LSU License Plate Day!!!

Jill's brand new license plates arrived and we had to put them on as soon as we got home. For those of you who don't already know, LSU is the first out of state school to have official plates made in Texas. We can already tell Greg is jealous and wants some LSU plates of his own. Actually, we hear that the University of Arkansas may not be far behind with their own Texas plate, so if he must, we'll let him have a set (ewww pigs....).

Jason's Room v2.0

Wow! We can't believe it's already March. Well, we have a little catching up to do for our entries. A few months ago, Jason upgraded to a "big boy" bed. Along with that, we had some decorating to change his room from a nursery to a boy's room. Take a peek!

Jason's New Talent

Well, it looks like Jason's signing career is now set to begin.  Take a look!  It's hard to believe how fast he has grown.  He sure enjoys the spotlight.  When we try singing along with him, he says, "No Mommy" or "No Daddy" because like many things, he wants to do it himself.

Happy Holidays!

Well, it's been a while since we've posted, so this might be a long post. First, we hope that everyone had a nice Christmas holiday, and that the New Year brings everyone health, wealth and much prosperity. And now for some updates and pics from the last couple of months, which have been a whirlwind of activity.

Here is a picture from Jason's 50s dress up day to celebrate his daycare's 50th year since its founding. We thought he looked pretty cool!




Here are some pictures from Jason's Thanksgiving Feast his class had up at school. He was the only child in his class with both parents there. It was fun to sit and have lunch with him, and to see him interact with his teachers and classmates.



Oh, and I almost forgot! I have proof for the future when Jason tries to tell us that he does not like vegetables. Here he is eating (and enjoying) brussel sprouts!


We celebrated Thanksgiving this year up at Uncle Josh and Aunt Sarah's house. Nana, Justin, Jason and I traveled together all the way to Collin county for the feast. Sarah and Josh did a wonderful job putting everything together and Sarah even saved the boudin ball/loaf. Justin, Josh and Jason even got to enjoy some playtime in the backyard (although I think it made them miss some of the Cowboys game.) Once Jason decided it was time to go, by throwing a fit, we trekked back over to Tarrant County and dropped by Matt and Erin's house (our Aunt Lindsay's sister) for a visit. There, Jason was able to play with his two cousins, Kassidy and Mckinley, and their cousin Ella.
Jason had a Christmas Program the next week, and we made sure we had good seats in order to watch his class perform "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" Unfortunately we did not get to see him on stage because he insisted on being held by the teacher during both songs. Oh well, maybe next year.

Mimi's birthday was next, and we went to church and had lunch at Christina's to celebrate. Jason was a little cranky, so Justin and I had to eat in shifts.

You may have noticed a recurring theme so far with Jason being fussy and having tantrums. He is still our wonderful happy little boy, but we have entered the much talked about terrible 2's, so sometimes Jason is a bit of a short fuse. In his defense, we have introduced a lot of new things to him recently, including moving to a big boy bed and beginning potty training. We feel he is adjusting well, but he is also continuously testing his limits and boundaries, and we are all learning together.

After Mimi's birthday we met up with Rebecca, Vince and Jacob to take pictures at our neighborhood clubhouse. Which reminds me, we still need to pick up those pictures. It was a memorable experience, as Jason cried the minute I put him in Santa's lap. I bet the pictures will be funny.

Next, we had a Christmas celebration over at Nana's house. It was a lot of fun to have 3 toddlers (Jason, Kassidy and Mckinley) all opening presents up in the same room at the same time. The kiddos also got to decorate pine cones and frost and decorate cookies. Jason's technique was superb - frost then eat. Then we all got to go and enjoy Kathie's choir perform their Christmas program which included dancing, singing, and even an appearance by 3 live camels. Jason really enjoyed all the music and lights.




Oh, and here was the wonderful Christmas card we sent out this year. Jason's frowny face cracked us up.
Jason has been obsessed with happy faces and sad faces lately, as I think they represent the two main emotions he identifies with right now. He has us draw them repeatedly on his Doodle Pro and Aquadoodle, and he likes to act out his own happy and sad faces. He also wants to make us happy, so if he does something he thinks we'll be proud of, like eating his vegetables, or putting his head on his pillow at bedtime he'll ask "Mama/Daddy happy?"

Here he is sporting one of his happy faces and his Santa hat, which he loved wearing.


We had two really fun events over at Deborah and John's house this year, a vocal recital of Sarah's voice students and a Christmas dinner party. Both were really fun. We even got to sing the 12 days of Christmas song at the dinner party because we had 12 adults at the table, and each of us had our own line from the song!

Christmas morning was a lot of fun too, as Jason loves opening presents and tearing tissue paper. He even enjoys picking up all the discarded paper. We also had wonderful celebrations at Mimi and Papaw's house on Christmas Day and the Saturday after Christmas.



We brought in the New Year with Rebecca, Vince and Jacob and we all decided to stick close to home this year and spend time with our kiddos. It has become a tradition to celebrate this holiday together, and one which I hope we will continue for many years. Here are some pictures of Jason and Jacob.

