Monday, April 29, 2013

Jeter and Jerzi

I know I will forget all the little things about Jete and Jerzi's personalities as they grow and turn into little mini adults so I want to document some of them before I forget and they're off to college somewhere and I'll be wishin they were little again.
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Jerzi is a funny little girl.  She shows her crazy little personality to me, Had, and Jete.  Then when she gets around other people, she won't talk at all, (or look at them for that matter), or show any kind of anything.  I'm hoping she'll grow out of that soon.  When other people ask her questions or talk to her, she just blinks at them.  She's been doing this for a long time, like over a year.  I have been pretty concerned about this, but what do ya do?

  She would also throw these massively huge freak-out fits where she would scream, yell, kick, and cry.  There was nothing I could say or do to calm her down.  It had to be all on her own, and usually ended up with her running to her room, slamming the door, and freaking out in there for a good 30-90 minutes, and then coming out with a football jersey on, and a smile on her face.  Even though she is still afraid to talk to people, I am so happy to say that I think she is finally over the huge freak outs!!!  Don't get me wrong, she still cries, but not like 30-90 minute episodes where I can't calm her down.  It's like having a new child!  I think she's fun now, and funny.  I can focus on the good things about her personality now, instead of always just trying to prevent a freak out.  One thing that I love is her passion for football.  My mom made her this stuffed football and blanket for Christmas.  I love to come in at nights and check on her and see this.  It makes me so happy to have a little football girl!





Jerzi is also one tough little stink.  When she falls, hits something, gets hurt, or runs into corners of walls like she did to get this black eye, she hardly ever cries.  We saw her run full speed into the wall, and heard the loud smack, and she just gets up, smiles at us, and acts like nothing happened.  Total opposite of Jete.   :)



She's always really good for me so I can do her hair.  She has been since she was a baby.  Lately she's starting to pick what kind of hairdo she wants.  This is the "mohawk" she had been begging for for weeks.



She sings primary songs when she's just walking around the house (but don't worry, she won't sing one single word in primary to any song ever), and she does a funny little dance move when she eats, where she puts both hands up and then slouches and sits up straight over and over again.  She's very independent and wants to do everything herself, which includes putting on at least 5 or 6 outfits a day.  I used to tell her she couldn't wear lots of the stuff she puts on, cuz she looks like a rag muffin.  Then she started telling me, "Mom, I like to look like a rag muffin."  Awesome!  She won't sleep in her covers because she always wants her bed to be made.  Numerous times I have been woken up in the middle of the night by her yelling frantically that she needs me, only to come in and find out her bed got messed up as she was sleeping, and she needs help making it again.  Yeah, sometimes I get a little ticked in the night!

Most of all, I love that she loves her brother.  She wants to do everything that he does and can't stand it when she can't.  Every morning, and after every nap, if she sees me before she sees him, she says, "where's Jeter?" in a grumpy voice, like "ugh, I'm so annoyed to see you, I only like him."  When I drop him off at preschool, she always tells me, "This is NO FUN!!!  Jeter makes everything fun."  I'm dreading when he starts kindergarten in the fall and he's gone all day long.  But hey maybe it'll force her to come out of her little shy shell.




Then there's Jete.  He's such a good little boy.  He seriously is always trying to do what he is supposed to.  He is a pretty obedient kid, and never wants to get in trouble.  He is a good big brother to Jerz.  She's a little boss, and tells him what to do all the time.  I usually get sick of it and tell her to stop before he does.  Most times he just goes along with it.  He takes her out to play with him and his friends, and for the most part watches out for her pretty good.  He's started doing this weird thing lately where he likes to talk like a baby, and he's always hanging his tongue out of his mouth.  It's weird.  Hopefully he'll be over it by the time he gets to school.  Ugh!  Oh and he is constantly hitting his forehead on things and getting huge goose eggs.  I used to give him neck exercises to do cuz he acts like he has no neck control.  His head is always floppin around, slamming into things.






He is obsessed with his daddy, kind of like Jerz is obsessed with him.  He wants to be everywhere that Had is, and do everything like him, and wear his clothes like him, and get the same kind of shoes as him.  It's kinda cute.   Things I've noticed about Jete lately....he's a lot like me in a lot of things.  In preschool, he's a perfectionist.  He is always the last person to finish any kind of craft project, cuz it has to be done perfectly.  He makes sure his letters are the exact way he wants them.  And he tries as hard as he can to not color outside of the lines.  He has pretty much no imagination, just like me...and Had, yikes!  If he's not playing some sort of sport, he doesn't know what to do with himself and wants to watch tv.  Sports and competitions are really all he thinks about.  He is pretty amazing at math.  At least we think so.  I don't really know what to compare him to, since we have no kids in school, and he's a little bit older than the kids in his preschool.  But he does math in his head sometimes faster than I can. 

One example of this: The other night I told him we were going somewhere in a few weeks as I tucked him in bed.  He said, "Wait, how many days is a week again?"
I told him 7.  And before I got out the door of his bedroom, he says, "Oh so we're going there in 21 days?"  What little kid can do that in their head, before they are even in kindergarten?  It's crazy I'm tellin ya.  Sometimes after I put him to bed, I walk past his room and I can hear him counting and doing math problems.  HAHA
He's usually afraid to try new things, and when we force him to, he loves it. He wants to play every sport, but we only let him do one per season. He chose to play soccer this spring and loves it.  He gets pretty intense.

He shoots, he scores!



A little bull ridin, arm whippin action too!




Great box out Jete!


