Happy Halloween!

we spent last night doing the usual halloween preparations/tradions: carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds and watching The Great Pumpkin. gotta love all that. japper was in bed already because he was (pick one) a.) fighting a cold, b.)crabby because mama and papa left and now he wasn't being held every second and, c.) just plain tired. so, he will join the traditions next year. annie loved watching daddy and i carve the pumpkins for her, and even though she started the process of "gutting" it, she was not such a huge fan of that part. she did, however, LOVE The Great Pumpkin, so that was a hit. once we got finished with the carving we took the jack-o-lanterns outside and lit them up and checked out the spookiness and i think we did good, because annie took one look and said "let's go inside now!"

we are hoping to get some trick-or-treating in tonight, but not sure if annie is actually going to follow through with it. she talks like she wants to do it and wants to "ring a doorbell and scare the people and say thank you", but we shall see. she's been known to get stage fright, however her want for the candy may push her through the performance anxiety. girl loooves some candy.

i will get some pictures up later of the costumes once the festivities commence and we get them in to them. hopefully annie will cooperate since i have a wig for her to wear. maybe just for a picture. stay tuned for the costume show!

Monthly Archives - Jasper Month 13

dear jasper,

holy buckets, here i am writing your birthday letter late again. i tell ya. try as i might, i can not get things done on time. oh well.

so, you've been a busy little dude in the month (is it a month already?) since your 1st birthday. you are tentatively exploring the possibility of moving your feet while holding on to your little wagon, but you are still not convinced that this is at all a good idea. you are much more adept at crawling and you are FAST. so fast that you usually make it in to the laundry room and splash all the water out of ferris' dish or try a piece of his food before i even make it in there. so fast.

you love graham crackers. in fact, i think if you were given the choice, you would choose to eat only graham crackers. except for the other day when you snuck one of annie's "bug bites" from her bowl and then you decided that those were even better: honey/cinnamon glazed crackers? are you kidding me? that's a winning combination in your book. graham crackers, puffy cereals and bananas are the only things you will feed yourself. cheese? nope. peaches? nope. you will eat it, but it has to be fed to you. so picky.

you love playing with balls and think it's one of the funnier things ever. exhibit:

too funny.

one of my favorite things to do is check on you before i go to bed and watch you sleep for a minute. usually you are on your tummy, butt-up, but i did catch you the other night on your back in my all-time favorite baby sleeping position.

mmmm. so sweet. so peaceful.

love you booger,

mommy

Hodgepodge Saturday

oops, put the panties on backwards!

i will never get over the cuteness of baby butts.

Here's jasper looking like a mighty big boy:

Caught

aha! jasper you are caught!

this is the second time i have found you at the beginning (thankfully) of your journey up the stairs. you think you're soooooooooooo funny. so proud of yourself are you, young jedi.

well, i've got news for you kid: at the bottom of these funny, exciting stairs, are hard, hard, head-breaking stone tiles. please don't do this again without the assistance of an adult. i thank you.

Monthly Archives - Annie Month 35

***somewhere along the line i either missed a month entirely, or i misnumbered a month...because i was showing i was on month 34, but this is totally month 35 because next month is annie's 3 year birthday - which is month 36...and i suck. i'm sorry, baby. the stupidity must be seeping in through those gray hairs***


dear anniepants,

wow. just in the past couple of weeks your daddy and i have noticed some major growing-up on your part. sigh. yesterday i was looking through the pictures on my old cell phone, debating whether i should save any of them, and i came across some pictures of you when you were like 6 months old. oh god my eyes are welling up now just thinking about it. i can't believe you aren't that little baby any more. i can't. what a parental cliche that is "oh, i can't believe how fast you've grown!"...but it's so true. it's frightening. i wish i could bottle each phase of your life so that when you're so big that i can't remember you being a baby, i can just open the bottle and unleash that lil' pumpkin. my little pumpkin juice.

