Self-portraits with Jack-Jack

2010 Snow & Ice Storm

Through the eyes of my 9-year-old. Jonathan loves taking pictures, and I love his different perspective!

This is the side of the garage. The snow is just out of view, but you can see the icicles.

Our two vehicles; 2009 Chevy HHR and 2002 Honda Odyssey. They each had over 1/2" of ice topped with 3-4 inches of snow.

The back yard.....a slice of it.

The fence in the front yard. Hmm....interesting.

We thought this was going to be a big one, but it wasn't really all that bad. I mean, we got what they said we were going to get, on the lesser end of it (some parts of the state were worse), but our lights never flickered, and we never had any trouble at all. The neighborhood roads are still icy and slick, but the main roads are completely clear. We had finally finished filling in the gaps around our front door, which is on the north side of the house, so we stayed pretty toasty inside! Other than cabin fever, we were good! And it was so beautiful outside! (More pictures to come!)

The Littles

Fun at the park with some friends. (I forgot to get more pictures after this!)

He just laid here for the longest time, and every time I looked at him, he just giggled.

I caught Jacob in a sweet moment, playing with a teddy bear. :)

Then he was embarrassed and had to make sure I saw his manly car too! This was a pinewood derby car from one of the past races.

The Runt

This poor little thing is just so sweet! She is less than half the size of the other puppies! She seems to be growing and fairly healthy, but we keep her inside a lot now so she can get more to eat and more attention. She is just so small! So small, in fact, that she just can't keep warm, so she likes to sit in front of our heater in the hallway.

Jonathan told me that she also likes to sit in front of the heater when she is out in the garage, and when it goes off automatically, she walks away. When it comes back on, she gets right back in front of it! What a smart little girl!

If we didn't already have dogs, I might consider keeping her. She is just too sweet, and we are becoming very attached. I'm not sure how big she will get, but she will make someone a very good, snuggly pet. I'll definitely make sure it is someone who can give her plenty of attention and maybe even keep her indoors!

Pinewood Derby!!!

It is that time again. Time for the Cub Scouts' annual Pinewood Derby race! Jonathan designed his car all by himself. No pre-cuts, no one else's ideas but his own. It looked very aerodynamic and really cool! He also painted it himself and even took pictures of it from every angle himself. What a creative guy he is!

He is in the 4th grade this year (WEBELOS I), so we had to wait a while for the Tigers, Wolves and Bears to race their cars. Once it was the Webelos I's turn, the other den raced first, so just a little more waiting. Then it was time for the Blue Dragons den!

He got first place out of three in his den!!!!

Now on to the runoff between the two dens.......

There were a total of 6 heats, each car racing in each lane one time. Most of them were very close!

In the end, HE WON FIRST PLACE!!!!

It was a very exciting time! This was Jonathan's very first trophy too. He has been wanting one ever since Jayla won her first trophy last year. He was on cloud 9 all day.....all week, actually. He wanted to carry his trophy around and show it to everyone!

Congratulations, Jonathan! We are so proud of you for doing your best!

Random pics

In the waiting room at the eye doctor's office (for Jayla), this boy was very friendly and playful with Jack. It was really cute, but I don't think Jack knew quite how to take him!

We were at Chrysinda's house late one night. Jack fell asleep in my arms, and after a bit I laid him on Jayla. She loved it! :)

The healthy cookies I made for the kids when Jack specifically asked for them! I modified the "1 cup sugar, 1 cup peanut butter, 1 egg" recipe and used (approximately) 1 cup almond butter, 1 egg and 1/4 cup (?) Stevia. It was still WAY too sweet, but they had a good flavor and texture. I'll definitely make them again, but I will be sure to use much less Stevia!

Puppies!

These are our puppies, the 2nd litter of our female dog. We have a male and female Red Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog), but as you can clearly see from the pictures, they are not full blood!!!

Here they are 5 weeks old. There is a 6th puppy just out of the top of the picture. She looks like the one on the far left. There were originally 7, but one of the 5 girls somehow got separated from the rest of them on a cold day (in the garage) and didn't survive. :(

Check out the one in the middle there. I've seen runts before, but this little girl is literally HALF the size of her siblings! She seems to be doing just fine, she's just tiny! In fact, we call her "Tiny"!!!

