Jamie Lynn Spears Has a Baby Girl

The following italicized article is from www.people.com:

There is a new baby in the Spears clan! Jamie Lynn Spears and her fiancé Casey Aldridge welcomed a baby girl Thursday morning.

PEOPLE confirms exclusively that the baby was named Maddie Briann.

"Just the family was there," says a source about the birth around 9:30 a.m. at a hospital in Mississippi, near her Louisiana hometown. "Everyone is healthy and happy."

Jamie Lynn's sister Britney, father Jamie and brother Bryan flew in Wednesday to be with her for the birth; her mother Lynne had been with her helping her get ready for the baby.

Since announcing her pregnancy in December, Britney’s little sister has retreated from the bright lights of Hollywood, opting for the comforts of her hometown of Kentwood, La.

With her Nickelodeon show Zoey 101 already ended, Jamie Lynn went home to prepare for the birth of her baby. The actress, 17, and Aldridge, 19, got engaged in March. Recently, the couple purchased a three-bedroom home in Liberty, Miss., where Aldridge went to high school.

Over the last few months, Spears has kept busy by passing her GED exam, preparing the nursery and attending multiple baby showers.

Jamie Lynn's Zoey 101 costar, Erin Sanders, told PEOPLE earlier this year that the actress will be a fun mother.

"She is just a very good-hearted and warm person," he said. "We would always hang out on the set and she is a lot of fun, so I think she's going to be an easygoing, fun mom."

Source: People

World Exclusive: Inside Jamie Lynn's Baby Shower!

The following italicized article is from www.ok-magazine.com:

With Britney Spears embroiled in a seemingly neverending custody battle and 17-year-old sis Jamie Lynn Spears expecting her first child very soon, it's hard to imagine a family under more scrutiny these days than the Spears clan.

But in spite of all the outside pressure on them, it was nothing but good times for the Spears sisters when they reunited on May 2 for the Zoey 101 star's wedding shower.

"It was wonderful to be able to spend time with her and just be girls again," Jamie Lynn told OK! in an exclusive interview about seeing her sister for the first time in months. "We painted our nails and did stupid stuff."

Even better, explains Jamie Lynn, was that she was able to have some one-on-one time with Brit: "To be able to be in the privacy of our own home and just be sisters again was wonderful."

Mother-of-two Britney even shared some words of wisdom with her pregnant sibling. "She told me, 'There are going to be some long nights, but it is completely worth it,'" Jamie Lynn recalls to OK!.

As for whether or not the pop superstar will make it back home to Louisiana when Jamie Lynn has the baby, the teen star tells OK!, "Nothing is set in stone, but that would be wonderful.

I'd love to have her here for that, but you can't plan that far ahead.

"Even if Brit isn't there in person for her younger sister, the two are in almost-constant contact, says Jamie Lynn.

For the complete interview and all the exclusive photos and details from baby shower, be sure to pick up the new issue of OK! — on sale everywhere Thursday.

Source: OK Magazine

Yes, Mother, Britney Can Still Draw a Crowd

The following italicized article is from www.eonline.com:

Britney Spears gawking lives.

Spears' guest appearance on Monday's How I Met Your Mother helped boost the sitcom by 1 million viewers, Nielsen Media Research stats show.

The CBS show averaged a season-high 10.7 million viewers, up from last week's 9.7 million.

It was the most-watched prime-time Spears moment of the Spears family's especially tumultuous last six months. It topped Britney Spears' sleepwalking routine at the MTV Video Music Awards (7.1 million). And it topped the first new Zoey 101 (7.3 million) to air in the wake of teenager Jamie Lynn Spears' announcement that she was pregnant.

How I Met Your Mother was Britney Spears' first gig since the MTV debacle gave way to months of personal, but not terribly private, drama. On it, she plays a sensitive secretary at a dermatologist's office visited by Josh Radnor's Ted. She appears about, rough estimate, 1,000 percent more engaged than she did at the Video Music Awards.

Spears curiosity factor or no, How I Met Your Mother remained an also-ran on Monday.

Source: E! Online

Jamie Lynn is College-Bound

The following italicized article is taken from www.ok-magazine.com:

Now that Jamie Lynn Spears is a proud high-school graduate, friends of the mom-to-be tell OK! that little sis of Britney Spears is now exploring the idea of going to college.

"She's probably going to start with courses at a local school," explains the friend, "with the idea of going to a major university in the future." The 16-year-old's top choice of schools is currently Southeastern Louisiana University, which is only about an hour's drive from Liberty, Mississippi, the hometown of Jamie Lynn's boyfriend Casey Aldridge.

And while Jamie Lynn and Casey are still very much a couple, rumors of them getting hitched anytime soon are "completely untrue," the friend tells OK!. "Right now it's all about the baby. That's where Jamie Lynn's focus is. Everything else will be decided on down the line."