your vocabulary is unbelievable. when did you figure out how to put sentences together? i know i've said this before but it's like it just happened one day. you're like ariel in the little mermaid when the evil ursula is destroyed and you see her voice go back inside her and she just explodes into song. like the other day when you - all by yourself - told your plant it was going to have "beautiful flowers" someday. or when you wake us up on sundays and say "mommy i'm so hungry. it's time for pancakes!" or now that you've started using your manners (usually) and saying "may i please watch dora" instead of "TURN ON DORA!" and you do - like ariel - explode into song quite frequently these days. your favorite of the moment seems to be "mary had a little lamb" but you really only sing the 2nd verse where the lamb followed mary to school one day. i think you finally nailed it, but for a while there you were saying "he followed her to school one der, school one der..." i think maybe you though it was "wonder" instead of "one day". i don't know, but i love it.
one of the coolest things you've done recently is put your cinderella puzzle together all by yourself. it actually happened for the first time 2 days ago and i totally didn't believe you at first. mind you, this is like a 24-piece jigsaw puzzle, not some wooden thing with 5 pieces and matching pictures. nooooo way. usually, you sit down at the table to do the puzzle and then you put cinderellas face together and then you freak out and get all frustrated and huffy and you go "i can't get it". frankly, i got sick of helping you all the time. see, i don't want to put the cinderella puzzle together by myself for the 878th time. i want YOU to do it. so finally, i just told you to keep trying, turn the pieces and figure it out. so 2 days ago you did just that. i was downstairs getting supper ready and you were upstairs working on your puzzle. all of the sudden i hear you say "moooommmy, i have something for you!" and i say "what do you have?" and you say "i do my puzzle allllllll myself!" and i'm thinking, no way is that possible. i go upstairs and much to my chagrin, there is the entire cinderella puzzle, put together absolutely perfectly on the table. i almost started crying i was so proud of you. you were just standing there with your hands on your hips, doing that little eyes-half-shut-coy-smiling thing you do when you're proud of yourself. it was brilliant. so, so proud of you.
you have also made some headway on your alphabet skills. we're trying to work with you more on the letter-identification thing because up until now, most letters are "B". i don't know why - i think it's the first one we ever worked on and then we'd just always point at the picture of the ball or the bee or the bear and say "what letter?" and you'd say "B" and we'd be thinking you were SUCH a genius...except if we pointed at the cat or the dog or the elephant and asked the same question, you would also say "B". now we are using your various alphabet cards and showing letters and pictures and then you say "...W is for...Whale". it's so fun. i love watching your little sponge-brain soak things up.

well, you're about to be 3. even at 2 i still feel like i can call you a baby...but not so much at 3. like you say, "i'm getting taller and bigger". it's no lie. it's really happening. you're a little girl now, and a very sweet, funny, pleasant, and fantastic one at that.


i love you, stinky face.

love, mommy

More from Annie-Leibowitz-Johnston

i swear she can manage a pretty good photo with her 2-year-old eye...

oh, and here's what happens when she is left unattended in the office (please note we had two post-its on the wall previously).

apparently she has a LOT to do.

The Plant Whisperer

so mama lola bought all the kids amaryllis plants to plant, care for, love and watch grow into flowers. annie is obsessed with the watering of the plants. i'm amazed that although jasper's plant is a good few inches taller than hers, she still loves her own and hasn't tried to claim japper's as her own.

she and addison were watering and - as you'll see here - talking to the plant so it grows up nice and big and beautiful. i got a video but i came in a little late and missed the part where addison said "talk to the plant" and annie proceeded to say "you are going to be a beautiful flower". it was so sweet. oh, and excuse my couging, i was trying so hard not to because she was talking so softly, but i was choking to death. see? the suffering i do for your entertainment!

Busy Weekend

i'm going to have to split this weekend up into two posts since we were so busy and i actually took some pictures for once. so we'll start with friday-saturday and then tomorrow you can read about sunday. ooooo, i know you're just itchin' to find out what we did. the anticipation is already killing you, i can tell.

so anyway. fridays usually unfold relatively the same every week. usually i take the kids over to the coop's at 4:30-5, we let the kids play while we have a beer, we feed the kids and bathe them while the boys (our hubbies, that is) go play disc golf...and we have a beer... the kids play til about 7 and then they're off to bed and we can drink a few more beers/glasses of wine and either hang on the porch and chat or play shuffle board (our newest obsession) until it is time to go home. well, i never really realized how much i look forward to our friday night festivities until niki pointed out this past friday that they had 8am soccer games for both boys on saturday and should probably just stay in so they're not too tired...especially since larry's alter-ego on saturday morning's is "coach".

