a very merry christmas

There are just too many things I want to remember from this year.  I can't possibly write about everything so I'm just going to record key words to help me remember.  This Christmas has probably been my favorite that I can remember since I was a little girl.  Each Christmas has something that makes is special and unique but this one was special because of my children.  I feel so blessed.  Jackson was old enough to remember things from previous years, anticipate it, and get really excited about it.  Because Jackson got excited without us telling him to be, Sam got really into it as well.  Of course, Eva was too little to know what was going on but just having her around helped contribute to the "family" feel of things.  Us Barnes' are growing in numbers.  It makes me happy to share time with and create traditions that will continue to unite and strengthen us for years to come.  I feel like this Christmas we enjoyed old traditions and started some that I hope we will keep up for years to come.

I want to remember... the advent calendar.  the little people nativity set.  sam being able to answer very basic "what is christmas about" questions.  the santa hats--both on heads and as decorations.  dr. seuss's The Grinch.  Jackson playing "Jingle Bells" in chords on the piano.  making the tongue sound after singing jingle bells like in the christmas story movie.  jackson looking through the toys catalog and circling almost everything--one time he actually exclaimed "wow, I want everything on this page!".  Sam looked at the same catalog and asked for 3 things, one of which he already had.  the reassurance we felt after deciding that we would give one toy and santa would give one toy.  wanting to buy every toy we saw.  buying grandma's gifts to the boys and santa's gifts on black friday online. standing in line at walmart for a new tv for mom and dad on black friday.  carts full of crock pots and tupperware clanging through the aisles.  the screams of shoppers trying to fight for their items when the sale started at 10pm.  rachel running out the door victoriously holding up her printer.  the christmas lights brent put up on our house.  the empty hooks left on our advent calendar as the days passed.  the oak ridge christmas parade with all of its candy glory and its meager "floats".  having the house really clean for Kate Blocher's baby shower.  moving the third couch into the living room and feeling like the room doubled in size.  muddy buddies in mason jars for friends/neighbor gifts.  when we felt like we were skimping sam, asked him what he wanted for christmas and he told us two things we were getting him...mater and a ride on a train.  sam changing his mind what he wanted for christmas 6 days before to a captain 'merica shield.  rejoicing when brent said ok to getting the 'merica shield.  jackson changing his mind of what to ask for santa to something we had already purchased.  super cleaning the house for my family to come up.  forgetting to buy food when my family came up.  going to dollywood. eva's "snow bunny" suit.  jackson seeing the tram and saying "well mom, i really thought there would be more rides than just this one."  realizing sam sulks when he's really cold. riding the train at dollywood and mom and i began to cry at the "magic."  proving to the family that carousels make adults sick.  brent and jackson in the bumper cars.  jackson and sam riding their first roller coaster.  the lights.  the lights. and more lights.  eating dinner at granny's all you can eat.  santa visiting our table.  feeling like dollywood at christmas should be a yearly tradition--it is amazing.  kissing brent in front of the dollywood sign.  sacrament before christmas meeting was  very spiritual--becca on the violin and the marlowe's singing.  sevierville condo.  sam and hannah tearing through every room exploring and climbing and laughing and jumping.   the aquarium.  the turtles and sharks swimming above us.  ice skating.  sam pushing his skating walker away and saying "i don't want to ice skate anymore" then quietly sulking the rest of the time.  jackson quickly getting back up every time he fell.  christmas eve dinner.  christmas eve singing and scriptures.  laughing with the boys watching home alone for the first time.  hurriedly putting out santa's cookies and rudolph's carrots. wrapping 15 individual hot wheels and 15 individual pairs of socks.  watching "It's a wonderful life" in color.  walking in the boys room christmas morning and them both immediately sitting straight up and saying "santa came" "Its christmas!".  Jacksons disappointment that santa gave socks, again.  sam hugging every gift he opened.  the victory jumping after every race on the hot wheels 6 lane raceway.  skyping with brittany.  watching bryant open his gifts on skype.  singing to sister flambers with the youth and trying to convince jackson that it was worthwhile.  watching a christmas story.  falling asleep on the couch as soon as the boys went to bed.  realizing i wasn't awake enough to drive home.  walking into the bonus room and finding them playing with their old toys.  building a car with jacksons lego city gift from grandma dee--so many tiny pieces!.  loading up the nerf guns and wanting nothing more than to start shooting the boys but i didn't.  pondering on my happy happy happy memories.  writing a blog that i'm sure is longer than what anybody wants to read but hopefully will help me remember another day.

