big congrats to them both! we are super excited!

potentially...

2007-05-24T19:46:00.001-05:00

i have misplaced my camera. i'm pretty sad because it's the only camera easy to carry around. and it has these oh-so-cute pictures of the sims, boone and perry kiddos all on a bench. i think i'm more upset about the picture i potentially have lost rather than the camera. i refuse to think it's completely lost so it's just potentially lost.

our other cameras are the size of a newborn baby and that's just too much to handle right now. hopefully it'll show up soon.

with no mother's day out these next two weeks i find it hard to have the time to look for something. it sounds crazy but it's true...that's why people have uber-organized homes. one day we might enter into the uber category.

Jack sings "Jesus Loves Me"

2007-05-13T23:04:00.000-05:00

Listen to jackson's creative lyrics...Yes daddy too sings and dances alot when he's at home with the family. I think that is where Jackson gets his talent.
; jack

Jackson celebrates Cinco de Mayo

2007-05-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Aunt Emily, we captured Jackson singing with his guitar. Listen closely to the lyrics!

Jack

it's the 27th....

2007-04-27T16:40:00.000-05:00

you can bet something is going on at the wise's! in case you didn't know jan. 27 spencer's bday, april 27th henry's, sept 27th alston's and dec 27th ben's. crazy! guess we know what number they'd use in the lottery.

so...HAPPY BIRTHDAY HENRY!! 3 is a big year - independence, potty, attitudes, etc. 3 is actually a fun year!

we miss you guys more than we had imagined...and we imagined it was going to be a big missing you...so it's huge.

some fun and favorite henry pictures and moments...i'll add more tonight but we are off to the astro's game...hopefully we'll win...finally!

making friends

2007-04-24T18:38:00.000-05:00

it's fun to see kiddos making friends. they do it so easily even though they are honest and tell each other everything, fight and forgive. wish i was more like that.

jackson and timothy had TONS of fun playing together. i remember when they were so young and the 2 month difference looked so different - jackson in the jumpster and timothy on his tummy on a blanket. not any more.

although we had some scuffles timothy and jackson got along beautifully. annie loved watching charlotte and exploring a new play spot.

sarah's a great photographer and had her camera handy - as i think is the case often. here are some images of jackson and timothy's play...

jumping off of a couch onto the cusions...how cool is that!sarah organized an impromptu craft time complete with snacks and they made these hats.
we finished the day with a shaving cream bath - also a brillant idea of sarah's.
we all had fun!

bike + animals = no zoo

2007-04-23T14:06:00.000-05:00

well, we made our way to the zoo recently and i had a brilliant plan to let jackson ride his tricycle around the zoo while annie was in the stroller. we got denied at the gate and had to turn around. jackson decided to ride around hermann park instead - which was so much fun.
here's the water park - jackson was upset his shoes got dirty. annie will be the total opposite - she'll get soakin' wet when she has her chance.this is jackson's new smile - when i ask them to smile for the camera we get jackson sticking out his tongue and annie smiling. you can't win them all.the squirrels at the park were tame. we fed them "puffs" out of our hand. jackson loved this part. annie was upset we were giving animals her snacks.
during our tour of the park jackson told me he had to go pee pee. well, we just had to do it...
jackson's is obsessed with anything motorized - so the entire time he wanted to go on the train. i was $1 short - thankfully we made a friend who gave us a $1. jackson then gave the lady a big hug for giving us the money. we actually needed more $ than that but i temporarily thought annie was under a year old - which is free. opps. i have selective memory loss - i get to select when i loose it.

gone fishing...

2007-04-17T22:38:00.000-05:00

not really...just took a little hiatus from blogging...after illnesses and then more illnesses, new teeth, waking up in the middle of the night...multiple times, potty training, getting a new boss (jack's now my boss...well at least he'll like to hear that), bday parties, a march filled with lots of weddings and events to film or shoot, and trying to catch up on our back log of weddings i'm now updating our blog - from march 2nd until the present.
enjoy!

i work with daddy last morning

2007-03-25T01:49:00.000-05:00

translation from jacksonese to english - i worked with daddy yesterday.jackson went with jack to a rehearsal dinner that we'll be shooting. he had alot of fun running around and getting into things that jack had no idea how he got into or on or whatever. some of the story is missing...so it's probably best i don't hear it. i'm sure it has something to do with this picture - try to find jackson
but, he sure did get this cute picture of jackson...

favorite dresses

2007-03-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

well, i do think annie in a dress is the cutest thing ever and i do have some favorites...and surprise, surprise they have pink in them!

