Jackson's Blog

Jackson has a new blog! He has become obsessed with graphic novels (basically fancy comic books, but many of them are quite long and they actually come in a variety of genres) lately, and while I know reading is reading, they aren't really a challenge for him.

So I thought he could sign up for a "reading challenge" just for graphic novels, and to complete it, he would have to write a review for each of them. As soon as I suggested this project to him, and mentioned the possibility of his own blog as a central location for his reviews, he got VERY excited...not so much about the reading challenge, but as a place to share pictures of his Legos. :P

We reached a compromise! I helped him set up the blog and I'll teach him how to post, as well as help him upload pictures, etc., and he will do occasional book reviews (he has to do at least 11 in 2011 to fulfill the requirements for the "expert" level in the challenge...with the way he's been going, he'll have the actual reading of those done in the next month, but the reviews are another story). Win-win!

So without further ado, I give you.....LEGOMANIA!

Fashion Disaster!

Last Thursday was Fashion Disaster Day at Jackson and Cody's school. Jacks really got into picking all sorts of weird, mis-matched things to wear.

He put on some 3-D glasses (the ones he wore the week before for "Future's So Bright" day) without the lenses. Oh, and do you notice they're upside down? He also wore his shirt backwards, and stuck on one of Anthony's ties.

To complete the look, he wore his baseball pants. Stylin', no?

Here you can really see that his shirt is on backwards.

Cody had a harder time with this whole thing. He likes clothes to match. If he's wearing black pants, he wants to wear a black shirt. Complementary colors just will not do...they must be the SAME exact shade.

So convincing him to wear green camo pants with a non-green shirt was pretty tough. And in fact, they actually don't clash nearly as much as I'd thought they would....sneaky little devil still looks pretty darn put-together!

His big idea for "crazy clothes" was to wear a pair of Halloween socks. Under his long pants. That no one could see.

And even that made him a tad uncomfortable!

He topped off his look with some silver (note that silver and the grey of his sleeves MATCH) beads, which I thought was pretty brave, for him. Of course, when I saw him at school later that morning, he'd hidden the beads in his backpack. The fink.

What a disaster! :)

College Week

This week is College Week at the boys' school. Each day has a special, fun theme to go along with teaching the kids about the importance of a college education. They're wearing sunglasses today, because the theme is "Our Future is So Bright!"

And if you're thinking Jackson's glassses look a little different...that's because they're not sunglasses. He decided to wear 3-D glasses instead, because his future "is bright AND cool." :)

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Tuesday's theme was "Dream Big & Go to College," so everyone was allowed to wear slippers to school. It was really fun seeing teachers walking down the hallway in funky slippers, too. :)

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Wednesday was Career Day, so the kids were supposed to dress as their future occupations. Jackson has decided he wants to be an architect, so we made him some "blueprints" and he stuck a pencil behind his ear.

And Cody? Cody says he wants to be a rock star. Which is perfect, since he totally rocks!

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On Thursday, the theme was, "Top Off Your Education," so the kids could wear college hats to school. Of course, they both wanted to wear Longhorn hats. Hook 'em!

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Friday was Homecoming, and the kids were invited to wear their favorite college shirt. Again, for my guys, it was all about UT!

Cody saw that sweatsuit at the store and just HAD to have it. He was so proud of himself this morning because, with the added hat, he said he looked like a coach!

What a fun week!

SNOW!

Winter weather finally came to Texas today, and we got our first snow of the year! The boys were SO excited and went right out in it.

Luke said, "Snow is cool! Are you coming?" He got such a kick out of scooping it up and (trying) to throw it at people.

Cody got cold pretty quickly, but he gave it a whirl for a little while.

And Jacks? Well, Jacks presented me with this view while he was bending down to make a snowball:

My evil self could not resist, and I just had to put some snow in there. Here's his response:

And then? Revenge!!!

Fun! :)

Go Fighting Irish!

Cody had his first basketball game this morning! He was so excited to get up and put on his uniform. He looked so handsome, and so did Coach Daddy!

