Sweet Feet

I took this picture of Jackson's feet while we were in the car on the way to Puncheon today. I love his little feet! Anybody who knows me knows how much I dislike feet in general. As a nurse, if someone comes in with a foot problem, I usually try to assess it from a safe distance if at all possible, and will definitely only touch such a foot with a safely gloved hand. The kids feet are different though. I always loved playing with Noah's feet as a baby, and I do the same with Jackson. Everytime I change his diaper, we play a little game where I blow on the bottom of his feet and give them lots of kisses. When I looked back at him today and saw how cute he looked with his little legs folded up and his feet resting on top of each other, I couldn't resist the picture. Pretty soon he won't have "baby feet" anymore. He'll be walking and changing and growing, and soon they'll be "big boy" feet. Just wanted a little something to remember them by!

Picnic at Puncheon

After church services this afternoon, a big group from Marion St. went up to Puncheon, TN for a get together. It is a beautiful spot with a great picnic pavillion and a wonderful creek running right through it. At first, Noah thought it was a little weird that we were telling him to leave his shoes on to go walk through the water. He was worried about getting his Crocs wet! After walking around on the rocks for a little bit without them, he decided it'd be worth getting them wet .
He quickly figured out that just wading around wasn't good enough, and got wet from head to toe. Lots of his friends from church were out there in the water with him, and they had a blast. They swam, threw rocks, and made a collection of large rocks at the side of the creek- looked like they were building an altar or something.

Jackson got in on the fun for a little bit. He liked sitting there at the edge of the creek and playing with the rocks- and of course, he quickly figured out how to find the ones that were small enough to try to eat. The kid will eat ANYTHING!! He cries like I'm torturing him when I have to dig unedible objects out of his mouth.

We wrapped it all up with hot dogs and all the fixins', then homemade ice cream and roasted marshmellows for dessert. It was a really fun time. When I went to fish Noah out of the creek and told him we needed to go, he said "But why? I'm having fun!" I don't think we'll have to ask him twice to go back sometime.

Special thanks to Danny Cook for getting it all together and Louse Melvin for the hotdogs and for managing the food/drinks/etc. while we were there. We look forward to doing it again real soon!

Water Survival School

I have been through several survival schools and classes over the years, but I had the opportunity to go through the Water Survival School last week at Aviation Challenge in Huntsville with a group of colleagues from Air Med International (a fixed wing worldwide service.) The school teaches survival techniques for an aircraft ditching in the open seas. I attended along with our chief pilot and two flight nurses from MedFlight to evaluate the benefit of this training for our entire team in the event of a water ditching in our area.

Now you haven't lived until you are upside down... in full flight gear... inside of an aircraft cabin... that "crashes" and goes underwater... and you have to use your newly learned skills to safely egress the aircraft. Oh yeah; and you have no means of artifical breathing... and you have on blinding glasses so you can't see anything and are in effect "blind" underwater... trapped in a sunken aircraft. Then you have to swim under water for about 25 yards to simulate swimming under a surface layer of burning jet fuel. And just for fun they throw in that some of your crew is injured or unconscious. If you make it out and away from the crash site safely then you deploy a rescue raft and get yourself and everyone else onboard. If you don't do all of this correctly you get to do it all over again. Later, we had to make a float out of a t shirt and learn long term swimming and "huddle" floating.

It may seem a little harsh, but it was one of the most realistic and worthwhile courses I have ever completed. It was very educational and even more so, humbling. I hope none of our crews or I ever have to use this training in a real crash situation. I am very grateful, however, to now be even better trained and more prepared just in case the worst ever does happen.

Internet Lingo

This morning while we were playing and getting ready for school, Noah was talking about a new toy that he's just dying to have. At first I told him that he'd probably have to wait and ask Santa for it, but then I remembered that he has a Target gift card that he got from Aunt Danna for his birthday. I told him that I would try to look on the computer to see if Target has this particular toy that he wants so he could go there and use his gift card on it. He seemed content with that, and a few minutes he came up to me and said "Mom, let's get on-line and see if Target.com has my toy." How weird it is to hear our 5 year old talk so intelligently about something that didn't even exist 15 years ago, much less when I was 5. He'll never know a world without computers, internet, cell phones, etc. (I could go on and on- I remember when we got our first microwave and it was the size of a small refrigerator these days!) Wonder what kind of new stuff will come out in his lifetime?

