Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! Jackson seemed to really enjoy it this year. He loved getting the Valentine's from his class (especially the treats) and learned to draw hearts.

Here Jackson is opening up his card from Pama and Papa:
It was a great card, complete with 3D glasses that you could use to see Buzz and Woody running out to greet you! In fact, it was a such a great card that he actually received three of them! Pama and Papa, Johnnie, Reese and Casey, and Tom and I each picked out the exact same card for Jackson! Guess we all know what he really likes! We all had a great laugh over that one.

Jackson had fun at his Valentine's party at school. Tom took over the making of Jackson's Valentine's day box with Jackson doing the decorating. Jackson was so excited to see all of the cards and treats in his box after his party. For the next few days, he kept bringing up Valentines cards saying "Look, it's _____ (SpongeBob, Buzz, Cinderella, ....). He especially loved all of the suckers that came with the cards. The teachers had decorated the tables for the party with lots of heart confetti and garland (brave teachers). Jackson doesn't like mess and was the ring leader in blowing all of the confetti in the middle of the table to get his spot cleaned. Everyone else at his table soon joined in....

Jackson was really proud when Tom came to sit by him during the party.

After they ate, they all played musical chairs. Jackson was one of the first ones out, but he seemed perfectly content to dance to the music and cheer on his friends. Check out his new moves!

On a different note, Jackson LOVES playing dress up lately. He really likes pretending to build. Here he is ready to tackle a new project - I wouldn't mess with him!
Jackson had been asking for cupcakes, so last weekend we decided to bake together. He was excited to hold the mixer.
While the cupcakes were baking, he decided that he needed to get a hair cut. He promptly found the water bottle and his comb and proceeded to "cut" his own hair (using his fingers as scissors). He did a great job on his hair, don't you think?

After the cupcakes baked and cooled, we set out to frost them.

"Oops....spilled some on my hand. Don't worry, I'll take care of it!"
I had bought colored sugar crystals to decorate the V-Day cupcakes. Jackson took this very seriously.

Here he is with his finished product. I love his face in this picture. It's almost like "can I eat it now, mom??"

We've been spending quite a bit of time upstairs lately. Jackson still likes playing with his train table and pretending to be the train engineer.

Jackson has finally started sleeping in his big boy bed all by himself all night long! We are so excited. I think it helped that we told him he could play with his toys in his room, but in our room he just had to immediately go to sleep. His room suddenly seemed a lot more fun. He has been reading on his own for about 30 minutes before turning out the light on his nightstand and going to sleep. It's so cute watching him read to himself.

One day last weekend, Jackson played with pretty much every toy in his closet before naptime. He really likes making the firemen climb their tall ladder.

Jackson's new thing this week is to tell secrets. Periodically he'll come in to the room, say he has a secret and will come whisper in your ear. Usually, this is what he says: "Mommy (or Daddy), I love you very very much! (or some variation). Have I mentioned that I love this kid??

Funny things that happened this week:

• We took Jackson up to my new office last weekend and he had a blast playing there. Later that week on our way to school, Jackson saw my building and said "We're not going to your building? But I like your building. You can color, run fast, play computer and ride on elevators. It's AWESOME!" I wonder if he thinks that's what I do all day!
• At work, Tom was helping one of his students find some music to play for the talent portion in the Ms. Teen Broken Arrow pageant that she is going to be in soon. She was considering playing a four mallet solo, but Tom quickly set her straight saying "no, what you need is a really fast 2-mallet piece about a minute and a half long that is really jazzy, flashy and looks hard." She looked at him in amazement and asked how he knew so much about the talent portion in beauty pageants. Tom replied "Oh, I watch the Miss America pageant every year. My wife makes me and Jackson watch it with her!" So Mom, Dad and Jenna, you'll be glad to know the tradition continues to live on!

On a sad note, we put TC down this weekend. It was a really hard decision, but it was starting to become apparent that his kidneys were starting to have more trouble. He had started throwing up more frequently (about once every 1-2 days). Since he's had kidney problems for the last 7-8 years, we knew the end was probably in the near future, and we didn't want him to suffer unnecessarily. I'm still having a really hard time with it, much harder than I originally thought I would since we really haven't been able to give him the full attention we used to before Jackson. But now, the memories just keep coming back every where I turn.

