Adios

Wow! I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since March. Ok thats a lie, I would be even more shocked if I somehow was actually blogging on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis. I have to admit things are a little crazy over here....not that they ever haven't been but the dynamics have shifted slightly. I have been putting this post off for a long time in hopes that maybe I wouldn't need to post it but I need to just do it and move on for now.

So here it goes:

After some thought and sleep I have decided that keeping this blog going just isn't working at the moment. Between working 32 hrs a week, taking care of the littles and trying to maintain a somewhat clean house there isn't much extra time. With moving to our new place I have increased my commute from 15 min one way to 45 min. When we first moved here I knew my commute was going to increase by that amount but I didn't think that I would so much less time with the kids. In our old place I was home every day by 2 p.m. so the man could leave for work (we didn't have a nanny then), but now I am finding that I am not getting home till 4:30/5. Which means I come home and have to get supper for everyone and by the time that is done and cleaned up it is time to get Jorie ready for bed (she gets her bedtime bottle at 6:30 and is usually in bed by 7). I ended up moving Jackson's bedtime up from 7 to 8 just so he could get a little one-on-one time but that still is so much less time than before. And once the kids are all in bed I either am dead tired and sleeping by 9 pm, end up doing some household chores or I have work to finish up from the day.

Watching the video below helped make thoughts I've been having for a while now about the amount of time spent on electronics a little more of a reality. And made me realize a few changes needed to be made in our household to help de-prioritize (I don't think that's a word, just deal with it) electronics and prioritize face-to-face human interaction. Taking a sabbatical, if you want to call it that, from this blog is just one of the few things I am doing. The man and I have also briefly talked about having a no electronics day once a week. Either Saturday or Sunday the only electronics that can or could be used would be the camera, tv/blu-ray for family movie days, the radio/record player and lastly our land-line house phone (yep you read correctly we still have a land-line!)

Since I haven't blogged in so long I will try and quickly recap what has been going on over here for one last time.

The Man: the Man has been sleep deprived and stressed with the amount of work his classes have been this semester. Homework has taken over any free-time he has between working and reserves. We are so glad that this semester is almost over! He is almost done with his associates and is starting his bachelors June 1st. I am so proud of him for all his hard work, I know it hasn't been easy.

Jackson: Where to start with this little man. He has been 2 for a month now....mind blown!!! This kid amazes me on a daily basis. He is one of the sweetest little boys I know. He's a lover not a fighter. He helps out with Jorie and little chores around the house. Granted he does have his days where he is what you would consider your typical 2 year old and throws fits for no reason and doesn't listen to us. Thankfully the majority of the time he is a smart, sweet, dramatic, sensitive, emotional, happy little boy. Jack has also started potty training. In the back of my mind I have known he has been ready to start for a while but I kept putting it off because we are flying in a week and I didn't want to have to add that element to flying alone with both kids. But he had different plans and kind of started potty training on his own after one of our many talks about going potty like a big boy. I am really proud of him and how well he has been doing with it. He normally has a dry pull-up when he wakes up in the morning and after his nap. He is also pretty good at keeping his "big boy undies" or pull-up dry during the day. We are working on getting him to tell us when he has to go since he will go every time we put him on the potty. This is usually where he has an accident when he has them...but it's getting better.   

Jorie: I can't believe I'm going to say this but Jorie is 6 months old and is just amazing. She has almost mastered sitting up on her own and rolls all over our living room...nothing is off limits in that room. We have just started baby-led weaning with her and she has been doing great with it and is loving food. Cucumbers are one of her favorites right now! This girl is happy 95% of the time. She loves to play with Jackson, he can always make her laugh and smile. I am excited to see more of her lovable happy personality come out and develop. We have been lucky again to have a good sleeper, she sleeps for 12 hrs straight at night. With that she is a pretty awful napper during the day but I will take that trade off every time!

And me: Well there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. I guess I should mention that I am so thankful we decided to get a nanny for the kids. Gemma has been with us since February and is amazing. Both kids love her and she even manages to do a few household chores for us most days like loading/unloading the dishwasher, sweeping, mopping and other little chores that no one likes doing. I really don't know how we managed without her. Somehow we did but I am glad that we now have her here to help.
 

