You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown!

Jacob will be starring as Charlie Brown in a little less than 3 weeks and I can't stop thinking about it! Sure, we rehearse a lot at home, the songs are constantly playing in our house and Jacob talks about it regularly, but should I really be dreaming about it? The funny thing is that not only am I dreaming about it and singing it in my sleep, my dreams are things like a guy I went to high school with is selling me tickets to the play. I ask for 22 and he can't seem to get my credit card transaction right. Strange.

I can't wait to see Jacob as Charlie Brown... I'm definitely going to cry.

Johnny Bob

My little brother, Kristopher, is currently serving in the Army's 82nd Airborne Infantry Unit and has been sent to Haiti. He left about 4 days after the initial earthquake and has been there ever since. We don't know when he'll get to come home, but it's looking like it's going to be a long deployment. When he left it was quite a surprise, just a text message in the middle of the night letting me know he was heading to Haiti and that he loved us. By the time I got it, his phone was going straight to voicemail. After the next earthquake in Haiti, we worried since we had no contact. A couple of days later he was able to text my dad from an unknown phone, but we knew he was safe. About a week ago he started texting me from his phone. In texting with him, after asking all the basic stuff, I asked what he was doing and if he felt like he was helping people. His response was "nothing" and "no". My heart hurt for him knowing he was there and felt like he wasn't making a difference. Yesterday, that all changed.

I texted to see how he was and if things were getting better. He told me they were and then he texts me, "I delivered a baby today." I was totally dumbfounded. "Seriously?" is all I could write back! He was completely serious. My brother, a guy who jumps out of planes for a living, delivered a baby in Haiti. I guess he's had some medical training in preparation for his time spent in Afghanistan, but definitely not in delivering a baby! The next natural question was, "Did they name it after you?" and he said "No, but I got to pick the name." He named him Johnny Bob. Johnny Bob? Why in the world would he pick a name like Johnny Bob? Apparently all the kids running around were asking him his name yesterday, so in fun, he told them it was Johnny Bob. When he was asked to name the baby, the first thing that came to his mind was... Johnny Bob!

A Glimpse into the Future

This is the conversation that I had with Gavin the other day.

Gavin: Mom, I'm going to marry Sofia.

Me: Ok, well, did you tell that to Sofia?

Gavin: Yep. (Long pause) Mom, what do you have to do to get married anyway?

Me: Well, you have to buy Sofia a ring, Sofia has to buy a white dress and then you guys have to go to a church and you have to promise that you will love her and take care of her forever.

Gavin: (LONG pause and then very matter of factly) But Mom, I'm only 4.

This was such a cute moment with Gavin! It was so funny because it was truly like he realized that he's only 4 and he can't possibly get married now!

I'm not sure that 20 years from now when we have this conversation it will be near as cute...I'll certainly be bawling my eyes out because my baby is getting married!

As Promised....

Here's a picture of Jacob's new adventure/animal themed room! Don't mind Gavin's hand in the corner of the picture...



I still need to get some pictures and accessories, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. We're looking for a large old looking world map for the wall and maybe some kind of animal picture on canvas. He's also got a black bookshelf that we're going to put a bean bag chair next to for reading, but it wouldn't fit in the picture.

Jacob is loving his new room and feels so grown up having a queen size bed. He even told me, "I can't believe I have a queen size bed. It's only 2 sizes away from the biggest bed size, a California King. Man, I'm getting big!" Too funny! Now if he could just keep it this clean...

By Request....

Here's the table in my dining room!




I think I am going to paint the walls a different color and get some new window treatments too! That will have to be a project for another day though... I just finished moving Jacob into a different bedroom, painting, buying new furniture and bedding and now all I need is accessories. His room looks very grown up now, so mission accomplished, but I'm done with home improvement projects for the next month or two! I'll post pictures soon.

The Table

It all started when I saw this




when I was out shopping. I saw it, I sat down and I imagined myself surrounded by the boys and Joel having dinner, and I LOVED it. Not that I NEEDED a new dining room set, but I LOVED it, so I went home and told Joel that I had found the dining room set that I had been looking for. Of course his first response was, "How much is it?" Once the most important questions had been answered, he said, "Sell your dining room table and we'll go get it." I was so excited!

Before I did anything drastic, I went back to the store with Joel and the boys and asked all of them what they thought about the table. Joel liked it and the boys, well, they told me that they liked our old one better and it was too high. Jacob also informed me that it wouldn't look good in our dining room. All of that aside, I decided to sell my table. I called a friend who had previously admired it and asked if she was interested and it was SOLD!

So, we went out and bought the table. As soon as the table was in the dining room, I got that sinking feeling. You know, the one where you KNOW you've made a mistake and you can't take it back? I had sold my table, spent money on something that was not necessary and then helped carry the 180 pound table and eight 25 pound chairs up the numerous stairs to my front door for this! Jacob was right, it didn't look good in our dining room... Seriously, how did a 9 year old boy know it wouldn't look right in our dining room when I didn't? Thing is, I think I KNEW it wouldn't look right, I just WANTED it to look right!

So now I'm stuck with this great dining room table that I love in a room that I hate...guess I need to get a new house!

Gavin, Reading?

Gavin and I have been working on "school" on and off for a few months now. At his age, the other boys were never even remotely interested in reading or school stuff, but Gavin is. I figured I'd attempt to teach him to read, even though he has a year and a half before he will be in kindergarten, so I bought a Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten Curriculum Kit. It has tons of great stuff in it for reading, writing and math.

I can't believe how much knowledge he has soaked up! He can identify ALL of his uppercase letters, most with sounds and all but 7 of his lowercase letters! Once he knows all of his lowercase letters we will move on to reading! He actually read the word CAT this afternoon! He can count to 40, which is pretty exceptional since they want them to count to 20 by the time they get to Kindergarten. We have been working on handwriting by learning how to hold a pencil properly and drawing lines in various ways. After he masters his lines we can move on to writing letters.

I'm so excited for him! I hope he continues to love learning throughout his days in school and beyond.