Saturday, September 11, 2010

One year photos and new family photos


All courtesy of Kim Graham Photography. Kim was our wedding photographer and also did Jackson's baby photos. We love Kim! We are so happy with how they turned out. We got some super cute photos of Jackson!! Here are just a couple of proofs of our family shots. They are screenshots so please excuse the arrow on Justin's forehead below! :) Here is a link to Kim's blog to see a few more. I will try and add a few more later of just Jackson.








13 Month Update








Another month has flown by! Man, what a super fun age this is!! There are new surprises every day with Jackson showing us things that he has learned. At 13 months
-This kid is a climber! He is perfectly happy climbing anything and everything. In the past, he had a really hard time getting down from stairs, ottoman, couches, toys, etc. Going up was a peice of cake! He is now learning more and more how to get back down and to go feet first. He has learned to use the stair railing to get back down. It is really neat to see him master a new way to do things. He is also becoming a pro at walking backwards. He loves to push his big cars all the way across the room and hit the wall, only to go all the way back pulling the car while walking backwards.
-He is really blossoming with his words. Out of nowhere, he will say something new. His newest word is "no"! He is really cute the way he says it though-He will say "na na na NO!!" His favorite words to say right now are Mama, Dada, No, Wawa (water), Doh (window), Mote (remote), book, and ball. I got some cute video to post where he says a few, but I couldnt get him to say mama on the video, which is his favorite word-go figure!

-He has become much more open to new foods all of the sudden, which is great. He is still eating baby food with each meal, but we are adding more and more table foods every day. Some new "table foods" that he is eating: turkey, ham, pancakes, biscuits, macaroni and cheese, carrots, peas, green beans, cereal bars, rice krispy bars (earths best ones for babies), buttered toast, small pieces of tater tots, and I am sure there is more that I am forgetting. As for whole milk, it has been a slow process to get him to take it. We give him whole milk with his breakfast in the morning, but he will only drink a little bit. He is still getting breast milk and water the rest of the day. My sister in law suggesting warming the whole cows milk up to get him to take it, which is the only way my nieces would take it. I am going to try it if he doesnt start drinking more of the cows milk.
-SLEEP HAS GOTTEN MUCH BETTER! Man it feels good to say that. Out of nowhere he started sleeping in much longer spurts and is now only waking 1-2 times per night. I was starting to doubt that this would ever happen! He had been getting up 3-4 times a night for what seemed like forever there for awhile. So now this means that I feel like a new woman from getting some good long stretches of sleep. God I hope this isnt a fluke! He's been going strong and sleeping great for about 3 weeks now. He got a small cold early last week and was up EVERY single hour for 2 nights straight, and I thought "well it was nice while it lasted..." but as soon as he could breathe clearly again, he went back to his great sleeping. I really hope this trend continues
-He continues to show us his strong will every day. When he is unhappy about something, he will stomp around in a circle in protest. Justin and I try so hard not to laugh, but it is really funny! Once he sets his sights on something, he will find any way he can to get his paws on it. One of our favorite things is what he does when he wants Justin's sunglasses. Sometimes Justin will set them on his shirt collar while he is holding Jackson because if not, Jackson will pull them right off your face. Anyway, Jackson will lean in real lovingly and rest his head against Justin. Justin will think it is the sweetest thing, but then he will feel Jackson's sticky little fingers gently pulling the sunglasses off of his shirt. He's so sneaky! :)
-The stranger anxiety has all but diminished. He is a really social little guy now and will wave and smile to almost anybody. Sometimes he gets shy if someone is making over him and he will smile and lean his head against us. He especially loves little old ladies and pretty waitresses. He is also playing mostly with the "big boys" at Mothers Morning out. His teacher says he really is good at sharing. He does have a little girl that follows him around there. She is 2 and loves babies. She is always waiting for him at the gate when we drop him off. He will be moving to the big boy room soon!
-He loves to give us kisses. The best is when they are unprovoked. We will just be sitting there and he will lean in and plant a big kiss on one of us. He loves playing the "belly button" game with Justin in the mornings. Jackson will go hunting for Justin's belly button and then will stick his finger in it and make Justin laugh. Jackson gets such a kick out of this and will lean in and give Justin kisses over and over again. Another one of Jackson's favorite games is to "fake" sneeze. We will both say "BLESS YOU" really loud and Jackson laughs every time. He thinks he has really pulled one over on us.
I know we are biased, but we are constantly floored by how stinkin cute Jackson is. We love spending every day with him just watching and interacting with him and seeing what new things he is going to do. There is no doubt that he has both of us wrapped around his little fingers!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Our smart little guy! ;)