so here i am, friday at 3:30 and addison was home early and he was playing with the kids so i could have some time to myself. except there i was, checking my email and thinking i could not possibly be more bored. i needed to get out. so, i told addison we needed to go to chuy's for dinner because mommy needed to have a yummy margarita and get out of the house for a while. so, at 4:30 we went to chuy's. awesome. we even got annie some sopapilla's for being so good and eating her supper all up. whoa. girl discovered honey and loved it. here's what happend, though, when we tried to take said honey away. oops. by the way, 4:30 is the PERFECT time to go out when you have kids. you don't wait, you get served quickly, it's not busy or hectic, and you're outta there before the friday-night rush kicks in. the only thing is, you're done by 6pm and you've got a nice little texas-margarita-groove going on and nowhere to go.

now, i don't remember who called whom first, but we ended up talking to niki on the way home from chuy's and she was "i'm bored" and addison said "yeah, gina realized she needs her friday night party" and then - wouldn't you know it - we ended up at the coop's anyway. and of course, with all our intentions to head home by 10 after a few games of shuffleboard, we really went home at about 11:30-12. also, presley was really keen on us going to his game on saturday morning, because if we didn't go they would lose...so we couldn't disappoint.

so, we arose on saturday morning at 7:15 - a little worse for the wear - and put on our sporting gear and headed to the fields to watch the boys play soccer. it was a beautiful, sunny morning - even a little cool - and it was a lot of fun to see the boys in action. pres had an awesome dribble almost the whole way down the field, and cody did an awesome job as goalie for his team. by the way, 4-year-olds playing soccer is one of the cutest things i have ever seen. it almost made me cry it was so funny/cute. larry's all getting them riled up and ready to go and they do they're little team cheer and it goes something like this "Which way do we go?" "THAT way!!" and the kids point to which goal is theirs, because often there is confusion. it's just awesomely cute.

after the games, we went home to regroup and let japper nap and then we met at poppadeux's for some yummy lunch and bloody mary's. mmmmmm. here are a couple of really cute pics i got of the kids at lunch on saturday.

so after all that action, we ended up slumming lazily on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, ate lunch leftovers for dinner and went to bed by 9:30 on saturday night. we are such rockstars.

Texas-Size Party

they do things bigger in texas.

we went to a birthday party for a 6-year-old girl yesterday (Sunday). this was not your average 6-year-old's birthday party. at least not that i've ever seen. this western-themed party took place on the little girl's ranch...or grandma's ranch, i think...and there were pony rides, a petting zoo, hay ride (and no, annie didn't make it), giant pink cakes, a caricature artist (even addison said annie's caricature looks a little botoxed for a 2-year old). there had to be 30 kids there. this is annie's second time at one of these parties...she got to go to little-sister's party a few months ago. i didn't go, but after hearing about kangaroos and live music, i thought i better go to this one just to satisfy my curiosity. you would, too, wouldn't you?

i am just amazed by the scale of this party. i mean, this is for a 6 year old. it's likely she won't even remember much of this day when she's older. let me just say that it was very fun, they had some killer bbq there, and i appreciate these people opening their house to curious people like me who are only there by default anyway...i really have no place to comment on any of it. but i'm going to.


i bet you're wondering what a 6 year old - who gets a huge party like this - gets for a present? in case you're curious you can see here. and here you can see annie trying to get a piece of that action. papa? you ready to get some horseys yet??? so yeah, not one but TWO horses for her 6th birthday. is it me, or are kids just generally more over-indulged today than they used to be? i'm just wondering where you go from there? you get horses - plural - when your 6...what does that leave for the rest of your birthdays? will they all be a giant disappointment? do you get a car when you're 7? do you get your own town when you're 10? whatever happened to bicyles and hula hoops and board games? not that every girl doesn't want a pony when she's little, but i can't say i actually met someone who actually GOT the pony. then again, it is texas, and grandma does own a ranch that already has horses, so it's not really that bizarre. maybe i'm the bizarre one. i'm sure there are lots of you readers out there who would agree with THAT.
it was fun to watch the kids though. i think if given the option, annie would have gone home with the petting zoo animals. she LOVED them all, which is quite the change from the little girl who nearly lost her marbles when we took her to the zoo in sioux falls and asked her to feed a goat. apparently she's over that fear now. here, here, here, here and here are a few more pictures of annie feeding every animal there. those animals ate so much feed in 2 hours, that they were all laying down and turning away from the food after a while.
jasper just hung out and was hot. i did discover how to get your stubborn baby to drink from a sippy cup, though. dehydration. it's the key. i don't know why it took me so long! jasper's face was all red and he was all sweaty and squirmy and i brought out the sippy cup of juice thinking "maybe he's thirsty". boy was that an understatement. the poor thing was gulping that juice down like he'd just stumbled across an oasis in the middle of the sahara.



