Yup.  That's right.  A year ago today we welcomed Jack to our family.  As I was saying good night to my little handsome man I could not believe it has been a year already.  A year later finds him eating the same foods as we eat, taking only a couple of bottles a day, walking more than crawling, starting to talk, and, one of my favorites, holding his ground against Anna but also accepting her loving hugs and smoochies when she's apologizing.

Of course we had a party for him and Anna.  I can't speak for everybody that was there but I'd like to think that everybody had an enjoyable afternoon of watching the kids play and breakdown because they had late starts to their naps.  

Of course we have pictures from the even to share with you but there have been techinical difficulties to posting them and once my computer has a working operating system on it and I have a spare bit of time I'll share with you all the fun we had today.

And once again, Happy Birthday Jack!!!!

I know it might sound conceited to say our kids are awesome, but I’ve heard others say they pray their kids will be like ours, so that doesn’t make it conceited, right?  Either way, our kids are awesome and amazing and God has truly blessed our lives with them.

A little history for everybody before the picture.

Info Bit 1 - About two weeks ago it was determined that it was time for a more severe form of punishment for The Girl after she’s done something egregious (read as push her brother over again).  We had been putting her in a time out like situation in the recliner but after about 2 months that wasn’t working anymore.  So before his trip Damion started putting her in the corner, facing the wall and she sits there for about 30 seconds and then after a slight discussion of what she did wrong she’s off on her way.  It appears to be working so far.  Jack has been pushed over free for about four days now.

Info Bit 2 – This week Damion has decided to change up Anna’s bed time routine.  She has to pick up toys in the living room at some point after getting her pj’s on.  Then as he’s carrying her to bed they look in the garage to make sure the doors are closed and all the lights are off.

With that said, here’s the picture……..

We saw this last night after the kids had gone to bed.  Damion said he had nothing to do with it but that Anna had put them away.  After seeing this I couldn’t help but wonder, what did these animals do to get put in the corner?

Damion is currently out of town for training and will be until Sunday.  When Damion is gone Anna usually gets away with a little bit more than usual because by the end of the day I’m just too tired to fight.

Tonight I had made just put dinner in the oven and was going to sit with Jack to feed him a bottle, but Anna didn’t want to join us.  I told her that she could stay in the kitchen by herself if she only played with the stuff in the sink and left the room since I got a look of a little understanding.  I’d say about 5-10 minutes later I realized I didn’t hear the water running in the sink any longer and I didn’t hear anything else for the matter.  Off Jack & I went to investigate.

We walk into the kitchen to find Anna on her chair at the stove (all burners were off) putting stuff into a pot (which was clean with water in it to cook a veggie for dinner).  I asked, “Anna, what are you doing?”  Her response, “Cooking. ”  We went to see what she was cooking and apparently it was potato chip soap.  She had taken Jack’s food out of the grocery bag and lined them up and was getting spices from the spice rack.  Since the spices were old (came with the unit when we bought it 4ish years ago) I opened the ones she had pulled out.  Just so you know, when you make Potato Chip Soup you should also add coriander, thyme, marjoram, chives, poppy seeds, cumin and a whole potato without the “gross” (that would be the skin).  Since she asked nicely for “hot” I turned the burner on and brought it to a boil and then shut it off.  

Now while this was all going on Jack & I were working at cleaning a new pan to boil water for the veggie.  At one point I turned away for a second and when I turned around there were chives in my water!  So I dumped it and tried again, only to have chives added again.  So I dumped the water and tried again.  I thought our beans would be herb free….I was correct until I drained them and say black specks on them.  Poppy Seeds!  Oh well.

So, who’s ready to try Anna’s new recipe?