this cute dress from the wises for annie bday is my all around favorite dress of spring!this dress is what i bought her for her birthdaythis dress is what poppy and kk got annie for her bday - do you think they have one in my size..it's way cute!there's one other one that the olivers gave annie that she'll hopefully wear to church on sunday.

drinking beer

2007-03-18T00:11:00.000-05:00

we have TONS of beer left over from all of the parties in march. we might need to have another party to get rid of all the beer. if anyone is having a party...invite us...we'll bring lots of beer.

march madness

2007-03-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

our march madness is over - not because jack picked tech to make it to the semi-finals but all of our march birthdays are complete! tomorrow, st. patty's day, is also our 6th anniversary which is overshadowed by annie's first bday, jackson's 3rd and jack's surprise 30th. we could not care less - matter of fact we have 2 weddings to film tomorrow. maybe we'll celebrate on sunday.

not only has our march been filled with bdays but lots of sickness. poor annie has been sick for 5 days and jackson for 3 days, mom had the flu for 2 days and daddy was sick here and there. annie sleeps most of the day :( jackson was pretty sad when he was sick - double ear infection (his first ear infection ever) and some nice conjunctivitis...icky.

here's a picture of our sick little girl...she hasn't eaten solid food for ONE WEEK! just milk. i'm sad she might lose her fat rolls on her legs. i'll have a before and after to see if she's thinned out.
pics of the bdays to follow...

the big one.

2007-03-15T23:40:00.000-05:00

jack turned 30 and we had a fun crawfish boil as a surprise to him. we were planning on boiling our own crawfish...but after a torrential downpour during the day, i decided to buy them already cooked and ready to eat...good decision!

can you tell that jackson was in charge of putting the "y" candle in the cake...
jack was surprised. everything was planned out except how to get jack to our clubhouse so it worked out perfectly when jackson asked jack to go for a walk around the lake. fortunately it wad during a break in the weather. later we decided we should have had everyone mooning him from the building - which has glass walls.
the crawfish was so good and even better was the crawfish pie the next night! thanks to our friends from louisiana who know how to cook and how to cook well! holly is who you want to invite to your party if you plan on having left over crawfish. she can shell them like no other and then make a tasty dinner. so, so yummy!

isa bella

2007-03-06T23:59:00.000-06:00

jackson loves isa and isa's family - they are mentioned in jackson's prayers frequently. we dropped by their neighborhood park and isa came out to play for a little while. isa's mommy was in her biking gear and lookin' good. too bad i didn't get a picture of her in her outfit.

annie is actually following in isa's footsteps in terms of eating LOTS of food. once annie can eat a wide variety of things isa will then have to start protecting her plate like everyone else has to do when isa's around. this is where isa ate her dinner and i'm sure annie is there to make sure isa doesn't need any help.

annie is one!

2007-03-04T23:23:00.000-06:00

so hard to believe!annie and jackson are 2 years and 2 days apart. which will lend itself to joint bdays in the future. but people probably think i'm wacky sometimes when they ask for bdays because annie's is 3.4.6 and jackson is 3.2.4 so all the same numbers get me confused sometimes. but annie's birthday is the only day of the year that's a command: "march forth".

we celebrated annie's bday with family and fajitas. annie didn't want to even touch her cake - so we ate it and it was yummy....thanks annie [jackson did the same thing when he was one]here's papa playing with jackson's toys. i think papa is the most "kid-like" out of all of us. he actually might be the only one that can keep up with jackson.

jackson's par-tay

2007-03-03T23:22:00.000-06:00

jackson has been talking about his par-tay for about a week. everytime we'd get in the car he'd ask if we were going to go to his par-tay. finally it came and we had a blast at pump it up. what was the best part was leaving the floor with all of the spilt food and just walking to our car and not having to clean it up.

jackson had so much fun that after he had eatten his pizza and cake he tried to crash the next party that had started behind us. when i went in there to get jackson i got some funny looks from the mom's in that party wondering who i was. i think they figured it out eventually.

jackson had alot of his church friends and mother's day out friends there and had a ball.he liked to sit in his chair or throne rather and say, "Hail, King Jackson!"his friend collin helped him blow out his candles. i love this picture because jackson and collin are such good pals at school.he enjoyed sticking his fingers in his cake and eatting the icing.

3!

