It's an official Jackson "BUNCH!"

She is a Girl...

March 30, 2009 That makes three boys and three girls, it'll be nice to even things out a bit around here! Matt has never been wrong in the guessing game, 6 for 6. (He's quite proud of himself in this area might I add.)

We decided that we'd get our Joshie a transitional toddler bed Spongebob style before we step him up to a twin when he takes Jaroms place in sharing a room with Spencer in the baseball room with the baseball beds. (Spongebob was not exactly my first choice but it was inexpensive and Josh is thrilled to pieces over his new bed.) For family night last Monday our entertainment was putting the little bed together, what excitement!

Josh and his first nights rest in his new bed.

We all know how independent Josh is, he loves to put himself to bed unannounced to me half of the time. I'll be looking all over for him and then find him in bed sleeping, this is how we found him the other night. I thought it was funny he decided to put on a Christmas stocking cap to put himself down to rest. It was cute at first until the next day he didn't want to take it off as well, he ended up wearing the silly thing to go run errands, sometimes you've just got to pick your battles. This was not one of them. Yes, he still loves his passafire but he only gets it when he's in bed and that's where it stays, I didn't want his world to come crumbling down and pull everything at once, the plug will be next week. He just threw all of his bottles in the trash (he did have a bottle of milk every night when he went to bed before like two weeks ago.) We got him some pretty cool tipsy cups and he was happy to toss the bottles and didn't ask for them again.

G-ma Noble stopped by last week and brought Josh some new dino pjs.

The kids had me take a pic of their octopus leg that they grew longer and longer with play dough the other day. It's the kids Spring Break this week and we are in the middle of major painting the inside of out home, quite the chore...I'll post some before and after pics here shortly. The color is wonderful but the pain of painting, no fun!

Happy Spring!

March 23, 2009

The bees have striked again! This is the third bee we have found in our house since Christmas and the second stinging episode inside our house! Bees in the Winter, well I guess it's now officially Spring but good heavens~! Josh came running down the hall screaming and holding his thumb yesterday, he grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the bee still crawling around on the carpet upstairs and says, "bee hurt, ouch!" Over Christmas vacation Ellie got stung in her mouth of all places, specifically on her tongue if I'm recalling correctly. She had put her big candy cane stick down on the window ledge and when she grabbed it to put back into her mouth all ready for another lick...a bee was getting himself a snack on her candy as well and ouch stung her inside her very mouth. As I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom a month or so ago, I ran into the second bee crawling on the bathroom floor, it was then that I called a local exterminator "Aloha Exterminator" to be exact here out of Sumner. The gentleman was so nice he went into the attic looked all over and even under the house in the crawl space and no bees, what a relief! I had envisioned a huge hive of bees hibernating for the Winter at the time. The only thing he found were two tiny little bees nests out side over the awning over our garage. The other good thing was that he didn't charge us a cent. Matt has been meaning and wanting to rid of the two tiny bees hives since (but he needs his ladder back from his dad first so he can reach them to spray them down) I'm sure that's where the bees are coming from, coming into the little breathing vents into the attic. The bees have shown up on days where the sun has came out so I'm sure it's just the bees waking of their winter hibernation and finding more warmth inside of our home, little pests!So here is Josh and his bee sting all bandaged up with a penny on the sting. I guess this trick really works to take away the pain, so I hear via. a mass email sent to me and my kids bee stings as proof???
The girls brought these daffodils in after a bike ride yesterday, they found them in the field next to our house. We had them store them on the front porch since Jarom's Spring allergies are so acting up, poor guy- his eyes look and itch pretty bad these days. So I've been following a few bargain bloggers and decided to take advantage of this one at Safeway with their past weeks mix and match sale, then for every ten items you buy you save an additional $5.00. I spent $142.67 and stocked up on MANY essential food storagey items, i.e. spaghetti noodles, salad dressings, BBQ sauce, chilli, tuna, cereal, snack crackers, gatorade, pepsi products, raviolis, paper towels, dish soap, tomatoes, chips, ect. and get this I saved $196.85, wow- I felt pretty good. Not as good as many of you amazing women that double and triple coupons and get a ton of groceries and spend like .2 cents but I did get a LOAD for a LITTLE! After my savings and visit to the grocery store, Matt told his dad who is a grocery bargain lover himself who then made quite a few trips to get some deals of his own.Jarom had his Pine Wood Derby over the weekend. Matt and him always have a good time with this fun father/son event year after year, although since Jarom is a Weblow I believe this is the last year for him...not for Matt we still have two...possibly three more cub scout boys in line.
Another first place!!! Way to go boys, did we expect less from a Autobody man and his son? On to regionals next month. Jarom will post more pics on his blog if anyone is wanting to see more pics. Matt also helped Jaroms friend Layton pictured above in the red with a prof. paint job as well. Layton's dad had to leave unexpected on business right before the derby & wasn't able to help him with the end portion of his car. Layton had spent the night Friday night before the derby and Matt ended up taking Layton's wheels off of his car and replacing & adjusting them with others so they'd go faster, (I was thinking what in the world is Matt doing? I just pictured the car breaking or something as Matt was prying them off, plus Layton's mom had helped him put them on so I didn't want to cause any problems. Matt said with those wheels, the car wouldn't have even crossed the finish line...oh guys, anyways Layton took 3rd and was thrilled so I guess Matt's intervention helped out.)
Great job boys!
Jake and Sarah had their little girl last Thursday evening (on Jake's babies daddy's b-day, what a fun and special b-day gift.) Matt and I had a nice visit with the happy new parents of three little girls Saturday night. Ellie was sad that she didn't get to go to the hospital to see her new baby cousin but Matt and I wanted to get out just the two of us.
Here she is little Miss Ireland Marie Jackson. The name was a toss up for awhile but in the end Ireland won and is quite fitting for the little girl baby being born in March and so close to St. Patty's day.