anyway, we had a good time. after 2 hours the kids all started melting down a bit, so it got a little hectic toward the end there, but we made it out unscathed...sort of. annie was crying that she didn't want to go home, she wanted to hit the pinata, etc. but once we got in the car she was good.

speaking of the car, i forgot to include the prelude to this whole story! i called 911 for the first time ever on our way to the party. i was so nervous. so we're driving down this 2-lane highway that's all hilly and winds around every which way. we come up on this truck that is driving rather recklessly - they would speed way up and then brake to a near-stop, they would drive off the road onto the right shoulder and then a little ways down the road do it again. we backed off a bit because we were having visions of the head-on collision they were going to be in and we - with 4 of the little things we love the most in the car with us - were going to be in on it, too. so, we kept driving but kept watching this truck and then all of the sudden we come up over a hill and see this dust in the road and the truck has just done a 180 in the middle of the highway and is blocking both lanes trying to reverse and straighten him/herself out again. it was so scary to watch. that's the point at which niki suggested we call 911.

ever-so-carefully i dialed: 9 - 1...breathe - 1.

have you ever dialed 911 before? i totally felt like i was breaking the rules. like i'd be arrested for prank-calling or something. it was hysterical. i turned into a 9 year old for just a minute there...

"...county 911, what is the state of your emergency?"

"um, we're driving behind a car that is driving very recklessly and..."

(niki: "they just did a 180")

"...yeah, they just did a 180 in the middle of the highway and they're driving off the shoulder and we're concerned they're going to cause an accident"

"what is your location, ma'am?"

"um, we're on 1751 west near I45"

"what's a major cross-street?"

Ok, see, i have no idea where we are because we're like 30 miles north of conroe, so i have no idea. luckily we were still near the interstate, so i just used that.

"we're about 4-5 miles west of I-45 on 1751. it's a red truck, license plate #######..."

" ok thank you ma'am, we've had other calls about that vehicle, someone is on the way."

crazy, right? it was very tense for me. my heart was racing the whole time. i just hope they caught up to that person before they did cause an accident. i don't know what was going on, but it was a little early in the day - on a sunday no less - to be hammered. scary stuff.

Lady Sings the Blues Wonderpets

A Day in the Park...or How i Went Metaphysical on Your Ass

the other day the kids and i took a journey over to candy cane park and had us a little picnic. i forget sometimes how the simple things in life are sometimes the most fun, the most meaningful, the most pleasurable - not just for annie and jasper - for me also. sometimes you get so caught up the mundane: the laundry, the lunches, the groceries, the naps, the fixing dinner, that you become a sort of robot, just going through the motions of daily life, only to stop once in a while and say "hey, when's the last time we went on a picnic?" and when you are 2 (nearly 3), a picnic is right up there with someone saying "we're going to have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner and you can watch all the cartoons you want without any clothes on whatsoever and you never have to go to bed". seriously. annie was all "we're going on a picnic?!" and "we need a lunch for our picnic" and "i help you get the lunch" and "is it time for our picnic?" just an unbelievably amazing amount of optimism, excitement, hope and joy. i just love that. i think that is the thing that somehow gets lost in us as we grow older. we sacrifice our pure, kid-joy for...seriousness. or something. i don't know, bills, concern over properly caring for and rearing a polite and well-adjusted child in this era of rudeness and apathy and violence? see? your kid-joy just faded a bit after you read that, didn't it? hee hee. no need to fret, it's really not that bad. all you do is you go on a picnic. and read some good books.

can you tell i've been reading. one of the books i'm reading right now (like my dad, i typically have 1-3 books started or in progress at any given time) is "eat, pray, love" by elizabeth gilbert. and i love it. you really just have to read it yourself and see why. i just happen to find it very inspiring. and not on a real deep level or anything, just on that wow-we-only-have-this-one-life-so-let's-live-it level. thingy. you know, like old brooks said in The Shawshank Redemption, "get busy living or get busy dying". seriously, not to be deep or anything. hee hee.