2007-03-02T22:48:00.000-06:00

jackson is now three. for some reason it seems as if three is a big step and a long distance from being two. at three you start organized sports, hopefully learn to be potty trained, hopefully get rid of your paci, hold conversations, start to loose your baby fat and become a little more independent. but, three is a cute stage!
jackson woke up this morning and he wanted to eat mush as his breakfast of choice. he calls oatmeal mush - which he got from "goodnight moon". we used to read that to him every single night - and it's probaby been almost a year since we read it. now he likes richard scarry books that were actually jack's when he was little. he likes them and asks about 100 questions per page. now instead of limiting the number of books we have to limit the number of pages in one book. sorry...tangent...supposedly i'm awful at tangents. i think that was why my students liked me when i was teaching. so...mush...jackson wanted mush for bfast and he wanted us to sing to him and he wanted to blow out his candles in his mush.

he has his birthday crown from when he turned two and they made it for him at mother's day out. he will randomly thoroughout the year make us "bday cakes" at his tool bench and
bring them to us with his crown for us to wear.

my 2 worlds today...

2007-02-28T22:29:00.000-06:00

today was rodeo day at chapelwood. they both look so cute in their western wear. i searched all day for a cowboy hat (failing to go to any western wear stores...too obvious i guess). jackson did not like his red hat at all. it does look kinda funny now that i look at these pictures. maybe it won't look as funny on annie in 2 years.i took jackson to his rodeo activities at MDO today....got in a pen with about 20 smelly animals, ran around outside. oh...and i forgot there was a parade but in the middle of the parade jackson bolted out of the line he was in to ride a tractor on the playground. he LOVES tractors...thanks to papa.
jackson's good friend king by the petting zoo that jackson didn't like...jackson's good friend collin - collin is a week younger than jackson. he looks like a big brother in this picture. jackson loves collin. they've been in the same class for about 2 years. i think they initially bonded over their strong personalities and being aggressive. this year not so aggressive.anyways, i later when to a spa (smelling like a barnyard animal) to get a body wrap, manicure and pedicure. just so you know this isn't the norm. jack gave me this for our anniversary...last year. it expires tomorrow. but, it was a perfect time to get it done before our birthday party weekend (jackson on friday and annie on sunday).

jackson and annie

2007-02-28T22:23:00.000-06:00

thought i'd compare some pictures of jackson & annie since alston said annie looks like jackson in this picture. i agree...i think it's because her face looks extra round like his was.

which reminds me - i went to the pediatrician and she commented that jackson was growing up because his face is getting longer and more oval than round. that made me sad. i want him to keep his cute round face.
yep...they have the same mom and dad...you can totally tell!

gobs of blogs

2007-02-28T00:22:00.000-06:00

sorry for the mass updates. when it rains it pours...

birthday chairs early

2007-02-28T00:12:00.000-06:00

jackson and annie love their new chairs! they came quite a bit early...as their bdays are the 2nd and 4th of march. annie likes to bounce on the end of the chair and fall off...usually head first and then laughs. jackson likes to chill on his chair and watch the movie "Cars"...his new obsession. Happy Birthday Kiddos - my favorie things on earth.

refridgerator perry - twenty and counting

2007-02-26T00:17:00.000-06:00

we call annie refridgerator perry...because she loves to play in the fridge when it's open and because she's a big baby! a big change from when she was born! well...refridgerator perry has taken 20 stamps to date! she's just adorable with her unsteady walk! jackson is having
"ice cream" from CFA. he had his last soccer class so we went out for ice cream - he actually played on the last day..finally...and didn't just sit by the wall and watch.

avacados - great for skin and hair

2007-02-22T23:45:00.000-06:00

or at least annie think so! she absolutely loves avacados and when she's done eatting she likes to rub her hair and face. then she gets a little impatient if i don't get to her soon...as you can see. there were avacados caked on everywhere. the only place to go to after this was the bath, of course. i always have to strip her down when she eats avacados or all of her outfits would be polka dotted with green stains.

1st valentines day...

2007-02-20T00:07:00.000-06:00

1st taste of chocolate or chachie as jackson calls it. annie found a piece of chocolate that jackson had laid in the back of his tricycle. i found her with chocolate all over herself. jackson would have never done this...he loves t stay clean. annie was enjoying herself eatting the chocolate. wh wouldn't?

why's everybody always picking on me

2007-02-16T15:33:00.000-06:00

versus

for your counter tops?

sara and emily in particular like to pick on me - thursday nights are not specifically just for the office and grey's but to pick on julie. and after all the food i prepare for them each week...just kidding! it's all fun!