Well this ended up being much longer than I had originally intended it but I guess that will happen when I haven't posted in so long. I just want to say thank you to the few people that still might read this. Who knows what could happen in the future, I could be back to blogging in a year or I might not blog ever again. Either way if you want to see pictures of the kids follow me on Instagram and if you want to know what is actually going on in our family give me a call/text/Skype/FaceTime (see way too many other forms of communication)

A New Love Jam

Ok so this is my 3rd attempt at getting this post to actually post correctly....so frustrating!

Anywho....

Earlier this week I heard this song for the first time at least that I can remember hearing it and I absolutely LOVE it! John Legend isn't normally an artist that I listen to. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am listening to a lot of "soul" music (like the Marvin Gay/baby-making music) while I'm at work that I like this song so much or maybe it's just that good of a song. Either way, if the man and I ever decide to have a third wedding this song will some how be incorporated. It's perfect. Enough said.

All of Me by John Legend

How do you know?!?

Here I am sitting on the couch, blogging and watching tv when I should be doing some things around the house, like dishes and laundry, since both kids are in bed for the night. Maybe after this post I will go do those things...now onto the actual post instead of random rambling.

My maternity leave is coming to an end soon, two weeks from Monday....seriously where have the past 10 weeks gone! With me having to go back to work soon the man and I had to start getting serious about what we were going to do for child care. If you didn't know before now we never had any child care; I work 1st shift, the man works 2nd shift and would take almost all online classes for school. I would go to work and then make sure I was home in time for him to leave and then the one day a week he usually had to actually go to a class I would work from home that day. We didn't get that lucky this school semster with our schedules. The class the man needed to take at the actual college is only offered in the middle of the day and is two days a week. On top of that, the man's 2nd shift job is suppose to be moving to 1st shift sometime in 2014....we have no idea when but they tell us it's going to happen.

With that being said we needed a new plan. Either I needed to become a stay-at-home mom or we needed to find daycare. I would say 90% of the time I really like my job and it has a lot of really great benefits. So quiting just didn't seem like the best option for us at the moment. Which left us with finding daycare.

I really don't know how people do it. I mean it is one thing to have to find daycare in the town you grew up in or next to where you have a lot of connections...you have people you know and trust to recomend a good daycare provider or babysitter to leave your kids with. I wish we had that situation but we don't. Instead we know very few people where we are at and have to trust our instincts.

Because I only work 32 hours a week and the man is still on 2nd shift we decided it would be more cost efficent to hire an in-home nanny or someone that does daycare out of their house. The first thing we did was sign up for care.com. They are a website that you can post babysitting jobs you need someone for or browse nannies/caregivers in the area and look at their profiles. At first we just looked at various profiles and even sent a few of them messages to see if they would be insterested in meeting with us for an interview....that turned up very unsuccessful. So we posted a job and ended up having around 20 different applicants. How do you choose who you want to meet with based off of what they said when they applied and reading their profile?!?! We found 4 people that we felt would be the best canidates to interview. So far we have met with 2 of them and Sunday we are meeting with the other 2.

Now really how does a person put so much trust in a complete stranger!?! I find my self asking this question over and over and yet I'm not sure what the answer is. I just hope that our gut insticts are correct and we choose the right person. If any of you have any secrets has to how you knew who the right person was to look after your kids please let me know!

 

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Leading up to meeting Jorie!

Since I'm finally getting back into the swing of blogging and I have introduced Jorie to everyone even though I'm sure you all already knew who she was it's time to get into the events leading to welcoming sweet baby Jorie into the world.

The Man and I decided once again that it was a really good idea to move when I was very very pregnant. At least this time it wasn't across the country and was just 15 miles. In case you weren't aware my job allows you to go on maternity leave two weeks prior to your due date...awesome! I started maternity leave October 30th and actually I had 2 floating holidays to use up before the end of the year so I took those the 2 days before and which meant I was pretty much done working the Friday before. I really don't know what I would have done if I would have had to work those two weeks....our house was all sorts of crazy.