P a R t S

I was playing around with the camera and with Jack. He thought these pictures were pretty cool, and I had fun playing with them on the computer! :) I normally prefer sepia, but I thought these looked great in black and white. I think the eye is my favorite shot because I left the color in.

My Chicken Tractor

My chicken tractor is almost complete! This is the 4' x 8' frame made of PVC. I just need to add the wire, which I have and plan to put on later today. I will probably cover the top with plastic, which I also have and will also put on later today. So all I need after today is the chickens! :)

The yard in the background is where the chicken tractor will be most of the time since that is where my gardens will be. It is probably the sunniest spot on our property, I just have to work around the trees.

Painting time!

Jonathan had his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby race today (Saturday), so he was just putting the final finishing touches on his car yesterday. It was a gorgeous day outside, so he got everything set up and they ALL painted!

Jack had a nice rock he wanted to paint blue and red.

He was doing so well.

I had to take my eyes off of him for just a second because I didn't have a picture of Jayla yet.

And this is what I get......

It was too funny! It washed right off with water, so no biggie! What a goof! They all had a great time!

Jack's latest trip to the ER

Jack in the hospital, after his latest seizure episode on the 10th of this month. He got crayons and a sketch pad for Christmas, so that kept him busy most of the time. He loves drawing!!!

You can see here where they had to poke his arm. They finally got a good flow of blood in the wrist after poking both arms, one of them twice, so they wanted to leave it in "just in case they needed it again". Just as they were finishing up, I could tell his fever was coming back by the way he was acting and he was starting to get warm, and then he fell asleep fast.

After a short nap, he got a popcicle and finally got more meds for his now-very-obvious fever! It didn't take long for him to get back to normal temperature again, and by then we were about to go home. They didn't feel it was necessary to admit him, but at least we got a quicker appointment for the neurologist and the geneticist!

This first video was shortly after we got there. He'd already had medicine, and you can tell from the video he was feeling much better! :) I don't have much video of him at all yet, so I had to get him singing and dancing.

The next video is Jack eating his popcicle. I thought it was cute the way he would just like it (maybe it's a mom thing), and then any time he accidentally licked the stick, he made an awful face. Hehe! You'll see that near the end.

It's COLD!!!!!

I am actually a little hot as I am sitting here typing and everyone is sound asleep. We have the hallway blocked off to trap the heat in the bedrooms (space heaters), because when it gets this cold outside and WINDY, we don't have much of a choice! So this is what we did today to keep warm.....

Laid on my bed and watched TV.

Laid on my bed and watched TV and played games on the laptop.

I just realized Jayla is hugging her bear in this picture. I love it! She has had that bear for 7 years now. It was her first best friend and she was devastated when we couldn't find her for a couple of years! You should have seen her face when we found her again, just a few weeks ago! :)

And where was Jack? Well, he was all over the place, but when I was taking pictures, he was playing on Jonathan's bed.

Jacob was wanting his picture taken today for some reason. I'll take advantage of it while I can!

And this is our pet Ball Python named Striker. The cat doesn't like him much. I think she actually struck at him right after I snapped this!

Okay, so that's really not all we did. Once it warmed up in the rest of the house, not much but enough to live in, they also played the Wii and read some books.We don't have any tables in the bedrooms, so it is really hard to do much writing or drawing or any kind of craft. One of the cartoons they watch though is a sign language cartoon. I like it. They have a theme each day, like "teamwork", and then they repeat certain signs several times while they are acting. It is called Dr. Wonder's Workshop. Their web site has a couple of little teaching games as well! Jack is still difficult to understand verbally, but he sure has caught on that he can communicate more clearly with signs, so he signs a lot now! If he doesn't know the sign, he'll sign "ball" and nod his head like he's asking us if we understand. So cute! After watching this show yesterday, he keeps signing "team" now. :)

All in all it has been a pretty boring day, for me, at least. I want to do something fun and creative, but we are limited being stuck in the bedrooms all day, and I don't want to get us out in the weather to go somewhere! I totally believe they can learn great things from TV and computer and games (which is why we are very picky about what they watch and play), but they can't spend ALL their time doing those things! This will pass soon though and we'll be doing different things again. It is already time to start planning a garden, and that is something I want them to be involved in. I guess we can start planning now, then as soon as the zero degree temps go away, maybe we can dig around in the dirt! :)

Oh, one more picture I have to post. My sweet hubby with Jacob and Jack. :) I love his beard, don't you?