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A Month of First

This has been a month of first at our house. The pictures below will detail some of the "first" and other things that have been going on with our family. Enjoy!

This isn't a first. It's just a cute picture because Cole is going through this phase that he never wants to wear a shirt. Also, can you see Titus' eyes at the bottom of the picture?

This is typical Titus. He is so determined. Though I don't have a picture yet, he is walking now. Before he was walking, we found him on the kitchen table sitting, on the train table sitting, on top of the couch reaching for the cord for the blinds, and many other places he shouldn't have been. He looks innocent, but he is into everything.

This is Titus' first choke...well actually I doubt it is. Another pasttime for us is making sure the boys don't hurt each other or drive each other nuts. Titus gets into all of Cole's toys and Cole in response carries on the Johnson boy tradition of corporal punishment.

Titus' first chair and so Cole got his new one.
You notice, my boys don't sit...they lounge.

First Oreo.

And my favorite...first buzz cut.

I have wanted to buzz Cole's hair all summer because it's so thick but Mary has wanted to wait because she needed to get his three year pictures and Titus' one year pictures that included some with Cole. Once those were done, I had permission to do it. Though I had permission, I didn't set out to buzz his hair. I was going to just try and cut it short using scissors. It was going amazing until I got cocky and made one cut that took a chunk right out of the top right side of his hair. It was too obvious to cover-up so I went to me back up plan...the buzz.

When I got done doing it, I wasn't sure how he would react. I lifted him up so he could see in the mirror, and he just blanky stared...then he let out a big laugh and said, "It's just like Elijah's hair!" (That's one of his friends that has a buzz) So, it is all good. I love it though it makes him look older.

In lue of Uncle Scotts Date video

I made this one for Sepporah. 

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/owner/F06yQumqu9m5fH9l#/view/F06yQumqu9m5fH9l

Happy Birthday to Richard Scott, the funniest Thompson in all of Thompsonville!

Jessicas Birthday

Everyone that knows me knows that this is my favoriate time of year, and going to Grandmas for Thanksgiving is the highlight of my year. Well, this years Thanksgiving will have even more meaning to me and bring an even bigger smile to my face. One year ago this coming Thanksgiving is when I met Jessica. Our first date was the day I came home from Grandmas house. I picked her up from her house on the way home and we have been together ever since. 

Today is Jessicas Birthday. She turns 30. But today is even a bigger they than just a birthday. Every one knows that Jessica has cystic fybrosis and when she was born, doctors said she would not live past the age 18.....well 12 years after that, here she is. Words cannot express the joy and happiness that Jessica has brought me and Sepporah. For four years (because of my divorce) it was just me and Sepporah. But adding Jessica into my crazy world, has brought much stability to me and Sepporah and has made my house feel like a home. I could not have asked for a better person in my life to help me raise Sepporah. She loves Jessica to death and Jessica treats her like her own. 

One of the best memories I have of Jessica, and it may not seem like much to the average person, but Jessica, Sepporah, and I went out to Buffalo Wild Wings one Sunday after church to eat. Sepporah had to go to the bathroom, and for all those years I had to always take her. She always wanted to go to the ladies room, but I couldnt take her in there cause I'm a dude so we always had to go into the mens room. Well when Sepporah had to go to the bathroom, Jessica jumped up and took her. All the girls I had dated up to that point, had nevered offered to take Sepporah and always treated Sepporah as if she was mine and didnt want anything to do with her. So when Jessica jumped up and took her, Sepporah was happy and I knew that Jessica was the one I had been waiting for. 

I love you very much Jessica. You mean the world to both me and Sepporah and I thank God everyday that He brought us together. Have a great birthday!! We both love you :)

My Birthday Cake

Jessica is going to be mad at me for posting this, but I have to. Its my birthday cake she made for me...the way birthday is put on there is what is so funny. The cake itself was a mexican wedding cake which I ate all of it in about a day. I love you Jess.

3rd Annual Softball Tourney

Every year I go down to Ohio to play in a big christian softball tournement with Matt. I have a lot of fun going down for this tournement cause it allows me to spend the day with Matt and play softball together again. Matt and I used to play all the time for our church when Matt was still here. Once Matt moved I really missed playing with him and playing in this all day tourney allows us to play together again. We always do well, but havent won yet. Hopefully next year. We lost in the semifinals this year. On a side note.....one of best things about plahying with Matt again, is the amount of sarcasm used throughout the day at the expense of the players we play against (dont worry....they cant hear us). Im sorry grandma....but its true.....take the amount of sarcasm me and Matt use on this blog and multiply it by 1000.... its only once a year though so I dont feel bad, cause it is so worth it :)

Gaddfly on a Wall

This is Steve Gadd, who is producing and drumming on the sessions I'm working on. My job involves sitting about 6 feet from him and the rest of the band while they play all day.