November 1st my Dad and the Man's dad flew into help us move the next day. Moving day was one of the longest days of life...I was 38 weeks pregnant and not much help other than telling everyone what to do and they all did what I asked. Our moving crew was only here for a very short trip, they flew in very late Friday night and flew back Monday morning. In the short time they were here we managed to move our entire apartment and even unpack and set up the kitchen, Jackson's room, Jorie's room and the living room. Like I said I worked these guys pretty hard and they were all troopers about it....I owe them a HUGE thank you because I don't know how we would have done the move without them.

After they left the Man's mom flew out a couple days later...that Thursday to be exact. She volunteered her time from the 7th thru the 18th. This was huge for the Man and I. Before she decided to come out for that time frame we were deciding which would be the worst of two evils: Jackson in the delivery room with us or the Man not there at all. The only problem with flying your daycare in from another state to watch your son when you go into labor is that you really don't know when you will go into labor. Knowing this I talked with my OB doctor and basically told him that I HAD to have this baby by the 16th because else I wouldn't be out of the hospital before my daycare left. At my 39 week appointment he said we could be induced if I hadn't gone into labor before my due date, November 13th. This was music to my ears, not that I wanted to be induced but I really wanted the Man to be there for the birth of the baby and I didn't feel like having a toddler sitting in the bed with me screaming Momma, Momma while giving birth. While my MIL was out here and we were waiting on Jorie's arrival, she was awesome and unpacked every box we let her and cooked all our meals and let me nap when Jackson wasn't....it was fantastic!!

Then November 13th came and we still had no baby or no sign of her arriving anytime soon. So I called labor and delivery as instructed at 8 a.m. I was told that they were full at the moment but would give me a call back later when they were ready for me to come in and be induced. I'm sorry but that waiting game was dumb...it took FOREVER for these people to call and I actually ended up calling them back before they called me. Since the man works 2nd shift we didn't know if he should go into work or not since we didn't know when we would get the call. About an hour before he needed to leave for work I called back to see what the deal was, they assured me that I was going to be going in that day yet but probably not till after 8 p.m. Now more decisions needed to be made, does the man go into work for a few hours or does he start his week of paternity leave already. He decided not to go in and to just get some more unpacking and organizing done around the house. Labor and delivery didn't end up calling us until 9 p.m.

We got to the hospital around 10 p.m. and they started everything...turns out I was already having contractions and just didn't know it :) I already knew I was going to get an epidural, I did with Jackson and it was amazing. With Jackson it took a really long time to get the feeling back in my legs and to be able to walk. So I decided I would wait a little bit before getting it instead of getting it right away. Around 10 or 11 a.m. on the 14th I decided to get the epideral. It took forever to get the epideral....I guess lifting a toddler everyday works your back muscles and that made it extremely difficult to get the needle in the right spot. I believe the Man said they stuck it in 5 different spots before getting the right one. Once that was finally taken care of I was again a happy laboring lady. The man and I continued to watch Game Show Network...its what we do when in labor. I should go back a little and say that Jorie was being quite difficult, the nurse would put the heart rate monitor on her and as soon as the nurse would let go she would move. If the nurse stood there and held it she would stay but everytime she left go she would move off the monitor. Other than that things seemed to be going well.

Around 2 I told the Man that it was going to be time to push soon. We called the nurse and the mid-wife and they asked if I was ready then and I wasn't sure anymore so they left and agreed that it wouldn't be long. An hour later they came back and Jorie still wasn't as far down as she should have so the nurse just asked me to push on the next contraction just to see if I could even move her....when I did that the nurse could see her head....I guess Jorie would come far enough down when I had a contraction but then would go back up some when they were over. They got the room ready and then it was time to have a baby. I pushed 2 maybe 3 times and Jorie was here!!! Jorie's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice which was scary at first but turned out to be fine once they got it unwrapped. She also managed to tie a true knot in her cord, like a figure 8 sailors knot. The midwife said she had never seen that done before and that it was also the longest umbilical cord she had ever seen. They even asked if they could keep it to show students, since it was a learning hospital. I guess the more active the baby is in the womb the longer the umbilical cord.

