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.