i'm so torn between whether i should record things on facebook or here.  more people see it on facebook and i like the validation that my kids are funny. but i feel like i will have the blog longer to go back and look at.  i could be wrong about that.  i will say.  when i think i'm going to post something on facebook i tend to remember the funny thing better.  here are a couple i've recently posted on facebook.

i caught myself saying "sam eat with your hands not with your... mouth."

sam was in the car and said "i'm singing in the rain"  i said wow sam i didn't know that song.  how did you know that and he said, "its raining.  i'm singing."

sam was whining that his tummy hurt and that he needed more candy.

sam put on a spider ring from the halloween bowl and started trying to bite it then said "i can't figure out how to eat this!"

so odd, that's a lot of sam.  normally its jackson that says that kinda stuff. i suppose the stages they're in are transitioning.

i'm reading this book by jennifer fox called discovering your child's strengths.  there are so many things i want to remember.  i picked it up thinking it would be written more for a parent but i see now its written more for an educator but includes parents.   i am actually fine with that and kinda loving it more.  i really enjoy reading about educational theories and laws.  This book is interesting for so many reasons but something i read stuck out to me for a different reason all together.  she was addressing the adolescent rebellion and explaining why teenagers make the extreme choices they do.  she said "adolescents seek out powerful experiences to provide them with profound memories."  now she was trying to calm down the worried or angry parent or teacher for rule breaking or whatnot.  what i thought of though was my kids in youth.  i think about what my children will be doing when they're teenagers and how they will be different.  i think about what makes good kids from good families stay strong and what makes good kids from good families fall away from the church. i know that my children will make their own choices and that is their agency.  i also look for ways that i can have influence.  if i can understand and remember this principle maybe, just maybe, i can help my kids seek out powerful spiritual experiences to provide them with profound testimonies."  i know my father in law is down on things like efy.  i believe he calls it money changing in the temple or something.  but for me efy was one of many powerful spiritual experiences.  i felt genuinely and strongly moved by the spirit i felt there.  of course there are 1,001 free ways of creating and recognizing these powerful experiences as well.   oh i just pray that i can recognize the spoken and unspoken needs of my children.

unspiritual moments

jackson was throwing a crying fit upstairs so brent went to go check it out while i waited downstairs with the sister missionaries.  they had just shared a spiritual thought about praying.  the sister missionary told a story about a stormy night when she said a prayer and felt better.

when brent asked jackson what was wrong he said "the hallway was dark and scary so i said a prayer BUT IT DIDN'T WORK!!"

jackson:  you're always in last place sam.
mom:  jackson i don't like mean talk.  tell him something good about him.  (multiple promptings.)
jackson:  sam you're so good i'm glad hot lava didn't lava you

parenting fail #11,242

Sam eats his boogers.

Come on Sam!!

