Spring Loaded

We went to our church's big spring celebration today. I have lots of fun pics, but first I'd like to show you where Annabeth's been loitering lately.



Last night we gave the sippy cup another try. And she did it!



Today Annabeth wore her Easter bunny dress. She was so darling. That jacket was sent to her by Emmy and it is unbearably cute! And so soft! I need to take a pic of it with the hood up. It has ears!



This was the 3-Pre-K egg hunt.



I'm the mom that always forgets to bring a basket. Jackson embraced the random plastic bag from the back of the car.



Jackson had fun picking out his 10 eggs.







Then he got to trade them in for a bag of candy. Really good candy, I might add!



And a bouncy ball! He loves these but I always find a way to make them disappear. They're not really safe in a house with a baby.



The Jones boys and the Altic boys.







This was the 0-2-year-old egg hunt.



Literally, the eggs disappeared in 20 seconds and Annabeth and I didn't get in there fast enough.



But it's all good because I really just wanted a cute picture of my girl.



And we still have Easter morning anyway.



Bibby just got here to play in the backyard with us while Curtis is at the Duke/Baylor game. I can't even bring myself to watch! (My hubby is a die hard Duke fan in case you didn't know.) Adios, peeps!

Cheery-O!

Bed head? Check.



Christmas pajamas in March? Check.



Face bruise from toddling? Check.



Nose so gunky a cheerio can stick to it? Check!



And because it would be unthinkable to not also include these...

Fly on the Wall

Overheard in our home for the first time this week:
(Mothering milestones if you will.)

"There are children all over the world who are hungry but their parents don't have any food to give them. Now you'd better be thankful for that sandwich and eat it!"

(After my son, who has been experimenting/testing me with his language, called his sister "Annapoop.")

"Jackson Jones! Do you want your mouth washed out with soap?!?!"

(During our visit to HEB in which Jackson chose one cereal and then changed his mind when it was too late.)

"Jackson, I don't want to hear another word about that cereal. All I hear is whining and it's making my ears hurt."

"Mommy, your ears are bleeding?"

"Yes! Mommy's ears are bleeding."

(After I took away Jackson's race car due to the whining and then handed it back due to improved behavior.)

"Mommy, your ears stopped bleeding?"

Oh Splendid March

Is it Monday already? I normally welcome Monday so that I can get my house back in order and slip back into our routine, but I wasn't quite ready for our great weekend to pass. I'll start my recap at Thursday.

My sister flew in from Atlanta on Thursday morning. Curtis had taken the day off, so I left Jackson home with him and took Annabeth to meet my mom, dad and sister at La Madeleine. Jackson ran some errands with his daddy and got a haircut. For some reason he reminds me of Ricky Schroder when he gets his hair cut. Adorable! That evening I had to get my highlights done. My roots were the worst ever and that is saying something. I think I set a new personal record for regrowth. Awful! I've felt like a new person since then.

I had reserved Friday evening for hanging out with my sister, but I found out she had plans to be at a wedding. So we called Heather's family to see if they wanted to come over and watch some of the college basketball games. Heather and Curtis are both really into March Madness. They came over and we had pizza (none was dropped in the doorway), cookies, and ice cream cake. The big kids mostly played in the backyard and upstairs and left us to chat and watch the games. Mollie Kate and Annabeth were really cute playing together downstairs. We had one game on the TV and the Duke game on the computer. Curt is a lifelong Duke fan and to his dismay, none of their games have been shown in Houston. The upside is that they are playing IN Houston next weekend and he will get to see the game(s) in person. I'm really excited for him.

On Saturday morning I went to the Barnes and Noble on Memorial for the Beth Moore and Francine Rivers book signing. Do I even need to tell you how excited I was about this? The first thing I did was buy Francine's new book. Then I went into a back room where she and my mom were both signing stacks of books for the bookstore to have. I got to give Mrs. Rivers a quick hug and then I got into a deep conversation about hair color with my sister. A few minutes later we went out into the store and the signing began. It was especially fun to see Lindsee Lou, Jen the Newlywed, and Melanie in line. My sis took tons of pictures but supposedly they all turned out horrible. Dern! Once things died down I went through Francine's line and she signed my copy of Her Mother's Hope. She was so nice and I told her how much it meant to me and how excited we were that she and Mom were doing this book tour together.

