Week in Review

Quick review of last week, since we are getting ready this week for Thanksgiving!! 

And the Alabama/Auburn game. But mainly for Thanksgiving!

Monday, Robbie, Hollon & I had lunch with Jake for his Kindergarten's Thanksgiving feast. I think Jake could have cared less if Rob & I were there, he was just so proud of Hollon. He kept showing her off to all his friends. Hollon was good & slept through the first part on me in her wrap. But the noise of the lunchroom was loud and woke her up. And you know her love of loud noises & kids running around. She was not too happy. Of course as we are leaving is when I remember to take a picture to document we were there. And of course that was at the time Hollon was crying. All these people were posting cute pictures of them with their kids at their school feasts, and this was all I got to give. I was too lazy to try to take multiple pictures to get a good one. This is basically just our real life.

Or H was upset that she was getting lunchroom food milk at her next feeding

At home in peace & quiet

Every week, I have to include one awkward photo that I think Hollon looks so cute (in a "only her mom would think this photo is cute" way).

We actually didn't have a lot going on the rest of the week. So I have a lot of pictures of sleeping. 

 Thursday night (11/20) Hollon slept the longest she ever has! She went to sleep at 7:00, got up for a quick feeding at 10:00 and then slept until 4:00 am. I certainty wouldn't say she is sleeping through the night consistently, but we are getting closer.

Friday we headed down to Auburn for the last home game of the season. Friday night, our friends had a bonfire and lots of families came over.  

I was on Hollon duty, so the only pictures taken were Jake out at the bonfire by Robbie

Saturday. Last home game of the year! 

We knew there would be a lot of kids at this tailgate. Chuck's cousin parked his RV with us, so we used it as the "kids" RV. Their back room in the RV has 4 bunkbeds and a tv, so all of the kids hung out there to keep out of the cold (and out of the road).

Jake waiting on his friends to arrive

I didn't get a group picture this year, so I just tried to snap individual pictures here & there. 

Emily

Alex & Owen

Lots of kids' backs
Henry, Madeline, Emily, Owen & Mary

Mary

Mary & Emily having some girl talk

Owen practicing his football moves

Hollon just slept in her bassinet for the most part

 Our friends Dan & Sherry Jacobs joined us at the tailgate. They are the parents of Robbie's friend Danny, that we were in New Orleans a few weeks ago, celebrating the marriage of. The Bush's know them from Chattanooga and they all went to school at Auburn.

The Bush's & The Jacobs'

 Jake played hard for 2 days straight. So do you know what happens after that when Auburn plays a night game? This....

Jake fell asleep in the middle of the Auburn game. He does this at least once a year at a game. Only my child could fall asleep in the middle of a loud stadium. And Daddy was being mean by putting popcorn on his lips as he was sleeping. Hollon & I were warm & dry back at the RV during the game.

Hollon sleeping in her "bed in a box"

 Photo taken by the photographer Jake Bush

Later that night, things really got fun. We were all asleep in the RV (Jake with Robbie on the pull out sofa bed & Hollon with me in the booth bed) when in the middle of the night I hear throwing up. I pop out of bed to see Jake throwing up all over the sofa bed. I yell at Robbie to wake up. I'm trying to get Jake to the bathroom and Robbie just rolls over and falls back asleep. (And I wonder where Jake gets his heavy sleeping from.) I have to wake him up again. This time it registers with him, and I tell him to strip the sheets off sofa bed. I get Jake cleaned up and changed. Now, the problem when you get sick in an RV, is there is no washer to wash the sheets, there is only one set of sheets per bed and there are no alternative places to sleep. The mattress was soaked on Jake's side, so I had no choice but to put Jake in the booth bed with Hollon & me. The booth bed is the width of a twin bed but only 5 feet long. So Hollon (in her bed in a box) & I slept beside each other and Jake slept at our feet. He laid his legs over my legs and his legs just hung off the bed. Usually when Jake throws up, about 15 minutes later, he'll throw up more. So I laid there for an hour getting ready to rush him to the bathroom. If he threw up on the booth bed, our only option after that was to sleep in the car. Thankfully he kept things down, but morning couldn't come fast enough. Good times with kids in an RV. 

All About Jake

The blog the last few months has focused a lot on Hollon. I certainly didn't want Jake to be left out. I tend to get more pictures of Hollon, because she is home with me all day, but rest assured we are all staying involved with all of Jake's activities! Here is what's been going on with Jake these last few months...

School. School is going really well. Jake is a typical student. He likes school, but I wouldn't say he loves it. He likes going to school, but gets more excited about the weekends or a holiday off. Who can blame him, I feel the same way! He really likes his teacher Mrs. Rmeily. She seems to make school as much fun as you can make it and seems to care deeply for the kids. Jake is part of a class of 20 kids. 9 boys & 11 girls. He likes his classmates and his favorite friends are Brycin, Rylan & Roberto. I am a room mom volunteer so I've gotten to see Jake's interaction with his classmates. He seems to be well liked and he seems to equally like his classmates. (Even though he says the girls in his class are really bossy.) I was at their Thanksgiving feast and we sat across from Roberto's family. Roberto's mom said that all Roberto talks about is Jake so she was glad to finally meet the Jake she hears all about. I'm glad that Jake has made friends and I hope he is always a friend back to people. He & I have had a lot of talks about times when maybe someone doesn't want to be our friend (we've already dealt with that this year) and how we should always be nice to everyone, especially someone who no one else wants to be friends with. I feel like at school, there is such a focus on the academics (which is great!), but that we've got to install it more so at home on being a good person & Christian. Sometimes Jake gets it, and other times I know it just goes in one ear and out the other. But we are working on it, praying about it and try to lead by example.