A Day at the Park

We went to Florence Saturday to spend the day with David's parents for his Dad's birthday and took the kids to the park to play for a while. They had fun sliding down the slide together.
Jackson had even more fun trying to climb back up the slide than he did coming down.

Then they both crawled up in a clear tunnel and played for a while. Jackson had lots of fun in there- it was his first time to do much on the playground besides swinging. I think Papa had the most fun, though. He enjoys getting to watch the boys have a good time.

Advice Anyone?

HELP PLEASE! Apparently Jackson is about 3-4 months ahead of schedule on cutting teeth. He has a total of eight (four on top, four on bottom) and is trying to get his first molars on top. These are apparently the worst of them all. We've had a little trouble with his others, but the last week or so takes the cake. He's having a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep- wakes up screaming, not able to take a good nap, and overall just pretty miserable. All of this is very unusual behavior for him. I can see the gums all swollen and the white part about to pop through. We've tried Tylenol/Motrin, those little teething tablets and so far we haven't really had any relief. Just thought somebody out there might know of some old fashioned remedy passed down from a great great grandma or something! If not, if you have any extra Prozac laying around, feel free to send that to me! We've been up so much at night that it's reminiscent of the days of waking up to feed every 2 to 3 hours. Any response would be appreciated- if you're up at 2am and think of something, call me- I'm probably up too!!

First Day of School!

Today was Noah's first day of school and as you can see he was all smiles! He turned 5 this summer, but since his birthday fell so late, we decided to wait one more year for kindergarten. He's going to PreK 5 mornings a week this time back at the preschool where he's gone before. He was lucky enough to get the same teacher he had last year, and they moved into their brand new school building just in time for school to start. It is sooo cute- there's murals painted up and down the hall with a little "rock" pathway to walk on. They really did a good job on the new place. Anyway, he had a great first day and Mrs. Drea said he did really good. He was a little upset when he got home and realized he had brought home the wrong backpack. Evidently he and one of the other little boys got their's mixed up. We saw 3 other Spiderman backpacks just like his this morning!

While he was in school, I took Jackson and went on a long overdue shopping trip! We hit Kohl's and took advantage of the summer clearance stuff. Jackson's outgrowing most of his summer stuff and was needing a few things. We did pretty good- I found 6 outfits and only spent 30 bucks! Not bad!

Happy Birthday Hillary!

We want to wish a very Happy Birthday to our neice Hillary! She's all grown up now and this is the last birthday she'll celebrate before leaving home for college. We love you Hillary and hope that you have a great birthday! Hope to see you soon. Lots of hugs and kisses from Noah and Jackson!! Have fun getting all set up in your new dorm and good luck with your first classes!

10 Months Old!

Today Jackson is 10 months old. I caught this picture of him doing his latest trick- trying to stand on his head! He really loves it if someone picks his legs up and holds him upside down for a little bit or just helps him turn a flip. Don't really know what brought it on, but he'll just stop crawling every now and then and stand on his head for a while. He thinks it's funny if you peek under his legs and say boo! Only one more "monthly" birthday to go before we start counting in years! He's changed so much, even in the last month. From standing on his head, to saying "huh-Oh" everytime he drops something, to eating everything from chicken nuggets to pizza (I know I'm probably bad for letting him eat some of that stuff, but he's a little garbage disposal!). I also discovered this morning that I'm now outranked and may not be Jackson's favorite person anymore. He had been awake for a while and I was down in the floor playing with him, but he just kept acting kind of bored and cranky. In walks sleepyhead Noah, and suddenly Jackson was a new person. He seemed way more content to have Noah down in the floor playing with him than Mommy. Oh well, I guess that's what big brothers are for!