More Jayke!

More proof for my mother that I do take my child outside to play.

Jakieisms

As Jaykeb has started talking and learning how to say more and more I started a book of "Jakieisms". Little funny things he says or does. If it were up to my mother she would have me write everything he says down and I would spend my day like a court reporter, but when have I ever listened to what my mother tells me? Anyway...one of my favorites is when he told me the rhyme Jack and Jill. His version went like this. "Jack and Jill went up the hill. Jack fell down and broke hims crown and Jill broke hers crown and they got some water and poured it on Jack's head." He calls shampoo "washpoo" and ice cream cake "ice cake" Pussy willows are pussy pillows and I could go on and on. As he is getting older he is starting to say these things correctly though so I write them all down so I can go back and remember how cute he was/is. Jayke really gets into his reality tv. Last season on American Idol he really liked Bucky and Kelli Pickler. I think he just liked saying their names. Bucky sang the song "Fat Bottom Girls" and Jayke was singing it all night. The next day we were in a dressing room and he broke out in song and of course THAT was the song he chose to sing. "Fat Bottom Girls" doesn't go over too well in a women's dressing room. I was afraid to come out, I didn't want anyone thinking I told him to sing that and I didn't want them looking to see if he was singing it TO me. Another reality show he likes is Dancing With the Stars. I was watching it this evening and Jayke was off tearing his room (which I just cleaned-again) apart. Normally he is in front of the tv trying to imitate the moves the couple dancing are doing. If someone lifts their leg in the air he runs over and tells me he needs help and I lift his leg up for him. He does a bunch of jumps and rolls around on the floor some and he does some spectacular poses at the end of the performance and then I have to clap like mad. Tonight for some reason he wasn't into dancing but I must have been. I was snapping my fingers and bouncing along with the music on the couch when in he comes and he starts chanting "Go momma, go momma, go! Go momma, go momma, go!" I was shocked that he knew to say that and said it correctly and also proud that my child is so hip. I immediately snatched the phone up to call and report what my little genius said this time as I do whenever he says anything funny.(My mom gets a lot of calls). Of course that is also one that will go in my little book and I had to post it on here so everyone else can see what a smart little child I have. I know...every mother's child is the cutest and smartest in the world but who would know it if we didn't tell everyone?

The Haircut

My aunt emailed me tonight and commented on Jayke's haircut, how much older he looks with it shorter, and it made me realize that he almost needs another one. The thought of taking him to get his haircut again almost sends me to seek out the bottle of bourbon I keep stashed in the pantry for when Opa comes to visit. Haircuts are the biggest fit-inducing event known to man! I usually enlist Oma to go with us for an extra pair of hands to hold him down while the poor girl who was lucky enough to draw our name out of the proverbial hat frantically snips away trying not to cut any of us in the process. Too bad Oma is in Florida. Making it even harder is the fact that the poor girl has to cut it dry because even the sight of the water bottle pointed in his direction causes him to ratchet up the screams of protest. There is kicking, screaming, sobbing, and panicking and that is all while we are still in the car. Once the cutting commences there is coughing, snot flowing, and choking added to the mix. After we are finished there is sweating, panting, and relief all on my part. The last time we went he made a promise while still in the car that if I took him in there he was going to yell...and yell he did. I think I finally figured out this time that he is afraid that we are going to cut it all off. He must think his strength is in his hair because the mere mention of a haircut sends his hands to his head to protect the golden locks from impending danger. As you can see from the pictures the poor girls (I say girls because it took 3 of them to do it last time) didn't get the bangs very straight. I don't like it when they cut it straight across like that anyway. I'm thinking of getting out the dog clippers, slapping a two-gaurd on them and going to work on him in the garage myself this time at least I won't have to tip anyone extra because of the fit-throwing-two-year-old and it can't look any worse than those bangs from hell do. So...it's almost haircut time again and I'm already planning my attack.

Boys and Their Toys!

Okay, so these pictures were taken back in September but I had to put them on here because they are two of my favorites. The one is Mike and Jayke working on our truck. Yes, we have an old pick up truck because apparently if you live in the South you have to have a truck to "haul stuff with" at least that is what Mike told me the day he bought ours. He also said we would complete our transition to "true" southerners when we have two cars per driver parked out front. He bought this truck on ebay believe it or not. We had to drive down to Columbia, SC to look at it and pick it up. It is a 1976 Ford 100 with a new rebuilt engine which I guess is pretty fast. I know nothing about engines so I can't say what it has in it but I do know it is fast because I've seen him drive it. The other picture is of Jayke modeling his "truck glasses". He and Mike have matching sunglasses for when they ride in the truck. Mike's look just like Jayke's and it is quite a sight to see them both with them on in that truck, Jayke all propped up in his car seat with the wind whipping through his hair and Mike with one elbow sticking out the driver's side window. I have been lucky enough to ride in the truck once. One thing I did notice though is that if Mike and I ever go out in the truck without Jayke I can slide right over next to him and ride with his arm around me like you used to see before the invention of the bucket seat. So if you are ever down south and you see an old truck with a cozy couple out for a Sunday drive it just might be me and my old man. RIGHT!

