Slipper Day

It's the week to celebrate fun accessories at school, I guess! Today was Slipper Day for Jacks. He wore his favorite monster slippers, complete with giant orange toenails (Ok, I guess they're claws. That sounds more fierce and monster-like, doesn't it? I'd hate to give the impression that the monster just hit up the nail salon for a bright orange pedicure. LOL)

Anyway, here are the boys in his class in their slippery (hehe) best!


Jackson's teacher is SO much fun. She snaps pics of the kiddos doing interesting activities or on special occasions and fires them off to the parents at least once a week. Yay for iPhones! It's so great to see what he gets up to during the day.

Now where'd I put my slippers...

Hats Hats Hats

On Wednesday, Cody and Luke had Crazy Hat Day at their preschool. All the students and teachers wore funny hats. We saw pirate kerchiefs, hats in the shape of pizzas, Dr. Seuss-style tower hats, and one made entirely of drinking straws.

Cody was very excited about his fireman hat and won the "Helper Hat" award for his class. :)


Luke went back and forth between a bright yellow hard hat (think Bob the Builder) and a wizard's hat. If I tell you that he won the "Tallest Hat" award for his class, can you guess which one he chose?


We also enjoyed Multicultural Night at Jackson's school this week. The 2nd graders performed several patriotic songs (my favorite was "Deep in the Heart of Texas" complete with claps, of course) and then traveled "around the world" visiting different countries including Japan, Egypt and Australia, getting their passports stamped in each location.

So here's our little singer in HIS crazy hat of the week. :)

Career Day

Today was career day at Jackson's school, so they had to dress as their future career. 2 years ago, Jackson chose to be an animal expert. This year, he wants to be a lawyer like Daddy. But the reason might surprise you...

Here's something he brought home from school last week explaining just WHY he wants to be a "loyer."


So it's not so much about justice or the law...it's more about big, tall buildings. (Anthony's building is the tallest in downtown Dallas. You know that one that's outlined in green at night that you always see during breaks in Mavs or Cowboys games? That's it.) But please do note that in addition to Daddy's tall building, Jacks also drew the Supreme Court. How cool is that?

Here is Jackson's class. I think we can see another lawyer, a skateboarder, a karate master, a figure skater, an artist, a UT Longhorns coach (?), several mommies and a couple of teachers. Pretty interesting mix!


Jacks sure did look handsome!


College week has been really fun so far! :)

The Future's So Bright

This is college week for PISD, and each day has a different theme. Today was "Our future is so bright" and the kids were allowed to wear sunglasses to school. So here's Jackson's class (or at least, the kids who participated) rockin' the shades. :)


And Lukey had to get in on the action after school, of course! The future's bright for him, too, don'tcha know!

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2010! We rang in the new year in style, with candlelight, blowers, poppers, and fizzy drinks!

Ok, we cheated a little. But it was pretty tasty anyway. :)


Luke just LOVED doing "cheers" with everyone and tapping his glass (er, cup) with all of us. No, we didn't trust him with the Waterford crystal just yet.


But Jacks and Cody got a big kick out of actually using those fancy glasses and the Wedgwood wedding china that seem to permanently reside on a very high shelf.


Who doesn't love silly blowers that make sounds like an elephant trumpeting? If you blow into them just as hard as you can, that is. And preferably, right in Daddy's ear.


Here's our delicious "Happy 2010" cake, complete with an M&M topping designed by the boys. (The 2 was tricky but they handled the 1 and 0's by themselves.)


But we had the most fun with those crazy glasses. I think it's the last year for a while we'll be able to wear on our faces (and still be able to see out, that is)! Of course, I'm not entirely sure Luke could see out, even with these....

Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!

Well, Santa was very busy on Christmas Eve! He set up the boys' stockings, Jackson's Hot Wheels set and Luke's dump truck, then moved on to the drums Cody has been talking about for the last couple of months.

However, Santa experienced a few technical difficulties this year. First of all, Cody wanted blue drums. Well, where Santa shops, they don't make blue drums in Cody's size, so Santa went with red instead. He explained it (in a note he left Cody) as an intentional choice because Santa's favorite color is red (and that's why his suit is red).

Thinking he had the color issue well covered, Santa went to set up the drums only to find that the cymbals were missing. Oops!! So Santa added to his little note and explained that there must have been a hole in his sleigh because when he got to our house, he just couldn't find those cymbals anywhere. But Santa was very generous and left some cash for Cody to take his daddy to Guitar Center and pick up some cymbals of his choosing.

Santa did the best he could! Here are the drums (mostly) set up by the tree.


Despite Santa's temptation to tear his beard out after his frustrations on Christmas Eve, he needn't have worried. Cody was so happy to see his drums that he didn't mind about a few little things being different than he expected. :)

Here's our Drummer Boy!


He immediately set about the business of rocking.


Daddy helped a bit, and then they jammed together for a while.


Luke just had to give it a try, too.


Cody gave Luke a little drum lesson.


Jacks was busy with his Hot Wheels most of the morning, but he took a break to pose with the Drummer Boy, too.


Santa also brought us Lego Rock Band (a video game), and Jackson had fun testing out the guitar although we have since discovered that he's more of lead singer. So far, his favorite song is Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name." ;)


So our Christmas was filled with music of all sorts, and now with the addition of Cody's drums to the regular daily cacophony, we expect to become accustomed to marching to his beat in 2010. :)