We were discharged from the hospital Friday night. We had to stay for at least 24 hours but ended being there a few extra hours because we didn't have any evidence that Jorie had a wet diaper. The Man finally took her diaper off and put warm water on her hand to get her to pee so we could finally go home.

I am sure I missed a lot of the details about what all was going on right before Jorie was born but this is a pretty long and wordy post. I will end with letting you all know that I was told by the midwife that delivered Jorie and my nurse that I should have more kids because I am a rockstar at giving birth. When the nurse moved me to the recovery room from the delivery room she was told they needed her because a women just came in that was in labor; she told us that there's no way she is going to be as good at giving birth as me....the man and I just laughed....now thinking about it I really hope that lady didn't have a difficult labor!

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2013 in the eyes of Google+

Google+ sent me this little movie that they/it made. I loved it!

 

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2014 Goals!

I'm trying out a new blogging app today...fingers crossed that this answers all of my problems and hopefully will then save myself a couple hundred dollars from a laptop!

I've read a ton of peoples blogs lately with their 2014 resolutions. I am not big on resolutions, instead I take more of a goals approach to it. I already have daily, weekly, and monthly goals that are in my head and sometimes even get written down. Why wouldn't I set up yearly!

Looking back on last years goals I have to say I think we did pretty good on achieving them. We did everything on that list except for the last two goals. And the last goal, a trip to Switzerland, was basically thrown out the window when we found out we were pregnant last year. We also didn't get to go to New York City for Jackson's 1st birthday but we went to the ocean instead and made our trip to New York this past fall...so it still counts as a successful goal in my book!

Now for 2014!

Goal #1

To double the amount of money in our savings. We really want to get enough money in our savings to put down a nice down payment on a house someday. Last year we exceeded our money saving goal by cutting out a few things, so I'm hoping that we can do the same this year.

 

Goal #2

As usual, at least for us, take at least 1 family trip back to Wisconsin. It is extremely important that our kids grow up knowing their extended family and why the Man and I have such a love for everything Wisconsin has to offer even the -29 degree temps before the wind chill we experienced there a couple of weeks ago. The kids and I are planning a trip back this spring for my cousins wedding but the Man won't be able to make it do to his obligations to the Navy Reserves. So we are hoping for one more trip back! So I guess we already technically fulfilled this goal but we are hoping to make it happen 1 more time this year!

 

Goal #3

To go on at least one family vacation not to Wisconsin. You may find this hard to believe but our trips back to WI are not the most relaxing. There are about 50 people that we need to see and about 20 others that we want to see in a very short amount of time. This family vacation doesn't need to be anything huge but a 4 day weekend away would be amazing!

 

I would say that sums up our huge family goals for the year. I mean we do have more sentimental goals that pretty much stay the same from year to year: raise two beautiful, happy, healthy kids; be better people; love more and fight less. I also have a few personal goals that I hope to work on/accomplish this year: take more time for myself; become a better house wife; do better at my job; read more.

Here's to a great 2014!!

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Catch Up

It's been a while, who am I trying to kid...it's been a really long time since I've blogged. You all are just going to have to get over it.

Here's the low down on part of the reasons why it has been so long since you've heard from me.

- We moved into a new apartment and are still trying to get settled in

- We welcomed our sweet baby girl, Jorie, into our family (I'm really hoping to get a post up about that soon)

- We had all of our parents visit us in the month of November....ok my Dad and the Man's dad came out to help move us but they were still here.

- We took our own trip back to Wisconsin to get Jorie baptized

Besides all of that happening my laptop had broke a while ago, like in July! So I was forced to use the Man's computer. In our current house his laptop is in the basement and not really where I want go and do my blogging...I prefer to blog on the couch while watching tv after the kids go to bed (which is funny because currently I'm on the couch, watching Ellen but both kids are awake!) Anyways back to the laptop issue...so the Man bought me a new laptop in November for my birthday that was back in June...minor details! This laptop proved to be, for a lack of words, just dumb. Neither the Man or I liked it so today we took it back. We decided that I really don't need a laptop anymore. I mean I have a smartphone, an iPad and a laptop for work. Plus I can always use the Man's laptop if I really need to. Together we decided that maybe we should look at utilizing the technology we do have. So today we bought a blutooth keyboard folio for the iPad....which I am currently testing out for the first time to write this blog post. I'm hoping this will be the solution to our problems...and by problems I'm stricktly talking about me blogging more and using the iPad for more than a baby monitor and Jackson's games.

