Deja deja deja vu, believe it an it will come true

Harry was looking at old pix on the computer and I happened to see this picture that I loved at the time....look familiar?

I guess galantry is just born in, eh?

And speaking of dejavu....
here they are on their second birthday...

and a few weeks ago....how time flies!

They went to their preschool's Open House yesterday and are so excited about starting school. We took two big bags of supplies, they got paired with great teachers, I signed up for a few things, they got shirts and are poring over their own Scholastic book orders. School pix are scheduled in two weeks. Can you believe it? A little sad and a whole lotta proud!

JB's Off To See The Lizard

Just let your love shine

Ray Charles, Bellamy Brothers, etc.

We're on our way to our 'official' vacation and had a chance to visit with my dear Aunt El today - she was always such a loving part of my childhood, and this is the first visit the boys have had with her in too long. She told them some jokes, everyone stocked up on hugs, and we had a really wonderful day - thanx Aunt El!

Harry sharing a great big squeeze hug
Jack gets a turn
She has these cool 'flameless' candles - they even change color
Harry playing with a new travel toy by Melissa & Doug, a company that makes awesome wooden toys and puzzle
The cool travel bingo game has four different cards. I thought it was a great idea, few lose-able parts and all....well, can you imagine what it sounds like when little boys fingers decide to slam all those tiny doors at one time?! Yikes!

And just in case you haven't had a chance, find an excuse to ride beside/between your kids some time soon! It's a lot more fun than driving ;-)

As Aunt El was getting out of the car tonite, Harry piped up 'enjoy your good nite's sleep' and as the door closed - J: Will you miss her again? Me: Yes J: Don't worry, we can come back again soon so you won't have to miss her so much. :wub:

Elvis Imitators

We made a pitstop at a restaurant with 50's themed decor and guess who graced the bathroom door? Grammy Sue, this one's for you - three of your favorite men ;-)

They had these cool car-seats and Harry was giving me a 'Jimmy" but ended up looking like a hitchhiker and Jack seems to have lost his balance somewhere on the way to cool.
They are traveling great so far, and we'll get to see some family today. A favorite blog of mine was all about family-isms today - hoping the boys get to enjoy some good ones today!

Guitar Man...and boy!

Jack wanted to learn how to play the guitar this morning, and I thought these pix captured the lesson pretty well :wub:

Walkin' In The Sand

Unbeknownst to Mrs. C, the art teacher at the red gym, we are prepping for a beach vacation. She did a summer collage project today, with footprints in paint, streamers to represent fireworks, and colored sand. The boys really loved it - they came out great but I am mid-dump on the camera and forgot to copy the closeups so you'll have to use your imagination. Here they are practicing their flipper skills and admiring their art: They were playing Buckaroo, a balancing game from Grandma S and Papa Bob, the other day - you load the horse with cowboy stuff and hope he doesn't buck it off

Jack was NOT happy when the horse got testy ;-)
And here's a picture of Harry telling his monkey from Aunt Deani that he loves him and 'will miss you today. Be a good little monkey and I'll be home soon." Awww

Family Style

Jack made up a couple of word family sentences this morning, and we introduced a few new words, so I thought I'd blog about it since I think this is the first time he's heard some of these words (I know I'm weird, just ignore or play along)

Jack: Let's do some -AT words.

Hey, RAT where'd you get that HAT? (aha moment when he realized THAT is also AT)
I got it when I SAT on the MAT.

Let's find some other words that rhyme with mouse, mouse is like rat so what rhymes with mouse?

HOUSE! (then he got stuck about the same time Dean walked in the room and I was saying 'you probably don't know these words, but DOUSE'....Dean adds in BLOUSE, GROUSE, LOUSE. I decided to stop after I came up with SOUSE and didn't want to define it ;-) )

Vaughn Brothers

Teenage Wasteland

Signs of things to come?

These are two of the first conversations I heard this morning:

Dean: You need a new shirt.
Harry: NO, I'm fine in this one.
Dean: Buddy, you're working on day three in the same shirt. You stink.
Harry: NO, I'm fine in this one.

(he changed, and I just want to assure and CPS workers out there that they usually change more frequently {blush})

Jack: Mommy, I slept GREAT! (He says this most mornings now). I like it when I sleep 14 hours! Now I have to stretch. (Maybe he'll turn into a cat before a teen?!?)