Tom gave me TC for Valentine's day back in 1997, so he was almost 15 years old. He had a really good life after we rescued him from the humane society - sleeping on pillows on our heads at night, playing fetch with golf tees, getting stuck in the wall in Wyoming, and standing guard over Jackson when Jackson was new to our family. TC was so patient with Jackson, even when Jackson was hitting him with a drum stick or pulling his tail. Rather than biting, TC would just walk away and move to a higher place out of Jackson's reach.

In the last few moments, TC kept looking up at me with those big eyes as I tried to comfort him, letting him know that we love him. Selfishly, I keep wondering if we really did do the right thing, because I really do miss him. I keep seeing his napping spots around the house (because that's really all he did in the last year or two), and it gives me pause when I realize that he's not there anymore. And then the tears start again. I'm happy knowing that he did have a really good life and that he didn't suffer; the vet told me we were doing the right thing, but it's still hard because right now it just doesn't feel good. My heart hurts.

TC, you were a wonderful cat. We love you and miss you!

It's a blizzard!!!

Tom and I finally got our wish for snow....though I think our wish worked a little too well! This past week we got 21" in less than 24 hours. We couldn't believe how much white stuff was coming down! It finally stopped snowing around 4:00 in the afternoon, so Tom and I went to go shovel our driveway while Jackson was sleeping. Underneath the 21" of snow was a nice layer of ice. It took us three scoops per section just to get from the top layer down to the ice layer. Needless to say, our backs were really tired after we got this done. Our area that we were scooping kept getting narrower and narrower....

Can you believe how high the snow is?? This is Oklahoma, for Pete's sake! We were surprised how many people were out that day shoveling their driveways after the snow stopped. I think we all realized that if we didn't get it done soon, it was going to semi-melt and then turn into ice...and who knows when it would get warm enough to melt! The next day, however, we saw that one of our neighbors had a snowblower....and then they brought it over to our friendly neighbor's house next door to help him with his driveway. If only we hadn't been so proactive...but I guess it was good exercise, right?

If you remember from before, we didn't think to get Jackson any snow boots or waterproof gloves before the first snow hit. We were totally unprepared for the snow and the super cold weather. By the time we made it to the store, they only had rain boots (they work just as well as snow boots, right?) and hot pink waterproof gloves. By this point, we weren't too picky.

Many of the pictures I've seen on Facebook of friends' kids in the snow show them wearing nice warm snow suits, waterproof clothes and lots of layers. Jackson is setting a new trend...

And now Jackson LOVES his hot pink gloves. Today was the first day back to daycare after a week of being out due to the snow. He proudly wore his hot pink gloves into school, showing everyone that he passed by. I was running a little late to pick him up, and as I'm walking up the stairs to his class, I hear Ms. Kathryn getting his things together. She picks up the gloves and says, "Jackson, where are your gloves? All I see are these pink ones. I think someone took yours home!" I sheepishly had to explain what happened and that those pink ones were in fact his gloves.

As we stepped outside, we couldn't believe how much snow we had received. Notice how the snow is level with the seat of our white bench!

By this point, the snow was nice and crunchy. Jackson weighs so little he barely even made footprints in the snow.

We wanted to see if Jackson could climb up one of the snow drifts, but he sank in one before he got too far up it. He was not happy at all when the snow went up to his knees!

Daddy rescued him from the drift and was much happier:

All Jackson wanted to do in the snow was throw snowballs at Mommy and Daddy - he got his wish!

I ended up working from home on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, I came out of the office to find Jackson and Tom playing with playdough. Jackson seems pretty proud of his carrot.

I just love this picture of Jackson; doesn't he look old in this picture?

Jackson has started playing with our computers more and more during the snow break. Sometimes we'll call him to come out to the kitchen or the living room, and he'll call back "In a minute! I've got lots of work to do!". Other times when Tom or I are on the computer, he'll walk in with such a serious face and say "I have a lot of work to do. I need to work."

One night, he was playing on the computer, and I had opened up a word document for him to play type. A little while later, he starts yelling for me to come in here because he wants to show me something. Lo and behold, he had typed his name (both first and last). Farther down in the document, he also typed "catcatcat". When I came in, he said "See, I did CAT! C-A-T!" He's already learning to spell! For the rest of the night, we practiced typing and writing various words. He's really starting to get interested in reading and writing!

Here he is hard at "work":

I hope everyone is keeping warm. The next snow is coming tomorrow night - hope it's not as bad as they say it might be. I don't know where we will put all of the snow! Tom's school is still out - a week after the first storm. I have a feeling they will be out of school all week!