helpful advice....maybe, hopefully!

I really shouldn't be blogging right now, I should be going to bed seeing as I did not do any of the work I had planned on doing at home today and now have to make it up the rest of the week.  But a Facebook friend of mine posted a link to a blog post that had a title that caught my eye so I had to read it.  Well it is too good not to share at least in my opinion

2012 has been an incredibly crazy year for the Man and me.  We were blessed enough to welcome Jackson into our lives and family.  This little boy has filled a void in our family that we didn't even know existed and has brought so much joy and happiness to us.  On the flip side of that besides having a baby we had a cross country move, the Man returning from a 6 month deployment, the Man finding a job and starting college and I transferred my job to a knew location.  All of those things combined have lead to probably the hardest year the Man and I have had to deal with.  Don't get me wrong, there is much love in this marriage and I am completely confident in our ability to work through any and all issues that the future will have for us and that we will have way more good days than we will ever have bad moments.

Reading the blog post this guy wrote about ways he blew his marriage really struck home with me.  I sure as heck don't want to blow mine! And I saw things that he said he did and would change that I know I have done. Granted I might have known know that certain things I have done or that I do make the Man mad and I still chose to do them anyways. But I am hoping that maybe reading it made it register a little differently in my brain.  Here is part 1 and here is part 2

And just in case people are wondering Josiah & I are both extremely happy in our marriage and we both continue to work and strive for a better relationship than we had the day before.  And I actually believe that currently we are achieving that and I think these last couple months of 2012 are going to be amazing with very little bumps in our way. And I know that the issues Josiah and I have had this year a lot of people would probably consider very minor in their marriage but for us it was/is a new thing to deal with and a big deal (don't get me wrong we have had fights before this year, just not as many and they didn't last as long)

A little more personal....maybe, hopefully

I have been finding myself not excited about blogging anymore and thinking of it more as a chore than a hobby or an escape from everyday life.  Which is probably why there has been a huge lack in blog posts and the posts that are made are 99% of the time about Jackson, granted his does take up a good chunk of my life!

Currently both the Man and Jackson are napping and  I just got done folding some laundry.  While I folding the endless pit of clean clothes I was thinking about the blog and what was going on with it.  I realized that I really haven't been fair to anyone that actually takes time out of there day to read this I really don't think there are many of you but thanks to the few that do! I have really been holding back on things going on and have really only concentrated on showing all of you how amazing Jackson is and how much he has changed in the short 7 months he has been in this world. I LOVE talking about the little man and how awesome he is and posting a million pictures but that really wasn't what I was thinking the only purpose of this blog would be.  Again it will  be a good chunk of it because our lives for the most part revolve around him.

So basically what I am trying to get at is I am going to try and make this more than a Jackson blog and maybe let everyone into our personal lives a little more.

I have a few more lame house chores to do while the little man is asleep so hopefully tonight after he goes to bed I can update everyone!

7 Months

Its hard to believe that Jackson turned 7 months earlier this week.  Every day he seems to do something new and manages leave us in amazement as to how much he has grown over these past 7 months.  Two weeks ago we were finally able to get Jackson's 6 month appointment taken care of. He is not a big fan of the shots...he is all smiles until we get into the room and its like he knows what is going to happen because the melt down starts before we even lay him on the table.  Thankfully the tears don't last too long and he isn't the worst to deal with after.  The charts showed that he is way more active than he was at 4 months.  As of two weeks ago the little man is now weighing in at 18.5 lbs and is 27 inches tall! Up until this appointment Jack has always been around the 70% for height/weight/head circumference but at this appointment he moved down into the 50-60% for weight.

Here are some things that Jackson has been up to:
- he LOVES to eat with us at meal times! and we love watching him explore new foods and figure out how to eat them
- Getting read to is one of his favorite things.  We let him pick out what book we read at bedtime and he is always super excited about it....sometimes to excited and he tries to eat the book but we are working on that!
- He is getting closer and closer to crawling and navigates all around our living room.
- He is full of love, smiles, laughter and so so much more.  He really does make Josiah & I the luckiest people ever!
- He is very, very shy around new people or larger groups at first but he usually warms up to them pretty quickly
- He is understanding words more and more...."No Jackson" comes out of my mouth many times a day and sometimes he actually listens for a few minutes!
- He has also started giving kisses and snuggles/hugs to us....he really is super sweet and knows just when one of us could use some snuggles
- Our doctor has told us we are extremely lucky because Jackson has been sleeping for about 12 hours straight at night since he has been 4 months old...there have been a few nights this hasn't happened but they had to do with his teething and not feeling well

 He loves to Skype with people...most of the time :)

 He kept bouncing up & down on the horse!

 He loved his Halloween costume and didn't mind trick-or-treating