my writer's strike is over

finally. 2008 has hit us hard with lots of fluin' around here. i'll try to update here and there not to hit you too hard with some crazy blogin'. seems like that's how i operate - 5th gear or 1st gear. it would be nice to be at a steady 3rd gear. i'll try it.

here's mimi with her angels [cheesy, i know but seriously mimi considers this close to heaven]. i was sick this day and didn't have energy to do anything. mimi and papa came over to watch the kiddos while i slept or crawled out of bed to do things. i felt pretty helpless. jackson got sick this day also. mimi loves this. this is a rare picture because jackson isn't pushing or kicking annie away and annie isn't screaming at jackson to "leave me alone" or "go away".
annie talks up a storm now. it's amazing what she likes to say. i was laying with her one night and she got out of bed and said, "be back, k?". oh..that's another update. the beginning of 2008 brought annie to our room late at night after she figured out how to scale her baby bed to pay us a visit. this led to about 5 sleepless nights [which probably led to the flu]. finally we converted her bed for safety and "lock" her in her room at night. we never had to deal with this with jackson. they are beginning to be very different. our "perfecta" as we endearingly called annie has become less perfecta lately. she doesn't sleep from 8pm to 8am anymore. she's up at 6am some mornings and she likes to fuss when going to bed nowadays. jack used to comment on how easy annie was to put to sleep...used to. as crazy active as jackson was he never climbed out of his crib. i think it's because he made a mental list of pros & cons while lying in bed and decided just to stay put. i'm now looking for a bed to match jackson's. just our luck the month annie decided to go to a "big girl" bed is the same month bombay shut down - that's where jackson's bed is from. oh well...i need to get over the fact that they aren't going to have matching beds.

here they are trying on their triple c ranch hat - making robin and gary proud. annie likes to dress up in anything. jackson likes to do what annie is doing just to make her mad. annie likes to color on anything with markers, put on mommy's shoes [jackson lets annie have this hobby], work in her kitchen that she got for christmas [christmas update coming soon] and carry around purses. jackson is liking puzzles, reading, irritating or teasing annie, doing "grown up" things with us [cooking, etc], and trying to think of clever ways to watch tv [maybe that's why he's been sick for over a week now]
here's annie smiling for the camera. she's never still so this is one rare shot.