So bare with me as I try and figure out how to use the blogger app and the iPad to my advantage and hopefully do a much better job keeping everyone posted on what is going on in our lives....I know each  and everyone of you wakes up every morning just hoping that I have posted something new on the blog :)

If any of you have any tips on blogging using the Blogger app please let me know!!

The Name Game

First I would like to apologize that I haven't posted anything about this pregnancy since we announced it way back in June.

Now as promised way back then here is a little bit of the baby name battle that the Man and I had.

The Man pretty much doesn't like any name that starts with a vowel...weird I know. And I really like the thought and idea of the name having meaning and purpose other than that I found it in a baby book, or in our case on an app.

As it currently stands we are 99.9% sure what this sweet baby girl will be named and we have shared it with a few people...but here our a few of the names that made my list and why:

- Emmalynn Marjorie: lets start with Marjorie, that is both of my grandma's names and really want it to be apart of this little girls name. Emmalynn I heard on a show and liked it, part of it that I liked was that Lynn is my mom's middle name so it would have some importance other than the tv show I heard it on. As you probably guessed the Man vetoed it pretty quick because he doesn't like names ending in Lynn...it reminds him of the movie Ted and therefore our child will never have a name ending in Lynn.

- Harper Marjorie: other than the middle name this name has no significance except we like it.

- Aidah Marjorie: this is one that wad added by the Man...weird since it starts with a vowel but whatever. I personally wasn't a big fan of it and would actually prefer to spell it Ada or Aida. Again nothing significant about this first name.

- Marjorie Elaine: Elaine is my mother-in-law's middle name and would be after her. Marjorie again after my g-ma's.  If this name would be chosen I would want to call her Jorie.  The Man has big issues with naming your child one thing with the intention to call them something else...I tried to explain that this was a little different since it would be after someone but he didn't agree.

- Jorie Elaine: This is basically the same reason as the last so no need to repeat.

Well those are the main names that made the list. Granted there were many other ones I had on there that the Man said absolutely not to like Ava or Avery. As I said before we have basically decided on a name and not that it's a secret, because it's not people know and can share with other people, but I'm not going to post it on here until she is born. This was the longest it took us to agree on a name...with my last two pregnancies we had a boy and a girl name basically decided on by 8 weeks pregnant and this time we didn't decide until probably a month ago!

Side note: this post was completely written on my phone in between playing with Jack.

Photo Overload!

Here are some photos that I had taken on my phone over the past couple of months, not including ones from our trip to WI and NY...I still have plans for each trip to have their own post, patients people, patients! If you follow me on Intsagram you have probably seen most if not all of these!

the new bedtime routine!

Originally when I came on the computer to blog I was planning on posting about our August trip to Wisconsin and our mini vacation to New York City. As I've mentioned before my computer is out of service so I have to use the Man's....well needless to say uploading pictures to post became a huge headache and I quit. Maybe something will happen later this week when I have more patients.

On to something else!

Last week Sunday we made the big transition with Jackson from his crib into a toddler bed. Originally our plan was to get a toddler bed, set it up and let him get use to it being in his room and the idea of it. And then ease him into sleeping and napping in his new big boy bed since baby girl would be sleeping in the pack-n-play in our room for about the first 3 months.  That seemed like a great plan when Jackson and this baby girl were going to have to share a room but now we are moving 12 days before my due date crazy I know! Between moving to a new house/apartment and having a baby within 2 weeks after we thought we should make those two transitions as easy as possible...hence transitioning into a big boy bed a month before the move.

Last Sunday we went to Ikea, picked out the cheapest toddler bed (ours was on clearance for $50), came home put it together and took down the crib. We were all in with this toddler bed...there was no going back on this decision!