It's Time to Lie

It's Matt here and I want to try something new with my part of the blog. I would like to have some friendly competition while getting to know each other. I am going to have different games between now and Thanksgiving and then at Grandpa and Grandma's house we will give out prizes for the winners.

In each of the games I will need all of your help. First, I will be sending you emails to get the necessary information for the games (so I need you to respond). Second, I will need each of you to actually play the games!

I need a few emails:

Uncle Mark
Aunt Karen
Emily
Nathan
Sarah

If you have any of these, please send them to me.

The first game that I will be emailing you all about is called, "Two Truths and a Lie." The object of the game is to come up with two truths about yourself that either people don't commonly know or are extreme. Then you come up with one lie. Once I have everyone's entries, I will post them and we will all try to guess what the lie is. It's a great way to get to know stuff about people. Start thinking now about what truths you will reveal and what your lie will be (yes Uncle Steve I realize that this is "Pastor Matt" getting people to lie) I hope you're all game to play!

Phyllis Johnson Comes Clean

Describe your hairstyle in two words or less.

Geriatric VictoriaBeckem

What is your favorite song?

“His Eye is On the Sparrow”

What is the last thing that totally blew your mind.

How much I loved my boys. I never knew love could be that deep.

How's your love life?

Very, very full! I love lots of wonderful family and friends.

If there's one dessert you could eat until it hurts, what would it be?
Mary Johnson’s cream puffs….and I have eaten them till it hurts! As Daniel so wisely pointed out one day, “Mom your fat cells are always waiting to plumped back up.”

When is your bedtime?

This one is easy. Everyone in my life knows if they call past 9:00__ it better involve an ambulance.

Einstein said: "A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin. What else does a man need to be happy?" Customize this quote to fit yourself.

“A table with my boys and their loves around it, a chair where I can hold a grandchild, a bowl of hair-bleach, and money from the sale of a great Violin on E-Bay…what else would a this lady need?”

What is your most under appreciated attribute?

My calmness in crisis, my ability to diagnose people, and my wealth of useless information are equally unappreciated.

If you could have any pet, what would it be?

Long haired female Chihuahua named Maude.

How much can you bench press?

I birthed Daniel Johnson.

Quick, how old are Betty and Leroy Thompson?
In light of the fact they were designed for eternity___ pretty young!!

And what are they really doing with all that free time?
Dad is turning up the thermostat. Mom is either clicking on the blog or tormenting truckers (where there is construction on the highway and it is down to one lane), by going exactly the speed limit in front of them.

Will you announce your candidacy this year?

If only I had realized, in time, that the United States needs__ an “Original Maverick”!

My little grease monkey

This weekend I(chris) had to fix the breaks on both mine and Kirstens cars, and change the oil in both of my cars. I was just planning on doing this alone, but once Sepporah saw what I was doing, she immediatley had to be involved. So she came out at first just to sit and watch. But if you know my daughter, sitting and watching is not what she does. You see, Sepporah is like Yoda from the star wars movies. She has to get into everything. So just fixing the breaks and changing the oil became fixing the breaks, changing the oil, and making sure Sepporah didnt destroy anything and lose any of my tools.

At one point during the whole process, Sepporah said to me:

"Dad, look at me"

I turned to see my daughter with my mechanics gloves on, waving her hands in front of her saying in her deepest voice "Im Chris Johnson, I work on cars."

This has been a new thing with her. She did it the other day when I was giving a pitching lesson too. She put my hat and sunglasses on and started saying " Im Chris Johnson. I give pitching lessons." 

I laugh pretty hard when she does it, and it makes me so proud that she got my sarcastic sense of humor. Anyways, I wished I had my camera yesterday, cause when it came time to change the oil, Sepporah got underneath the car with me and helped me out by handing me tools and playing with the oil. Dont worry mom and grandma, i made sure the car was on jacks and still had the floor jack underneath it in case anything happend. So you can both start breathing again now. 

After it was all done, sepporah was dirty from head to toe, but so happy. She had helped her daddy change the oil and redo the breaks. Its moments like that, that I will cherish forever. Sepporah loves to help me and takes an interest in everything I do. 

Scott's Date

THIS is what Scott did on his date with Amy last night.

Today is Nathan's Birthday

And my man is 21! Happy Birthday Nathan.