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A Surprise Package

A few weeks ago, I came home from an activity for our Young Women's, and Jeter and Jerzi were all excited to tell me I got a package.  I asked them why they hadn't opened it yet and they said, "It's for you Mom!"  
"What do you mean it's for me?  I don't get packages that are just for me.  I don't think it's for me."
"Just open it!"
"Who's it from?"
Had chimes in, "Cin, this is for you, open it!"

So confused and puzzled, I carefully opened the box and found the sweetest thing ever inside.....

A little box of sunshine!


My sweet, thoughtful sisters and mom sent me the most fun, cute, and awesome package to brighten up my day.  That it did!  It is a good feeling to know that my family is always here for me, even when they can't be right here with me.  And would ya look at all that fun/good/yummy/cute stuff?  I love it all!



So as promised, I took pictures of our silly string fight we had.  It was so much fun!  I love looking at all these pictures and seeing the smiles and looks on everyone's faces.  I am so lucky to have these three in my life.  They are everything to me.  Days like this we will remember for a long time!












Thank you so much for my box of sunshine Linds, Bird, and Mom!  
It means more to me than you know.  I love you guys!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Rodeos, Concerts, and Grandparents

 This time of year, everyone here gets excited for the big Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  We were no exception!   We decided to splurge and get tickets to go to it this year.  (Last year we just went to the carnival part.) As an added bonus, there is a concert every night after the rodeo, with a different singer each night, (most of them country singers). Yay!  

Well after we got tickets, Grandpa and Grandma Pocock called us up and said they want to make a quick little weekend trip and go to the rodeo and livestock show too!  Wahoo!  So they got tickets to come with us and we went two days in a row!  It was super fun and I was so excited to watch a real rodeo for the first time.  Friday night we got a babysitter and went out with just John and Melissa.  While we love taking the munchkins with us places, it was so relaxing and enjoyable to not have them with us for once.



After the rodeo, we got all nestled in our seats because the singer that night was....



Timmy boy McGraw! 
 I love him.  
I have been dying to see a Tim and Faith concert, but I will gladly take seeing just him in concert any day.  It was awesome!  And I don't have any good pics.  Boo!  :(



Saturday we took the kids with us and went there all day long!  It was fun and the kids loved seeing everything!  I think Grandpa loved teaching them about all the different kinds of cows and animals, and they sure ate up all the attention they were getting.  




They got to do a little farming.



We all loved the mutton busting.  We thought we were gonna finally convince Jete to do it this year, but nope.  He's still a little too scared.
(Look closely and that's a kid flipping off the back of the sheep.)



"Piiink!"
Jerzi and her pink obsession.


After walkin around and seeing everything, we headed to our seats for the rodeo.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. Plus, the grandparents bought each of them a big ol thing of ice cream.  What's not to love, right?  But seriously, they LOVED the rodeo.  Jete was keeping us all informed of which cowboy was in the lead and who was 2nd, 3rd, etc. in every event.  That boy loves any kind of competition I tell ya!   Makes us so proud! :) 
 Jerzi also loved it and was obsessed with all the horses.  She is already telling us that she wants one for her birthday.  Yikes!  Had better start makin some money if those are the kinds of presents she's after.



Jete and Jerz definitely took advantage of having Grandma and Grandpa there.  They were sure to get in all the lap time they could.  There was so much fun and excitement that Jerzi didn't have time to think about being tired, but as soon as the lights went down for the concert, she crashed too. 




The concert Saturday night was The Band Perry.  Two concerts in two days.  
Yep, pretty spoiled! 



The kids did so good; walked all over the place, at John's speed no less, didn't take naps, didn't ride any of the rides, and sat through a whole rodeo and concert, and were happy all throughout.  It made me so happy, along with this picture.  It's not very often that our kids get to see any family, so I love seeing my little munchkins bonding with their grandparents.
Such a good weekend!



Tuesday, April 2, 2013

April Fool's Day

April Fool's is a fun little holiday, that I think most people never really celebrate.  We didn't really ever do anything for it all growing up.  But I have learned its kinda fun to play tricks on people.  I didn't really have the energy to plan out a bunch of pranks on my fam this year, even though I pinned a bunch on pinterest that I totally plan on doing another year.  Me and one of my friends did decide to get together and plan out a little April Fool's Dinner though, inspired by yet another pinterest find.  We invited our families to come to "Fool's Cafe".  Their booth was one of the most sought after spots in the whole cafe...right next to the front door.  We gave them a menu that included all the items they could order.  Then they got to order 3 different courses.  The items on the menu were:
Bad Breath
Niblets
Skinny Worms
Split in the Road
Calf Testicles
Puppy Chow
Fruity Cow
Pastel Pasties
Houston's Necessity
Pee
Sugar Carrier
Blueberry Juice
Dog Biscuits
Green Eggs and Ham
Doctor's Tool


Their job was to try and decipher what the real food was by the name given, order the right things, and try and get a full meal.  Me and Karie thought we were pretty creative with the names of the foods and utensils, and were excited to have our family come to our little cafe.  Turns out her fam had a little more fun with it than mine.  Jeter and Jerzi were not too happy when they ordered blueberry juice cuz it was the only thing that sounded good, and then they got a glass of milk ...which they do NOT like.  Had may or may not have been worse than the kids when he didn't get anything for a real meal. I think he ordered Niblets-corn, split in the road-fork, fruity cow-spaghetti sauce, and puppy chow-dip for crackers.  

One thing I learned about the restaurant business, if you want make a creative, fun, tricky meal, make sure:  
A. Your customers aren't starving
B. It's on the early side of a meal time instead of late
C. They understand that everything isn't what it seems before they order

If you do that, your cafe might stay in business a little longer than ours.