Cody's team is the Lil' Fighting Irish (well, it's better than the "Lil' Hokies," which another poor unfortunate team has to deal with!). He is lucky that one of his friends from preschool last year, Trevor, is also on the team with him. And the Kindergarten league includes boys and girls, so there is one adorable little girl on the team.

Here they are, with at least half of them looking away from the camera:

Not exactly a candidate for "team photo," huh? You'll notice that Jackson is on the bench as well...he has been helping out as "Assistant Coach." The kids all think he's a rock star (well, except for maybe Cody LOL), and he has really been having fun with it.

Now, Cody has always been big, right? Well, not much has changed. He towers over the other players, even though many of them are the same age.

Here's our guy, #1 (he says he got to be that because Daddy's the coach...in truth, we had no say over the numbers):

In this Kindergarten league, it is all about teaching the kids the fundamentals, the rules, and sportsmanship. They don't keep score, and the coaches are allowed on the floor with the players and the ref to help direct the game and answer questions as they come up during play.

This is the player line-up at the beginning of a period (they play 6 periods, each 6 minutes, and each player gets to play 3 and rest 3).

The kids each get a colored wristband that matches up with a player on the opposite team...that helps them all recognize who their man is. I'm not sure they actually got that today, but eventually it will sink in. :)

Both teams played REALLY well, and it was so much fun to watch them go! Cody scored a basket (he was SO SO SO proud of himself and did a little happy dance right there on the floor!), and the kids all had some good passes, they tried to play some defense, and they all had a good time.

It was especially fun to see the kids respond to Coach Anthony...he is SUCH a good coach, and they all just love him. I didn't see any other teams going up and hugging their coaches after the game, but Anthony's kiddos did. Cody is SO lucky to have his Daddy as a coach, and he loves every second of it.

This is Cody's first sports experience, and it makes me so proud to see him out there doing all the things he's doing! WTG Codes!

Happy New Year! (and end of the old one catch-up)

Happy New Year! Yes, I know I completely missed blogging about Christmas and we're already a full week into 2011....but we had a wonderful holiday season, complete with trips to the zoo, the science museum, and visits from Aunt Kate. Busy busy!

First, Jackson was the Student of the Month for his class in December, so Luke and I went to the special Spirit Assembly on the last day of school. Jacks was very sweet and let Luke hold the pompom and cheer with him in the hallway.

Luke had a little assembly at his school, too, and he was SO excited! Gramma, Grandad and Tina came to see him sing....but then it turned out that his class (and all the 2 yr-olds) were kept seated and didn't go up on the stage to sing. I guess they thought that it would be too hard to keep the little ones calm up on stage, but Luke was SO disappointed. He really wanted to go up on the "big stage!" He had been practicing his favorite song, "Ring the Bells," for weeks. So I had him sing it for me at home and took a little video of him so we could share it with everyone. He did so well!

Here's me and Luke at his Sing-A-Long:

We had some really warm weather over the holiday, so one of the days we were at Gramma and Grandad's house, we were able to play outside with chalk and ride bikes!

We also visited the Dallas Zoo with Grandad on one of the warmer days. As always, the Savannah exhibit was our favorite (they had mixed the zebras and elephants in together, along with gazelles and an ostrich!).

The coolest part was the elephant rides! :)

On Christmas Day, we spent the morning at our house, lounging around in our PJs and enjoying our traditional coffee-cake breakfast while ripping into our presents. :)

In the afternoon, we went over to Gramma and Grandad's house to celebrate with them, Kate-Kate and Tina.

Luke got some traditional Christmas tattoos!

I took almost no pictures, but we had a wonderful Christmas, filled with love and family!

One more fun thing we did before school started back up again was go to the Museum of Nature and Science and check out their Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit.

We were slightly concerned when we saw this sign before we went in:

And yeah, those dinosaurs were pretty lifelike and scary! Here's Cody running away from a T-Rex:

We celebrated New Year's by making pesto pasta and Devil's Food cake and enjoying the Back to the Future trilogy. It was super fun, but not worth photographing. :)

For the most part, I left my big camera behind over the holiday and just enjoyed spending time with the boys, my sister, and enjoying having lots of family time. We had FUN! And as usual, the holidays were over too quickly, but we're looking forward to an exciting 2011.

So again I say, Happy New Year! :)