The first night was a little rough and we ended up letting Jackson fall asleep in our arms on the couch and then laying him in his new bed. This was after an hour and a half of laying him down and him crawling out of bed just a giggling because he was so proud that he could get out of his bed all by himself.

The next couple days at nap time and bedtime were pretty much the same type of routine. Since the Man is gone at bed time during the week I was on my own with this bedtime battle. On Wednesday or Thursday I happened to have enough of this routine...I was frustrated and he would fall asleep in my arms, I would lay him down and with in 5 min he was back out of bed. Something needed to change! I needed to lay the smack down with him and get him out of this habit.  So that is exactly what I did...it ended up taking almost 2 hours to get him to finally fall asleep on his own, in his own bed but it happened!!! There were a lot of tears and I had to take away his nuk until he agreed to lay down in his bed on his own.

The next night I decided on how our new bedtime routine was going to go:
     - try and make sure he doesn't have his nuk for at least an hour before bedtime
     - around 6:45 we start to pick up all of our toys in his bedroom and the living room
     - after toys are picked up we change his diaper and put pj's on
     - Jackson then gets to pick out a book or two to read
     - we read his bedtime book/books 
     - spend a little time cuddling I'm not ready to give that part of bedtime up at all!
     - I then tell/ask Jackson if he is ready to go to bed in his new big boy bed, almost every time he has answered with yes
     - we then go into his room, he crawls in his bed and lays down, I cover him up, shut the door and leave

The first time I tried the "new" routine he got up 1 time and I took his nuk away until he layed back down in his bed. After that I have had no problems at bedtime...I think it almost is easier than when he was in a crib because now I don't have to carry him and reach over the crib rail to lay him down with this giant belly.

The real test was going to be putting him to bed on Saturday and Sunday because whenever the Man is home Jackson never goes to bed easy EVER! Saturday night I just did my same routine and basically left the Man out of it and Jack went down great. Sunday night the Man decided he wanted the bedtime cuddles and was going to give it a shot....it didn't go as smooth as it had been going for me. Jackson was totally testing the Man's authority and crawled out of his bed just a giggling and even went and grabbed a few toys which he's never done for me about 4 different times. I coached the Man on what worked for me, he did the same thing and almost an hour later Jackson was sound asleep in his bed.

Point: after a week I can honestly say that Jackson is sleeping in his big boy bed all on his own and the bedtime struggles are gone or at a very minimum!! WOOHOO! I really thought this was going to be a much more difficult task than it was...I hope it stays this way when we move into the new house/apartment.

Another New Jam

Last night I was chatting on Google Hangouts with the Man and he mentioned that he is really liking the artist Passenger at the moment and suggested that I check out a couple of his songs. I listened to 3 different songs of his tonight and the more I listen to him the more I'm liking what I'm hearing.  Here are 2 of the songs I listened to and am really liking.

Let Her Go by Passenger

Patient Love by Passenger

long time comin'

It feels like an eternity since the last time I've actually blogged....not that it's a big surprise because my blogging seems to go in streaks.

As I said in my last post my computer decided to break and I really mean break...it doesn't do anything at the moment! Now you would think that since I am married to a total computer geek this would be no big deal in our household. Well we've been busy and the part that we need to fix it is expensive...basically the laptop has been put in a closet and probably won't get fixed for awhile. So here I am using the Man's computer which I hate how it types and boycotted until now!

I'm not saying that my blogging is going to get any better anytime soon but I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still here and I really am going to try and get back into the swing of things and maybe go back to my goal of at least 2 blog posts a week...yep you read that correctly I have a goal for blogging and I don't think I've succeeded at that goal for more than a 2 or 3 week time span, weak!!

Let me do a quick recap of whats been going on in our lives I really have every intent on doing individual posts for most of these things but again we will see what happens.