That's gross.

jackson 5.5

i miss you jackson.  i mean ive had a lot of one on one time with viva and sam since you went to school but im just giddy when you get off the bus.  when i see you sorta fall down the too big for you steps i think "funny how jackson is pretending to be a big kid"  but you are.  you're so smart and independent.  somebody once told me that parenthood is from the beginning, constantly letting go a little more and i've definitely had some hard lessons in that since kindergarten started.  i feel myself fighting urges of being a super hovering parent.  i really dont know how i'm doing.  i get so excited to go through your backpack for clues about youthtr day.  how much lunch you ate, what color on the discipline chart you were.  what your special activity of the day was.  i even bribed you with candy to be able to tell me the names of other kids in your class just to prove that you really were going and to see if you were making friends.  you are.  i get the feeling that everybyody wants to be your friend.  kylie, my spy, told her mom that she didn't sit next to you because other kids wanted to sit next to you at lunch.  yay said a helicopter mom internally.  i have so much confidence in your reading.  you always try new words everywhere you see.  it started hn dad had you read the last bit of scriptures.  i thought he was crazy but as you tried out words that wre obviously too hard for you you learned that sounding it out could get you pretty far and close.  somewhere in there are also started sounding out with your writing.  today, you wrote a thank you note to your teacher.  well dictated.  but at the end you drew a picture.  i went to put eva to bed but when i came back next to the picture you had written "me en u hot air buloon."  kindergarten?  what!?  thats amazing.  another trait of yours that i'm thankful for is your fear of being late for school.  you have little problem waking up early and hurrying to the door in order to be on time.  you'll fearfully ask when we back out "are we late?"  you have lots of things in common with your dad (that im very thankful for) but that is not one of them.  i remind you of the time but i never feel like i'm nagging you to hurry.  phew.  thanks.  you are so inquisitive and thoughtful.  on the way to school you told me you were excited to go to college to learn about those poles under the bridge. what!?  those rides in the morning when its just the two of us are the best.  we talk.  we talk about how pretty the sky is.  you ask me about math questions.  i thought who does this until brent confessed that he did as a kid too.  you're slightly obsessed with the concept of a google and googleplex.  i laugh when you talk about it with adults who don't even know what it is.  one day at fort sanders kids were playing with a ball on a parachute.  mr. jeff asked why the ball went down in the middle.  i'm not sure what he was expecting but you certainly stunned him when your answer was gravity. ahhh... the things curious george has taught you.  you certainly won a few people over at fort sanders.  they all considered you a leader.  i had never thought of that but you certainly are.  you have a natural yet not bossy way of leading people.  one day we were playing at the park.  you often went to build a bridge in the ditch.  on this particular day we'd gone with friends and i look up to see you as the head engineer.  at one point all seven of the kids were carrying one giant limb over to the "bridge" area.  happily working.  you've been trying to earn money for a while.  i would say its now been one year of saving for disneyworld.  it has made me and dad so grateful to see you so committed and diligent towards a distant goal.  we have bragged and will for a long time.  its just so important to learn to work for things that don't have immediate results.  i love that you seem to have taught yourself that.  you're good at toeaching yourself.  you can be particularly stubborn about doing things your way.  you dont like being told how to do things.  when i got so mad at you last summer about not doing what i wanted you to do to learn how to swim i quit.  i said fine.  i'm done.  then you taught yourself how to swim.  its that courage to try for yourself that gives you confidence.  yeah, sometimes you fail and you need people.  but you want to prove it to yourself first that you need people before you just toss your hands in the air and ask for help.  ive also been super impressed with your dedication to practicing the piano this year.  i was dreading, DREADING, this year because i knew that there would be significantly more practice time.  i know how you react to being told how to do something.  i was afraid of a daily fight.  not only have you been willing to practice but you've been doing really good and getting better everyday.  i can't believe how fast you've learned new skills and seemed to really enjoy the process.  as hard as its been to let you go this year, i think kindergarten's challenges have made you a happier person.  you're getting time away from me which unfortunately for me is a good thing for you.  you've been so successful at making friends, listening to your teacher and following rules (you seem to earn a star every day), and being more patient.  your siblings are obsessed with you and see you as the prize at the end of their day.  last night as you said your prayer you said "im thankful that i have a great family" and i just wanted to yell how thankful we were for you.  thank you thank you thank you for being so forgiving, and kind.  grandma jan told me once that she was impressed with your kindness.  you enjoy making other people happy.  you try to please them and be everybodys friend.  i love you.