That "everything else" includes Jamie Lynn's career. The Zoey 101 star is putting motherhood first and will take her time seeing where her career fits in. "I don't think anyone knows exactly what she's going to do," the source says, "but it may be a few years before she comes back to Hollywood, if at all. She's a very grown-up 16 and is going to take her time in making the smartest decisions for herself and her baby."

Source: OK Magazine

Jamie Lynn Spears Passes Her GED Exam

The following italicized article is taken from www.people.com:

Out of the spotlight after revealing her pregnancy, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is moving ahead with her life, passing her GED and thinking about college, a family friend tells PEOPLE.

The Zoey 101 star passed her high school equivalency exam about a month ago – scoring particularly well on reading comprehension – and is looking to take the ACT college entrance test, the friend says.

"She's already got her diploma," according to the friend. "She wants to take her ACT. She's not wasting any time. People don't know her. When she gets something in her head, she'll make it happen. Everybody is so supportive of her.

"Last month, Britney's younger sister was photographed in Hammond, La., carrying a GED book. She was accompanied by her mom Lynne outside a building that houses both the Tangipahoa Parish School System Adult Education Center, which is a GED preparation site, and the Title I Parent Center, which teaches parents how to help their children develop learning skills.

Source: People

A Show Business Fortune At Risk

Britney Spears’s klieg-lighted meltdown sent her to the psychiatric ward twice, and left her long-divorced parents, her brother, and a SWAT team of lawyers and accountants grappling with how to protect her from predatory hangers-on, from the paparazzi who dog her every move and from her own erratic behavior.

Britney Spears, performing in 2000 on Long Island, has been a breadwinner for her mother, Lynne, and sister, Jamie Lynn, as well as for her father, Jamie.

Beyond the psychodrama being played out on tabloid covers, celebrity-news shows and gossip Web sites is another serious subject for the Spears family: how to protect the millions of dollars that Ms. Spears, 26, has amassed over a decade as one of America’s biggest pop music, merchandise and endorsement engines.

It’s impossible to say how much money she has. Published estimates of her net worth have varied wildly, up to $125 million. But one of her former financial advisers, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of his relationship with his client, estimated her current fortune at around $50 million.

That’s an enormous amount, but, as Michael Jackson proved, being a wealthy cultural phenomenon doesn’t make one impervious to financial disaster. Celebrities, like athletes, often have a small window to make their money, typically at a young age when they are probably not thinking about the future.

As a result, many child stars like Macaulay Culkin are dragged into family squabbles over money while others — too numerous to mention — end up looking to revive their careers long after the money has run out.

Ms. Spears will not run out of money anytime soon, but her longer-term prospects have taken a hit in the last year because of bizarre behavior — her public scenes, questionable parenting skills and a shaky comeback performance at the MTV Awards — and her tortured personal life after her divorce from Kevin Federline, formerly one of her backup dancers.

According to court documents, her everyday finances seem to have fallen into disrepair as well. A Feb. 14 court filing put it starkly: “Members of Britney’s household,” it said, “have been paying for her basic necessities, including medicine, food, and other day-to-day needs.”

On Feb. 1, the day after Ms. Spears was involuntarily admitted for treatment at the U.C.L.A. Medical Center, her estranged father, Jamie Spears, was named her co-conservator, giving him control over her treatment, security, visitors and daily life.

Mr. Spears is sharing oversight of her estate with an independent lawyer, Andrew M. Wallet, to dispel the notion that Ms. Spears’s parents were making a grab for their daughter’s fortune. With the court’s permission, they immediately fired her business manager.

Another team of lawyers was hired for the conservators and quickly set out to assess the financial damage. Yet another lawyer was appointed by the probate court, as is routine, to look out solely for Ms. Spears’s interests. Ms. Spears’s brother Bryan, along with a lawyer, were given control of her revocable trust, which contains all her liquid assets, so they could begin paying her bills. And Ms. Spears’s criminal lawyer, Blair Berk, was said to be overseeing the whole Humpty Dumpty-like effort.

All the independent lawyers aside, one cannot ignore money as a motivating factor as the estranged Spears parents joined forces. Since she first became a pop star in 1999 on the strength of her hit “Baby One More Time,” she has been the primary breadwinner for the entire Spears clan.

The earning power of her 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, the star of “Zooey 101” on Nickelodeon, probably suffered in December when she announced her pregnancy, which also helped sink her mother’s deal to write a book on parenting.

What little light has been shed on Ms. Spears’s finances came last May, when part of an income statement surfaced in her divorce case. It put her average monthly earnings at more than $730,000, mainly from royalties, but said she earned only $13,000 a month from investments. (Her spending, including $102,000 a month for entertainment, gifts and vacation and $16,000 for clothes, was more eye-catching.)