bath time

2007-02-16T11:54:00.000-06:00

we tried to let annie and jackson take a bath together. they were both pretty excited - jackson was showing off by swimming and splashing and annie was just very happy to be with jackson, as usual. we all 4 got wet by the time the bath was finished. the floor also got washed that night. i definitely went to bed right after that - it wore me out. i think we'll stick with separate baths for a little while longer.
oh - one funny thing. annie also rather stand up in the bathtub like jackson did at this age. all of his friends would be sitting down and he'd want to stand up. we have a picture of jackson and his friends - henry and LT are sitting down and jackson is standing - but i'd have to highly censor the picture.

very bad hair day

2007-02-14T13:07:00.000-06:00

i obviously i didn't dry annie's hair completely before she went to sleep last night. she woke up looking like a rooster. i'm going today to buy some clips and bows for her hair so i don't have to wet it down in the morning.today jackson is getting his hair cut - after numerous comments about how long it is. i'll try to take a before and after. i love his hair long and shaggy...but he has ALOT of hair and it's become pretty bushy.

birthday party weekend

2007-01-29T12:07:00.000-06:00

jackson went to 2 birthday parties this weekend - one for uncle chuck - the big 30! he had fun running around texadelphia until late into the night. he also thought he was a celebrity asking to get his picture taken with everyone there. thankfully steven brought his camera - and thankfully he knows how to use his camera oh so well.on saturday jackson's friend king had his birthday - the big 3! king had a magician that entertained about 10 kiddos for about 30 minutes - pretty impressive. the magician was funny and had us laughing here and there. king kept on shhh-ing us - which made us laugh even more.

king doing a magic trick

king's daddy - bobby - didn't get his hand cut off

the cute thing is that when king opened his gifts all the kiddos were so absorbed at what he was doing and then they'd pick up the toys and bring them to their moms to see. "look what king got!"

at the end they got to pet these doves - obviously sedated somehow. jackson was the only one that didn't want to pet the doves...maybe because of mrs. pecker (poppy's bird) who likes to fly on jackson's head. here's jackson's friend collin petting the dove.

nuggle

2007-01-28T21:53:00.000-06:00

on cold days jackson loves to snuggle - or as he calls it nuggle. mimi brought a magazine and read it to jackson while they were nuggling. normally it works best if jackson is on the outside - but he wanted to lay on the inside of the couch. with mimi - it's whatever jackson wants.
i'm sure nuggling with jackson made mimi's day.
just a sidenote to warn you if you enlarge the picture below you'll see some "ABC" food in jackson's mouth. (already been chewed = ABC...obviously stems from a middle school joke)
fun jackson story: jackson also likes to say, "i love you stars." which translates to "i love you to the stars." which piggybacked from "i love you crane" translated "i love you as tall as a crane".

hurricane annie

2007-01-28T16:50:00.000-06:00

annie loves to dump all the toys out and put herself in toy heaven. this is a huge difference from the way jackson played. he never played with toys for longer than 2 minutes...he has always been active...just ran around and climbed onto things. we now get to experience what it's like to pick up toys.

her favorite toy is this maraca. she'll search all over until she finds it and then she'll shake it and eat it. she stays busy for hours in this disaster zone of the perry house. if she's happy for such a long period of time then i don't mind picking up toys.

:: blogger hipocrite ::

2007-01-27T00:05:00.000-06:00

i confess that i'm a blogger hipocrite.

confession: i check all of my friend's blogs daily and get upset when i see the same picture or post each time. and i haven't updated my own blog in 2 weeks. so now i'm arrogant thinking that others are that into my life.

confession: which then leads me to check their friend's blogs and on and on so i can read new things, see new crafty things to do, new recipes to try. how do i stop?

confession: i am a blog addict. i need to edit some weddings.

what's up with this thing -> ::
i see it alot in things like this :
:: today i like :: taking a nap :: designing annie's bday card :: totally being on time to mother's day out :: walking around our lake with jackson :: annie with her coy smile :: celebrating chuck's big 30 at texadelphia :: laughing at and with jackson :: reading blogs ::

i guess it's the cool thing to do if you are a serious blogger ::

here's my picture for the day...since it's spencer's first birthday today (01.27.2007) here's a picture of henry and jackson the first time we went to visit spencer at his house in houston. henry and "jack jack" had the same taste in clothes.