really though, i think my brain is shorting out a bit. it's just i've been trying to start writing my children's book and i'm still adjusting to life in a new place and i'm reading a lot and i'm doing yoga and my brain is starting (surprise) to maybe function again after being pregnant for 2 of the last 3 years and i am starting to come out of my pregnancy/mommy induced lazy-coma. does that make sense? time to start moving, people! this writing thing is really proving to be a lot harder than i wanted it to be. i always knew it would be hard, but i never WANTED it to be so. i sit down at the computer and stare and stare and stare at that blinking cursor and an hour later i have 4 bullet points on who, what, when, where possibilities. and yet, i click on over to my blog and i just practically vomit all over the page. amazing. anyway, i'm giving it a go. now don't go asking me about it because the truth is it may take me 15 years to accomplish anything. after all, i've been "working on a children's book" for like 15 years now. and i've got a few random pages of ideas here and there but that's it. nothing that can stand up to the likes of my inspirations: Chris van Allsburg, Madeline L'Engle, JK Rowling, Louis Sachar, etc. which is probably what precisely is holding me back.

so anyway. i digress for about the 10th time in this post. no wonder i can't write - i have writer's ADD. so yep, time to get busy. on a lot of things. starting with sleep. i'm exhausted. all this typing has made me babble about metaphysics - to the extent that which my brain can comprehend all that. wow, i really am starting to sound like my kooky (but brilliant) religion professor at bates, who taught us all about buddhism, chi, and enlightenment all the while sounding like ben stein's teacher character in 'ferris bueller's day off". now i've really gone off on a tangent.

here's what you really came for (if you're even still reading) - more pictures of jasper and annie at our picnic in the park. peace out.

The Party

we had a great party on saturday for japper's birthday celebration. mama lola and papa jack came down and the whole cooper clan came over and it was lots of fun. jasper was a little apprehensive of all the attention, but he had a pretty good time. it's a good thing i made him a cake on his birthday though, because he was not a huge fan of my coconut cupcakes:

honestly, he's actually gagging. i thought they were delicious, but apparently one-year-olds do not love coconut. i should have known, jasper has a weird-texture-aversion anyway.

despite that, though, jasper had a good day. he got lots and lots of loot and has been having such a good time playing with it all. here's the one where he's afraid of his new fire truck, and here's one where he loves the fire truck. he also has a tow truck (thank you, henry!) and he has similar feelings about that one, as well - unsure, in love, unsure, frightened, in love again, etc. this is his new band set - he's a pretty big fan...

all in all it was a very fun weekend, but japper sure was tired after all that partying.

today we had japper's 1 yr. check-up...complete with 5 - yes 5 - shots. OWIE! don't you think that's overkill for a little baby?! poor thing. he handled it like a trooper, though. he was so mad that he just ripped the bandaids off one of his legs as soon as we got in the car. don't blame ya, buddy. i'd be mad too. i'm just glad he wasn't mad at me. he was totally glaring at the nurse, though. as soon as she was done he had his eyes fixed on her, watching to see what she was going to do with those giant, horrible needles she just jabbed him with. it was pretty funny. he did not take his eyes off her until she left. and now, at 1, i'm sure he'll never sit with his back to the door.

anyway, it should come as no surprise to anyone that jasper is still taking after his mommy: tall and skinny. i tell ya. he's so lucky he got my genes. hahahaha. here's the lowdown: he's in the 75% for his height at 30", the 50% for his head at 18.75" and the - wait for it - 5-10% for weight at a hefty 19# 2 oz. i know. lose some weight, dude. *sigh* can't even transfer him to the bigboy carseat yet until he hits the big 2-0...sheesh. the doc assures me that he's totally normal and not too skinny. he says "you and your husband were probably just teeny tiny when you were little, so he's got those genes working for him". yes, it's true. i was a little thing. so was addison. in fact, i think i outweighed addison all through highschool. he might hate me for saying that, but it's true. so yeah, our kids don't really come from a terribly large mold...but they also don't come from a terribly tall mold, so how'd japper get so lucky there?

just for curiosity's sake i pulled out annie's records from her 1yr. visit to see how they compared, because i had it in my head that she was shorter but heavier. here's where she was at a year old:

height: 27" (17%)

weight: 20# 7 oz. (30%)

head: 72% (don't have the measurement)

isn't that interesting? no? only to a mother. anyway, she was shorter by 3 inches - that's crazy to me! annie didn't hit 30" until she was 18 months old. fascinating. again, only to me.

so anyway, that's that. Oh, and as long as we're talking about medical stuff, i did get my cholesterol test back and it WAS elevated. shocker. it's not bad, though. my good is pretty good, my bad isn't too bad and my ratio is great so i'm not what they call "a risk". hopefully this means the bastards insurance company will pick me up but, if not, i'm going to call up michael moore and start working for him.

that's all i have for today, i'll leave you with a couple of pictures of addison putting on a ninja show for jasper: