Tag! We're it.

Ok, both of my kids have been tagged and I have been a very neglectful mother and blogger in not responding. Thanks to my friends Krista and Natalie for the tags. This is a difficult thing for me in a couple of ways. Shannon was born before the digital era, so all little baby pics of her are in a box somewhere in my closet. With Ben, our digital was stolen when he was about 6 weeks old, so there is a big gap with him as far as pics go (come to think of it, I have no idea where Ben's tiny baby pics are either.) But I'll do my best. I'll combine both my kiddos and abbreviate..bending the rules just a bit.

Shannon Grace

Kind of a funny story...JT and I had decided to take a little day trip to Tucson way back when. We were driving around and passed a street named Shannon St. JT noticed the street and remarked that he'd always thought that was a beautiful name. "Shannon is such a pretty name. Let's name our daughter that someday." Blissfully unaware that I was actually pregnant with that little daughter, I said "Sure honey, that'd be great, maybe someday." and there ya go...Shannon's her name. I picked Grace as a reminder of God's wonderful gift of His grace to us.

Benjamin David Jackson

JT had a brother named Benjamin. He passed away when he was about a week old. We thought it would be a nice way to remember him. We couldn't really decide between a middle name so we just went with both of them. David is after JT's closest friend, and Jackson is the city where I was born.

Some great things about Shannon:
Shannon approaches life with great enthusiasm and passion. Every thing is a big thing for Shannon.

She has a great imagination especially in the shower or in front of a mirror. She does "commercials" for her shampoo in the shower. I totally did that when I was a kid too.

She's very articulate. She loves to use big words even though she doesn't quite know how to use those words. She inserts the word necessarily into many of her sentences. "Mom, I necessarily would like to go play at my friends house today" or "Necessarily, I can't find my shoes."

Shannon is friendly and outgoing. She'll strike a conversation with anyone. She told me the other day that she prefers adults to children as friends. She's quite the evangelist too. She tells her school friends about Jesus and notices that a lot of her classmates don't know who Jesus is.

Shannon is a great big sister. She looks out for her little brother, looks forward to playing with him, and helps him with whatever he needs.

Shannon is a wonderful helper. Now, I have to admit that we planned that a little bit with having the kids 5 1/2 years apart. I know my limits and having two little ones in diapers is just not doable for me...props to all of you who can do it. She helps me so much; I'm so grateful for her helpful spirit.

Some great things about Benjamin:
Benjamin is my little man. He wants to be anywhere that I am.

He too is articulate and developed in his speech pretty early. He has an amazing knack to memorize movie dialogue (could it be that he watches too many movies, that's quite possible.) He's now taken to calling me Mamacita. Thank you, Alvin and the Chipmunks Movie. (Mini-movie review: Not that I expected a whole lot, but it's totally obnoxious, Jason Lee's performance is painfully bad, and I had to endure oo-ee-oo-ah-ah -- bing bang walla bing bang way too many times) Ha! Now it's in your head.

I love the way he says some words. He does a prat fall and let's out a cry..."Ben, are you ok?" "I ok mom, I just pretendering." And for some reason, he thought ice cream was pronounced @ss cream. Thankfully, we've moved on from that one.

He is a great little brother who looks out for his sister. He loves her so much. Whenever we go anywhere, he wants to make sure that Shannon is coming too. He'll miss her a lot when school starts.

A couple more things I love about my kiddos:


Ben inherited daddy's hairline.


Shannon always watches me to see if I'm watching her.


When I look at them, I see JT and I. I revel in how much we love each other.
We are so blessed by God.