The McCarty Boys and Me

The weekend before last was grandparents' day at Seven Acres, the assisted living facility where my grandmother (aka Nanny) lives. We try to go every year because it is such a neat day for the residents and it is tons of fun for the kids. They have a band (a really good one actually), a petting zoo, camel rides (yes, that's how they roll at a Jewish home), snow cone machines, popcorn, candy, ice cream, etc. It was really a fun day- Jackson had a blast (despite the sugar coma afterwards) and my Nanny got to watch all of us have fun- her favorite activity. Jackson is not shy, ya'll. AT ALL. He danced on the stage with the band for at least 2 hours...he was literally sweating he danced so much. Here are some pictures of the day.

Pawpaw and Jackson on the camel. Is it just me or does Pawpaw looked a little skeeered?
Nanny and the grandbabies (minus me- taking the picture). My grandmother has 12 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
Big dorks.
Bigger dorks...Ash and Autumn.

Jackson showing off his moves. He obviously has my love of dancing and Nathan's skills (or lack thereof). That's his microphone... The petting zoo- that duck pecked Jackson's hand. There was also a baby wallaby!
Blue lips from too much snowcone eatin'! Check out these hats they gave them...cheesy, but still really cute.
My cuz, Tyler and Hudson (and my sis in the background).
Jammin' to brown-eyed girl...

Jackson and I had a little photo shoot the other day. When he was younger I couldn't even get him to look at the camera. Now he performs.


This one cracks me up! Deep Thoughts...by Jackson McCarty. "Hmmmm...I wonder if I took that blanket and draped it over my bed and propped it up using the three pillows from the living room sofa, all mom and dad's bed pillows, and the throw pillows from the playroom and then used the tape from the kitchen drawer...and then put Bella and Bea's bed inside...yep, that would make a bad-a$$ fort."

I have mentioned before how much fun our street is for the kids. Every night after dinner we go to the park or out front to let the kids play. The cul-de-sac has a lot of bigger kids (anywhere from 5-10 year old), but they are so sweet to Jackson and Gabriel and Jackson has so much fun following them around and learning from them. This street reminds me a lot of the street that I grew up on. All the kids played together- boys and girls- big kids and little kids. It was like a huge family where we felt so safe. I love that we have that here. And, even though our house is closing in around us, I think we should stay a while so that the kids will at least remember it.

Here's Logan and Mitchell playing chase with Jackson.
Jackson wrestling with Madeline and Logan.
This is Jackson and Gabriel's latest trick. They start at the top of the driveway and then coast down on their tricycles. It scares Amy and I to death, but they can't get enough. Such boys!
This is the Post-Ike effort. Fortunately, our damage was so minimal but the guys still felt the need to put some posts in to help the trees out a little. And, of course all the kids needed to help!
Poor Little Huddy. He wants to play so badly...

Well, it's been 5 days since the wrath of Hurricane Ike hit Houston and things are slowly getting back to normal. Marshall's finally opened after 5 grueling days of being closed (I was starting to experience withdraws). The grocery stores are still a little sparce and the gas stations still have long lines, but it seems like most of the people around me have electricity and the clean up has begun. Richmond seems to have faired much better than most of the area. Our house came out completely untouched and we only lost power until Sunday afternoon. Our neighborhood has some damage- fallen trees and fences, but all in all we are in great shape compared to what I am seeing on the news. For those of you who were not here...it was freaking scary, dudes. I lived here during Hurricane Alicia, but I was only 5, so I don't remember it. So, Ike was hands-down the scariest storm I have ever experienced. But, we made the best of it. Friday night we had a hurricane party at Pawpaw and Gigi's house. We even made cupcakes in honor of Ike's birthday...song, candles, the works. Then we played Wii and poker until we lost power, then in true-Schnitzer spirit, we proceeded to bitch about how much it sucked to not have A/C and lights for the rest of the weekend. Obviously, we spend several days pretty much doing nothing (but still very thankful that Ike took it easy on us). Here's some pics of our nothing-ness. Please continue to pray for all the Ike victims.
Hudson thinks his big bro is "oh so funny".
Hahahaha. This picture cracks me up. Seriously, I can't stop laughing at it. Check out his new red convertible...just like Max's!! You should see Jackson push him around the house in this thing.
Jackson and Mommy.
Gigi gave Jackson a HUGE Thomas the Train tent as a Hurricane present. We (and every single one of his toys) have spent a lot of the last few days in here. He loves it.