Congratulations, she is a doll and she was such a content little bug in a rug during our visit. Very cute and tiny for sure!
Here's a few more St. Patty's Day pics of the boys enjoying their green snacks. mmm, mmm, good!

Happy Green Day!

March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!!

Ellie and her Leprechaun Trap, she made one last year as well and was so disappointed that she didn't catch a little green fella! We'll see what happens today at school, she had quite a clever idea this year with a cup filled with the gold and HONEY so as the green guy will climb up the latter to the top of the plastic cup he'd want the gold at the bottom of the rainbow and bottom of the cup- but then he'd fall into the honey getting all sticky and stuck- not being able to climb out since there was no stairs in the inside as well. I don't know those Leprechauns are pretty tricky guys!

TRIPPLE WHAMMIE!

March 15, 2009 Jarom, BreAnna and myself all needed an eye exam and new glasses so we set an appointment on Sat when all three of us could make one trip to the eye doctor. I needed a new updated contact prescription (mainly at night I'd noticed that my vision was getting worse and worse even w/ my contacts) plus I needed new glasses for the evenings. The other two kids came home from school after a vision screening with a note from the school nurse stating that it was on to the eye doctor they go, that glasses were needed. Surprisingly, they were both quite anxious about getting glasses. Bres eye sight isn't too bad yet, however we had no clue and neither did Jarom how bad his eye sight had gotten. It's funny when something is so gradual how we are unaware of it's effects and what we just get used to not really fully knowing what we are missing out on...(hey, oh my goodness I just realized you could relate that to the effects of Satan in life as well, with his temptations being gradual and us getting more unaware of his effects being desensitized and all.) Anyways, Jarom won't truly know what he has been missing out on until he is able to pick up his glasses next week. I remember when I first got mine, it's so eye-opening...everything is so much clearer and vivid. You can see the leaves on the trees and birds in the sky, it'll be a neat experience for him. As you can see, not only Jarom, Bre and myself had fun trying on a bazillion eye frames until we found just the perfect pairs but everyone else in the fam had a good time as well. (Jarom wanted me to clarify that the ones he's wearing in the pic of him above aren't either of the two he decided on, we'll post them when they come in.)

Sweet Tooth

PAULA DEEN'S

Paula's Home Cooking...

March 13, 2009

Vanilla Chocolate Chip Rootbeer Float Truffle Pie Mississippi Mud Pie Cake

Georgia Cookie Candy

My entertainment lately while making dinner has been watching Paula's Home Cooking on the Food Network Channel at 5:30pm. I don't watch a whole lot of TV but the reason why I like her shows are because her cooking is truly "home-cooking," not to mention her personality and style are great! She actually makes food and meals that my family will eat, I've got a few picky eaters on my hands...my husband being one of the biggest. I'm not saying that she is the healthiest of all or most chefs for that matter...(southern home cooking isn't typically the healthiest.) Although, I have taken quite a few of her recipes, which are usually quite easy to reproduce. A episode from this past week titled "Sweet Tooth" was an eye catcher for myself and the kids, so watch out and grab a glass of milk because I just may be hosting a SWEET TOOTH CHOCOLATE PARTY here soon, don't these look yummy? It's perfect because all of her recipes are posted on the Food Network website under the weekly episodes or you can find all of each chefs recipes on the site as a whole. My goodness, so many delicious recipes to try out yet so little time...