Melissa and I unexpectedly got to have lunch with the whole Tyndale crew at Escalante's before they headed out to the Woodlands. I'm on a major diet right now (yes, it has finally come to this) and it was horrible to sit in front of a big basket of chips and white queso. Ugh! And then to order a salad? Double ugh! But I've lost about 6 pounds already and that is making this worth it.

On Saturday night we asked our babysitter to come over so we could have a date night with my best friend from high school and her husband. Jennifer and Justin live in Fort Worth, so we don't get to see as much of them as we'd like. We had dinner at my most recent favorite restaurant - Gigi's Asian Bistro and Dumpling Bar. I looked long and hard at the menu, trying to bend my mind around what I could possibly order and stay on my eating plan. Then I just said, "Forget it! I'm eating like a normal person tonight!" And so we feasted. After 9 days of being very disciplined and never feeling full, it was pretty darn great!

The next morning we went to church. Curtis has been teaching the high school seniors this month, so I went to our old Sunday school class to hear my friend Emily share her testimony. It was so awesome and God-glorifying. Then I worked in a three-year-old Sunday school room. Several of my friends' kids were in there, which made it so fun. We did lots of puzzles and dressed lots of baby dolls. Does anybody else feel inadequate when they do puzzles? I'm horrible at them.

As soon as church was over, we high-tailed it out to the country to have a cookout with my whole family. We had spread out a large quilt on the ground for some of us to sit on. Annabeth would not leave the quilt and the tremendous blessing of that was not lost on me!

I just ripped these off the LPM Blog.

Here was our fire. I had a very serious talk with Jackson about it and thankfully he didn't seem attracted to it.



My daddy.



My new favorite pic of my parents.



Lissa and Colin.



No matter where he is, my dad always takes a nap after lunch. Always.



Jackson and Big Pops (my Pappaw).



Annabeth and Bibby.



Annabeth's hair is always crazy after church. She had a raging mullet, so I twisted it up and clipped it like this. Voila! Her first updo!



Melissa was helping Jackson roast a marshmallow. He was staying such a nice distance away from the fire.





Torched.





A pair of mavericks.









A pair of Moore girls.







Daddy-daughter time.



Last night the little girls from next door came over to play with Jackson. They are so precious and he was having a blast with them. I love that we are in this stage now.

I've felt like a dark cloud was hanging over me for the last couple of months, but this weekend the sun started shining again. I'm so thankful.

Spring Break Youth Camp

*I started this post on Wednesday and finished it on Friday.*

I've never been as happy to sleep in my own bed as I was last night. More than that, I was thrilled for my children to sleep in their own beds! We were at a youth camp for the last few days with our old church, First Baptist Irving. It was so much fun. All of Jackson's old church buddies were there and it was nonstop play. We had bikes, balls, bubbles, and plenty of room to run around.

This was our fourth First Irving youth camp to attend at Camp Timberline in Lindale, TX. The first time was in 2003 when Curtis was the camp speaker. We'd been married one year and we were still living in Houston. Chuck and Kristi Walker were leading the youth at that time and that's where I really got to know and love Kristi. Some of the youth we met that year ended up being the college students we worked with when Curtis came on staff.

The second camp experience was in 2005 when Curtis was First Irving's student pastor. I was about six weeks pregnant with Jackson and sick as a dog. Alicia and I led a great group of girls and we wore red feather boas all week. I seem to remember us winning a big award at skit night. Kristi's younger sister, Amy Savage, was a brand new staff wife and that's where we got to know and love her. Bless her heart, she had to celebrate her birthday at camp that year with a bunch of people she didn't know!