We were also very excited for Mimi and Papaw who traveled to Atlanta to watch the Tigers play in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. They had instructions to cheer loudly for us too, and it must have worked because the Tigers played a great game, beating Georgia Tech with a final score of 38-3. Here's a picture of Mimi and Papaw at the game.


Hope everyone has Happy New Year and GEAUX TIGERS!

Cowboys New Stadium

Jill and I recently got the opportunity to tour the new Cowboys Stadium. We were quite excited, as this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

We first went to the Stadium Preview Center. There, they had snacks, Cowboys Cheerleaders, a real-life sample of a suite, and a much, much smaller model of the stadium itself. We also got to see Jerry Jones's bus while we waited to be picked up and taken for the tour.

The faux-luxury suite in the preview center was really cool. One of the walls was even covered in a wallpaper that gave you a feel for the view from the suite. However, on the wallpaper, I noticed something was totally off about the Ring of Honor. The had "Emmit Smith" in the Ring of Honor. I included this picture in the slideshow. It's not like they'll have his name misspelled in the actual stadium, but I thought it was kind of funny considering he's one of the all-time greats for the team as well as the league. Shortly after my discovery, it was off to the job site (aka. JerryWorld or Jonestown).

When we got to the stadium site, the van dropped us off on the North side across from Wal-Mart. On gamedays, this will be the side of the visiting team. We entered the stadium on the main concourse, which brought us in around the 2nd or 3rd level of seating. We had a chance to see lots of tubing, quality copper wiring, drywall, metal, and concrete. Kidding of course. Sure, it's still about six months from completion, but you can see things really taking shape. One thing that stands out is how enormous it is on the inside. The still have the hole in the roof, but the can close the roof if needed. Considering this stadium is to host many events besides football, it's a good idea to have the open or closed option. What will be a major difference from Texas Stadium is that the entire seating area will be cooled or heated if necessary. That makes concerts in July or August MUCH more bearable.

What stood out most for me is the video board that will soon be installed. In the slide show, you'll see what appears to be a bunch of scaffolding in the middle of the field. Instead, that is the frame for the four-sided video board. It stretches about 50-60 yards in length and in height, makes it about halfway up the stadium. It looks so much larger than what I've seen online.

Enjoy the slideshow!

Halloween

We had trouble deciding what Jason should be for Halloween this year. He has a set of Superman PJ's that were super cute with a cape, that he absolutely loved wearing, especially since the cape "flew" behind him as he was running around the house. We can't help but wonder if they were not special enough for Halloween, and if we somehow cheated Jason out of a sort of right of passage. Honestly though, we did not think there was a good selection of costumes at the stores and we were not all that pleased with what we saw for 2-year-olds.

We ended up being pretty pleased with our decision Halloween night. Jason was comfortable and excited. We made it to about 5 or 6 houses before he got tired. Jason was keen on rigning the doorbell, but a little too shy to say "trick or treat" or even to grab candy from the bowl/basket/container at each house. Here is our little man of steel.


We also had Mimi and Papaw over for a Halloween Feast. Or meal consisted of brains, eyes of newt, slime, potato and mushroom soup, and bat cakes. It was scary and delicious!

We also have to show off our pumpkins! Last weekend we had some pumpkin painting fun with Uncle Vinny, Aunt Becky and little Jake. We think they turned out great. Can you guess who painted each pumpkin?

Singing songs and more new words

So Jason's favorite activity might not be reading anymore. Right now he really loves to sing songs. On his current favorites playlist we have the classic "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." This is only rivaled in popularity by the much beloved standard "If You're Happy and You Know It..." or "Happy" as Jason calls it for short. Other tunes we sing often are:

• The Alphabet Song "A B C D..."



• Three Blind Mice



• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star



• Theme songs from SpongeBob, Backyardigans, Diego, Blue's Clues



• Rubber Duckie



• Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone



• How Much is that Doggie In the Window



• The Itsy Bitsy Spider



• The Potty Song (you can ask Aunt Sarah about this one)
  

He likes the songs with hand motions the best, so sometimes Mommy just makes them up (you know how silly Mommy can be). In fact sometimes Mommy just makes up songs altogether. It is a lot of fun when we are over at Mimi and Papaw's house and get the whole family singing "Happy." Mommy loves that Jason enjoys singing all these songs. Are there any song's you can think of that we've left off our repertoire that Jason should learn? What were some of your favorite songs from childhood?

On another note, a new phrase has entered Jason's vocabulary, and although we have no definitive proof, Mom is pretty sure that Jason picked it up from her. It is almost worse than his go-to word "No", because we know he is mimicking. And while imitation is often the highest form of flattery, we do not believe this to be the case in this instance. Jason now says "Stop it!". Now in Mom's defense, the phrase was most often used to communicate to Jason, for example, that maybe he was being a little silly and that a big boy should not cry when it is time to turn off the TV. You know like "Oh, stop it. You're fine Jason. Let's go take a bath!" Anyway, Mom feels responsible. We are really going to have to start watching what we say. He picks up everything!