And just to remind myself that they are still itty bitty:

These are the only two pix I took today (gasp!) Maybe I needed a visual reminder....sniff

Happy Birthday To You (Eddie 8/22)

Their friend Eddie invited them to help celebrate his 3rd birthday yesterday, and fabulous fun was had by all. Seriously, it was a great mix of adults and kids, new friends and old, and we all left fat and happy! Thanx for all the great games and eats, Colleen!

The boys playing Pin The Tail On The Donkey and Harry checking out his prize kaleidoscope

And tho it's not a great pic, I think it captures the blur of the pinata break moment - Harry was actually the one to pull THE string :-)

Thanx again for all the fun - Enjoy the 3's Eddie!

Rag Top Day

We went into town for a little, er big, Sunday breakfast and a few errands. Here are the two wild ones looking like no one we know...are those game faces or are they just sick of posing? Poor sweet boys!

Does Jack remind you a little of Violet Beauregarde in this picture? Again, it didn't look like that IRL, but he seems to either be on the verge of turning into a blueberry or getting very sick. He LOVES these blueberry pancakes, but man, are they huuuuggge?! This is AFTER he'd eaten about half the order {big goggle eyes}

Harry got his first bee sting this morning, so I'm giving him a little latitude on the attitude, but yikes! Happily, they are both sleeping, so let's see what wonders sleep can bring.

Dean just called after his first soccer coach's meeting, and it's not what we were anticipating; there are only 6 kids on a team, 3 play at a time, and we already had to cancel the first game because of our vacation :-( Hopefully it will all work out in the end!

Happy week!

I Don't Wanna Work (Spin Cycle)

Todd Rundgren song

A blogger friend, Jen, is trying a fun new weekly project that you can learn about here: http://www.spriteskeeper.com/my_weblog/2008/08/im-going-somewhere-with-this.html. Her first topic is "Work" so I figured I would try to add some words to the usual pix and music. Give it a try if you'd like - if you aren't comfortable posting your information to her blog, just send it to me and I'll pass it along :-)

I worked, pre-HJ, as a school psychologist - 9 years in public schools doing primarily special education testing, a lot of presentations, and a few direct interventions. Then I moved to Richmond and had a little more latitude while working with a private practice then on my own for a couple of years - still testing but a lot more educational interventions, assisting with test standardization and some other fun things. It was a lot of fun, a lot of drudgery and a lot of reward. When I was in grad school, I thought it would be a great career for having a family and it has been. I've done a very little bit of contract testing recently, and I am really lucky to have a lot of flexibilty and lots of school systems who are understaffed.

Enter HJ: regardless of where you fall on the work/SAHM issue, parenting is a lot of work with fringe benefits that cannot be touched by any other employer, IMHO. I've been lucky enough to have a husband who looks at this as a partnership and values all the work that gets done while he's out earning a paycheck. I'm about to enter a new phase as they head to preschool 3 mornings a week. It's all been pretty amazing so far, with a lot less drudge than many of you face. Hats off to those who have it tougher and big thanx to my DH and sweet boys for making this job such a joy and privilege.

Here are a few pix of 'work' at our house over the years:

First Presentation - Labor Day March 2004

Recent Update (they are on the same sides as in the Labor Day pic)

Sleeping on the job? Dean with Harry circa summer 2004


First Art Project - making a fingerprint shirt for Daddy at 3 months


Daddy's handiwork - first Halloween saw the launch of the SS HarryJack with two cute pirates

Housework - Harry and the sweeper at age 3
Jack's Art Work Presentation - Winter 2008

Some favorite work songs and lyrics:

Alan Jackson's Work In Progress

Beatles' We Can Work It Out

Brad Paisley's Easy Money

Billie Holiday's Nice Work If You Can Get It

Garth Brooks' Two Of A Kind, Workin' On A Full House

Kenny Chesney/George Strait's Shift Work

We Can Work It Out

Let's Work Together

Chris LeDoux's Workin' Man's Dollar

Huey Lewis' Workin' For A Livin'

