The only slight problem with this is that the kids keep taking my camera! Jeremy does it all the time. Sometimes I don’t notice because he’s stealthy and will put it right back in it’s place when he’s done playing, but then I’ll go to use it and suddenly my memory card is full. *sigh* I go through them, keep a few funny ones and delete the rest. The other day, my friend Hiedi brought her younger daughter Raquel over to hang out and make cookies with us. Well, Raquel snatched my camera and went off to take a few of her own. Here are the handful of photos I decided to keep from the both of them…

Jeremy’s pics	Raquel’s pics
I shared this a couple days ago in it's own post, Jeremy's Rock Monster.	Raquel's mom Hiedi, well, from the nose down. I guess this is what you see from her angle. What a pretty smile!
My kitchen counter from hip level. Because that's important to have captured on digital film.	The inside of the toy box in the play room. I kind of like this one. Maybe I'll make it the desktop photo on the computer and freak out Jason.
Another blurry one of my counter, this time with the tops of the canisters that my Nana gave me!	Here's Jesse reaching for the camera, this was seconds before he started crying because the big kids wouldn't share. Raquel fetched him his toy camera and he was fine.
Lastly, one of our chocolate lab Duke, looking very sad for some reason. Probably because Jeremy was bugging him. Oh well, he's usually rather happy, or asleep.	Another really nice one. My kitchen table, window to the backyard, Hiedi's cookbook, and a cute headband.

Do you keep any of the weird pictures that your kids take for you?

Anyhow, that was a long intro to the little bitty picture post for today…

One morning while Jeremy was watching the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything during breakfast, he created a Rock Monster of his very own out of his favorite cereal…

Jeremy took this picture himself of the Rock Monster he made with his Mini Wheats.

And, if you have never seen the hilarious Rock Monster music video at the end of the movie (a re-do of the B-52′s Rock Lobster), here you go…

Most people who travel often will tell you that the best days to fly are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Airline tickets are almost always cheaper on those days because they are the least traveled. You’ll get your tickets a little cheaper (20 bucks isn’t much, but it’s still a meal in the airport) and the plane might not be as crowded. Now, on the other hand, the airlines discount tickets on those days, but it just means that more people will be snapping up those fares at the last minute or flying standby and hoping for an empty seat. For my California trips I usually fly out from Mobile on a Thursday morning and fly back on a Tuesday afternoon. That gives the boys and I a nice long weekend to catch up and see family.

This time, I had a MOPS meeting on Thursday morning. It was our last meeting for the season and I really didn’t want to miss it. I bought my tickets a couple of months ahead of time, got a good deal, and figured that leaving on a Friday would be okay. I should have known…

I was supposed to leave at 6:15 am Friday morning, getting to my preferred airport in California by 11 am. Awesome, right? We would get to our layover in Houston in time for breakfast, then Jesse would take his morning nap on the long flight from Houston to CA, and we’d get there in time for lunch with whomever was going to pick us up from the airport.

Normally I’m doing the last of the laundry the evening before I’m to leave and finish packing around midnight. This time, I was done packing on Thursday before lunch, with the exception of last minute things like my toothbrush and curling iron. Again, I should have known…

Around 10 pm I was checking my email one last time before heading to bed. Lo and behold, a cancellation notice! My 6:15 am flight was cancelled and they did not rebook me on the next available flight. The email didn’t even have a phone number to call. I had to go searching the website for a phone number, then my husband waited on hold for 50 minutes (yes, almost an hour on hold) while I looked up the available flight times to figure out my options. We were finally rudely greeted by someone calling themselves customer service, and after explaining our situation a couple of times I was rebooked on a flight at noon. I thought, “Okay, I guess that’ll work. At least we’ll still be getting to Houston in time for a late nap for the baby. It’ll be fine.” I should have known…

My plane from Mobile was 30 minutes late in taking off. I usually wait to nurse Jesse until we are leaving the ground because it helps keep his ears from having trouble with the changing cabin pressure. Jesse was begging so I fed him as soon as we got on the plane. He knocked out and slept the whole first flight. Awesome, but I knew that meant trouble for the long flight. Since we took off late, that shrank my time to get from one terminal to the next (across the airport, of course). There was no time to get lunch. I had to run with my carry-on bag and diaper bag trailing behind me and pushing an umbrella stroller with Jesse in it. We made it, but just barely. Since he had just taken a nice long morning nap there was absolutely no way he’d sleep on the next flight.

I was right, he was awake and wanting to play! We boarded the plane on time but then sat on the runway for almost an hour. The air conditioner was hardly working, on a completely packed airplane, in the middle of the day, in Texas, in the early summer. Are you kidding me? Everyone was hot and all the kids on the plane were crying. Even better. We finally took off, the air started working moderately well, and Jesse fell asleep 10 minutes before we landed in California – at the wrong airport. We landed in Santa Ana, not Ontario. I knew this when we were rebooked the night before, but many people were not aware so a ton of folks were upset and trying to call their people who were waiting for them in Ontario.