cook-offs are fun for everyone

2007-01-14T23:02:00.000-06:00

we had such a good time on saturday - a cook-off. we went to see one of jack's co-worker/friend's daughter enter a kids cook-off in the morning. something happened because she didn't win. but, she probably would have won for the cutest cook. his 2 girls are so cute and jackson loved them. he kept on telling us on the way home that he didn't give emily a hug and if you notice on the "swing" pictures he's holding courtney's hand. watch out ladies - he's starting early.
jackson had so much fun - riding a "train", running around, riding rides - his favorite was the slide!
jack had so much fun - eatting lots of good food (of course), riding rides - his favorite was the slide!annie had fun looking cute on a warm winter daypicture one - jack was a little scared because julie went on the slide first with jackson and got a bad burn on her arm from the slide. be sure to check out jack's face - pure fright of getting hurt.picture two - now they are getting the hang of it and really enjoying it

our first shiners

2007-01-13T11:53:00.000-06:00

jack was nice to let me sleep in saturday morning after being up from 3am - 5am with annie. when i walked downstairs i immediately noticed annie's new shiner. don't know how it got there - most likely because of her determination to stand for longer and longer periods of time by herself ( i think we're up to 15 seconds) but she doesn't seem to mind it to much. i think she's going to be one tough cookie.

here's jackson's first shiner (feb 2005, 11 months)

hay - that's fun.

2007-01-01T23:57:00.000-06:00

we went to the ranch on 01.01.2007 - our annual tradition. after a late night & some margaritas (although they were pretty weak 2 did me in) it was a struggle to get there on time...take the time we are usually late and multiply that by 10.

we ate some good gumbo and yummy desserts - homemade bread pudding and peach cobbler made over a fire.

we had a fun time watching jackson play. annie had fun too - she just took in all the surroundings, let herself be passed from one person to the next and just was laid back as usual.
jackson got a gator for Christmas and was a little intimidated by it at the ranch. it'll take a few times to get used to it. i think his favorite activity was playing on the hay. he told everyone the story about how he walked across the hay, then he fell on his hiney and slid off of the bale of hay. he loves being outside and probably stayed outside 75% of the time we were there. i'm sure half of it was the fascination to any tractor, dune buggy, gator type of vehicle.

proud of my friends

2007-01-01T00:12:00.000-06:00

well everyone made it this year to midnight! what a difference from last year. way to go "white girls".

our segregated party was fun - boys in living room watching tv talking about finacial things and football, girls in the dining room having fun talking about an entire range of topics, kids (7 kiddos ages 6 months to 3) running around having fun and then all sleeping up stairs, except for lainey. lainey gets a cool kid prize for staying up until we rang in the new year.

about 15 minutes before midnight, emily asked me to look at my watch so we wouldn't miss the new year. well, i told her that my watch is set 10 minutes ahead of time so i'm not late anywhere. everyone laughed at me. i think it's funny also.

holiday pretzels.

pictures coming...

pictures & stories that missed the cut

2006-12-29T22:56:00.000-06:00

thought i'd share some cute pictures that i never posted:this is jackson "checking his email" and wearing my glasses. he likes to do this. normally right before it's time to go to bed. we'll say, "jackson, it's time for bed." and he'll respond, "i'm checking my email. give me a break."this was the day annie got her tubes in her ears - she was a little upset after being "under". they must of inserted a little "wise" in her because the same day she started to have an interest in magazines. wise - used as a noun to describe someone who loves magazines. orginated with alston wise who i think subscribes to 20 + magazines. she was feeling much better later on so she had a friend - isa - over to play. they look about the same size - but isa is 7 months older than annie.
jackson was a little jealous because i was taking so many pictures of annie starting to crawl. so he was getting in front of the camera - but it let me take some cute pictures of jackson. jackson loves this sweater. he always wants to wear it and calls it the sweater with the cool buttons.

hot or not?

2006-12-29T21:53:00.000-06:00

same person? yep. the one in the pool is a picture i took of jack when we went to san antonio. i think he looks pretty nice. now the other picture - i had to take it and he agreed. because he agreed i don' t think he realizes how bad he looked. he HAD to go to target that night to get something he needed. so he must have gotten ready in the matter of seconds. he actually went to target like this...and his mom's an image consultant.

ranch day

2006-12-19T18:31:00.000-06:00

what a fun time we had at the ranch. it was such a nice, quick little retreat to the triple c ranch with a group of friends - friends of mine, jackson and annie. the kiddos had fun feeding the fish, running around outside, riding the gator, feeding cows and the emu...opps the llama. good food and fun times. thanks aunt robin, uncle gary and colton!

face painting

2006-12-18T18:28:00.000-06:00

annie got a hold of jackson's markers and thankfully i caught her before she did any more damage. she gets into everything: pulls all the towels out of the downstairs bathroom, knocks alot of things over, gets into bags. she must be searching for something important.

