We had SUCH a busy weekend. We did go to Holiday World, and it was a lot of fun! I have a lot of pictures from there. I have a lot of pictures I need to go through and edit before I post them, but I had to put these railroad pics up. I don't know what it is about railroad tracks, but they make for great pictures. Isn't it cute how Jackson and Wesley are holding hands? Wesley would just take Jackson by the hand and lead him around. So cute. I tried to get these pictures to have a vintage feel, and I kind of like the way they look now.

I am going to try to get the Holiday World pictures posted in the next day or so and then some other random pictures from the weekend, but I'm POOPED! Holiday World is torturous for a 40-year-old! But the boys had so much fun and that is really what it's all about, right?

Sorry, but I am tired and don't feel like posting anything but pictures right now. So here are some from the weekend. I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Jackson on Mimi's pig, as he says

Me and my little guy

Jackson and Nana cutting hydrangeas

Jackson and Uncle Darin

Jackson trying to push flowers

Pawpaw and Jackson

Here's a layout I did from Jackson's first swim of the season:

MY LITTLE MAN

I only have three pictures to share and nothing else to post. We are leaving tomorrow for Missouri to see some grandparents, so I'll be sure and have lots of pictures to post soon. Internet access while I'm there is iffy, so I probably won't be posting again until Tuesday of next week. Jackson's ears seem to be all healed up. He let Tom wash them tonight in the bath, thank the Lord, because they were getting pretty nasty.

Until next time...

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY 2008

Above is a slide I did of all the pictures I could find from Jackson's birth to present with Tom. There were some others, but they weren't in focus or the quality was poor. I tried my best to keep them in order, but they're obviously not. I enjoyed going through all the old pictures. I can't believe how chubby Jackson was as a baby. He sure has slimmed down, huh?

I hope everyone had a good Father's Day. Tom got home late today after a weekend in Jasper and he grilled us some steaks and we made twice-baked potatoes, which were really good.

Here is a digital scrapbooking layout I did too. I haven't had any work to speak of in a while, so I've done a lot of playing on the computer. I love this picture of the two of them walking along the beach.

Jackson and I went over to Stacy and Michael's last night for a little barbecue get-together, and it was nice to sit down and visit with friends. Jackson had a big time playing with Wesley. He also got to eat a chocolate cake stuffed ice cream cone. Wesley was acting like he was going to eat Jackson's, which then threw Jackson into a tailspin. And as you can see, Jackson is crying and Wesley thought it was funny. My sensitive little boy.

Until next time...

SOMEBODY STOP ME, PLEASE

I can't seem to stop buying cute little shirts for Jackson. I went to Children's Place today and got these two t-shirts:

While we were out shopping, I went to Bath & Body Works to buy some hand soap for the house, and they had some men's travel hair and body wash that I thought Tom might like for Father's Day. I wanted to see what it would smell like, so I squirted the cologne bottle, but it squirted to the floor and I couldn't smell it. So I held it up higher (and in the process turned the squirter head directly towards my eye obviously), and when I squirted it, it shot into my eye at close range. I almost hit the floor. I was literally blind for a while. I tried to not look so stupid and just kept my eye shut, took Jackson's hand and left the store. When I got in the Jeep and looked at my eye, there was mascara running down my cheek. Kind of set the mood for the whole day, I'm afraid.

I did this layout yesterday of Jackson. I am going to frame it, but I haven't found a frame I like yet. If you can't read the fine print, it just says "This is what inspires me." And it's true.

Jackson has a severe ear infection. We went to the doctor yesterday and he's now on antibiotics. I'm going to keep him out of the pool for a while for sure. It is very hard to get drops into his ears, but I'm trying. Tom is out of town until Sunday, so it's just me, and Jackson is about as strong as I am, I'm afraid, so it's hard for me to hold him down and get these drops in!

The doctor wants to see him again tomorrow, but I may wait and take him Monday because he hurt him pretty bad trying to get a look at his ear drum. It took forever for me to peel Jackson from the ceiling screaming. He was really beside myself. Anyway, I'm debating waiting until Monday to take him to the doctor. We'll see...

Before I realized how bad his ear was, we went to the pool and met Wesley and Stacy. They had a great time swimming and going down the slide. Then afterwards, we ate lunch at a picnic table right outside of the pool area. It was a fun day.

