Vacations!

whew wee!! That is said with the most exhausted southern accent you can imagine. We have been a traveling family over the past couple of weeks but it is good to be back home. I'll try to give as many details as possible but we've been so busy it might take a while to get all the pics up that I want. (That is probably way more pictures than what you're interested in but I love 'em all!) Brent, Jackson and I started out our journey Friday May 19th (I think, it was all so long ago) driving down to Alabama. We left Tuscaloosa Saturday morning heading down for the beach. Jackson and I stayed until Thursday then we left with my mom to Dothan where we slept, picked up cousins Teryn and Sage and my grandma and headed out Friday morning for New York City for my cousin Brittany's wedding there. We just got back on Tuesday. If that wasn't enough, Brent began his MCAT about 2 minutes ago. Once that's over then maybe we'll relax!

Jackson had no idea at the beginning how long he'd be in that car seat. He's always been a good carseat rider but this trip pushed him way over the edge. I don't think he'll ever want to get back in one again!

Tuscaloosa with Uncle G's hat

This is basically what Brent looked like for the whole week there. He's so studious!





New York pictures will have to come later as well as my "tag."

Brent's Job

Friday, Jackson and I went to visit Brent at work. This semester he's been working with one of his professors on some sort of wood experiment. I'd love to be able to use all sorts of fancy high-tech, make-my-husband-look-smart type of lingo but I'm afraid I just don't know it. What I do know is that they start with wood dust, they send it through this centerfuge thing to separate the sizes and dry the wood. Many of you may not know that Brent's dad and grandfather were both chemical engineers. It must run through the genes. Here Brent is teaching Jackson about his future profession.

Brent is finishing up with his experiment today. He will focus really hard on studying and take the mcat may 31st. Then go back to work at Y-12, the plant that made the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. This is his third and final co-op rotation there. Isn't he a smart man!

Wizard of Oz Party

I think it was last weekend we went to a little girl's Wizard of Oz birthday party. John and Becca Mccombs' daughter Ally turned three and she's obsessed with the Wizard of Oz. Of course she was Dorothy. We were all supposed to dress up, and I dare say, only after Dorothy herself, our little tinman was the cutest. Here is our Oz family. Brent was the scarecrow, I was Auntie Em, and Jackson was the tinman.
Here's the whole party. Go ahead and try to find a cuter costume than Jackson's (not including Dorothy.) Ally actually has beautiful blond curls, I don't know where they found the wig but her Grandma made the dress.

New Habits and accidents

My incredibly talented son has just learned a new talent! He can find his thumb and fingers to suck in a new record time. At first it was just too cute to stop when he stumbled upon those fingers. Now, it's surprising how quick and often he does. When I pull them out he just wails. I have to admit, my feelings are still mixed because he soothes himself that way but I continue to hear worries about the future of thumb-suckers. By the way, isn't that outfit adorable! (and I do mean both of them!)


This is actually the talent I'd like for him to develop but for today, it was just a pure accident. I was holding a rattle in front of him and he accidentally grabbed it and held on to it for like a minute or two. After he dropped it Brent and I kept on putting it back in his hand thinking surely he'll see the fun of it. Every time though he seemed to be completely unaware of the item in his hand but loving all the attention nonetheless! Hey, whatever pleases the boy!

Well this past weekend Brent, Jackson and I went to get pictures taken at Olan Mills. Jackson hadn't eaten in 3 hours so I thought it would be way rough. (It was either feed him and have spit ups throughout the session or not feed him and face a grumpy baby.) Well he was great. He smiled for every picture until the very end when they sat him down by himself. Even those were good just not giggly. Those pictures will have to come later but when we got home Brent was inspired. After burping him, he stuck the burp cloth in the back of his outfit and started flying him around like super baby. (For those of you who know Brent that is nothing out of the ordinary.) Then he got the great idea to make a cool picture of super baby. He rummaged through the house for all the fans he could find, the lightest burp cloth to blow through the wind, a backdrop and fixed the lighting for the shot. My poor baby was placed in front of these three fans blowing full blast to try to get the effect of the cape blowing in the wind. None of the pictures turned out as Brent would have liked but after all that effort I had to post at least one of the attempt.
For those of you who may not know, Jackson does not like to be on his tummy. I try so hard to give him tummy time but I can only listen to the cries for so long. If any one has any more advice for that I'd love to hear. Today, however, after reviewing jackson's cousin jacob's blog, i decided to put him on the boppy to test it out. It worked so nice.

But of course nothing last forever.

Now I've received the comment about putting video on the blog. I'd love to do this but this is another case where I need help. We have a video camera that records on mini-dvds and a regular camera. Unless I don't get it it ( which is entirely possible) I can't put any dvds on the blog until I fill up the dvd. Is that true? How do y'all do it?