"A day in the life of Jackson & Stone..." : March 2013

Meet Jackson and Stone:

Our boys are the light of our lives, and we can't imagine life without them! They are so blessed to have so many people in their lives who love them unconditionally and we are just as blessed to be given the privilege to be their parents!

This blog is a chronicle of our boys lives. All the milestones, all the fun times, all the silly things they do, and all of their messes!

This blog is to keep everyone up to date and to document all of those memories of our lives together that we never want to forget!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Children's Museum of Memphis

Emily (and her mama, my friend Brandi) invited us to tag along to the Children's Museum of Memphis last week!

Jackson and Emily hugging!
Sweetest thing ever!
Love them! :)

Hoola-hooping!!

Jackson loved the "AutoZone" car room.
Here he is driving the car simulator!

Sweet Emily!

Getting ready to slide!

Jackson would say, "Hey! Wait Emmie!" :)
Emily would say, "Hey! Where's Ackson?" :)

"Weeeee!!!!"

They even had a Kroger in the children's museum! You had your own shopping cart, picked out your items, and even got to check out on a real cash register!

Back in the "AutoZone" room...again! :)

And there was a fire truck!
Jackson seemed to like it more than Miss Emily!
She's looking at him like, "Do you mind?"

And there was a pretty cool castle!
"Romeo, Romeo...Where for art thou, Romeo?"

See-saw time!
Jackson weighs just a little more than Emily as you can see... :)

Disco room!
And my boy can GET DOWN! He danced and danced and danced! My boy has some moves!

Look at my boy dancing in the Hollywood room to Hammer Time by MC Hammer! Now that boy has some rhythm! :)

Emily in the Hollywood room!
Is she cool or what?!

Jackson ran and ran and ran!

And after it all, we had too wore out two-year olds!
(There mama's were pretty tired too!!)

Sweet cheeks!

Now tell me...is that not the sweetest face you have ever seen?! I just love him!

And...since we are on the subject of sweetness, let me tell you something else! Just today, I was getting dressed in our bathroom, and Jackson came running into the room, looked up at me, and said, "Hey! That's pretty!" :)

Sweetest kid ever!
(at least the whole time he's not being bad!)

My boy LOVES to be dirty!

What is it with boys?
Why do they love to be dirty?
Why do they love all things dirty?
What is it about the dirt/mud and boys? :)

Well...Jackson is ALL BOY when it comes to playing in the dirt! He had himself a blast!

Playing in the dirt! (and loving every second of it!)

The next day was rainy...

...but that didn't stop him! :)

What's better than dirt? Only thing better....is MUD! :)
Even Alivia got in on the action! :) (Aren't her reading glasses too cute?!)

Throwing dirt! :)
(And yes...I got a little dusty getting this picture, but it was SO worth it!)

Priceless dirty face! Love it!

Splish Splash...

...we were taking a bath!

My boy loves a bath! He's my little water bug! :)

Sleeping Angel!

This sneaky little thing has been finding his way into our bed sometime in the middle of the night! We roll over or wake up in the morning and there he is!

He sure does look peaceful doesn't he? :)

Good Morning!

Step 1: Snoozin' in mama and daddy's bed.
Step 2: BIG stretches!!
Step 3: Wiggle under the covers and hide from mama...
Step 4: "Where's Jackson? Has anyone seen Jackson? He was just here...where could he be?!"
Step 5: There he is! :)

I love stay home mornings with my boy!

Let's add this to the list...

Now we can add "controller to a remote controlled monster truck" to the list of things that I have randomly found in MY bed! You just learn to never be surprised when living with a toddler! :)

Not feeling it this morning!

He says, "Noooooo!" in the saddest voice ever when I told him it was time to wake up!
Poor guy doesn't like to get up in the morning...I'm pretty sure he gets that from me! :)

Potty training time...

So we have been working on potty training for some time now and Jackson has days where he does pretty good and other days where he could care less about using the potty! Now we have bragged on him, put him in pull-ups (even ones with Lightning McQueen on the front), bribed him with Skittles, let him flush the potty, etc. but the kid just isn't really feeling this whole potty thing.

So...we decided to try putting him in real underwear and letting him realize he was wetting himself (and seriously, how cute is he?!). As I'm sure you are thinking, that sounds like a dangerous adventure to us too, but we have tried the "safer" methods but without great success.

So the first day we put him in the "big boy underwear", I swear I said "Do you need to go potty?" about 10,000 times and he did really well, UNTIL...