Jackson had always been afraid of the mushroom fountain there, but after a while, he warmed up to it. I know I'm killing y'all with videos here lately, but I know the grandparents like to see them. Ignore my commentary. I sound so country and flat, but I guess it's how I really sound.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Until next time...

Life's A Beach

I am getting ready to order some beach pictures, so I thought I'd scan a few in. We were sent the proofs in the mail, but they have a watermark on them so they can't be duplicated, but they scan well enough for my purposes here. I am going to get a big one of the second one to serve as Jackson's three-year pic. He looks almost grown, doesn't he?

Well, Mary Lynn and I took Jackson to the pool on Monday, and as I imagined, he wanted to slide the whole time. When we weren't sliding, he was whining about sliding. So Mary Lynn and I both took him down the slide LOTS. Here is a little video I took of ML and Jackson on the slide. It's sad that two grown women squeal as they go down it, yet boys seven and under seemed perfectly composed. I wish I would have kept filming, but I was laughing too hard!

We're going to meet Wesley and Stacy up at the pool in the morning, so they should wear us out sufficiently. I'll try to take some pictures then or maybe a better video of them playing. We have swimming lessons tonight, which Jackson is sooooo over. I have to hear him saying "Go home, go home," or "Eddy go, eddy go," which is "Ready to go," from about the time we arrive to when we are on our way home. Ugh.

Until next time...

Here are his froggy goggles in action.

PULL UP A CHAIR, THIS IS A LONG ONE

We have certainly had a very busy first week of June! Jackson started swimming lessons last Monday and he is doing pretty good. He loves the water, but he prefers to play and do what HE wants to do and not what we are supposed to be doing in swim class. Anyway, it's been good for him to be in a "class" situation, I guess. Wesley is in the class, too, so Jackson loves seeing him there. We have it all this week too, from Monday to Thursday. Here are a couple of pictures of the cute little sweathogs.

Mom came into town this past Thursday. She wanted to go see Rick Bragg at his book signing in the Cool Springs area that was scheduled for Thursday night, according to his publisher's Web site. He wrote All Over but the Shoutin' and Ava's Man. This new book is called Prince of Frogtown. After having Jackson miss his swimming class for that night and coaxing Mary Lynn out of her house and picking my aunt Glendora up at a local hotel where she was staying for a seminar, we made our way to the Cool Springs area, leaving early enough so that we would not be late.

Well, with the rush-hour traffic and all, we pulled up right around 6:20 and the signing was at 7:00. Good, we're on time. We look over in the window of Barnes & Noble and there's a sign hanging that says the book signing we were there to be a part of wasn't until Friday night. Ugh. Needless to say, we lost a few people the next night when we went AGAIN. It lasted way too long for me and Jackson, since I couldn't sit in there and listen to the author, which I would have liked to do. Even though I hate to read, I think he's a funny person with a twisted wit. Here are a couple of pictures from the night.

Tom is making serious headway on the playground pad. Hopefully he'll be able to start building it soon. It has been so hot here lately that it has made it hard for him to work on it more than just in the mornings. Anyway, it will be nice when it's done. You can kind of see in this picture how it looks. It's only one side of it because I had my zoom lens on and couldn't get a better picture. You can see how those boards step down on the side there. It has to be like that since our yard is so sloped.

Saturday was the pool party in our subdivision, and even though I loathe tucking myself into a bathing suit, I went. Jackson loved sliding down the water slide with Tom and wanted to do it over and over and over again! I'm taking him tomorrow morning, so I guess I know what I have in store for me, huh? Does he look like a happy boy or what?

We took Buster in Saturday morning to the vet for his yearly shots and we took Barney also because he's having his yearly ear infection that needed to be treated. So Tom, me, Jackson, Buster and Barney piled into the Jeep and went to the vet's office. Mom was here, but Jackson wanted to go with us and the dogs.

Well, if Buster looks unhappy in the below picture, it's because he was told he was obese by the doctor and is now on a diet. He probably thinks we are starving him, because besides it being different food that is diet food, we are giving him half of what we were giving him. Bless his heart. He weighed 71 pounds and the vet said he should weigh 40, but realistically we hope he gets down to 50. Jackson is hugging him in this picture as if to say, it's okay my pot-bellied friend.

And now here are some random pictures of Jackson and Mom. It is so hard to get Jackson to look at the camera, much less smile for it. Those are his Hulk gloves in the last picture that he likes to beat on me and his daddy with, and the dogs if they'll stand still long enough.

Until next time...