Oh Pickles!

March 12, 2009

So last night as I went to the frig to get the makings for dinner, I opened the frig to the major AROMA of pickles bursting out back at me. What in the world???? One of the kids had apparently had a pickle and not gotten the lid on very tight afterwards. The pickle jar was way in the back on the top shelf and as other items had been pushed and shoved around, the pickle jar must have been knocked over leaving it to spill all over the refrigerator. What a pain...after I got the meat browning for our tacos, I took the bottom trays out of the frig and soaked up the majority of the pickle juice. (I figured that would be good enough to tie things over until I had more time to completely clean out the whole thing.) Last night one family member after another, I got to hear just about each and every one upon opening the frig..."what smells like pickles???" So ironic, me being pregnant and all- you'd think the pickle smell would smell good to me!

So this afternoon after dropping Spencer off at preschool, I put Josh down for his nap and emptied out the entire frig. This is something I rarely think about yet when I do I absolutely dread doing, who likes to clean out the frig? To be perfectly honest, the last time I cleaned out the frig was the last miss-hap...only that time it was cherry kool-aide and way worse, quite the sticky mess (it did however smell WAY BETTER!) Anyways, a nice clean frig is always a good thing and I do have one now! I emptied out all of the old condiments, leftovers, cleaned and scrubbed the entire inside...it just looks so clean and renewed now. I guess I need those mis-haps once in awhile otherwise our frig issue would probably never get addressed. Although I haven't craved them as of yet this pragnancy, I do have to thank the imfamous pickles for a clean frig!

Remnants of yesterdays snow...

March 10, 2009 There are pros and cons to having your garage in the back of the house. The con would be that I rarely use the front door. Today after bringing the milk in from the front porch, I see that the older kids had left their sleds in the front yard after playing yesterday after school (so responsible as kids tend to be at times.) The SUNSHINE is beautiful today, cold but it's sure nice to see as we are wishing Spring would blossom and stay for good. Josh was excited to see the little snowman that they had built still in tact so we snapped his and Spencer pic with it.

March Craziness

March 9, 2009When the kids woke up this morning...they were so excited thinking that there would be no school due to the snow, as you can see by the time they headed out to the bus- it was still snowing but the snow had gotten wetter and the streets no longer had a blanket of snow, so sad for them (not for me.)

The bus stop is right in front of our house, it's so convenient!

This past week Jarom got his recorder for his music class at school, he had anticipated it for awhile so he was happy when they finally arrived. I taught him a song I learned in elementary school when we played the recorders, don't ask me how I actually remembered it????
Aren't we adorable? Jake, (Matts bro) had a surprise 30th adult b-day party over the weekend 80's STYLE! Everyone looked great rockin out in their 80's attire. An hour before the party started Matt and I looked up 80's styles on the Internet and this is what we came up with. As I was getting ready with my crimped side-pony tail, beaded necklaces, hoop earrings, my colorful blue eye shadow and hot pink lip stick, Ellie and Spencer were like, "mom you look so pretty." A few other ladies had the same song and story of their kids as they got all decked out for the night, only in the eyes of our kids right...you've got to admit though, it was a much more out-there and colorful time and in the eyes of children with their colorful imaginations...it's perfect. Matt sported a mint green tee (with a mint green earring to match, yes...can we believe that after all of these years his earing whole has never grown over?) w/ a sport jacket, a skinny polk a dot tie not to forget his finger-less glove. I think Jake was surprised and everyone had a fun time. Josh up to his latest, Ellies roller skates. Jarom has his Pinewood Derby in a few weeks so him and Matt started in on the project, sanding and drilling away this weekend. It's still a work in progress, you know our boys with their derby-cars...no professional autobody painter can show up for the races without a more fancy or better paint job than our own cars we actually drive with...more updates to come (prob on Jaroms blog.)