Later that night he was crawling around on the couch and pushed his daddy forward so he could climb behind him and then stopped and PEE'D ON HIS DADDY'S BACK! Jason jumped up (now covered in urine) hollering "He pee'd on me! He pee'd on me!" and all I could do was laugh! Jason was pitching a fit; Jackson was looking at the both of us like we were crazy! I had Jackson carrying him around trying to clean him up and Jason was trying to get his wet clothes off and all I could do was laugh! Jason however, did NOT think it was funny at the time! :)

So....needless to say, we put a diaper back on that baby and are still a little gun shy to start that technique again just yet! We are going to try again when we can put him outside for a while! Maybe he can't do as much damage outside! :)

Bubble beard!

Who else is impressed with Jackson's "bubble beard"? :)

Jackson just loves the bubbles these days! Just the other night as we were getting set to take a bubble bath, I look around to find Jackson putting MORE bubbles in the tub! Guess he didn't think I put in enough! :) Well...that night there was enough bubbles to last for days!

Silly boy!

Popcorn!

Seems that Jackson LOVES popcorn! He was "Mmmm mmmm mmmm"ing so loudly that I couldn't hear the TV over him! :) And...he didn't really want to share with me; I'm pretty sure he could have even the entire bowl by himself! And...he was pretty upset when the bowl was finally empty; there were tears!

Who knew? But, lets face it...popcorn is delicious!

Shopping Time-Out!

So...I got brave.
Really brave.
And...decided to take Jackson with me shopping to Tunica to find an Easter outfit. He had been being so sweet. I just knew it was going to work out.

I. Was. Wrong!

Jackson acted sweet for a total of about one minute before he laid out on the floor of the first store. One minute...tops. He flopped around, he ran from me, he hollered "No!" when I told him to stand still. It was like he lost his mind all of a sudden! It was not pretty. Very not pretty!

He climbed under tables (see above - he better be glad he's so cute in times like this!) and I had to remove him from the inside of clothes racks by physical force. Ugly. That store may never be the same....I know that I sure will not!

I just kept asking myself...."Why did I bring him to a store with no shopping cart?" and "What was I thinking?!" and "Wonder if anyone will see me if I beat him right here in this store?" and so on...

I learned my lesson!

So...what does a mama do in a situation like this?

Here are the options:
1. Ignore him - NO way that was going to happen!
2. Just leave - Nope, I just drove to Tunica for Easter outfits and that is what I will leave here with!
3. Beat him? Oh the thought did cross my mind!
4. Time out!

Option 4 is the one we went with (but option 3 came in a close second!) and so Jackson got to sit in time-out in public in a children's store. I like to tell myself there is no way that was the first time that had ever happened in that store. No way he was the first time-out in there, right?

And here you go...this is what time out looked like! He was in the corner by the dressing rooms and this lady and her granddaughter came over to try on clothes and thought we were in line. I just looked at her and said, "You can go ahead. We are not in line. He is in time out!" The lady just blinked at me and then said, "Oh. I think I heard him fussing earlier." - you think? The little girl then said, "I SAW him earlier and he was not acting nice!" I just smiled at her and said, "No ma'am, he wasn't...and now he's in time out!"

He did not like it one bit. I'd like to say he was a perfect angel after that, but unfortunately....not the case. But, he was better. And the next place we went had a shopping cart!

Best part was...found an Easter outfit too! :)
At least I had something to show for that outing.

I do not want to do that again any time soon.

Spring Forward...

Daylight Savings Time is HERE! Yeah! :)

But it seems that I am the only person excited about the time change! Jackson was NOT loving losing an hour of sleep on Monday morning! Poor guy was so sleepy!

I'm sleepy too Jackson, but this way it won't get dark so early in the afternoon! Yeah! :)

Side note: Since Jackson hasn't quite adjusted to the time change just yet, he *accidentally* slept until 8:30 on Tuesday! Oh happy day! :)

Magically Delicious!

Lucky Charms are delicious!

This morning, he woke up, came to get me, and said "Up! Eat!" I asked him what he wanted and he said "cerral" and I said, "You want some Cherrios?" Jackson says, "No! Red!!" (Note: the Lucky Charms box is red)...so Lucky Charms it is! :)

We are encouraging him to talk...so I'm loving it when he asks for something specific! So much better than just laying in the floor and crying like we used to do. Way better!

Later that day he also asked if he could have a "nack" when he was hungry. When I asked what he wanted he said "Ish"....goldfish it is! :)