The third camp experience was the very next summer when Jackson was five months old. That was not a very good year for me as I was totally on the sidelines and hating it, if I can just be honest. I remember finally going to Walmart and buying Marley and Me to entertain myself.

This fourth camp experience was interesting with two kids in tow. I had zero expectations as far as attending worship or hearing Curtis speak, so that helped. Mainly I got to watch my son have the time of his life and enjoy getting to visit with some dear friends - Melissa, Krystal, and Janelle. Melissa's husband, Peter, is the youth pastor and he ended up getting appendicitis and had to leave camp to have surgery. Can you imagine?

Janelle and I got to sneak off to Chili's by ourselves for lunch one day. It was so wonderful. We got to share things that don't get talked about over email or in short spurts of conversations on the phone. I think my favorite thing was when we went to Cracker Barrel with our families for breakfast yesterday morning. We laughed so incredibly hard. By the way, Cracker Barrel has some adorable Easter stuff. I got some things for the kids' Easter baskets but of course Jackson climbed into the back of the car and found it all as soon as we got back to camp.

I didn't know most of the youth this year. The ones that I did know were the youngest of our group when we arrived in Irving in 2004. They're now the upperclassmen. I kept seeing people from a distance and thinking they were so-and-so that always went to camp in the olden days. Jake, Vonda, Teri, Alicia, Big Mike, Galley, Beth, Annie, Loran, Neeli, Angela, Kiley - I kept seeing all of you!

I think my fondest First Irving camp memory was the time Teri asked me to take her swimming. I nearly freaked out. Well, not nearly. I did freak out. Teri is one of the strongest people I know. She spends most of her time seated in a wheelchair or walking with a walker, but her spirit is so incredibly tough, smart, capable, and courageous. And she loves Jesus. Any limitations that you might think she would have are invisible to her. Anyway, Teri wanted me to get in the pool with her and let her swim back and forth from the wall. I was terrified that I would let her drown or hurt her in some other way. (If I told you about the incident when I drove her home and her walker collapsed, resulting in her face-planting on the driveway, you might understand my fear.) But seriously? Who would say no to that? She was amazing in the water and we made some forever-memories. I could probably write a week's worth of blog posts on the ways she challenged me. If you ever read this, Teri, know that you are one of my heroes and I miss you very much.

And this concludes my rambling description of Spring Break Youth Camp 2010.

*Insert First Irving slow clap*

The Inheritance Winner

Hello there! I'm working on a post about our time at church camp, but in the meantime I need to announce the winner of The Inheritance DVD set giveaway.



And the winner is Myriam! Congrats! I hope you enjoy this Bible study. Just leave me a comment with your contact info and I'll have it sent to you!

Thanks so much, everyone, for helping us support Christine and Zach's adoption. You bought 166 shirts! And many of you donated generously, which was amazing. Thank You, ladies! And thank You, Lord! Please continue to lift this family up as God brings them to your mind. You can follow their journey at 2theleast.blogspot.com

The t-shirts are now being ordered and printed. We are having a t-shirt party to pack and ship them out to you as soon as we get them back. You will receive an email when they've shipped. Thanks again, y'all!

Reminiscing

I was just looking at some really old pictures and found these. I'm not sure if they ever made it on the blog back in the spring of 2007.

My daddy and his first grandson.



Jackson was just learning how to walk.







He's always happy when he's moving.











I could just eat this up like a caramel apple.



I see this expression multiple times a day.



This is classic Jackson Jones.



This is the one that got me crying. My beautiful boy.



Tomorrow we will get to see these very special friends. (Janelle and Heath)



These one- and three-day-olds are now four-year-olds.



We've been apart for two years already but we'll pick up right where we left off.



Jackson can't wait to see Ella.



He probably doesn't remember this house, but he still talks about his friends.



We will miss Ava and her baby sister, Clara. Ava, if we were going to be in Dallas next week, Jackson would bring you some cupcakes for your birthday. Remember when we visited Sprinkles when it first opened?



Happy birthday, sweet one!