The nature of her investments might be unclear as well. Accountants are trying to learn whether her money was moved into overly risky investment vehicles, whether any business deals need to be undone and whether her assets were outright looted. (Her father filed a report of grand theft, according to The Los Angeles Times, asserting that paintings, jewelry and other valuables had been stripped from her Beverly Hills home).

Click READ MORE to finish the article.

Source: New York Times/Breathe Heavy

Dude! She made 8 million from June 2006 to June 2007 so she ain't running out of money any time soon!

Jamie Lynn’s Baby Bump is Clear as Day

The following italicized article is taken from www.justjared.com:

Jamie Lynn Spears shows off her clear-as-day baby bump as she fills up her gas tank back in her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana.

The 16-year-old Nickelodeon star (blue hoodie) was also seen shopping Saturday afternoon. Jamie picked up puppy “training pads” from Wal-Mart. Practicing for her first baby with her dog! Precious!

Earlier this week, Jamie Lynn and her baby’s daddy, Casey Aldridge, were recently photographed holding hands during a stroll in Kentwood.

In other Jamie Lynn news, Zoey 101 is averaging almost 2 million more viewers per episode since the star announced her pregnancy.

See more pics here!

Source: Just Jared

Britney Teaches Kids to Kick Up Their Heels

The following italicized article is taken from www.ok-magazine.com:

For a group of L.A.-area kids with dreams of being a dancer, a lesson from a famous hoofer is a memorable experience — and when that dancer happens to be Britney Spears, it's sure to be a day they'll never forget!

And that's exactly what's happening Monday night at the Millennium Dance Studio in North Hollywood, where the recently troubled star is continuing to try to get her life back in order by doing what she does best — entertaining. Except tonight, it's not just a couple of friends or family members looking on as Brit rehearses for her upcoming video shoot — it's a group of pre-adolescent dance students.

Brit arrived at Millennium, a favorite refuge of hers, around 6pm PT on Monday, hidden from the paparazzi. She was greeted by a group of eight children ages 4-9 — and certainly more than a few star-struck parents. An eyewitness tells OK! that Britney went up to each child and asked them their name and whether they liked Madonna, because that was the song they would be dancing to this evening.

Maya Meek, whose 8 year old son is in the class, tells OK!, "He didn't really know who Britney was, though he dances to all of her music. So when I told him 'this is the lady who makes all the songs you like,' he got very excited," says Meek. "He learned about Britney through Jamie Lynn, because he's a big fan of Zoey 101.

"Even though Britney could easily charge an enormous amount of cash for tonight's lesson, she's working on a volunteer basis, and it isn't the first time. Britney has shared her years of dance experience with pre-teen hopefuls before. In the not-so-distant past, she would often pop in for surprise tutorials at Millennium.

Just before 6:30 p.m. PT, one of Britney's assitants came down to talk to the waiting mothers outside the studio, and told them that the kids were all doing "amazingly well" and that they were following every step. The assistant said Britney had a second assistant dancing behind the kids so that when they turned during their routine, they'd have someone behind them to follow.

Class ended at 6:50 p.m. An eyewitness tells OK! that the kids learned a variety of fun dances, including "the fish," "the swim" and "the choo choo train" in which the kids grabbed onto each other and hopped around like a train making choo choo noises. Brit then had the kids show off some of their own moves. The group formed a circle and each one got to dance alone in the center of the circle.

All in all, it sounds like everyone had a good time tonight, including Britney. Let's only hope that these lessons, like her regular rehearsals, become part of Brit's new career-focused routine!

Source: OK Magazine

Jamie Lynn: Sixteen, Pregnant And Partying!

The following italicized article is taken from www.starmagazine.com:

With her mother in L.A. to be near Britney, Jamie Lynn Spears took advantage of her freedom and threw a party!

The pregnant teen invited Casey Aldridge, the boy she says is her baby's father, and a bunch of friends over to Serenity, her mom Lynne's Kentwood, La., mansion, for a Super Bowl bash.

Shortly after 2:00 p.m. on Feb. 3, a Jeep SUV with Ole Miss University and Delta Delta Delta sorority decals on the back window pulled up to Serenity's gates and five college age women got out.

“They were all laughing. They looked really happy and excited to be at the house, like they hadn't seen Jamie Lynn in a while,” says a witness.

Earlier in the day, the Zoey 101 star (carefully hiding her bump under a baggy sweatshirt) drove with Casey, 18, on a 35-minute trek to McComb, Miss., to shop at a Wal-Mart Supercenter — even though there's one much closer to Kentwood, in Amite, La. A source speculates that the couple may have gone out of their way because the McComb store sells alcohol on Sundays. "Maybe one of them has a fake ID."

Source: Star Magazine