Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town

A Holiday Update

Last Tuesday, Jordan had a Christmas Show at his daycare/preschool. I have a video of his class singing, but it takes forever to upload, so it will have to wait. To our surprise, Jordan got scared and called for us. He had been going around the house singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town for a week, but barely sang a word that night. Another little boy stole the spotlight and grabbed the microphone. That's what I would have expected from Jordan. Below are some pictures of Daddy and Trevor before the program and Jordan and his "girlfriend," Cami playing on the stage after the show.

The women in Trevor's room at daycare claim that I could get him a bucket with toys in it for Christmas and he would be thrilled. They put a white container with tons of baby toys in it on the floor and sit him down in front of it and he is entertained for at least 10 minutes (which is FOREVER in baby time). Below is my rendition of the bucket. He loves it.

And this picture in the Spider Man pajamas is just unbelievable to me. Look how tall he looks! Maybe it's just because his pants are really short . . . ..

Bath time

Jordan and Trevor took their first bath together. Jordan wasn't crazy about Trevor playing with his toys, but he was pretty good to his little brother, and as you can see, even helped rinse him off.

After the turkey

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our house with my dad, Carl's mom and Carl's sister. On Saturday, we celebrated with my mom, sister and Lucas. Here's the dining room after the table was almost cleared. I love the Christmas tree in this room. It makes me very, very happy :)

Dear Jordan and Trevor,

Today, you were a part of making history. You accompanied daddy and me to vote for the President of the United States. We voted for a man named Barack Obama. Like you, Barack Obama is biracial. Your mommy, like his, is white, and your daddy is black and Indian. Barack Obama’s father was black, born in a country called Kenya. Barack Obama is the first black man to be selected as a political party’s nominee for President. I know you are too young to understand the significance of that. Really, mommy and daddy are even too young to truly understand it. But not that long ago (in the lifetime of your gramma, nana and grandpas), it would not have been possible. People are sometimes scared of what is different and for a long time, in our country, many white people were scared of people with darker skin than them. For reasons I cannot explain, many white people even thought they were better than black people. So they made rules and laws to keep black people, and others, from doing certain things, like eating at the same restaurants as them, drinking from the same water fountain and even voting . It would not have been possible then for Barack Obama to run for President. But today, the world changed, and you were a part of making that happen.

Equally important is that a woman named Sarah Palin is running for Vice-President with the Republican nominee, John McCain. We didn’t vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin, but it is important for you to know, as boys, that you have privileges that have not always been allowed to women. Just like white people didn’t allow black people to do certain things, women have not been allowed to do the same things as men. As a matter of fact, black men were allowed to vote before women of any color were allowed to vote. Sarah Palin, like Barack Obama, is brave, and has been a part of changing the world for people like your mommy, your aunties, and your cousin Gracie, who we will get to meet soon.

It is so important that you remember that all people – of all colors, from all countries, whether they are men or women, gay or straight– are part of God’s creation and we should treat them all with the same love and respect that we want them to treat us. Mommy and Daddy voted for Barack Obama today, not because of the color of his skin, but because we believe in what he wants to do to make our country, and our world, a better place to live, for all of us. Because of people like him, and because of what you helped us do today, you can be anything you want to be.

Love,Mommy

** forgive me for the politics one more time, but this blog is a record for my children and while I've posted this on another blog I keep for my own rantings, I felt the need to put it here also.

Explorium

Jordan and I had some time by ourselves today. We went to the Explorium (formerly the Lexington Children's Museum). Dear Santa, please make the new camera an SLR. I could have much better pictures of the bubble blowing.

A new milestone, saturday morning breakfast and an evening stroll.

Trevor is officially sitting up on his own now. Every once in a while, he tumbles over, but he does a pretty good job of consistently balancing himself.

I would say that I can't believe my child is so vain (see posing below), but knowing his two parents, you would all just laugh.

Saturday morning breakfast at Cracker Barrell. Trevor sits in the restaurant high chairs now. It's a good thing, because he is way too heavy to haul him around in that handy-dandy carrier anymore and before he was sitting up, one of us would have to be holding him in our lap, trying to eat with one hand. Not that we venture into restaurants very often lately . . ...

