Fireman Jack

My great friend who's really more like part of the family, David, thought it would be fun for Jack to ride out to the fire department last night. David has several good friends who are firemen and he spends lots of time there. He and I took Jack out there and they let him have the run of the place. Jack already loved fire trucks and firemen, but even more now!!

Jack and David

If there's a fire, don't worry - Jack was sooo ready to pull that truck out and get to it!! He loved it when they turned all the lights on for him.

Our Fireman friend Timmy

Thanks to all you guys and especially David!! We had a great time!

TOMS Shoes

So, you've probably seen their AT&T commercial. TOMS shoes is a neat shoe company that does One for One. For every pair of shoes they sell, they give a pair to a child in need. Ben, Jack and I each have a pair and we love them!

Aren't these the cutest things you've ever seen?! I should have taken a picture of them on Jack -so adorable!!

Anyway, just thought I would share how much we enjoy them. They are great and comfortable for kids and if you're going to buy shoes (which is HUGE weakness for me), it's nice that someone else benefits from it too:)

Houston: Completed

I've left "Big Fish" playing b/c there's no way you've all been able to experience the FULL EFFECT of it yet. Oh yes, the 14 hours it took us to get home were filled with it most of the time!! See my previous post for an explanation of this:) Don't you love it yet?!

So, we finally made it home on Friday and have just relaxed since then. This is the rest of the fun of Houston. It was a great trip, but we are happy to be home now.

Houston Zoo:



We do love an elephant!! I took some really great shots of the animals too, but this post is really long already.

Downtown Aquarium: This was by far our favorite. I would recommend it to anyone and the food is really good too:)


We rode the Ferris Wheel (they called it something else to do with water, but it was a ferris wheel). Jack thought he was something on this thing.


Cooling off!


A SNAKE!! "Granny San would be scared!!" as Jack says.



Here are just a few of the things we did in our hotel room. The whole staff knows me by now b/c Ben and I have stayed here numerous times with his job. I'm in the room most of the day so I'm familiar with everyone. They were very nice and brought Jack juice and other "extras" all along. We had a blast and Jack had his run of the place! He really enjoyed the room a lot though and we didn't have to wander as much as I thought we would.

Just catching up on some work!


Do you think we brought enough friends?! Actually, we got Rabbit and Buster at the Disney Store in Houston. It was Jack's first experience there and you would have thought we were actually at Disneyland. He was going NUTS!! Curious George was purchased on clearance at Barnes and Noble and then Jack and Ben "misplaced" him at the mall and we had to go to THREE more Barnes and Nobles until we found another one (thank goodness he was on clearance, right?).


Never leave home without the DVD player!! (I recommend "Tigger and Pooh and a Musical Too" to all the moms out there. Ben and I even enjoy it:)


Ben and I have never understood this duck, but it's right outside our hotel in the parking lot of a REALLY GOOD steakhouse for whatever reason. Jack was fascinated with it. He's still talking about that "big duck - it's at the hotel."

Here are a few favorites from the LONG ride home!!


There were some fireman at a service station in Baton Rouge and they gave Jack this cute fireman's hat and bracelet...

...that is a favorite souvenir from the trip.

You can see that we had tons of fun and this expression was the theme of the trip...
...a big, goofy, laughing, fun, silly SMILE!!

Rainforest Cafe

(The song you hear is "Big Fish" by FFH. I let Jack hear it on the way here and it is ALL we have gotten to listen to since then. Every time it goes off, he says "It went off, Mama. I wanna hear it again!" When we start to the vehicle, he says, "Gonna hear the 'Big Fish' song." I wanted all of you to get to enjoy it as much as we have. To get the FULL effect though, you must restart it about 100 times and then you will have an idea of the enjoyment:)

The Houston trip is going great!! We are having a blast and I cannot tell you all how much I have ENJOYED MY CHILD this week!!!!! He and I have been lazy together all week (poor Ben has to get up and go to school every day). Jack and I go on our "mini expeditions" every day to get out of the room for a few hours. Other than that, we sleep late, order room service, nap, swim, watch "Tigger and Pooh and a Musical Too" over and over and anything else that suits us at the time. It's been wonderful and I'm so glad that we came. It feels like an actual vacation!


At night, we do try to get out and about with Ben. Monday night, we went to the Rainforest Cafe. This is a place that we found our last trip without Jack and I cried b/c I knew how much he would enjoy it. It was our first stop this time and a lot of fun. The whole resturant looks like the Amazon jungle!



This is just so the grandparents know that we are feeding him some veggies while we're gone. I know they worry about the care he gets so far from them all - ha ha!


We do love a "go round" and train ride!!


Next up... Houston Zoo


and Downtown Aquarium


(For some really exciting news, visit the Fore Family's blog under my friends list!!)

Dejavu and a Museum Too!