We maneuvered our way through the angry throng to get our checked bag and carseat. I waited and waited and waited, got the bag, no carseat. They sent it through the oversized baggage chute where they put things like animal crates and sports equipment. Other carseats came though the regular checked bags carousel, just not ours. So aggravating.

An hour late, we picked up Jeremy. He was in a good mood and so happy to see us. We went to McDonald’s for dinner before getting on the freeway to Grandma’s house. Jesse had diarrhea, the restroom didn’t have a changing table, so a perfectly good outfit was ruined as I had to change a nasty nasty diaper in a restaurant booth. Yuck.

What a great way to start a trip, huh?! I’ll finish up this mis-adventure tomorrow.

June 2007 (almost 9 months old)	October 2010 (just over 4 years old)

I miss that little bitty playful boy, but I get him back once in a while when he forgets that he’s growing up. I have lots of memories of my little sister and I playing in Nana’s laundry baskets. So many fun times. I don’t think this kind of play ever gets old.

Jeremy climbed in bed with us at who-knows-when o’clock. He was stealthy about it, I didn’t realize he was there until I rolled over and got jabbed by his elbow in my face when Jesse woke me up hungry 30 minutes ago.

I zombie-walked in the dark over to Jesse, picked up his chunky self, wobbled back to bed, and fed him. When he decided he was done with “first breakfast”, he just rolled himself from our beloved Boppy pillow to the bed. Being quite full, he then unleashed some horrible things into his diaper. Jeremy’s face was in close vicinity; I believe he was stink bombed. As they are both total boys, they slept through that.

It’s too early for this, I’m afraid of what I might find in that diaper. I think I’ll be a bad mama and wait just a little while to change it.

It’s a really good thing we have a king size bed because there are now four people in it, and all of us like our space.

Good morning!

My little buddy started out his life at just 8 lbs 13 oz, 21 inches long, and sporting a natural mohawk…

We have had a lot of fun along the way…

…going for your first swim at 8 months old…

…smashing some cake at your first birthday party…

…riding Jason’s motorcycle when you were two …

…swordfighting with two of the most awesome girls ever…

…blowing out the candles on your third birthday…

…loving on your little brother…

…and making wonderful family portraits like this on your fourth birthday and completely melting your Mama’s heart.

I love you kiddo! Though I try to show-and-tell you every single day how much I love you, I don’t think I could ever truly express to you how happy I am that you came into my life. You are constantly surprising me with how smart you are and showing us your fantastic personality and quirky sense or humor. Your imagination is endless and I can hardly wait for you to be able to write down the words that go with the funny drawings you make me every day. You grew in me for nine months, you’re a piece of my heart kid and I will forever be in debt to you for making me a mother and changing my life forever.

Jeremy came in to the laundry room to find me and said “Mom, I need your help.”

I follow him into my kitchen and saw…

I asked Jeremy, “Why is my flour out of the pantry?”

He opened the door and showed me…

“I need a place for my stool.”

Before I could get the next question out of my mouth, he showed me why his stool needed to be in the pantry…

He needed the extra height to reach the M&Ms. Then Jeremy said to me (I swear this is as close to word-for-word as I can remember) “I wanted M&Ms, but remembered to ask you first. Mom, is it okay for me to get the M&Ms?”

How do you argue with a question like that when an almost-4 year old gets everything ready and could have easily sneaked some chocolate, but then confesses that he remembered to ask first. Sure, it was only 10 am, but I had to reward his good behavior with a small handful of M&Ms.

A little bit of chocolate before lunch is definitely a Finer Thing!

Congratulations to Amy on your new addition. I imagine your baby boy is just as gorgeous as your first three children. Hope to see pictures soon!

However, we just moved into a new house. About 75% of what we own is still in boxes throughout the house. I haven’t gotten to do much unpacking because my sweet little baby has decided that he is absolutely starving yet very sleepy. He is convinced that he is starving every hour or two and then falls asleep and dream-feeds each time I nurse him. Basically that means I’m sitting on my butt on my couch for half the day. Another quarter of the day is spent cooking and attempting to keep my half-boxed kitchen clean. And the last quarter of the day is spent sleeping and bathing and occasionally leaving the house.

Dear Jesse,

I really really love the special one-on-one time I get while feeding you, but we are tired of living out of boxes and the laundry pile is astronomical. Please go back to your quick feedings once in a while so that I can wash us some underwear, get rid of these boxes, and bake us some lemon bars. Thanks ever so much!!

Love,
Mama

Checking out Aunt Sam's baby praying mantis. Can you see it?