Out for an evening walk. Pushing the double-stroller with a 30 pound 3 year and an almost 20 pound 6 month old in it (the stroller weighs at least 30!) is a workout!

Halloween

The boys' school had a fall festival on Thursday night, so we dressed up and headed over. This first picture is of Jordan and Cami, his "girlfriend," who has been at Bracktown with him since he started over two years ago. I know it's blurry of Jordan, but I couldn't get him to stand still, so this is the best picture I have with her in it.

Mr. Incredible getting ready to shoot a basket at one of the fall festival games.

Costume number 1 for Trevor. A frog. This is a hand-me-down from our friend Christian. Unfortunately, Trevor is really, really long and the legs were a little short, so as you will see below, we borrowed another costume for Halloween night.

Blurry again, I know, but I couldn't resist a picture of Jordan on Daddy's shoulders. He didn't really like walking. My camera hasn't been taking very good pictures lately. Dear Santa Claus, I need a newer, nicer one. Also, my camera battery died and I couldn't find the charger last night, so we don't have very many pictures.

And here's our little Dalmation :0) Thanks to the Scutchfields.

Our friend Thomas Wyatt went trick-or-treating with us. Isn't he the cutest little lion you have ever seen?

October update continued (Jordan)

I thought I'd give Jordan his own "update." It's easy to get overlooked when there is a baby around. I just can't even desribe how amazed I am at what an amazing little boy he is becoming. We can't keep him dressed because his pants keep getting shorter. For a child who sometimes goes all day without eating one full meal, it's amazing how fast he grows. For those who don't already know - he is a TALKER. He talks from the minute he gets out of bed until the minute he goes to sleep. And we have officially entered the "why?" stage. Someone please tell me that it doesn't last much longer. I am running out of answers.

He's as obssessed with music as ever. And his taste is as eclectic as his parents'. Some of his current favorite songs are "Fergilicious," "Unbreakable" (Alecia Keyes), "God's Big Backyard," "My Father's House," "The Dixie Song" (I have no idea if this is the actual title, but that's what he calls it and he listens to it in his Uncle Lucas's car), "Even though I'm not your nana" (also don't know the title, but you probably know the song - it actually says, "even though I'm not your man," but Jordan insists it says "nana"), "I'm so sincere with it . . ." (also not the title, but you also might know what song this is), and "The Right Stuff" (yes, NKOTB).

He also has a new obsession thanks to a movie that Uncle Lucas bought him - Thomas the Train. Have you ever watched this? It's about as fun as watching paint dry. But he LOVES it. We have 5 or 6 movies now and he could literally watch them all day long. We have started collecting the wooden trains, which are VERY expensive, by the way. Santa Clause, a.k.a. Nana, is going to bring a train table.

We just had a parent/teacher conference at his school last week. Of course, he is brilliant :) Actually, there was apparently a "biter" in his class who was asked to leave recently, but who, before that, passed along this neat trick to the other kids. Jordan had notes in his folder two days in a row saying that he bit two separate kids. I got very worried that this was going to be a problem and we'd have to find a new daycare, but luckily, after a weekend of no t.v. and talking about it a lot, it hasn't happened since. Other than those episodes, he seems to be doing very well. It's amazing how much they learn at this age. He is recognizing letters, spelling his own name. Today, he spelled his dad's name for me, to my surprise. He can count to 20 and "reads" books to me (from memory, of course). And his new skill is "cutting" with scissors. He loves it. And apparently, developmentally, he should be learning to cut in a straight line, so we bought some scissors and are working on that.

I wish I took the time to write down all the funny things he says. Right now, of course, I can't think of any, but I have promised myself I'm going to start writing them down. They are just too precious.

Enough typing, here are a couple of pictures:

Another obsession: cars. This is in one of Jerry Stykes's corvettes. If you happen to know Jerry, it may be hard to believe he let a sticky-fingered child into his corvette. I certainly wasn't allowed to touch any of his cars when I was a little girl. That's why I had to take these pictures:

Cutting with scissors:
And here's his "I'm mad you Mommy" look. I don't know why the picture is sideways. Can't get it to rotate -even though it is saved rotated.