Men of many hats

November 2007

February 2008

February 2008

Summer 2008

Jack's bin-hat

Halloween 2008

Cowboy Jeff

Christmas "boing" hat

Classic toddler room...toys and clothes strewn about, closet doors askew, and toddler running around with a drum on his head.

This is called big brother's underwear hat

The drum hat is back...and shortly after this pic was taken, Jack turned the pajama pants into a hat

Funnies and the dentist

For Christmas, Glenn got a couple of Best Buy gift cards, so he went and bought a speaker-bluetooth that clips to the visor of the car instead of one that you have to try to keep stuffed in your ear. Now, our car rides often consist of the following:

GLENN: Call. Mom. Mobile.

BLUETOOTH VOICE: Did you say, "Call. Buc. Mobile?"

GLENN (shaking his fists): NO!

He shuts of the bluetooth, then turns it on and tries again:

GLENN: Call. Mom. Mobile.

BLUETOOTH VOICE: Did you say, "Call. Mom. Mobile?"

GLENN: YES!

Sometimes, it takes a few tries to get it to dial whoever he wants to call.

This morning, as I was getting ready to head out with the boys to go to their dentist appointments, I heard Jeff in the living room saying, "Call. Dad. Mobile. NO!!" "Call. Jack. Mobile. YES!! Haha, that kid does not miss a thing.

I also think that Jack may have been having flashbacks today about his previous surgeries and stays in the hospital for his cleft lip and palate. When we got to the dentist today, we were called back into the exam room, and Jeff was going first. As soon as we walked through the door of the exam room, with the dentist chair/bed, medical equipment, and doctor-type atmosphere, Jack immediately started bawling. It was sad and funny at the same time. Poor little guy, I really do wonder if he was having flashbacks of some sort. He had his finger in his mouth at the time, so I guess it is possible that he had bitten his finger accidentally or something, but I don't know. He certainly didn't like it when it was his turn for a cleaning, which was really just a brushing and some fluoride, but Jeff did extremely well and was just excited he got to lay down and watch Dora the Explorer and got a toy and a toothbrush. While Jack was getting his exam done and crying and hollering on my lap, Jeff came up to pat his brother on the arm and say, "It's alright, Jack. Don't cry."

Speaking of the dentist, tomorrow will be my first dentist appointment in about nine years. I have not been to the dentist since before Glenn and I were married. I am anxious to see what the dentist will say, and I am hoping I will not get yelled at for not going for so long. We have been a little busy since we got married in 2001, with our dear Glennie, and moving many times, and then with Jeff and with Jack and his cleft lip and palate, so I really didn't give much of a hoot about me going to the dentist. I will be extremely proud of myself if I have no cavities, which I don't think I do at this point.

Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?

Okay, I will probably get flak from Glenn about this, but I can assure you this has absolutely nothing to do with him at all. We have been on our computers for a couple hours now, as Jack went to bed and Jeff was coloring and playing with his train here in the office before he went to bed. Glenn is playing WOW and doing an "instance," which is just a fancy way (to me, anyway) of saying "I am gonna team up with other players and we as a group are going to go kill a bunch of stuff and try to kill the big boss guy." He is on vent, which means that we can hear other players talking, and if Glenn hits the control button and speaks, they can hear him. For the past couple of hours during this instance, as I have been working and now am blogging, these other guys on vent (not Glenn) have been yelling and cursing and insulting each other as young, immature, I-have-no-life-so-I-am-on-World-of-Warcraft-at-2-AM-ET-because-I-don't-have-a-job guys do, I suppose. I have told Glenn I would pay him just so I could get on vent and tell these guys to shut their pieholes. There is a chick he and other people have been playing with lately whose voice is not gracing our office tonight, and I thought she was bad. She talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks, and is not exactly the quietest as she does so, and she is not half as bad as these clowns that are on tonight. I think I will be happy to hear her voice again. I never, ever thought I would say that. I cannot even express how annoying they are. I really wonder what many of these people would do without WOW. I wish I could stay and continue listening to the happenings that are going on in the instance, but I think I will go lay in my bed and watch "Whose Line is it Anyway?"

Christmas pics

Here are some of my favorite pics from Christmas. I realized about a week before that it was Glenn's first Christmas with Jack, as Glenn was in Iraq last year. As far as the captions are concerned, I am always very meticulous about lining everything up just so so that everything is even, but I am tired of trying to line them up. I don't know if it is just me or my blog, because nobody else I know seems to have a problem with pics and stuff.

Jeff is happy that Santa came, and that he ate his cookies and milk!

Glenn and Jack watching Jeff.

Jack trying to get the hang of the opening-presents thing.

Yay, cool toy!

Jeff trying out Dad's new massage cushion.

I wonder when I will warm up to the fact that we are going to another country soon. Ok, so our lives will become enriched at the chance to travel and experience different cultures, etc. But honestly, I like my home. I like the US. I like insignificant stuff like watching Survivor, going to the Coffee Bean, and being among people like me. I really have absolutely no idea what to expect, wherever we go, which is difficult because I like what I know. I love my job and am a lot worried that I won't be able to be hired from overseas due to security issues. Three years of not being able to type dictations from Indian doctors and mumbling Americans, come on! I love that stuff!

On a different note, every time I post I am reminded of my mother-in-law saying to me last winter when I left NJ about how I need to keep up with the blog and post pics of the boys and tell stories. I ought to keep up on that, but since it is 1:01 AM PT, I need to go to bed. Sorry! I really like the picture I took last night, though, of Jackson with his older brother Jeffrey's CARS underwear on his head. So, I may post that one just for kicks, as well as some others. However, I need to get going to change Jack before he pees through his PJs and sheet and then get to bed so we can get up early tomorrow and go get a certified copy of Jack's birth certificate so we will be able to go get our passports for wherever the hell we are going. Maybe we will go to India and I can work in a hospital, haha.

So, I guess I am pretty bad at keeping up with my blog. I guess the problem is that it is so busy around here with 2 kids, a DH, and a job, especially for the last couple of months I have been working more because we needed some money for Christmas. Now that the holidays are over, I may slow it down a bit, but then again, I will only be working at this job for about six more weeks, and then we are off to NJ for two months and then overseas. I don't know if I will be able to work as an MT from home outside of the US, and that saddens me greatly, but oh well. No matter what happens, I know that God is ultimately in control.

Speaking of God's control, I find that I keep thinking about Jett Travolta. For those who don't know, he is the son of John Travolta and Kelly Preston, and he died a few days ago after having a seizure and hitting his head on the bathtub. He was 16 years old. Having lost a son ourselves, I keep thinking of the unimaginable pain that his parents are experiencing right now. Jett was always there for 16 years, and now all of a sudden he is gone. In a way I know what they are going through, but at the same time, I don't know what it is like to have and know a child for 16 years and then have them suddenly and tragically gone. I read stories about how John and Kelly are Scientologists, and may have dismissed the fact that Jett was autistic, because Scientology does not recognize autism as a disease. Either way, it doesn't make the situation any less tragic. I just hope that this suffering can and will bring them to their knees and to the Lord.

I don't mean to be depressing; this is just one of those news stories that you hear and that makes you think and that touches your heart more than any other.