• Head to the Mobile Zoo. I didn’t even realize, until today, that we have a zoo right here in town! It looks small but it’s inexpensive and we love going to zoos. We can pack a lunch in the picnic basket that Nana & Papa gave us for Christmas and make a nice day of it.
• Get to a baseball game. We’ve got a minor league team, the Bay Bears, right here in Mobile. I purchased tickets through a fundraiser from a friend at church and we never got to see a game before Jeremy left at the end of May. The season isn’t quite over yet and we’re going to take in one of the last games of the summer.
• We never did get to the Exploreum in the spring, but we will definitely make sure to go over there this fall. It’s a bummer that we missed the dinosaurs exhibit that was there before, but now they are featuring a reptile exhibit and there is always a bunch of other things to look at and do there.
• The Mobile Museum of Art had a Home School Art School program last year that we missed out on. The dates for this fall semester aren’t posted yet, but I definitely want to get Jeremy enrolled in it. He loves being creative, so I really think he’ll enjoy this program.
• The art museum is right next to Langan Park, one of our favorites. It’s huge, has a lake with ducks and geese to feed, and a fantastic remodeled playground.
• There is also our other favorite, Medal of Honor Park. It is the shady fenced one that I talked about last time that has a train theme and very cool wooden climbing play structures.
• We always love the storytimes that our local libraries offer. One branch in particular has the coolest kid’s section (it takes up about a third of the library) and they always have a craft that goes along with the theme of the chosen storybooks.
• I haven’t yet seen the Fall catalog for the Community Recreation Program, but they always have a lot of classes for kids to take. Jeremy will only be here for 2 1/2 months, so that won’t be long enough for him to join a sports team, but other classes would work around his schedule.
• I am thrilled that our Mothers of Preschoolers group is going to be starting back up at the end of August after a summer hiatus. I’ve missed MOPS so much!
• Our Mommy & Me group didn’t take the summer off, but it grew some and will grow again as more stay-at-home-moms have moved to the area recently when their Coast Guard husbands transferred here to Mobile. I’m excited for Jeremy to get to see his old friends again and make some new ones.
• On top of all of this, I’ll be working with Jeremy on continuing to learn his letters and numbers. His father and I have agreed to co-homeschool Jeremy. I have been researching and reading homeschooling blogs for the past couple of years and I am certain that I can do this in partnership with Jeremy’s other grandmother (my former mother-in-law), who is a recently retired elementary school teacher. This fall will not begin his first year of formal schooling, but not long ago I purchased a fantastic great big fat workbook which has several hundred pages to help teach preschool curriculum. It’s not a formal textbook, it’s more like the biggest coloring/activity book I’ve ever seen. I’m really looking forward to this adventure in getting him ready for next year when he will begin to really “do school.” I’ll write more about our homeschooling plan later on as we get it together a little more.

Coloring in an activity book with Aunt Sam.

• Lastly, one super important and very exciting thing happening about a month after Jeremy gets here… his FOURTH birthday! My mind starts spinning when I realize that my little man is almost 4 years old. How did this happen so quickly? We’re going to be having a party for him either at a nearby park or at home. We’ll see what the weather decides to throw at us – summer and fall here in the Gulf are fraught with sudden crazy thunderstorms and heavy rain out of the clear blue sky.

That’s quite a bit! I think we’ll stay plenty busy this fall and then come end of October I’ll take him back to California. Before I hand him off to his dad, my family and I will take him trick-or-treating. That will be a nice memory to have as we say another temporary goodbye. Though I miss him like crazy every day for the couple of months he’s gone, I really enjoy keeping my eyes peeled and searching for all the fun things that are coming up that I think my boy will enjoy during his time here with us.

Jeremy and I haven’t seen any of my family since Christmas. I’m really looking forward to introducing them to Jesse since all they’ve seen of him is photos. Additionally, my baby sister is graduating from college on Friday. The ceremony is outside and I don’t think it’s wise to subject a cranky 3-year old and a little baby (too young for sunscreen) to the blazing sun. We’ll be meeting up with the family at a restaurant afterward for a congratulatory dinner then we’ll be staying with my mom for the long weekend. I’ve got to leave Jeremy with his dad and then bring Jesse back home to Alabama. It’s always more difficult than words can express to leave a big chunk of my heart behind when Jeremy stays with his dad, but it’s the way it is and that’s really all that can be said about it.

When we were last out there at Christmas our schedule was so up-in-the-air and then we all got sick and were stuck in bed. I hope to make it up and see as much of my family and as many of our friends as possible while we’re there from Wednesday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon. My sister-in-law is picking us up at the airport and then generously loaning me her car for the week, so we will be independently mobile. We don’t have any plans yet aside from the family dinner on Friday – if you’d like to lay claim to some of our time, please leave a comment, email, or Facebook me. We’re flying in and out of San Diego airport, so that makes it extra convenient to make plans with those of you who live in that neck of the woods. (I won’t name names since this is a public blog, however little it is read).

Anyhow, say a little prayer for Jason as he wakes up at an obscene hour to drive his family to the airport two hours away and then has to manage for a week without us. Also please hold me in your thoughts as I wrangle two small children (and all of our necessary junk) in and out of three airports alone. The boys will be fine, they don’t need your prayers or thoughts, they’ll drive me out of my mind all on their own. No, really, please think sleepy thoughts for them if you don’t mind.

Hope too see you all very very soon!