jewels from JAKE & OLIVIA

* So the other day I was standing in front of the sink in my bathroom. I had just gotten out of bed and wasn't dressed yet. Jake came up to me and said, "Mommy, what's your booty doing?" To which I aptly repled, "growing." Jake said, "Mommy, you have a little booty." I love this kid!

* Occasionally Olivia comes to me while I'm in the middle of something and says, "Mommy, potty." She also holds her little girl "area" with her hand at the same time which is super cute. Depending on what I'm doing, sometimes I say, "Ok. Wait just one second and I'll take you." Then she goes into whatever room Jake is in, wailing to her brother, "JAKE!!!!!!!! POTTTTTTTTYYYYY!" She adores her big brother and he LOVES helping take care of her. He takes her to the potty, picks her up, puts her on the toilet and gets her some toilet paper. It is the cutest thing you've ever seen. Then he comes back up there with her and says, "Mommy, Livi teetee'd in the potty." He just wants to make sure I know he's taken care of it. He's such a good boy!

* Olivia loves to dress up. Not necessarily in her "dress up" clothes, but just in her everyday clothes. The other day she came into the living room wearing panties, pants over them, then shorts over the pants, then more panties over the shorts. Did I mention she also loves shoes? Oh dear.

* I bought the soundtrack to Walk the Line back several months ago because we all - especially Jake - love Johnny Cash. Walk the Line is one of his favorite movies. It's the only thing he wants to listen to in the car and he has memorized nearly every song on the soundtrack. There are a couple we don't listen to. One is about cocaine - we don't listen to this for obvious reasons. The second is an Elvis song about his "milk cow" referring to his significant other. Hmmm. Wonder why Mommy isn't crazy about a song referring to women as milk cows. Anyway, if you're ever around Jake, ask him to sing his favorite Johnny Cash song and if he's not feeling terribly shy he'll start belting out "It ain't me, babe" which happens to be #11 on the cd and our family's favorite secular song. There's a song by TobyMac that I love called Gone that Jake also has started asking to listen to and he's learning the words to it as well. I LOVE that my children love to sing!!! I should also point out that Olivia likes to sing along, too. She doesn't know the words but that doesn't keep her from mumbling loudly!

* The beginning of spring is apparently a time for babies! Three of my friends have had babies in the past three weeks and another good friend of mine just found out that she is very unexpectedly, but happily, pregnant. I sure hope there isn't something in the water. I better quit drinking from the tap just in case. We went to visit my friend Jennifer yesterday who just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Kalli three weeks ago. She was a preemie, but is doing great. Jake just loved her to death and wanted to take her home with us. I asked him if he wanted a new baby brother or sister and he said yes. I laughed and told him he would have to pray about that. Mike wasn't amused. Hmmm. We're planning to go see our good friends Bobby and Mary's baby this evening. He was born on Monday night. I can't wait to get my hands on a 3 day old baby! I've seen pictures of little Landon and he's absolutely precious!!!! A couple of cries and a dirty diaper later though and I'll be completely over my new baby thoughts. Mike will be pleased.

* There have been a series of mishaps at our house lately. I'm sorry to say that Jake seems to have inherited his father's proneness to accidents. Mike tried to cut the end of his finger off with a table router last week and nearly succeeded. This is one of MANY MANY MANY accidents he's had in his lifetime. Back to Jake's story now. Daddy Don's four wheeler trailer is at our house and the ramp on the back is held up by two large pins. Jake decided to load his Lightning McQueen car on the trailer last week - by himself. This is what happens when you take your eyes off your children for 15 seconds. Jake let the pins out and the ramp (which ways 40 or 50 pounds) FELL. We can only assume that it hit Jake's car on the way down because something broke it's fall a bit. Regardless, it hit Jake on the side of the head on the way down, knocking him onto the concrete and pinning him between the concrete and the ramp. Mike got to him seconds after it happened and ran him into the house to me. I've never seen Mike so panicked in my life. Jake cried for a few minutes then I washed him face and put a bag of frozen veggies on his scrape and waited to see what would happen. Luckily he was fine and it ended up just being a couple of bumps on the head and a scrape down his cheek. It could have been MUCH worse. I was definitely thanking God that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. If you have a trailer with a ramp, PLEASE either leave the ramp down or take the ramp off. The ramp is off Daddy Don's now and it will remain that way.

* Jake has a Pirates of the Carribean parrot that repeats what you say. Right this second Olivia is holding it saying, "bubble gum." It's repeating it back to her. She thinks this is fabulous. She is so precious!!

* Speaking of Olivia talking, people often ask me if she can talk yet and if so what can she say. The question isn't what she CAN say, but what CAN'T she say?? She talks all the time. It's amazing!!!!!!! She can ask for essentially anything and lately her favorite word is "alright." She says this in answer to all of my questions. I like that word. It's much better than, "no." Ha! She's also a good whiner which isn't a good thing. We're working on it though. Maybe that's just a girl thing. Regardless, it's incredibly annoying and it's certainly not something we tolerate at this house. Unless of course I'm the one doing the whining then it's okay :<) Mike would argue with that point, but he doesn't write on this blog (or even read it for that matter) so he doesn't get a say! This will be the one time he reads it and he'll give me a stern look. Even Mike's stern looks are adorable though so I'm not too worried. Have I mentioned how crazy in love I am with that man? Just thinking about him now makes me smile. I'm the luckiest girl in the world.