New York Update

Yes, Grandma, I am really in New York. I'm in a studio that is in the heart of Time Square. It's bizarre. Lots of walking. I'm bone tired from the long hours and walking, but I'm having a good time and watching some of the best musicians on the planet (Steve Gadd, Andy Fairweather-Lowe, and Pino Paladino) make music. Exciting.

Daniel

A-Rock-a O-rama

Thought I would post this story. It's the full conversation Claire and I had about politics a few weeks ago:


Today I picked up Claire from her third day of Kindergarten and tried to make small talk. It's like pulling teeth to get any details out of that girl. "How was your day?" "Good?" "Yeah? What did you guys learn?" "About butterflies." "Butterflies? Cool. What about them?" "Just butterflies."

After this went on for a few minutes and dead-ended in silence I turned the radio on for more Obamathon. I don't know why but I still assume that things like news radio are not being picked up on Claire's little anttena. But a few minutes in she announced: "My mama is voting for a-rock-a-o-bama."

"Oh, that's cool. It's actually pronounced BA-rack Obama."

"A-rock-a-o-bama."

"No, BA-rack Obama."

"A-rock-a-o-bama."

"Nevermind. So who are you voting for?"

"I'm not voting for anybody. I'm not old enough. But if I could, I would vote for a-rock-a-o-bama."

"Why? Because your mom is?"

"Yep."

"Is your mom right about everything?"

"Yep."

"More right than me?"

[enthusiastically] "Yep!"

"Fair enough."

[silence]

Claire: "That old guy only cares about rich people."

"That old guy's name is John McCain."

"I know that."

"Why do you call him 'that old guy?'"

"Because he's old."

"True. Well, would you vote for him if he was Santa Claus?"

"But he's not."

"He could be Santa. Nobody knows who Santa really is."

"He's not Santa Claus. He has short hair and no beard."

"Yeah, well, what if he is. I mean, Santa only has to do that job for about a week a year. He could grow his beard around Christmas and cut it the rest of the year. And besides, he's magic."

[she thinks]

Me: "Would you vote for McCain if he was Santa Claus?"

"No."

"Santa Claus! You wouldn't vote for Santa Claus?! After eveything he's done for you?!"

"Nope."

NYC

Just so everybody knows, I'm leaving tonight for New York for a few weeks. I'll be assisting an engineer friend of mine recording a record. I should be able to do updates to the blog, but it'll make it a whole lot easier if you guys can give me stuff to post.

That is, of course, if you all enjoy reading this thing...

... and I know you do.

In case anybody missed this, Stephen posted this in the comments section over the weekend in response to something Phyllis wrote:

When will Steve resume art shows?
Hopefully next year. I am painting again.

Did Kristen move back home
Moving in today--pray for us all. She and Karen are really good friends when not living together.

and how are all the dogs adjusting?
Noisily! The Zoo is overflowing. And the girls are not getting along. The tension is driving us boys nuts. Now add Kristen into the house...

Did Nathan ease back into school?
Ease in? He charged back in. We rarely hear from him--he is in his element at school. He loves it.

What exciting thing is Karen up to with her many interests?
She is consumed with our house right now. I moved furniture yesterday. Not sure why but I just know to do it or I will never get to watch football. Luckily I can get out of real heavy lifting--another benefit of surgery.

Phyllis's Procedure

In keeping with our cancer theme this month on Thompson Madness, I thought everybody should know that my mom had a procedure done today. She just called me after it and seemed fine, although I could tell she was flying high on painkillers (the distinction between my mom high and my mom normal is a thin one, but her sons can tell...).

She said that it will be a few weeks before the biopsy results are in. Here is what she told me earlier in the week:

I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago, and he saw something in my mouth he wanted me to go see an oral surgeon about. I went today and the surgeon said that I have a lesion on my hard palate that could be either cancer or an autoimmune disease. He told me to make an appointment as soon as possible to have it taken out and biopsied. I am having it done this Friday afternoon [Today].

He said a disease I have never heard of [Necrotizing Sialometaplasia] and I was sort of in shock and didn't ask to many questions. When I got home and googled .hard palate white lesions , I really couldn't find anything about autoimmune disease. So...I won't really know anything until the biopsy comes back, but just didn't want you guys to hear it through the grapevine.

Thompson Madness: The Next Level

Some of you may have noticed that recent posts have been labeled: Posted By Chris Johnson at the bottom. That's because I authorized Chris to post to the blog - and by authorized, I mean I entered his email address in a little box that says he has permission.

This is kind of how I intended the blog to be when I started it. I've never heard of anybody doing a family blog before, but I imagined that once I got everybody used to what kind of content could be on it, and got everybody reading, that I would turn the reins over to everybody to post their own stuff. Until now I've been posting it just to make things simpler.