Eva .5

Eva.  Although i've told people over the past week we've had an estranged relationship. thats not true now.  true, you've been waking up more at night.  crying louder.  even longer.  but how can you be mad at somebody so beautiful!  today you just laughed and were so perfect all previous resentments faded.  you watched me bake cookies just chewing on a spoon.  funny.  you like spoons as long as they don't have baby food on them.  then you can't stand them.  i love holding you on my lap.  its so funny to see those adorably chunky legs be so flexible.  your favorite toy happens to also be your most accessible--your toes.  the way you laugh when you hold them cracks me up!  oh eva you laugh so hard too!  i love it when you get to giggling because we all can't contain ourselves.  daddy and jackson get you giggling the hardest.  poor jackson.  he always wants to hold you.  sometimes i feel like friends and neighbors hold you more than him though because i always seem to say "jackson you can hold her anytime but they're just visiting."  when i was pregnant i had a hard time getting excited about a girl but i tell you now i cant get enough pink.  not to make sure people call you a girl but just because prettiness suits you.  my favorite is putting you in the dresses rachel and i wore as babies.  while it took some courage and more than a few attempts, i now love putting your hair into a tiny pigtail with a tiny bow.  everyday i like getting you dressed.  even when its hand-me-down clothes you seem to make everything look better.  you are so funny.  when i lay you on your back you hold your head up as long as you can.  you finally fall but then try to sit up again.  its like your holding a crunch.  the boys always wanted to be lain down on their backs but you prefer your tummy.  you've starting pulling up on your knees and bouncing, lunging forward ever so slightly but steadily.  im a little bummed.  i love the crawling age but i also love the sitting stuck in one spot phase.  its funny.  you're close to crawling and yet you have never rolled from your back to your front.  you're like a beetle stuck on your back.  when you accidentally rolled to your back today sam came running down the hall saying "help viva rolled over!"  he could see your helplessness.  everybody loves how easy it is to get you to smile.  and when you smile back everybody feels better.  there is something about getting positive feedback from a baby that just makes you feel like a better person.  like if there is a true judge of character, its a baby, and she seems to think i'm ok.  i just love to think that my daughter can bring that kind of peace and assurance to others.  a self confidence and even awareness of God's love.  i certainly feel God's love around you.  He gave me YOU! he must LOVE me.  When i hold you sometimes you push your cheeks on mine and i can hardly move because i just dont want the moment to ever end.  i love you!.

