?

I left Justin home with the boys the other night and this is what happened while I was gone. Normal?

Personally, I think my boys look better without any facial alterations.

Girls' Night

Once a week Nicole invites a few of her friends over for a girls' night. Most of the time we just watch TV or play games, but sometimes we get a little crazy (see bottom left picture).

Its nice to have a night to ourselves where we can have mature social interactions. Thanks for hosting us every week Nicole! Today, Drake decided that he was big enough to sit at the table like everyone else. He perched himself in this chair and refused to get down. Jackson and Drake enjoyed their PB&J's like big boys this afternoon.

Partay!

So, people like to make fun of me because I like to celebrate my birth-week instead of just my birth-day, but the joke is on them because they indulge me on this. On Tuesday we went to Macaroni Grill, on Wednesday we had a girls' night (we do this almost every week so it wasn't explicitly for my b-week), and then on Friday night we had a partay! On Wed. Nicole taught us a card game called Nerts, which I suck at. Not only is it one more game that Nicole kicks my trash at, but now I have a new rival in Jessica, my sis-in-law, who also kicked my trash. We stayed at Nicole's until 4:00am. Not the smartest thing.
On Friday we had the partay at our house. Ryan and Brindi brought over their huge honkin grill of awesomeness and the guys cooked meat on it. Sweet. Justin made me a cake (admire its beauty below). I wafted the candles out with a notebook so as not to spit on my cake (a pet peeve of Justin's). I'm not great with pictures so, there isn't any real evidence that people actually came to my partay except for Brindi in the corner of one pic below. People that showed (just take my word for it): Jessica, Nicole, Brindi, Ryan, Thayne, Rachel, Nicole, my Dad, Darron, LuAnne, Chris, and Carey. We played games and then around midnight we busted out the old home videos. Chris, Carey, Justin, and I stayed up until 4:00 watching that crap. Good times.

So this post is not entirely selfish here are some recent pictures of the boys. They seem to have switched attitudes. Jackson can't stop scowling and Drake is generally content to do his own thing. Look at the little guy loading a water bottle full of Crayons. He only ate one that I know of. It appears that Jackson is learning too many bad habits from his mom.

My Last Year in My 20's

Yesterday was my birthday and I decided I wanted to go to the Macaroni Grill for dinner, but I didn't want anyone to feel like they needed to pay for my dinner and I didn't want to pay for it either. So, I called and asked the manager if he would give the birthday girl a free entree if she brought in more than 10 people. To my surprise they agreed. I also had a coupon for a free appetizer. All in all it was a sweet deal for me, but the waiter refused to give me birthday cake and sing to me and I swear they put a laxative in my food. Oh well. I guess even the birthday girl can't have everything. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with me! Everyone made it in the picture below except for poor Boston who is behind my mom.

Happy Halloween!

We had a lot of fun things going on this October. First we went to Grandma Cersey's annual Halloween party. Grandma goes all out to throw the best party imaginable. There was a haunted house, pumpkin decorating, spooky gingerbread house decorating, face painting, a huge inflatable bouncing house, a doughnut eating contest, limbo, costumes and photo shoots, tasty lunch and dinner, and lots of Halloween treats. Did I forget anything? We had a blast, as usual. Thanks Grandma! Below are some pictures of the haunted house. Justin was hiding in the bathtub that was made to look like a coffin. I should have won the "eat a doughnut off a string without using your hands" contest. Justin must have cheated because I was beating him the whole time. On the Thursday before Halloween we went to Randy's Pumpkin Patch, another annual tradition. Brindi and Aiden joined us there and we took a lot of pictures.

Jackson and Drake liked roaming around and looking at all the pumpkins and decorations. Jackson and Aiden went into the bunny petting zoo, where they tortured the small creatures with there loving tight squeezes.

On Friday we went to our church's Trunk-or-Treat activity. Justin, Drake, and I were the Rubbles (Barney, Bamm-Bamm, and Betty) and the Woods were the Flintstones (Fred, Wilma, and Pebbles). Jackson was a Ninja, but he was running around with Grandma and his friends the whole time, and I am sad to say we never got a picture of him. Grandma Cersey was Cruella DeVille and Megan and Alexis were 2 of her dalmatian puppies. They won best costume for obvious reasons.

On Hallween day we ventured out to our local Publix. Why? Because they have Halloween activities for the kids of course. Jackson fell asleep on the way. He was a dinosaur this time. We met Carey, Boston, Nicole, Jonny, Maggie, Jess, Andy, Megan, and Lex there. The grocery store is a happening place on Halloween. The kids decorated cookies and pumpkins, and played bean bag and ring toss games.