So... anybody who wants to do their own posting, please let me know and I'll get you set up. It is really, really simple to do. However, I understand that what is simple to me may seem tricky to others (I'm thinking of the effort it took to teach some of you how to sign your names to your comments), and I'm more than happy to keep doing the posting for anybody who wants to just email me files. But long-term, this thing would be a lot cooler if more people got involved posting themselves.

Daniel

Possible Thompson Family Vacation

My immediate family had talked about next summer going to Tennessee and spending a week down there. I was looking for cabins to stay in and came accross this company. After thinking about it, I thought that maybe it would be a great thing for our whole family to get together besides only on Thanksgiving. I know this companies cabins seem really expensive, but they are 7-8 bedrooms and if everyone went we could do it for a low price. I think if we do it as a one time thing, or maybe annually, we should do it in a really nice place. Anyways, tell me what you think and your suggestions besides " I would love to do it!" We need suggestions and have a year to plan it all out if we agree on doing it. Here is the website I found    http://www.sugarmaplecabins.com/ 

I will also post some pics of the cabin. LETS DO IT!!

Tickled

I was going through my pictures and videos and found this old video of Sepporah. She loves to be tickled by me and "tortured" by me ( and by tortured I mean tickled). After laughing very hard, she will tell me to stop and then tell me to start tickling her again. Anyways, this video is about 3 years old. Enjoy! I have found others that I will post later.

           

 

The Bear

My little Claire Bear finally takes a turn at the Thompson Questionnaire, marking the last of the little ones to appear. You know that that means... old people next.

CLAIRE



Describe your hairstyle in two words or less.
Princess perfect

What is your favorite song?

I like making up my own songs. I just like to sing really, all of the time.

What is the last thing that totally blew your mind.
The way the street lights looked last night in the dark and the rain, coming home from that PTA meeting.

How's your love life?
Perfect. I love life.

If there's one dessert you could eat until it hurts, what would it be?
It's not really a dessert, but chocolate milk is like crack to me. I can't get enough.

When is your bedtime?
9 p.m., or shortly thereafter, depending on how many stall tactics I can pull off.

Einstein said: "A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin. What else does a man need to be happy?" Customize this quote to fit yourself.
My pets, my family and a bottomless glass of chocolate milk. What else does a girl need to be happy?

What is your most under appreciated attribute?
My karate skillz.

What is your pet's name?
Tobias, Lucy, Tiara, Juliette and Josey (Olive and Keith, R.I.P.)

How much can you bench press?
Let me put it this way. Think of my dad and his arms and his lack of strength. Now imagine if he were a five-year-old girl... The answer is zero.

Quick, how old are Betty and Leroy Thompson?
Probably old enough that they've stopped counting.

And what are they really doing with all that free time?
Thinking of me?

Will you announce your candidacy this year?
Barack-a Obama is awesome, mama says. John McCain only wants to help rich people.

Who told you that?
Mama.

But McCain put a woman on his ticket. Aren't you a feminist?
I'm still voting for Obama.

You're not old enough to vote.
Oh, right. Hee hee.

Eye of the Tiger

Kirsten and I playing shuffleboard. And not messing around. Not for a second!

Stand up to Cancer

Stephen posts:

Please, if you can, watch tonight's show, 'Stand Up To Cancer'.

http://su2c.standup2cancer.org/theshow

We need some radical new ideas and approaches to stamp out cancer once and for all. The big business of cancer isn't working. Our family has been afflicted far too much already and we must find ways to prevent our children from becoming victims. This is a movement to jump start finding new approaches, new detection methods, new treatments, etc.

Thanks,

Stephen

My Fathers Day Present

Chris posts:

Robin made me this video for this year's fathers day. It is the best present I have ever recieved. The first time I watched it with Sepporah I cried pretty hard. She just looked at me and was wondering why I was crying. Its hard to explain to a 5 year old how loving someone so much can make you a happy sad. I wanted to share it with you all since I love Sepporah so much and because she started school this week. I still get choked up every time I watch it.

Guess Who?

This one is more of a challenge.

Sepporah's First Day of School

Chris posts:

Here are some pictures of Sepporah's first day of school. She had a great day and loves school. We had no problem leaving her in her class cause she was already making friends and doing work. The first picture is of us outside the school. The second pic is of Sepporah inside the class behaving. After school we took Sepporah to go get some ice cream from Cold Stone and were being goofy. It was a great day but a happy sad one at the same time. Sepporah is growing up so fast. Just seems like yesterday I was holding her for the first time. Like Dan did, here are some pics of Sepporah and Claire from the beginning..