I don't usually use this blog as a place to rant and voice my opinion about controversial topics. The entire point of this blog is to keep our family and friends up to date on our lives. And, that will continue to be the point...right after this brief rant. This is MY blog and I will rant if I want to (just this once)...
Sarah Palin. I feel like there are a lot of women voters out there right now that think that McCain has really "done good" with his selection for VP. I think that many women voters think they are being all "revolutionary" and really making history by supporting a ticket with a female candidate. I have even heard that former Hillary supporters are now on the McCain/Palin bandwagon because they are voting for the "female candidate". Here's the problem: by voting for Palin, yes, you are voting for a woman, but you are voting for a woman that OPPOSES WOMEN'S RIGHTS. Please think about this. Palin wants you to choose her, but she she doesn't want you to have the right to choose what you do with your own body. So, if your objective in voting for McCain/Palin is to help women to take a step forward, you are doing the exact opposite. You are voting for a candidate that wants to take away a right women gained over 35 years ago. I understand if you feel that abortion is not the right choice for you...but, do you truly feel that it should be the government's choice for all women?

I FINALLY got this computer away from my mom so I could tell you guys what's really goin' on around here. I mean, mom is all about me sharing MY things, but she won't even think about sharing her stuff. Anyways, so I started school this week. As you can see I was a little skeptical at first: I even tried to tell mommy that I wasn't going. I tried to tell her that the kids were mean. I tried to say I was sick and needed to go to the hospital. But, nothing worked. And then, they had to take pictures of me as I was walking out to the car. I was really afraid my boys in the neighborhood were going to get a glimpse of this...talk about embarrassing!
But, in the end I surrendered and it ended up being a lot of fun. I will admit, I put up a fight when mom left, but then I found out that they had truck books, birds, squirrels, and a dinosaur costume and I decided to play. Now you have to understand why I was skeptical. I mean, I went last week for some "meet the teacher" thing and we are all sitting in this gym and next thing I know some old man in a white robe comes in, raises his hand and starts talking really loud about some stuff I have never heard before. So, I asked mom (at a volume that she could hear over the loud man) "Mom, what's that man doin? What's his name? What's he talkin about?" But she wouldn't answer me...just kept shhhhhing me and the other people were laughing at me! It turns out that I go to a Catholic Mother's Day Out and this was some man called Deacon blessing all us kids. All of the other kids were completely silent like they had seen this craziness before. Momma said it's because they go to church and since she is "Ah-Choo", we don't go to church. I didn't know what she was talking about, so I just said "bless you" and moved on.
My point is, this was all a little foreign to me. New place. New people. But, I actually fit in quite nicely. I even made a friend named Ruby and my teacher Mrs. Karen is soooo nice. I decided I will go ahead and go back. So, until I can steal this thing away from my mom again- LATER ALLIGATORS!

And he likes it! Hudson started rice cereal, fruit, & veggies. So far so good, but I am not sure much of it actually makes it into his tummy. Watch it, Mom. I'm about to blow!

Jackson has recently become obsessed with superheroes. He and Gabriel are constantly arguing over who will be who. Here is a recent conversation I had with Jackson:

Jackson: Hello. What's your name?
Me: Mommy.
Jackson: Nice to meet you, Mommy. My name is Superman.
Me: Hello Superman. Whatcha doin?
Jackson: Just savin' the day...

A conversation with Jackson on any given day:

Me: Jackson!! Come eat your dinner.
Jackson: (politely ignores me)
Me: JACKSON! Come eat your dinner!
Jackson: (still...silent)
Me: JACKSON!!!!!!!
Jackson: MY NAME IS NOT JACKSON, MOMMY! IT. IS. SUPERMAN.

One day I will learn...

I have a lot of updating to do, but the whole familia came down with the stomach-virus-from-hell on Monday and we are still recuperating...I have plenty of pics on my camera from the last couple of weeks, but I had to steal these pictures off of the Rocha's blog so I could appease my anxious blog-stalkers with an update. :) We went to The Stephens' house on Sunday to celebrate Max's baptism. This was the first meeting of all of the Petite Plastics! It was so much fun and of course, an excellent photo-op! Jackson would have been in the pics, but he wouldn't stay in one place for more than 2 seconds...too busy exploring and playing with Amanda's cousins. He did take plenty of time to entertain the adults with his Astros' beer man impression "Ice Cold Beeeeer". But, the babies were all very good...took a cruise in Max's convertible and you know...chilled. And, the Momma Plastics were just happy to all be together, of course. I love you girls. XOXOXO.

The Hudster. The Heartbreaker, Julianne.
Mack Daddy Max.
The Petite Plastics.