I asked Jake the other day what his favorite part of school was, and he said when I come pick him up. Um, try again. He finally decided on recess, lunch, library, fitness lab & center time. Robbie takes Jake to school and I pick him up. He takes his lunch most days, but he chooses to buy his lunch from school 1 or 2 days a week.   

The picture below is from the first day of school. The parents could not walk the kids all the way to their classroom, so they have a photographer there to take the token "first day of school picture with teacher". And of course that way they could charge you to buy the picture.

Mrs. Rmeily & Jake

Fall Kindergarten School Picture

Football. We just wrapped up football season. They practiced the month of August and then had games September & October. We never imagined that we'd let Jake play football in Kindergarten, but I'm glad we did. Jake seemed to enjoy it and he learned a lot. We were really proud of him, because he didn't cry once. And sometimes he got knocked down pretty hard. Jake is still not an aggressive child, but it did gave Robbie some opportunities to explain to Jake when to stand up for yourself and when to walk away. (Which is still really hard to know which to do even as an adult!) Jake played center, so he snapped the ball. He did really well and tended to only have 1 or 2 bad snaps a game. A lot of the kids on his team were also on his baseball team, so it was fun to get to know those families even more. Robbie was a coach again, so I was glad for the extra time together this gave Robbie & Jake. All in all it was a great experience.

Jake is the one with his head down and hands on the ball

Sometimes we'd find him doing stuff like this.
In other words, not paying a bit of attention.

Sister. Jake has been such a good big brother to his baby sister. He is so proud of her and she is pretty smitten with him. She lights up when he comes into the room. He is pretty gentle with her for the most part, even though sometimes he can get aggressive with trying to kiss her on the cheek. He is a huge help when running to grab something for us or soothing Hollon.

Funny things he says. 

• I love the show Cops and I think I've passed that love down to Jake. Any time he hears the intro music coming on (the song "Bad Boys") he gets excited. He calls the show Bad Boys.
• He loves the song "Light Em Up" by Fallout Boy. Robbie listens to the sport radio station taking Jake to school, and they play a little of that song for their show intro. So Jake would walk around singing "light em up, up, up, light em up up up. Fireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". So we let Jake hear the whole song. He dances around any time we play it.
• The other day I was asking him about his day at school. You have to ask him 100 questions about his day to find out even a tiny little bit. I guess one day he had enough of my questions and said "mom, I appreciate you want know about my day, but it is getting on my nerves". 
• He says that nana & gran are the boss of me, mimi & granddad are the boss of Robbie, Robbie & I are the boss of him and he is the boss of Hollon.

Week in Review

On Tuesday, Jake's football team played in the first round of the playoffs. A huge thank you to both sets of grandparents for coming & braving the cold to cheer on Jake.

Sister all bundled up ready for the game

This was my best picture of the night. It was too dark to use the auto setting, but when I put it on the night time setting, because the kids were moving, everything was blurry. Again, it would probably help if I knew how to use the settings on my camera. I've only had it for 4 years to learn.

You will be sad to know that the Pelham Panthers 5/6 year old team lost. Our team played well and actually scored several touchdowns. Unfortunately the other team score 3x as many touchdowns. We were proud of our kids though and happy the season was over so we wouldn't have to sit in the cold anymore. 

On Wednesday, I decided to try to get a picture of the kids to use on our Christmas card. I am combining our Christmas card & Hollon's birth announcement, so I'm mostly using the pictures that the professional photographer took, but I wanted one current one of Jake & Hollon with Jake looking at the camera. Oh my word taking a good picture of these two is next to impossible. 

This was the best one out of this group
Hollon's eyes look like they are about to pop out of her head

Most looked like this

This is what Hollon thought of it all

These were sweet, but not what I was going for

We quickly reverted back to awkward

And of course ended crying

Other than taking 1,000 bad pictures for a Christmas card, we've played a lot on the floor mat. (Hollon, not me)

Starts out as interesting

But gets boring after 5 minutes

This is what Hollon thinks of the cold weather

The other day she fell asleep holding her pacifier in her mouth.

I love busy weekends. I like going places and I like when people come visit us. But every once in a while, it is nice to have a weekend with no plans. That was this past weekend for us. We didn't leave the house once on Saturday. We slept in and then watched football all day.

We thought it was so funny because Hollon seemed so interested in the football games. We even turned her swing facing the TVs.

This was her face watching the TV

We are idiots, because do you know what that face is? It's the face of over-stimulation. And we paid for it Saturday night. Usually after her 7:30 feeding, Hollon falls asleep. We wake her up at 11:00 for her last feeding of the day, which is a quick one and then she falls asleep in her crib. Not Saturday night. She was wide awake until midnight. It took her forever to get settled. 

We have quickly turned the swing back around away from facing the TV.

We even used our fireplace for the 2nd time in 3 years.

Hollon fell asleep in Robbie's lap holding her pacifier

I also convinced Robbie to help me try to take some better pictures of the kids for the Christmas card.  I figured he could take the pictures while I tried to make Hollon smile/kept Jake from dropping her. Again, out of 1,000 pictures, there were maybe 5 that my children looked like normal human beings. Most looked like this...

Or this...

Seriously?