Sam at 2.5

Oh Sam.  I just chopped your hair and i miss your long too cool locks.  You're suddenly so big.  so so big.  You want so much to be with/like Jackson.  its funny how many pictures i've taken and you're looking at hitm so you can do what he's doing.  When you're getting in trouble you're cheerful and agreeable.  When you're being playful you get this intense mean growling face with a pursed mouth and a throaty growl.  You roar when you're mad at somebody (just following the example Jackson set for you.)  You gravitate towards balls--like you did from the beginning.  Today, you begged me to throw the baseball to you to tryi to hit but i didn't do it because i was talking to a neighbor.  now i feel bad.  then you picked up jacksons beseball glove and tried to get me to throw to you.  i did a little but then you put the ball on the tee and tried to hit it and even tried to catch it with the glove--yes, still off of a tee.  I believe originating from your love of sports, you only want to wear 2 pair of athletic shorts--everyday.  I'll put you to bed for a nap in one outfit and almost daily you'll wake up in one of those two pair of shorts.  If you find them in the laundry pile you will immediately change into them.  I'm nervous about what will happen in the winter!  This morning it was 40 outside but you insisted on your shorts.  I won though and put you in jeans, jeans that kept falling off because you're 2.5 but 2T jeans are still too big.  skinny short boy.  i suppose it was my fault when you ran out of the house without pants today.  now that jackson is in school you miss him.  i feel sorry for you when you come in wearing your penguin backpack asking to go to school with jackson.  i want you to sleep in but when i come in to wake up jackson you jump out of bed.  "i wan sirul.  i wan shtawbewwy chotit milt"  you cute boy that cant say his "k" sounds but says them all with a t.  jatton. tootie.   we have had some good times though with a little bit of extra one on one time.  i like saying yes when you ask to go to the playground even though i know you'll want to swing the whole time.  friday, jackson was out of school and we decided to go to as many parks as we could in one day.  we went downtown and went first to the sunsphere and you're still talking about it.  so innocent.  one day when my answer is "we'll go back some day" it will sound like a no but when you're 2 that's a yes and you cheer and give an arm pump and an enthusiastic "yes! we goin to sunsphere some day!"  its different being a second child.  you're more territorial than jackson was.  when you have something and somebody tries to take it you stand your ground and will quite stubborn.  until you win.  and then you give it to them.  you really are loving.  when i leave to take jackson to school you run out the door saying bye mom!  love you!  love you!  tiss! hug!   you very affectionately call eva viva and we all love it.  now i call her viva as much as eva.  jackson refused to sleep without kiki but you have always been more flexible with gleeglee.  in fact, you're just more flexible all around.  you have your opinions but you'll go along with insistence.  you must say every prayer.  if somebody else prays.  it must be your turn next.  sacrament meeting is our time too.  we always sit together.  you play with my face, my jewelry, my hair.  we hug and play as quietly as possible but you always laugh too loud when we play rock-a-bye.  its probably my favorite part of church.  there are few things that make me as happy as bonding with you there.  you are so special.  happy. friendly, kind. goofy, funny, little, messy (you spilled the "shtawbewwy chotit milt" on the couch this week), helpful, excited. perfect.

i just heard jackson say "i have a giant privacy" in a sing song kinda na na na na boo boo way.  i didn't look i just told him we don't talk like that...but then i looked.

he had stuck the light saber in between his legs.  i hope he didn't see me laughing.  i'd hate for that to be a new thing.

today jackson asked me what the word ugly meant.  

we were driving and he asked me.  out of the blue.  i asked him where he heard it and he said it was just a word he knew.  did you hear it today?  no.  what made you think of it.  its just a word i know.

it makes me sad.  i mean, i have no idea what made him think of it.  maybe it was random.  maybe somebody called him ugly.  thats the thing about letting your kids out of your sight, they could get hurt, and keep it to themselves.  

i suppose i could be overreacting.

if you don't write it down you will forget.  as much as you think that is so funny i'll never forget it.  you do.

so nursing with kids is awkward.  for me now.  for jackson when he's older and hears the things he says.

after eva quit nursing i kept leaking jackson said "so milk really does come out of there!"

when i sat down to nurse he said "i'm thirsty too" and got up and walked to the kitchen

also, i took jackson in for his kindergarten check up.  it was horrible.  jackson has previously taken shots really well but this time it was horrible.  like veins on his forehead horrible.  i would have said previously that  jackson was prone to getting angry but after seeing how mad he really can get at the dr.s office now i know how much he holds in.  the nurse told him he'd have 4 shots and just a little finger prick.  he asked what a finger prick was and she said just a little prick to test your blood.  i think when she did it he was shocked that she would do   such a thing.  he looked at me like "can you believe this woman!?"  when the blood came up he asked what it was and she told him blood. "OWWWW"  she then picked up her little vile and with each blood droplet that was sucked into the tube he said "ow and ow and ow and ow".  not in like a yelling voice but a very angry speaking voice.  both me and the nurse were trying to comfort him but couldn't help but laughing at his reaction.  so funny.

i had a bad day

i lost control. i got mad. i got annoyed. irritated. emotional.