Entry Way...Sort of

For my friends and family who have asked to see pics of my house here is my entry way. It would most likely be a dining room for anyone else who lived in this house but we made it into a very large entry or since I'm in the south you might call it my parlor. Ha! The one picture shows a view into a way-too-white hallway. That hallway leads to Jayke's room on the left, the guest bath straight ahead, and the guest room on the right. I plan on painting that hallway someday. The other views are from the front door and from the kitchen door leading into the entry/parlor. I didn't take one coming from the long hallway that leads to the living room. This was the first room I finished and I LOVE the green with the black and white. I think I will put my Christmas tree up in this room in front of the big window. This room makes a great place for Jayke to set up his train sets or anything else big he wants to play with.

Cupcakes!

The chef is making cupcakes today. His favorite. We didn't get them made for Halloween so we are doing them now. Jaykeb did most of the work including cracking the eggs. I warned Mike about possibly finding something crunchy in his cupcake since Jayke's idea of cracking the eggs was to slam the whole egg into the bowl as hard as he could. Luckily I anticipated this and had him cracking them into a separate bowl. He stirred his little heart out and here is a picture of the finished product less the ones we ate, of course. Yum!

Grammy's room

A couple of my friends have asked to see pics of my new house so I thought I'd start putting some on here. I am starting with the guest bedroom which Jayke calls "Grammy's Room". I'm starting with it because it is one of my favorite rooms in the house plus it was the cleanest so I didn't have to do anything to it to be able to take a picture of it. I've always had a room with these colors, it used to be my room until I got married and had to make my room more "comfortable for a man to sleep in" so now it is the guest room. I also wanted my dad to see he would have a nice place to sleep when he finally comes to vist in January! This room is very "girly" and looks nothing like the rest of my house which I will gradually put pics of on here when I get them.

For Jim

Here are a couple pics of the deck we just added. We haven't landscaped around it yet but you can get an idea of what it looks like. Sorry, I took the pics in the evening so they are kind of dark. There will be a paver walk around from the steps to the pool that will come right up to the edge of the landing. We haven't decide if we will add more decking around the pool or just use the landing that is there. There will also be a privacy latice wall at the end of the patio behind the umbrella table with vines growing on it to make a natural screen and on the other side of it is where the landscape timber steps will come down the hill from the driveway. I haven't finished the flower bed along the front of the patio yet because I am waiting to get that latice put up. Everything is pretty much on hold until the spring.

Quack...or Something

As you can see we went to the duck pond today although I'm not sure that this is a duck. I don't really know what this is. Anyway, we fed it and all the other over-fed ducks at the pond. They weren't really interested in the bread we brought them because so many people feed them all day long. We managed to find two little guys who were hungry so we fed them until they stopped eating. Once the ducks were finished with us we had to have a big game of hide-and-seek behind the trees in the park. I think we are in our peak for the colors on the trees changing. There are still quite a few that are mostly green but everything is really starting to get bright now. It was a little chilly today but we were both just happy to be out of the house for a while even if the ducks didn't appreciate us.

Grandpa

I'm turning into my grandpa. I am now telling people how many days it has been since I left the house and sort-of feeling proud of it. It has been a week since I've "been off the place". I am going to venture out today though. It is weird how I can so vividly remember his voice as if I'm actually hearing him. "TOOTHPICK HELEN, TOOTHPICK!" The last really funny thing I remember him saying was when he was in Florida last winter. The phone rang and it was for Grandma. He yelled for her as he always does and gave her about 2 seconds to get there before yelling again more adamently. She answered that she was coming and his reply was "SO IS CHRISTMAS!" I don't know why I found that so funny, but it was. I have lots of funny stories about him which I love to tell to anyone who will listen. I always have, even before he was sick. One of my favorites is when he tried to shoot a mouse in the living room. The way I know the story to go is he was sitting in the living room cleaning one of his guns when a mouse ran across the fireplace. Still sitting in his chair he put a bullet in the gun and tried to shoot the poor thing right there in the living room next to the television. I don't know if he actually got it, that part of the story was never important to me, I hope he didn't, but this story I will tell probably for the rest of my life. He had a thing for guns, another favorite story is when he was found trying to shoot a chipmunk out the kitchen window. Jim told this one as he was the lucky one to come upon Grandpa one afternoon standing in the kitchen with the window cranked open blasting away the indoor/outdoor carpet on the patio trying to shoot the resident chipmunk. Those chipmunks had been driving him nuts for a long time. He even put the cat outside to try to catch them. She did but what he didn't know is everytime she did Grandma would run out and set the poor thing free. He always thought that cat was worthless because she couldn't even catch a ground squirrel. He finally learned to live with the chips running across the back porch all day long and even started to enjoy watching them. Another story I remember I actually was there for and that is when they drained the pond to dig it out again. Grandpa decided he wanted the water to be really deep at the end of the pier so he could dive off the pier. For some reason someone left him the backhoe and when I arrived he was in it down in the pond digging out the end of the pier. I made the mistake of pointing out that the pier was coming away from the patio so he yelled at me to get off of it and then started ramming it with the bucket on the backhoe to push it back in place. I'm surprised the whole thing didn't fall over. Both of us were yelling at each other over the noise of the backhoe. I was yelling at him to stop before he tore the whole thing down and he was yelling at me to go back in the house. I don't think he ever did dive off the end of the pier. There are so many more and some I just heard not too long ago like when he tried to remove a tree stump using dynamite. He dug a hole under the stump and put the dynamite in then put a rock on top of it. Well, he ended up blowing the rock across the street and the tree stump stayed. My all time favorite though is when he shot himself in the leg. I think he was trying to put a hold in concrete for some reason and decided shooting it would be the way to go. His partner Denzel had enough sense to go hide behind something before the shooting began and as you can probably guess the bullet richocheted back and hit Grandpa in the leg. My grandma was in Colorado at the time and upon returning home she asked if anything had happened while she was gone. He told her not really, he shot himself in the leg but it was okay, he put a band-aid on it. I'm surprised he didn't put a little diesel fuel on it too. He always claimed that would cure anything. I could go on and on but Jayke wants to go to the duck pond. I think I've covered my favorits anyway. I always wanted him to write some of his stories down, I guess I did a little bit of it for him.