While the boys were busy in shop, I went to work on my style of VERY BASIC baby blankets of fleece on one side and flannel on the other (my children's all time favorite snugly throw blankets) with matching burp cloths. I've been seeing the fun and creative things that other gals are sewing and creating and since pretty much everyone I know is expecting a baby in the next few months, I decided to be productive since I am FINALLY feeling better (pregnancy-nauseousness speaking.) Being healthy and feeling good is so taken for granted, what a blessing it is to feel like a functioning human being once again! I 've decided that it is time for me to teach Bre how to sew she is looking forward to picking out some fabric to make some creations of her own.

When's your birthday start?

THIRTY-THREE and COUNTING...

(well not really counting)

March 2nd, 2009

We celebrated my b-day with the kids over the weekend after going to the girls dance classes in the morning. We had a fun day, we even had the opportunity to pose for a free family "Old Fashion" picture which was so funny. Notice all the the boys even down to Josh are carrying guns... here we were trying to look ever so serious for our old-time family pic. When the photographer was trying to get Josh to look at the camera...he's like "what's the little guys name again?" The kids all reply "Joshie." The photographer had heard the kids wrong because then he goes, "Okay CHUCKIE, look this way." That was not the thing to say because after that- all of us couldn't stop laughing...of course now the kids all think it's the FUNNIEST THING to call Josh "Chuckie."

BreAnna treated me to a birthday pedicure, very pretty pink polish covered with sparkly pink over-lay...very hip!

Yesterday morning after waking up and getting Jarom and Bre out the door to the bus. Ellie had stayed home still recovering from the stomach flu she had came down with over the weekend. (Yes, it's going around and has NOT been fun for any of us-yucko!) Anyway, Spencer says "mom is your b-day tomorrow?" I said, "no it's today." He then says, "oh- when does it start?" I said, "it's all day long." After I had gone up stairs, I hear Spencer and Ellie having a conversation. Spencer says, "isn't mom going to put up any balloons and ribbons?" Ellie adds, "I don't think she wants to invite us to her birthday this year because just her and dad are going out later." Spencer adds, "no I think she just wants to relax." I enjoy putting up decorations and having fun with party themes for the kids b-days so it's funny, the little kids are so used to parties and decorations going hand in hand for birthdays- I think they were a bit confused when there weren't any balloons or streamers up for moms occasion this morning. Like you just can't have a birthday without any decorations, what was I ever thinking?!

After Matt treated me to my birthday dinner, we made a few stops afterwards. We were going to pick up a cake to bring home as well but BreAnna had called Matts cell phone all excited telling him not to buy one that they were going to make a cake, so as I am ready to head for the cakes...Matt trying his best to be discrete not to spoil the kids surprise goes..."I don't think we will be needing to pick up a cake anymore." HMMMM, wonder what that meant?

After Matt and I opened the garage door and were heading in, Jarom closed the garage door on us- (stalling for time we found out afterwards,) they wanted to have the lights out and b-day candles lit when we can in so they could shout "surprise." After punching the garage door code to open the door once again, I knew Jarom had to have a good excuse for being so rude especially since our arms were full of heavy bags that needed to come inside. The kids had done a wonderful job with the cake and raiding the cupboards in finding birthday decorations. They had all made me their own very special birthday cards which I had fun reading and enjoying! It was obvious that they had a fun time planning their b-day surprise which was cute to see.

I love how excited little Josh was for me to read his card, the happiness and excitement in his eyes was truly PRICELESS~!

Matt came home early from work today and we were able to go to the kids "Doctor Seuss" reading cafe up at Daffodil Elem. together which was fun. You know Dr. Seuss and I share the same birthday, very cool. We were also able to register Spencer for KINDERGARTEN as well, it's already that time...can't believe it. So he's all set!

The kids with g-mas help had used tea-lights for the b-day candles, (we do have a ton of candles...guess they hadn't looked in the right place.) No worries, I'd much rather blow out three tea-lights than thirty-three candles any day! As Matt and I lay in bed Sunday evening talking, (almost midnight and realizing that it was almost Monday and I was just about 33) we did the math and realized that my mom was 33 years old when she had Leah (my parents 6th & last child) and Matts mom was 34 when she had Micheal (his parents 5th and last child) and now we are expecting our 6th at about the same age. We both agreed that we as parents feel so much younger than we envisioned our parents at that age. Maybe because we are more laid back as parents, or maybe through our kids eyes we appear that much older? I guess you are only as old as you feel and picture yourself right? Too funny, well I had a very nice birthday and felt so loved by my family and friends. I don't think my phone has ever rang so many times in one day bearing warm birthday wishes, I feel very grateful and blessed.