Yes, I think we've been here before! Jack got ear tubes (again) on Thursday and got his adnoids out this time too. Before the surgery, we were feeling FINE!! Jack had the audience he LOVES (Daddy, Mama, Grandaddy, San, CeCe, Nana, and Bro. Barry) and all eyes were on him. So, he...

drove his tractor for a while....


played a little basketball...


and showed Bro. Barry how strong he is!

But afterwards, things weren't so lovely. After Jack pulled (and by pulled I mean TORE) his IV out and got blood ALL OVER me and him (I'll spare you any pictures of that), he....

slept with Mama ...

Isn't that pitiful?!

slept with Daddy...



then, he rolled over and slept with Daddy some more!

He was so tired and I thought we would never get to leave the hospital, but we finally did and he has done GREAT! No problems at all:)


Just two short days later, we decided to take a road trip to Houston. Decide is really not the right word. Ben actually has a school for a week and we can't stand to spend another whole week without him, so Jack and I loaded up to come too. We took the trip over two days and we have finally made it here.

We did stop in Gulfport, MS to visit the Children's Museum there. I wouldn't recommend making a special trip for it, but if you're going that way, it's worth the stop. Here are a few of the fun things Jack got to do...

showed us what an elephant does...



showed us how elephants ALWAYS beat up on tigers!!...



flew an airplane...

A big thanks to the Reeves family (especially the very talented and creative Shonna) for the cute, cute shirt J is sporting here!

flew another airplane...



played a little basketball...



made a new friend (Jack is STILL talking about the helicopter book they were looking at - we are going to try to find one tommorrow at Barnes and Noble - my FAVORITE store)...



got his picture made with Curious George (I don't think this is available every day)...



and captained a ship!



All in all, a pretty tiring day for my little man. There are also very cool tree houses outside to explore. So, we've had fun so far. Can't wait for the week. I'll update the blog as Jack and I get bored waiting on Ben to get out of "school" and as the grandparents all need a picture fix:)


I hope everyone had a very Happy Mother's Day! I hate that Ben and I couldn't be with our moms today. We missed them and I hope they both had wonderful days!! My Mother's Day was spent on the road, but I was with my favorite two guys so it was great!!

Tired... Who's Tired?

Anyone from our church!! Everyone from our church had something planned today I think!! It was all lots of fun, but man, we are all exhausted now:) We really did have a very full day, but we enjoyed it immensely! I have lots of pictures to share from all the activities of the day...

It really all started late last night. Jack and I went to help Shonna, Caroline, Jason, and Carrie get ready for their yard sale today. We weren't a whole lot of help, but Jack and Caroline had lots of fun getting ready to work in the yards!!

Then Caroline put on a nice little fashion show for us all! Isn't she lovely?!

We didn't make it home until REALLY late, but Jack and I slept in (the poor Fores and Reeves had to be up REALLY early:(

After a late morning, we moved a few more things into the house and then we had our Vacation Bible School meeting at church and that went really well! A big "Thanks" to all my fellow VBS workers for making that a really productive time!!

Doesn't this look like a fun theme?!

Straight from there we went to Claudia's birthday party. It was UNREAL... they had it at her grandparents' farm and there were tractors everywhere, semi trucks everywhere, horses and ponies everywhere plus a big bouncy house. Seriously, every kid's dream place!! Here are several pictures from that fun experience!!

The kids were just walking around with the horses out in the field and loving it!!

Mr. Jason pulled several loads of children in this neat little "John Deere" wagon.

I have to add that Mr. Pate just got a stagecoach made by the Amish community and it is unreal!! It wasn't in a very good location for pictures (maybe someone else got a good one to share) but it was really unbelievable!! It makes me want to take my next vacation to Amish country to see what all they can do.

Sweet Brooks (probably his first birthday party!)

Jack loved the "big trucks" and tractors. He was seriously in "boy heaven!!" I think we're going to encourage this desire to farm b/c mom would love a place like this to come and play one day too:)

Then Mr. Jason took Jack for a ride on one of their many tractors and a GREAT party got better than we could have believed!!

Sweet Birthday Girl! Happy Birthday to Claudia!! I am so thrilled that we were able to go to this party. Jack was beyond fascinated with everything - such a great time.

From there, it was off to the "party" at church (this was what I called it so I could get Jack to leave Claudia's party - I think he was expecting more semis and tractors). This weekend is the "On Mission" conference for our association. Our church is housing some missionaries and we were able to have a little "get to know them" social tonight. Our family is serving in a restricted country and it was really fun to hear about what they do. They have two small children. Gideon is 18 months old, so he and Jack had lots of fun playing together!

He had this neat stuffed dog on his back that had a handle for his parents to hang on to him with. I was like "I have GOT to get one of those!!

Jack, Hannah Grace, and Gideon looking out the window wondering when the rain was going to start. (I don't know why they thought it was going to rain, but Hannah Grace was doing a very good job of explaining weather to these two year olds.)

Needless to say, we are pretty tired around our house (and we slept late this morning:). But it was all worth it - such a fun day with lots of great friends! Hope all of you had as great a Saturday!!