happy bday poppy

2006-12-17T18:20:00.000-06:00

smile it's your birthday. i think jack caught poppy in between bites of his desert. poppy has a huge sweet tooth! so does this guy....

poppy had a bday party for his __ birthday. i know the number - but i don't know if poppy wants everyone to be aware of the number. kk cooked some delicious food - it was holden's favortie but unfortunately he didn't come. we found out that jackson is a HUGE fan of jane's turkey spread - but who isn't! jackson's a pro at appetizers. he needs no lead or any help.

mama - one popular word

2006-12-15T21:56:00.000-06:00

annie now loves to say "ma ma". she gets her mouth moving first before she makes the sound. so she's just mouthing the words, then it comes out. it's so cute. she gets excited after i get excited, which is a big deal because annie is somewhat serious. she likes to just look around and smile at people but never gets overly excited.

jackson also likes to say the word "mom" or "mommy" alot. it's usually proceeded by a question, wanting me to do something for him or come here. all of which could lead to exhaustion. one day i was just almost wishing he didn't know that word. right when i'm at the end of my rope when i say under my breath, "please don't say my name anymore" it comes out like this:
Jackson: "hey mommy"
Julie: "yes."
Jackson: "i love you"

he's the coolest.

forget crawling...

2006-12-10T21:51:00.000-06:00

annie wants to see what's going on from a higher perspective. annie's now standing. i thought annie was slow but now she decided to prove me wrong and pulls up on everything. you can spot this age by looking at their foreheads - 2 bruises on each side of her head from falling down. she now makes an even bigger mess by pulling everything out of her toy baskets, off of our bookcases, out from under the coffee table and on top of the coffee table. she's a little explorer.

check out annie's diaper - it's huge! if i buy size 4 annie and jackson can both fit into them. they might be a little big for annie but it saves me time trying to figure out the size. hopefully jackson will be out of diapers in january. he just likes to go sit on the potty and read magazines. he doesn't use it. it gets the most use when annie crawls in there and plays with it - that's a positive to jackson not being potty trained - the potty stays clean for annie to play with.

bearded strangers

2006-12-10T18:18:00.000-06:00

both my kiddos liked santa clause this year.
jackson was super excited to see him and gave him a high five when he saw him.
annie was amazed at why someone would look like this - sometimes i'd love to hear what's going on in her mind. many times she appears to be in some deep thought.

crawling

2006-12-08T19:47:00.000-06:00

annie learned to crawl today. i picked her up from school and she just started doing it - not much rocking - which is the sign of crawling. i think she just wanted to get into the other toys in the living room instead of the ones i put right in front of her. she makes a mess of our living room. jackson never made a mess when he was this age he only played with the toys we gave him - never went to his toy basket and pulled out all of his toys. well, now i know what it's like to pick up toys every night thanks to annie. my easy days are over.

isa sure looks like her daddy!

2006-12-04T13:17:00.000-06:00

sara and i cried over how funny this picture was for a long time - plus it was really late - around midnight so we might have been a little delirious.

gotcha...

2006-12-01T12:59:00.000-06:00

this is too funny not to share. i LOVE to play jokes and "get people" in creative ways. today I was "got" by alston and after 30 minutes i'm still crying - it's so funny.

background:
when jackson was about 6 months old i ran into a mary kay cosmetics lady at marshall's on west gray and she asked for my number and wanted to introduce me to the leadership of mary kay. well, about 6 months after that alston and i were talking about something - i think it was the fact that i had her number programed on my cell phone under the word "no". she'd call alot. we found out that the same lady had met alston at target around the same time she met me and calls alston all the time also.

so i get this email today:
Good Morning, Julie!

My name is Susan Vant, the Customer Services Manager here at Mary Kay Cosmetics. It is my understanding that Maggie Falconer has made quite a few attempts to contact you after your initial meeting at Marshall's on W. Gray St. Maggie has been one of our top recruiters in recent years, and I am curious as to why all her attempts to follow-up with you have been ignored. This demonstrates poor taste on your part, and frankly, bad manners. Could you please respond to this email and let us know what it is that has merited such rude behavior.

We are always working toward better customer interaction and we would appreciate your input. Please do not continue to disappoint us with your silence. Mary Kay is a leader in cosmetic sales and produces some of the most outstanding, top quality products on the market. We sincerely hope you will come around.

Thanks so much for your time!
Susan

i'm not in the best mood so i decide to give her my input...here's my response:
Here's my input, Susan!

Are you kidding me!