My Ham

The little ham wanted his picture taken to put on the computer. Please ignore the pile of random socks in the background...it's laundry day, but then again what day isn't laundry day?

From my loving husband! How sweet is he?

HELP!

CLEANING LADY WANTED! Must be able to clean this room a minimum of 5 times a day. Must be able to step on MatchBox cars without screaming and work with two-year-old working against you. Apply at wendymhowell@hotmail.com!

Broken bones

Last night was horrible! First of all Mike had to go into work at midnight so he was in bed by 4 p.m. which messed our schedule all up. Jayke kept wanting to wake him up for dinner, etc. When it was time for Jayke to go to bed everything seemed fine. We had been lying down for quite a while when all of a sudden he started screaming. I knew he wasn't having a dream because he had not fallen asleep yet. He kept telling me he couldn't lie down. I asked him why not and he finally told me because his arm hurt. He kept holding it funny and acting as if he couldn't raise it. He told me it was broken. Normally I would just ignore this but the other day he did fall off the bar stool he was not supposed to be on and hurt that very same arm. I tried and tried to calm him, I even gave him Tylenol and told him that it would make his arm heal but he insisted he couldn't lie down with a broken arm. Finally I asked him if he needed to move to the couch for a while because I was afraid he would wake Mike with his screaming. (What happens when you wake Mike is a whole other blog entry) He agreed to move to the couch. The recovery was amazing! That broken arm healed so fast it made my head spin! He was up off the couch testing it's range of motion, telling me it was all better and he was going to go play. I decided just to let him after all of that and not wanting to wake Mike up. It amazes me how he worked that "broken arm". It was days ago when he hurt that arm and he remembered that and saved it for when he needed it AND remembered which arm it was. What will he come up with next?

Jayke and Jack

Jaykeb really got into carving his Jack-o-lantern this year. He was so into it that he ended up with pumpkin all over his face. After he and his dad were finished carving it they roasted the seeds for a snack which he surprisingly really liked.

Mmmmm....good hotdog!

Here is Jaykeb at the church trunk-or-treat festival. As you can see he went as "GI Jayke"!

Ahhh...Good ol Santa Claus

It is only November 1st and Santa is already causing trouble in my house. For some reason Jaykeb has been obsessed with Santa today. I think it is because of all the toy catalogs we have been receiving in the mail all of a sudden. I think he gets the idea of how Christmas works but he doesn't understand WHEN Christmas will be here. Today he parked himself in his beanbag chair and declared he was waiting right there until Santa got here. I tried to explain to him that Santa wasn't coming today. He just told me he'd wait and then every few minutes asked if it was Christmas time yet. I decided to take him outside for a while to distract him. After an hour of planting bushes and Jaykeb sufficiently covering himself with dirt, we headed back inside. Not without a lot of protesting and screaming about digging holes though. Once inside I thought everything would be fine, we'd get some chocolate milk and turn on a movie then I'd start dinner. How wrong I was. It started with a little crying which turned into a full on snot-flowing fit. He was screaming about something but I couldn't quite understand what it was. After offering him everything under the sun I finally got out of him that Santa hadn't been there yet and he was still waiting for him. I couldn't believe that he was still thinking about that. How do you explain to a two-year-old that Santa wouldn't be coming for two whole months when he has no idea what a month even is? I started by telling him that Santa had to make all the toys for all the children in the whole world. That just made him mad. "No he doesn't!", he cried. "He is coming! When will he be here?" I talked and talked that fast talk I do when I'm trying to say as much as possible before the screams start again and he won't be able to hear what I am saying. I explained the whole thing to him one more time then I got an idea to show him. I found one of the old tv movies, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, that I bought on dvd last Christmas and popped it in the dvd player. As soon as he saw santa on the screen he was all smiles and happy as a clam. So my viewing of Christmas movies has begun on November 1st. I can only imagine how crazy I will be by December 25th.