I wasn't going to dress up on Halloween, but after Justin told me that I always look unhappy and angry, I decided to be happy and optimistic for Halloween. I wore a pink shirt and pearls because thats what happy people wear. I accidently broke character a few times, and when I acted the part I over did it a little and it got annoying, but it was a nice little exercise. After Publix, we went to Grandma Pearson's house and had dinner. Then we suited up again and headed out to do some good old fashioned trick-or-treating. Grandpa Pearson went out with us while Grandma stayed home to pass out candy. Jackson decided to be a Ninja again, and Drake changed into a dragon, a fitting costume I think. The dragon costume was a little small, but Drake didn't seem to mind. Drake tried to walk into a few houses at first, but he caught on fast with his big brother showing him the ropes. While we were out we bumped into Grandma and Grandpa Cersey as well as the Dollars and the Baughs, so we tagged along with them for awhile. It was a rainy cold night, so we didn't last too long, but it was fun while it lasted.

We had a great October and we hope you did too!

Earning His Keep and Bones

A few months ago Jackson got a modeling job. It was funny because we never intended to get him into modeling. I mentioned to my agent one day that I had 2 sons and she told me to send her pictures of the boys just in case any jobs came up for mothers and children. So I did, and within an hour my agent had called me back to tell me that Jackson had gotten a job! The client didn't even want me, they only wanted Jackson! The job was for a company that manufactures shirts and then sells them to retailers, so you won't be seeing him in any ads, but he worked for about an hour and got paid $440! His check came in the mail yesterday.

Now we are considering getting Jackson into more modeling/acting stuff. Luckily his mom has some connections. We are going to try and save his money for him, but unfortunately, we are struggling financially like everyone else (hence the ads on the right side of the page, go ahead and click on them, you know you want to Ryan). So we might have to borrow Jackson's money so that we can buy groceries. It's not too terrible to take your 3 year old's money, is it? I mean, he's gotta earn his keep, right?

Last week we noticed a dog on our back porch sadly staring at us through the window. Though I don't really like dogs, this one looked terribly skinny and scared, so I did what anyone with a heart would do, and I fed it. Of course the dog keeps coming back and I continue to feed him or her. He (or she) looks like an Italian greyhound, so someone probably paid good money for him. He is wearing a collar with no tag on it, so he must just be lost. He won't let us get close to him and he runs really fast, so we can't catch him. I think he has been abused, because he is terrified of people. My plan is to try and warm him up to us and then take him to the vet. We named him (or her) Bones.

Its kind of nice having a dog that requires so little attention. If only having a pet were always this easy.

The Boys

I was looking through my recent posts and much to my dismay, there is not much mention of our boys. So here is a post just for them.

You may have seen on the news that Georgia has been one of the primary targets for wet weather this past week or two. Well, luckily we have not washed away yet, but Jackson has been disappointed he hasn't been able to go outside and play much recently. So this evening we threw caution to the wind and let him go out in the rain and thunder (there was only a slight chance of electrocution by lightening). He thought it was great...for a few minutes. He jumped in puddles on the street and then ran around to the back of the house where he proceeded to jump in the pool of water that was our muddy backyard. Mud splashed allover his legs and that was when he called it quits. You can see the look of disgust on his face in the two pictures on the right. Jackson hates being dirty, most likely because his mom openly expresses how much she hates it when he gets dirty. I guess I've got to work on that, otherwise I might rob him of his boyhood.

Drake took his first few steps yesterday. Justin was getting tired of having a baby who was behind in reaching his developmental milestones, so he worked with Drake for about an hour last night. In the end Drake could take about six unsteady steps to the couch. Drake still prefers crawling today, and when we tried making him walk again it was as if last night's lesson never took place. He is still about at a six step maximum and he tries to sit down every few seconds. Hopefully he will have it down by Halloween so that he can go trick-or-treating.

As they get older we are definitely starting to see personality differences between our two boys. Drake loves to play with bats and balls and Jackson likes to play with rockets and trains. Drake screams when he doesn't get his way and Jackson asks nicely for things (when Jackson was too young to speak he would use sign language, something Drake refuses to pick up). Drake is a momma's boy and Jackson loves talking to everyone (he doesn't quite grasp the "don't talk to strangers" concept). The boys do have a few things in common though. They both like to wrestle their Dad, they love each other, and...

...at the end of a long day the both sleep like rocks, thank the heavens above. We love our crazy boys even despite the fact that their mom is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.