i was guilt-ridden all day but yet i couldn't manage to break free of the cycle of anger. i said one honest prayer and it was that eva would stop crying and i could have a break. it took me all day even to get to that point (5:30). amazingly, she stopped and the boys played quiet enough for me to assume they'd gone outside or had seriously hurt themselves. even after this prayer was answered, i went right back to where i was the minute jackson asked me to play with him.

i dont know why.

i went on pinterest looking for some sort of inspiration to help me over the hump after the boys were in bed. it didn't help. then i went on lds.org and clicked on happiness in family life and was overcome by the feelings of love and the impact of spiritual teachings on my heart. i know these teachings to be true. i should study the family proclamation harder and seek counsel from scriptures. i know what i need to do now. i just need to implement it. pray early. seek for the spirit. when i'm frustrated, pray with the kids for help and patience and strength. i need to be calm.

eva's birth story

i tried to just write everything i could remember because i don't know what i'll be trying to remember in 25 years when i'm talking to a pregnant eva about when she was born. maybe thats dumb but i thought about that a lot when i was typing. its not well written. its just a narrative of what i thought of though.

I get so big and pregnant. This pregnancy was no different--lots of people asking if I was having twins or closer than I really was to delivering. Back in maybe october or november I was in a class at the gym and these ladies were so amazed that i was there exercising and I was so strong. After a couple of weeks of them being really impressed they asked me when I was due, when i told them march you could see the look on their face of shock and surprise. I was suddenly not so cool.

With this pregnancy I feel like I got every sickness that went through knoxville. I threw up more from different stomach flus than with pregnancy nausea. One of these bugs at the beginning of the third trimester brought on really strong contractions that really scared me. Another time I had to run to the bathroom in food city only to barely make it to the bathroom (and not the toilet.) I was so embarrassed I cried as I told the worker what I had done. When I got to the car and was going to call brent to tell him my traumatic experience he called me to tell me he had nearly passed out at work and his office had called an ambulance.

At the end of this pregnancy I was in lots of pain with my hips and lower back. I know its normal but when its happening...its the worst thing in the world. I might have been a bit dramatic about it. brent never complained but maybe thats because i never stopped.

I really like the idea of going in to labor on my own. Its just been so fun in the past. This time though I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore. I didn't want to have to wake the kids and deal with them in the middle of the night. I thought I just got lucky with sam--going into labor early in the morning, having my epidural all day, and having a baby by 3:00. These are the reasons I decided to be induced on 3/15 (Thursday) the day before my due date 3/16.

My mom came up on 3/13. We went out to dinner and were going to spend Wednesday cleaning and I'd go to the hospital early Thursday morning. Instead I got my first contraction wednesday morning at 1:30am. Now at the end of this pregnancy I was having lots of contractions. Because that didn't happen with the boys, every time I thought "this is it!" only to be disappointed that they didn't become regular. I just assumed it was the same thing. I felt dumb constantly thinking I was in labor and it not being the case. Brent woke up to some noisy dogs in the neighborhood a little after 2. I told him I was having painful contractions and he said "NO!" and then went back to sleep. I went downstairs where it was cooler and tried to sleep. By this point I started timing them and they were 15 minutes apart. They were really painful but Dr. Schroeder had told me to go in to the hospital when they were 5 minutes apart. When I went upstairs a couple hours later my mom was awake (actually she was indexing at like 4 in the morning!!). The two of us timed my contractions for anther few hours but they weren't getting closer together. I was really frustrated because they were so painful. I really wanted to get an epidural but was confused as to what I should do. At around 7 or so I told brent to get ready and I wanted to go. I wasn't really persistent with him though because I didn't want to get to the hospital and be turned away because I wasn't far enough along.