Please do not try to contact me again. If you do so, I will personally contact Mary Kay Cosmetics Headquarters. I will let them know of this ridiculous response. I can not see why this is considered professional in Customer Service at a well established company. I do believe that you are participating in poor taste and ill-representing Mary Kay.

This is, in the least, a preposterous email that you have sent.

You have permanently turned me away from EVER buying a Mary Kay product again, congratulations.

So, I called Alston to tell her about this email I got from "Susan". Well, when I called Alston she said, “I totally got you!” Alston played a great joke on me – now I have to get her back and I have to watch my back because I know I've played jokes on other friends.

new & old friends

2006-11-28T22:35:00.000-06:00

my best friend from high school & forever, lorraine, came over today to visit and meet jackson and annie. even though we haven't seen each other in over 2 years we still remain the best of friends. it's as if we haven't missed a day. we had so much fun with lots of laughs and at the end i think jackson has a new crush - paige. paige is so cute.

hooray!

2006-11-27T20:07:00.000-06:00

annie likes to clap. i can't get a good picture of her clapping but she looked so cute this morning in this dress that i took a picture anyways. we're just waiting for her to crawl. she's seems to be taking it easy & she's not in any rush to crawl. i don't mind it - i sit her down in the living room and she stays in one spot and i don't worry. but the worrisome days are approaching, i know it.

caught

2006-11-25T13:48:00.000-06:00

we caught jackson in the act...looks like he was running from doing something mischievous....which is probably exactly what he was doing.

this is a great age because he's so honest - even when he does something wrong. he'll tell you. such as, "mommy, i pushed annie over. i'm sorry."

but then sometimes he doesn't tell the truth. one time he was taking a bath and his hiney turned red because the water was warm. mimi asked him why his hiney was red and he said, "mommy spanked me because i was getting out of bed." which probably did happen...maybe 2 months ago. he also told me that mimi didn't feed him one day and he was hungry.

amigo de pancho

2006-11-25T13:42:00.000-06:00

when we visit holden at texadelphia jackson becomes well known throughout the store for his help. if you drop something...have no fear, jackson will find it!
i think we deserve to eat for free - nice entitlement attitude.

gig 'em aggies!

2006-11-24T19:18:00.000-06:00

as everyone that lives in texas knows that the aggies won 12-7. i won't dig any further into the excitement of the game as i'm sure everyone has seen and heard enough about the aggies' win.

but, this is one rare picture - check out holden's shirt (he's a longhorn). holden is always up to something funny and makes us laugh all the time. holden was the one who taught jackson how to "whoop"...maybe now he can teach him how to poop (on the potty...it rhymed).

thanksgiving - part three

2006-11-23T22:50:00.000-06:00

part three - the crowes house. our second big meal of the day and it was so yummy. we had fun playing with jackson's train table, setting up a laptop and relaxing. we tried for the third time to take a family picture of the 4 of us - impossible!

thanksgiving, part one

2006-11-22T23:31:00.000-06:00

we went to the taste of texas...yummy... for our first thanksgiving celebration of 2006 on wednesday with cookie. it was a great start to our thanksgiving weekend. we are so thankful that we have all our family living so close to us. it's very special to us to see our family as often as we do.
we realized that a christmas picture is going to be hard to come by this year with a very active 2 year old and a squirmy 9 month old. we'll be lucky to get a christmas card picture with both kiddos looking at the camera. now we know why christmas pictures sometime only have the kids in them. most likely we won't be in our picture this year. but, we look the same and everyone really wants to just see the kids.

unlce will (or uncle pootz) had the special touch to keep annie happy and occupied for a long time at dinner, cookie and jackson bought some good looking feet and hands - jackson wanted to keep "shopping" he thought it was so much fun. holden & will had fun with jackson playing football and play sleeping. they are the best uncles ever!

here's a fun story...when we pulled up to the taste of texas jackson said, "remember when we were here last time in daddy's car and aunt robin was here." that is exactly right...last time we were there was for my 30th bday with my family. we were impressed. then he crawled underneath someone else's table and wouldn't come out. we were not impressed.

cookie taught him who was born on Christmas. 2 days later he told me santa claus was born on Christmas. sounds like we have some work to do.

my cookie teaches etiquette classes

2006-11-22T23:21:00.000-06:00

but i haven't taken it yet. hopefully i won't fall into the footsteps of my dad and uncles...they got kicked out of "eticool" class.

i used to eat glue...