- We took a family trip to WI for 10 days
- Also took a random kind of last minute family trip to Brooklyn, NY to visit our friend Jordan
- We've been on the hunt to find some place else to live...goal is to be out of our current place before this baby gets here in November (update: we just signed a lease on a new apartment tonight and will be moving November 1st!!)
- Preparing for the arrival of this baby girl...OMG can you believe Wednesday I will be 31 weeks and only have a little more than 6 weeks left of work before I go on maternity leave!
- the Man started back up with school and is taking a full 12 credits again, along with working 40 hrs a week, plus doing military drills
- Jackson...need I say more. This little man keeps us on our toes daily and we wouldn't have it any other way.  He is a pretty incredible person and I can't wait to see how he rocks being a big brother.
- the Man had a birthday and turned the big 27

Well I'm drawing a blank as to what else has been going on that is big enough to be noted.  Other than those things its just been the same crazy schedule we've pretty much always have had. Hopefully tomorrow or later this week you will see at least one more post!

Jackson Part 2

So I realized that I left out a bunch of stuff I had intended to post in the update about Jackson.  So here is what else is up with Jack!

~ He has 11 teeth now! His front 8 have been in since 12 months and since May he has been slowly getting his molars in. 3 of them are visible and I'm hoping the 4th comes through before our trip to WI. It could be the vaca from hell if it decides to try and appear then!

~ He is starting to say words and tries to get his point across. The words we think he is saying are: more, water, ball, hello. He also roar's like a lion and moo's like a cow when ever he sees a cow.

~ If you ask him where the following things are he can usually get them right once in awhile he gets hung up on a couple of them: eyes, ears, hair, belly, nose, tongue

~ Jackson has also started helping put his toys away at night and during the day. He knows where they belong and will take them there again this is usually because he gets distracted fairly easily, I blame his dad :) and put them where they go. The only hang up we have is that after he puts it away he gets super excited and then takes it back down/out to play with it again. So I have to quickly get to him on to something else after putting his toys away so he doesn't take them back out right after putting them away.

~ We are working on eliminating the bottle. Towards the end of June we cut him off cold turkey from a bottle before his afternoon nap, didn't phase him. The next week we cut him off from the bottle in the morning, it was harder on the Man and I than him! And now about 2 weeks after that I am trying to weaning him off of his bedtime bottle. Instead of giving him a full 8-9 oz bottle at bedtime I have been lowering the amount in the bottle everyday...tonight his bottle had 5 oz. and he didn't even finish it all. I'm sure he would be fine getting cut off cold turkey like the other two but I am selfish and I really enjoy our current bedtime routine and I am afraid I won't get as many bedtime snuggles...judge away but Jackson gives some pretty amazing snuggles! I should also mention that the week before we started any of this we started putting milk in a sippy cup just to get Jackson use to the idea that milk doesn't just come from bottles. I think this helped a lot because the first couple of days he would take a drink expecting water and make a disgusted face and have nothing to do with it. After a few days he got use to the thought of milk or water being in his sippy cups. So now in the morning Jackson is given a sippy cup of milk when he wakes up and usually drinks that while snuggling with the Man for an hour. Then he has breakfast, after that he gets some snacks and a morning nap. At lunch he gets another sippy cup of milk to drink between then and his afternoon nap. After nap time he might get a little snack while I'm cooking up supper and then he gets another sippy cup of milk with supper. Then around 6:30 - 7 p.m. he is usually hungry again so he gets another snack and then at 7:30 - 8 its books, bottle and bedtime. Hopefully by the end of next week it will just be books & bedtime. this bullet got much longer than I intended!

Jackson!

Holy Cow Jackson is already 15 months old!

I really don't know where the past year has gone...I actually find myself having a hard time believe that he was ever as little as he was.

Jack has changed so much in the last year its crazy. Watching him learn new things daily amazes me. He is becoming such a little ham. He loves to make you smile and laugh at the silly things he does. He is so full of love its crazy! He loves to give the Man and I snuggles and kisses....once in awhile he will give a few other people snuggles. Jackson has also started to share his water bottles and snacks with us...he gets such a huge smile on his face when he shares something. He LOVES to be outside, whether its going for a walk or playing at the playground.  He does have his share of meltdowns in the month/week/day and does things on purpose that he knows he shouldn't be doing...like standing on the furniture or playing with the blinds. But all in all he is pretty much a lover of life and a happy-go-lucky kid.

All of these pictures are from my phone again so sorry if you have already seen some of them on Instagram and I didn't include any photos from the 4th of July since I really do intend to post that seperate!