We finally got to the hospital at 8:30. I remember walking in with a contraction. I remember people looking at me giving me their supportive wow-she's-in-labor looks but i was so embarrassed. I was still afraid that it was nothing and that I just had a low tolerance for pain. That's why I was thrilled when they checked me in triage and i was 6cm!! I wasn't crazy! I could have come in earlier. I immediately wished I had. I asked several times as politely as I could when i could get my epidural. Things seemed so much slower to happen than when I went in with Sam. They poked me 3 times trying to get an iv. then the machine was turned on slow. My nurse told me once the iv was in it would be 30 minutes before i could get my iv. It turned into over an hour though because the anesthesiologist was busy. I told brent I wanted to be ignored during contractions but towards the end when they were getting worse i wanted him to hold my hand. the dr. came in around 10:30 to start my epidural and i was finally relaxed and feeling good about 11:15. When Dr. Schroeder checked me I was 8cm and he told me we'd push in 30 minutes.

Eva came at 12:05 after about 3 pushes. They put her in my arms really quickly and it was perfect. i could tell she was bigger than the boys who were both 8 lbs 12 oz. She was 9 lbs 3 oz. Nursing in the hospital was a breeze. The 2nd night there was rough though because they asked us to change rooms and then gave us these two bumbling nurses. One walked in at 1:00 to do my vitals and turned on the lights and was talking loudly, spilling my drink. We were more than ticked at that point. Now though, it seems so long ago and less of a big deal.

The boys loved her from the start. Jackson cried when he first saw me because I was shaking so much and still hooked up to ivs. i felt bad that i didn't even have the strength to comfort him. Sam always says "i wanna hold it." jackson tells me he'll watch her whenever i walk out of the room.

eva was born this week

this is some of the things the boys have said.

j-when my baby sister has a baby sister i'll be an uncle.

j-"griffin wanna see something?"

Griffin-"yeah, I know you have a baby sister."

j-"no, i got a new game."

sam came in the hospital and my mom said look there's your mom "nooooo, i wan baby!"

when jackson walked in to my room after the baby was born he started crying and said "i don't like the way my mommy looks!" ok so that was sad.

j-"hmmm... [pats my belly] do you have another baby in there because your stomach is still kinda big. i'm just [puts his hands around his waste] flatter than you."

sam keeps coming up to her saying "baby soft baby soft" and petting her hair

unrelated...my grandma hutchison came to visit and when she asked jackson what he was going to learn in kindergarten his answer was "silent letters in words." she was impressed.

jackson keeps telling me its not fair that nobody else can feed her. he wants a turn to try.

jackson keeps calling her hannah and or marsha. (ever since he found out it was a girl he's wanted to name her marsha, crying when we told her it would be eva, and then again when it wouldn't be her middle name. he says that he decided it will be her nickname.

eva and my parents dog ginger both came home on friday. i definitely think for sam, the best part is ginger. he doesn't resent eva but when my dad and grandma left today he ran down the driveway after them crying "ginja! ginja!"

when jackson saw a picture of himself holding eva he said "wow thats so pretty. i didn't know i was so cute holding eva."

jackson: mom i really think that you're a good mom but on the phone you said that you were a bad mom

frankly, his opinion is the only one that matters.

except when he tells me i'm a bad mom because I put him in time out.

on second thought maybe i shouldn't sing "i'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair" while washing the boys hair. jackson sang it the rest of the night.

i don't know if i've recorded some of sams cuter phrases recently. he doesn't say "yes" he says "i do" with the cutest southern accent on the I I've ever heard. sam do you want down? i do! sam do you want a bath? i do! he is also very funny about what names he'll say and which he won't. no matter how much i try i can't get him to say grandma or sam. he does call all of jacksons friends iris though and recognizes the neighborhood as soon as we turn in. his favorite person to point out in pictures used to be scott but brittany (nienie) has replaced him now. he can also be confusing when asking for buzz lightyear. for some reason buzz is zoom and tangled is buzz. ??? chocolate milk is chalk. bear and hair are brrr and hrrrr. he loves kerus judge (curious george) and choo choo. he has just started trying to identify colors which was a surprise to me. i was shocked when he picked up an orange lego and called it orange.