2006-11-17T22:31:00.000-06:00

today in the car i heard a new sentence, "i eat boogers." oh no...jackson is that kid who eats things. this is on the heels of a week where he picks his nose and is grossed out and screams for a napkin to get them off of his fingers. how quickly does his opinion change to "this might be good to eat". i'm blaming it on someone at school. maybe i'll sneak a peek into his room to see who started this new grossness.

i did sneak a peek in jackson's class today and it was snack time. it was time to pray and they teach them to fold their hands...but jackson closed his eyes and bowed his head to pray. which far outweighs the grossness of eatting boogers. i was one happy mom.

then we were doing some crafts today for school - making this "me" project. we decided to glue buttons all over this little cut-out guy. i caught jackson eatting bits of glue off of his hands. ick. so we've had a long talk about how it's bad manners to eat boogers and glue.

but it reminds me of one of my best college friends, brandon (and of course by proxy, bryan). brandon was in a band in college that had a song that started off "I used to eat glue..." maybe i can upload it...we'll see. if so, it's a fun and funny song to listen to. hopefully the song doesn't map out jackson's tendencies.

if he continues, i might have to pull the police card: jackson is afraid of the police. if i turn right on a red light he starts to worry that the policemen are coming to find us. sometimes this is the only way i get him to do something - it comes right after the comment, "do you want a spanking?". when he answers "yes" to this comment, that's when we mention the police. creative? probably not...grabbing for something to use to discipline my child - sadly, yes.

left brain vs right brain OR man vs woman?

2006-11-16T21:27:00.000-06:00

same amount of dishes...guess who loaded and then who reloaded...tee hee.

hopefully our children will be a good balance of each of us.

school is cool

2006-11-01T23:50:00.000-06:00

today jackson (and annie) had their scarecrow festival at school. it was really cool - an obstacle course, pumpkin painting, face painting, a clown, a zip line, live animals, and much much more. jackson had fun just running around on the soccer field. we might have been the rebels of his class (along with his friend colin) because we were only supposed to be out there for 45 minutes and we had fun too much fun to go in at 45 minutes. mom gets in trouble alot at school - forgeting his take home folder, entering through the exit door and let's not get started on being late. maybe jackson will whip me in shape someday. it's actually no big deal - being late to mother's day out - so he might miss out on the secret to the SATs.

annie and her cute friend parker in the buggy...
this is king - one of jackson's best buds from school....

peas & carrots

2006-10-31T22:40:00.000-06:00

trick or treatin' was fun. uncle holden went with us this year
annie was a pea - except it was too hot outside to wear her sweet pea outfit...
jackson was a carrot...
last year uncle will went with us. it's fun to see what big changes happen in one year. jackson looks so young from halloween '05.

we had a fun time running from house to house saying, "let's go get more candy!" jackson's favorite candy was skittles - which he calls gum. annie's favorite candy is the skittles wrapper - she likes to chew on it. jackson's favorite house was the one with this skeleton head that would laugh a spooky laugh. jackson sat with this sweet grandpa and watched the skeleton for a good 5 minutes. we ate at will's new house - but were sad that emily couldn't join us.

lions and lady bugs and pumpkins, oh my!

2006-10-30T11:23:00.000-06:00

we went to the dolibois house and had a great time with friends and lots of kiddos. i think the kiddos outnumbered the adults - and the mosquitos outnumbered us all. all of the kids are so stinkin' cute! enjoy the pics.

thanks cowboy & pocahantis for a fun party.

first tooth

2006-10-28T21:26:00.000-05:00

annie got her first tooth today! she was chomping on my finger at southwell's (yummy) and i felt it. no picture - it's the size of a pin top.

so instead here's a cute picture of the kids having fun with daddy.

katy tigers

2006-10-28T21:07:00.000-05:00

i don't know who was more excited: jackson shaking the tigers hand or mimi having jackson at the katy tiger's football game. looks like jackson has inherited the football gene - with grandparents who still have season tickets to the katy high football games and uncles whose favorite holiday is football season - it was inevitable.

i graduated 11 years ago - my parents still have season tickets on the 50 yard line, second deck. mimi loves these seats - we don't know if she loves them so she can watch the game or socialize with everyone walking by. with jackson we're sure it has to socialize in order to show off her grandson.

save the best for last - not so true

2006-10-27T18:36:00.000-05:00

i took about 25 pics at the pumpkin patch. the first one of annie is below. here's the last.
she did not save the best for last.

i should have looked at the camera and said, "OK, let's go. this is a good picture." instead i have to seriously clean a pair of pants and shoes.

i do that alot - with digital cameras and other things in life - think that there's something better coming when i should be content with what i have.

anyways, we might try the pumpkin patch again if it's nice outside. daddy will go with us this time. maybe we could get a family picture - a rare find.