Monday, May 31, 2010

Uncle Joseph's Birthday/Memorial Day

First of all - Jackson says, "Happy Birthday Uncle Joseph! We love you and miss you!"We have been having some trouble with Jackson napping at daycare. Towards the end of his time there, they started not putting him down for a nap if he didn't "look tired." Dude, he's 1. He needs to nap! This means we've been having some trouble with him at home now, too. So, we are working really hard on tiring him out and then putting him down for a nap. We were able to get him to fall asleep both times today, but he didn't nap long enough. Before the first nap, we took a walk to the park. It was not even 9am and it was miserably hot and humid already. Welcome summer. Despite that, Jackson had fun.

Before nap number 2, we took him to one of the splash pads in our neighborhood. Jackson had a blast until he noticed the playground. Then, he was done with the water. Unfortunately, the playground was too hot to let him do too much on it.

Later Grandma and Uncle Stephen came over for some burgers. Jackson had some fun on the trampoline with Uncle Stephen.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Oh yeah - Jackson Can Walk

Jackson has been taking steps for a while now, but I can't remember if we ever posted about it. Now he is walking everywhere! He still crawls sometimes, but walking is definitely becoming his primary method of moving around.

Yesterday morning we went to Sam's Deli Diner, which just opened a location in Katy. We had never been and had heard great things, but we were a tad disappointed. Maybe we'll give it another shot to try the burgers. While we were there, we let Jackson walk for the first time in a business. We had an elderly gentleman, who is a regular, tell us that if we decide we don't want him (Jackson) he'd take him. Then we went to Katy Fresh Produce, a new market in Katy that sells only locally grown fruits and veggies. There Jackson really got to walk around and he had a blast.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Mommy's Little Helper

Jackson tries to be quite the little helper. A while back, when Jackson was putting EVERYTHING in his mouth, we trained him to give us any little piece of anything that he finds. When he does, we cheer for him and tell him what a great helper he is. For the most part it has worked and rarely does he try to put little pieces of stuff in his mouth. Today he helped Mommy clean up by picking up the mail that he threw all over the living room floor and putting it in a trash bag that Mommy was holding. My back thanks you, Jackson.
Tonight Jackson helped prepare dinner. My little salad spinner...

Friday, May 28, 2010

First steps

It's summertime at last, so you can actually expect some life on this blog again. There are pictures and videos and stories and whatnot ahead, but I figured I would share a nice text file to start the summer barrage. Rob loves his tiny little laptop, and Jackson loves what we love. The laptop's keyboard is Jackson-sized, so when Jackson decides it's his time to hit the keyboard, he does a good job of covering all of the keys. Rob let him have at it the other day on a word processor, and this is what we got -

9IA
)>)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))ol a4cyB) C BVU CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCJHECR15BEDSXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXQA T25ZX
--FUUUUUUUUUUC O=
Obviously, he's still got a ways to go, but I like that BEDS got a shout out. As for those last letters... hmmm.... Notice the last emoticon too, facing the opposite way of most emoticons. He's on his way to being a texting little boy - how frightening.

Jackson, these are the first types you ever took.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Mother's Day

Last Mother's Day was miserable! For those of you that don't remember, I was in the ER. Although I was thrilled to be a Mommy, it wasn't the best Mother's Day.
This Mother's Day was much better!
Mother's Day started out with me getting to sleep in! Right when I woke, Daddy and Jackson were on their way out for one last thing (fresh flowers). When they returned Jackson was ready to give something to Mommy. First he handed me a card from him all by himself.
Then, he sat on Mommy's lap to show me the card. In addition to spoiling Mommy with brunch, two flower arrangements, and jewelry Daddy also took Jackson to have a silhouette of his profile made on his first birthday.


The pool plans didn't work out because of the weather, but it will still a nice and relaxing day! Being a Mommy is the best thing in the world and I am so lucky to have such a wonderful hubby and son.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

So Behind

Once again, we're so behind on the blog. Last weekend was eventful and will take some time to post about. We enjoyed the art car parade, the Ben Folds concert, and Mother's Day! We'll try to get to those soon. In the meantime, I'm knocking on wood, Jackson is paci free. We took it away a few months ago except for bedtime and naptime. We decided to take it away completely three days ago. So far, so good. One day at daycare they said it took them like 10 mins to get him to sleep for his second nap, but tonight, there wasn't even a peep out of him at bedtime!

Friday, May 7, 2010

A New Home for Kristen and Kingsley

We are so excited for Kristen and Kingsley who are now homeowners! Tonight we got to go visit their new place and fell in love with it. Jackson had a ball rolling around in the empty rooms and Kingsley enjoyed showing us her new home. We look forward to witnessing and being part of new memories created in the new house and we love that this house is even closer to ours than the last (which isn't far).

