Pre-Christmas Activities

On Saturday Emily, Riley, and Avi Grace came over. They each had one gift to open. We learned that next year, we should just buy four of the same toy. (They aren't great at sharing!)

Jack and Emily thought Avi Grace needed some help opening her present.

This was our attempt at a group picture.

Play Group Party
We are part of a wonderful playgroup; unfortunately my job prevents us from being able to participate as much as we'd like, but the other moms are just fabulous about keeping us in the loop so that when I'm off, we are able to spend time with them. Today, Vika and Alex hosted the group for a Christmas party. She had Christmas cookies for the children to decorate; some of them enjoyed eating the decorations as much as they did the cookies.

Who does Jack look like?

Everyone asks who Jack looks like. Personally, I don't see a strong resemblence to either Brent or me. There also does not seem to be a consensus amongst our friends and family; people frequently comment that he looks JUST LIKE one or the other of us, but the answer is pretty split.

So, I found this handy website to settle the debate once and for all....

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

I played around with photos of various people (related and unrelated) to see what the meter would show. When I had it compare a picture of me and Jack to a picture of Jack, it showed that Jack looks 40% more like himself than me....so I guess the technology isn't perfect!

Quick Funny Story

So, we've been doing an advent calendar, and we spend a few minutes everyday trying to help Jack understand why we celebrate Christmas. Today as we read a Bible verse and talked about Mary and Joseph, Brent told him that Joseph was a carpenter. Jack replied, "He made carpet?"

Blog Note:

If you're an avid follower of our blog (like, a grandparent!), you may want to scroll down before you start reading. We've been busy, and I posted 3 entries at once. If you just read the most recent, you'll miss Thanksgiving!

Breakfast with Santa

The youth at First Methodist Church (where Jack goes to school and the Adkersons go to church) hosted Breakfast with Santa this morning. Last night we told Jack that we were going to have breakfast with Santa in the morning. I asked if he would like to talk to Santa and tell him what he wants for Christmas and maybe even take a picture. Without even hesitating, he said, "NO." So, needless to say, I didn't expect the actual encounter with Santa to go very well. If you've followed our blog, you may remember the "Dinosaurs are Scary" and "Cookies with Clifford the Big Red Dog" entries. This was similar. Jack was interested in looking at Santa from a distance, but did not want to get too close. He clung very tightly to me the whole time. After we got about 10 feet away, we told him to wave goodbye and tell Santa, "thank you." He had no problem with that.

Here's a closer look at Jack's expression.

We thought that perhaps if Jack and Emily went together to take a picture with Santa it wouldn't be so scary. Emily at least said she would take a picture with Santa. She wasn't as freaked out as Jack was, but when it was time to let go of Mommy's hand, she wasn't so sure she wanted to sit in the strange man's lap!

We did get a picture of Jack and Emily showing off the candy canes they received after "visiting" with Santa.

The youth also had a "Gingerbread Store." It was a wonderful room filled with presents, and the youth accompanied the children into the store to select presents for their parents. The presents only cost $1 each, and now Jack has a present for each of us under the tree. It will be such a surprise to see what he picked out for us when we open them on Christmas day! I sneaked around the corner to get a picture, but I promise, I didn't see the gifts!

We welcome Dars, our elf!

Uncle Doc, Aunt Bec, and Susu came to Starkville the weekend after Thanksgiving. When Jack woke up from his nap on Saturday, there was an elf in our living room! Uncle Doc & Aunt Bec read the book he left to explain his job....every night while we're sleeping he flies to the north pole to tell Santa Claus if Jack has been a good boy, then he returns before we wake up in the morning. Jack got to name our elf, and he decided to name him Dars. (Rhymes with cars. We're not sure where Jack came up with the name.) We're allowed to talk to Dars, but we aren't allowed to touch him. If we touch him, he could lose his magical powers. So far, we haven't found him in the same place twice. He's appeared in almost every room in the house! It is fun trying to find him when we wake up each day. Below are the pictures of Aunt Bec and Uncle Doc reading the story to Jack. In the bottom picture, you can see Dars on the shelf above them.

Thanksgiving with the Bowies

We spent Tues-Fri of Thanksgiving week in Lafayette and had a big Bowie family dinner at Gramps's on Thursday. Jack enjoyed playing with the Moore crew (all FOUR of them!) He was smitten with Daphne, but also liked trying to keep up with "the big boys."

At first, Jack wasn't sure how to approach the pretty little girl in pink.


There was a lot going on and a lot to take in!

I hope there aren't any tree-huggers reading this. The boys made a project of peeling the park off of Gramps's tree.

Each piece of bark was a treasure!

There was plenty of good food! Jack "shared" so much of my hummus before lunch, he wasn't very hungry by the time we sat down to eat.

Jack took this picture of Mimi & Nana.

Two year olds are thankful for...