Jimmy Buffett/Toby Keith's A Piece O' Work

Dolly Parton's Make Love Work

Bob Marley's Work

Ray Charles' I'll Do Anything But Work

Seven Dwarves' Whistle While You Work

don't we have fun every minute

Randy Newman song Tickle

We ran across this adorable book at the library the other day, and I thought I'd share it since soccer is just around the corner. There is a whole series of these racoon best friends - this one is about them learning about competition while they play on different teams.
Well, now that we realize that they aren't on the same team with their friend, Zach (whose team got the ringer, Julia, btw) this may be even more meaningful. It's a cute series for those of you with boys (or any who like racoons, I guess)

Don't Rock The Jukebox

Dinner was at one of our favorite restaurants - it's all decked out in 50's style and they treat the boys like they are princes every time we visit. Here they are picking tunes with Dean

bellied up to the bar

and watching the rocking Elvis lamp

Alan Jackson

Calmly running wild

It was a really nice day today - the boys have been in a good zone lately....sleep? maturity? who cares! I just like it a LOT!

We had fun with friends at the Y, at a neighbor's, then got to play all afternoon with Daddy! Here they are goofing around in Target...um, how did they get so big?!


I'm not sure where the love of helmets started, but they are pretty crazy for baseball, bike, skateboard, or any other type of helmet. Yeah, I did not mention boxing - denial?

Joe Jackson's Friday

And they were swangin'

ugh, I hate that song, but it sort of fit ;-)

We were invited to a playdate at our neighbor's house as a Back to School celebration. It was a lot of fun to see everyone, and the day couldn't have been more beautiful. Thanx for the hospitality, Missy, and the fun with all you fun mommies and kids!

Carol got a great arm workout pushing all these sweet boys

and my two are peaking over the balcony (Harry) and out the door (Jack)


Enjoy the rest of the summer, and we'll see you all soon!

Time Well Wasted

Today is a lazy day at our house. Admittedly, I'm being opting out of any challenging mental work based on the near meltdown when I couldn't figure out how to make the little zipper thingie work on a baggie - maybe I took the wrong allergy medicine?

I did get a few papers moved from a stack into the trash or files, then I walked back into the living room to find two cuties playing a favorite treasure hunt game, Caribou, given to them by my cousins Mike and Cathy.


Another load of laundry and I found Jack sleeping (or pretending) to sleep under his lacrosse stick - we picked up these little cheapies just for fun, but he's actually fairly interested in it and sort of 'got' the basics Dean showed him the other day. Um, we're not the prep school type, so I'm wondering if lacrosse has made it into public schools yet...

Baby's Gone Shopping (a fav JB song) may have a new meaning ;-) Can you believe those eyelashes? That really would be a crime if he didn't put them to such good use flirting with the ladies!


Happy Thursday!

Brad Paisley

Tick Tock

We had a LONG day and they were really pretty amazing thru it all, tho I'm not as patient as I should be today because the allergies are squeezing my head in a vice..ugh. We spent over 3 hours at the car dealership getting a recall fixed - luckily they do have a decent little playroom, and here are my two sillies pretending to sleep....who says it's only women who have biological clocks? ;-)

After they found this little clock (you can see Jack playing with it) they went thru our entire day by the hour. Hey, it wasted a few of those many minutes!

Vaughn Brothers

X-Ray Eyes

We're working on breaking thumb-sucking at our house, and it appears that I DID grow eyes in the back of my head during their delivery LOL. Several times recently Jack has asked me how I can see he's doing something he's not supposed to be 'if you don't even use your eyes' ... ah, the powers of The Mommy!

These are old pix from May that just made me laugh - they are so silly!

Happy Wednesday!

(my eyes are raging with allergies again - argh)

Bee Gees song

Treat her like a lady

We had the pleasure of playing and dining with two of our favorite ladies tonite, and the boys got to practice a little courtly behavior LOL. Although Kaylee doesn't look like she's enjoying in this picture, I really think she did.

Harry kissing her hand and Jack 'petting' her hair

The boys posing as a treat for Daddy (can you hear the ILoveYous?)

Harry reading with Kaylee - she had an ongoing story that was adorable

At one, she is definitely not afraid to dive right in with the big boys - this was a dessert named "Cookie Monster"

Sweet mommy moment - Amber reading with Kaylee

Thanx, Friends - it was a lot of fun!