Thursday, May 6, 2010

12 Month Appointment

Jackson had his 12 month appointment yesterday. His weight and height are both in the 75th percentile. His height was 31.something inches and his weight was 24 lbs 7.5 ounces. His head was in the 97th percentile. He got three shots, but barely cried.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Baby Steps

Today when we arrived at daycare to pick up Jackson, he was waiting at the glass door. He was very excited to see us, but we couldn't really open the door since he was so close to it. I cracked the door open and Jackson slammed it. He loves to slam doors. Then, he realized that he was still on the opposite side that we were on and started to cry. One of his teachers picked him up and moved him back a few feet. I opened the door and got close to the ground, as I always do, so that he could crawl over to me. In the previous post, we wrote about how much we treasure the moment when he crawls up to us at daycare as fast as possible. Well, today, he WALKED over to me! I said, "Wait! He just walked to me!" The teacher said he had been doing it all day, so they figured he had been taking steps all weekend. Rob missed it since he was out in the hall, but Jackson walked into his arms once we got home!

Since turning 1 (42 hours ago) he has learned to walk and learned to climb on things. As Jackson would say, "Uh oh."

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Jackson's Birthday

We started Jackson's birthday off quite early. He wanted to make sure that we were awake for the actual moment. In case you forgot, that moment was 5:04 am. Although he has been better about sleeping in, he didn't want to miss a moment of his birthday.

We took him to the pool to start the morning off. He had a blast! When we got home, he spent a little more time with the Reynolds before they took off. Then, he took a nap. After his nap, Daddy whisked him away from a few hours. They are working on a surprise for Mother's Day.

Below are pictures of Jackson playing in his new rocking chair. He got it from Grandma Stockman. It was her rocking chair that she got when she turned 2. Jackson loves it and has already figure out how to rock in it.


He has also already figured out how to stand in it. I turned away for one second to look at something and he was standing when I turned back. Here he is working on standing.Upon their return, we decided to take Jackson to Berryhill since he loves tortillas, beans, rice, guacamole, cheese, chicken, beef, etc. He is his Mommy's son.



Then, we headed over to Spelato for Gelato. At first, he wasn't sure what he thought.

Then, he loved it!
He didn't want to hear it when we said it was time to go home and go night night.

The Best Year of Our Lives

One year ago, everything changed. We knew that your arrival would begin a new chapter of our lives, but honestly it made the preceding chapters become prologue. That first day you came out so beautiful, so perfect, so photogenic. That hasn't changed since moment one. But, the changes that have happened are why this past year has been so amazing for us.

There are so many little moments that stand out as evidence of those changes. There are several that stand out in our minds: Grandma Stockman pointing out that you were laughing at us, the first time you rolled over, when you started taking your paci and putting it in our mouth when you aren't ready for bed, that first realization that you were dancing to your toy's music, and your first delight in the Eeyore stuffed animal. It's hard to believe that there will be something that ever beats out the awesome moment we have each afternoon when we pick you up from school. As soon as you see us, you drop to the ground and crawl over to us as quickly as your little feet and hands can go. Those first moments are so exciting, but they become so much more. Now you laugh all the time whether we are dancing for you, pretending to drink from your bottle, tickling you, sneezing or just introducing you to things that make life kind of silly. You now roll out of Mommy's bean bag chair, you stand on your rocking chair, try to climb on your new step stool, try to open the dogs kennel, rearrange the chairs in the breakfast room, and you stand on your own. It blows our minds. You sing into your keyboard's microphone and mash the keys. You hold nonsensical conversations with a million different intonations just to mimic us. You bang on your drums or windows or anything you can get close to. You tackle Eeyore, chase your orange ball and play your favorite song on your exersaucer. You point at every dog you see and call out baba, your new all-purpose word. You have words now, most of them are variations of baba or uh oh, but who knows what you will be telling us next year. You now race your buddy Erwan to get to us at school when we pick you up. Your face lights up whenever you see us. The little firsts we remember were great, but each of those firsts become a routine. It's how those moments become routine that makes this parenthood thing amazing.

You respond to the name we gave you a year ago. You have learned who you are, even though you are only a year old. We have all been so blessed to get to know you, too.

This first year has been the best year of our lives. Your first birthday was a reminder and celebration of how you have forever changes us. Jackson, we love the little moments when we get to see you do something for the first time, but, it's watching those moments become months and years and those changes become part of who you are that make being your parents our greatest joy.

We love you, Little Man, Monkey, Goober, Little Buddy, and all the other nicknames we call you.

Birth



One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months
Five Months

Six Months

Seven Months

Eight Months
Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

Twelve Months/One Year

Warning! First birthdays can be hazardous to your health!

Jackson's First Trip to the Pool

We are lucky to have a neighborhood full of awesome pools! After Jackson's first trip to the pool today, I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of time at those pools this summer. Anyone interested in joining us? Just let us know! Today we went to the pool right by our house, since it's the only one that is already open. They have a cool frog slide at the kiddie pool that Jackson LOVED. After going down it once, he kept pointing towards it and grunting. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Jackson enjoyed his new ride! We didn't get a good shot of him looking at the camera because he was too interested in everything else going on.


There are his new shoes to match his swim outfit. Look at these cute little feet.

This is his new outfit for the summer. He was a little skeptical about the cold, cold water. But, he adjusted quickly and had a blast.


Jackson loved this frog slide!
He liked sliding down it and climbing up it! Our little monkey!
Shannon, Noelle and their boys!

Emily is wrapped up like a burrito!

Will crashed after the pool! He's wiped out.