Jack's class at school is called the Bunnies. On their classroom door yesterday was a poster with the heading "The Bunnies are thankful for..." and listed each child's name with his/her answer. Here it is:
Judson -chicken
Bella -candy, brothers, sister, mommy, daddy
Madeline -a horse
Quinton -chicken
Luke -candy
Ashlyn -a pony
Anna Karen -dog, mommy, daddy, brother
Emily -candy
Jack -a car
Agatha -mommy
And, I think there were a couple of others that listed candy. I asked Jack which car he was thankful for. He said he was thankful for mommy's car. I was beginning to worry that a few of the children thought this was a Christmas wishlist!
Birthday Party
So, yesterday Jack said he wanted to have a birthday party. I tried to explain that his birthday is in April which is several months away, but that we would be celebrating Jesus's birthday next month. He said he wanted to have HIS birthday party. So, again I tried to explain that his birthday is several months away. I explained that right now it is winter, and that his birthday would come in the spring when it starts to get hot outside. So, he said, "Jesus likes it cold."
The Statue of Olivia (or Libya?)
When my mom came back from NYC this summer, she brought Jack a book with the ABC's of New York City. He likes it a lot, and I've told him about visiting New York. So, the other night as the CBC Nightly News was ending, they panned the NYC skyline and ended with a shot of the Statue of Liberty. Jack pointed at the TV and said, "Mommy went there." I said, "That's right, do you remember what that is?" He thought for a minute and said, "no." Then he said, "It's in my book. It is New York City." I said, "Yes, and that is the Statue of Liberty." He repeated, "Yes, the Statue of Olivia" Or, perhaps he said Libya, I'm not sure. Either way, it was funny, and he has repeated it each time we've looked at the NYC book since then.

Halloween 2008

Emily, Addie, Jack & Max get ready to go trick or treating.

The girls lead the way.

This year, it really was all about one thing...the loot.

Waiting for someone to answer the door.

I think Jack gets his speed from my side of the family. If he is interested in track and field, we're going to need to work on the shotput; I don't think there will be any sprinting in his future.

Max did his best to keep up with the bigger kids.

After a hitting a few houses for trick or treating, we headed to the family festival at church. In this picture, you can see Jack attempting the ring "toss."Our good friend Avi Grace was the sweetest little pig.

At the church festival, we ran into lots of friends. Cy and Nicholas Hallberg were also the Man in the Yellow Hat and Curious George. Beckett Lesley, as Winnie the Pooh, wanted to join in the fun of the picture taking.

"This is George...

He was a good little monkey, and always very curious!"

For those of you who have spent any time with Jack, you know he is a big Curious George fan. We had a Curious George birthday party in April, and I honestly thought the George-craze was just a phase. Well, over six months later he is still a huge George fan! When he decided to be Curious George for Halloween, Brent agreed to be the Man in the Yellow Hat....
One old straw hat = free
One can of yellow spray paint = $2
Old khaki pants and white dress shirt = free
Two packets of yellow RIT die = $3
Brent dressed as the Man in the Yellow Hat = Priceless

We attended a carnival on campus Tuesday night, and Brent and Jack won the costum contest (OK, so they won for the boy in the infant-2 year old category, but I'm certain they were the most popular characters at the event! In fact, I felt a little like I was hanging out with a couple of celebrities!)

Jack played lots of games at the carnival. Arm wrestling Superman was one of the most clever booths!

You love me

We enjoyed a weekend together at home after 4 weekends in a row of traveling. We went to the MSU-Vandy game on Saturday and saw a great win! The LSU-FL game was miserable, but the Saints helped dull the pain with an exciting win on Sunday.

Because we had an exhausting day on Saturday, I was just certain Jack would take a nice long nap on Sunday after church. After lunch, he headed for his room and didn't put up a fight after story time when I said it was time to go to sleep. "Ahhh, a nice long nap for everyone. What a perfect Sunday afternoon," or so I thought! He chattered, sang, screeched happily for about an hour. At one point it was "Who Let the Dawgs Out" (an MSU favorite). Then, as we watched on the monitor, he sat up and told the whole story of "Three Billy Goats Gruff" while wearing his pull-up on his head. (No book needed; this is his new favorite story that he asks us to tell ad nauseum.) Fortunately, he is doing great with potty training, and we just switch to a pull-up at nap time so that if he should slip into a nice deep slumber, he won't have an accident. That wasn't a concern yesterday! No deep slumbers happening during that "nap time." Amazingly, after just "resting" for an hour, he was in a great mood the rest of the day. Go figure!

Last night, Brent made some strawberry bread for a demonstration he is doing today. So, we were able to enjoy a loaf with some ice cream. Jack was very intently enjoying his dessert without a word. Brent decided to strike up a conversation; here it is:

Brent: Jack, you know what?
Jack: Yes.
Brent: What then?
Jack: You love me.

The whole conversation involved no break in the rhythm of his eating and little, if any, eye contact. I guess we don't have to worry whether he knows he's loved!

Weekend in Lafayette

We spent last weekend in Lafayette. Saturday morning we went to the zoo with Grandmommy, and Saturday night Brent and I had a date night. We had 8th row seats at the Brad Paisley concert. We literally leaned right on the catwalk. I even got to shake hands with Jewel. (She was the opening act.) It was a great concert. (A friend of mine from high school had seats near us and brought her camera. I'll post a few pics when I get them from her.)

Jack seemed to like the statues of the animals as much as he liked the real things.

Natural curiosity, right?

Playing king of the mountain was fun, too!

I think Grandmommy enjoyed the zoo as much as Jack did.

Choo, choo! All aboard the train! We saw some cool monkey-action from the train!

Jack also mastered the climbing wall on the playground at the zoo. (Did I mention that we did see some live animals while we were there?)

We also had some good quality time with Gramps, Grumps and Mimi.