The Jackson Boogie

He is coming up with new moves every day. Lately he has begun hooking his hands into his pants (or diaper in this case) which makes it look like a country/western dance. It is hilarious!!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Trip to South Bend, IN

Getting Ready for the Notre Dame/Purdue Game


On Campus
Watching Grandpa play with his band at the Blueberry Festival:

Jackson is mad that he has to sit still for this photo :)
Pointing out Michelle's eyes! He loves to do this to everyone!

Fun on the playground


We decided to take a quick trip up to South Bend to see Justin's Dad and Stepmom. We opted to fly there so that we could see how Jackson does on a plane since we have a big trip coming up in Jan/Feb. Unfortunately, Jackson came down with a small cold several days before we were scheduled to go, but he was feeling much better by Thursday, so off we went. He actually did really well during the flights! We held him in our laps, which meant he was acting like a wild man at times trying to climb over us, but he slept for over half the way there and back. That was really nice! And boy did he love flirting with the flight attendants and waving at the other passengers. One of the flight attendants paid us the sweetest compliment. She said that he was such a happy and well-behaved little guy and she couldnt get over how affectionate he was with both of us. She said that she has rarely seen babies so affectionate with their parents. He is quite the snuggle bunny!

During our trip to South Bend, we: hung out with family which was nice and relaxing, went out to a delicious breakfast, took a stroll around Notre Dame and ate lunch on campus, visited the Notre Dame bookstore, went to the Blueberry Festival in Plymouth, IN and watched Justin's Dad play with his band, ate some delicious food at the Blueberry Festival (this was a HUGE event!) and walked around as Jackson waved to anyone and everyone, visited with extended family (Justin's Dads side) during the festival, Justin and his dad went to the Notre Dame vs. Purdue game, had fun playing with the furbabies- Max, Koa, Meer, Muffin, and Minnie, played with Jackson at a local playground, and visited the South Bend Mall...Whew! It was a whirlwind, but we had a great time. The flight back was a breeze except when Jackson was "reading" (aka tearing out pages) of a magazine and snuck a small piece of paper in his mouth which made him gag. Of course this made him throw up on his pants, but it was only a small amount and well contained, so he went the rest of the flight pants-less! HA! Lesson learned-No more magazines for Jackson any time soon! But what a fun trip it was. Enjoy the pictures!

Grandpa's Band


Here is a clip of Justin's Dads band. They were great! Justin's dad is the one you hear singing. He is the one on the far left in the black shirt. Jackson is taking it all in!

Boat Trip





We took Jackson out on his first boat ride a few weeks ago. We recently put our boat in dry stack storage so that it would be easier to get out and use now that we have Jackson. It's awesome: We call the marina and within 45 minutes, the boat is in the water, gassed up and ready to go. We just hop on. For his first boat ride, we took Jackson on a little cruise around the Ashley River. He really enjoyed himself and kept yelling "WAWA" over and over and waving to it. I was a little nervous taking him out, but he did really well and it was a nice smooth ride. I think I had the death grip on his life jacket the whole time! Ha! He started getting a little restless toward the end because he wanted to walk around and explore the rest of the boat. It was a fun little outing!


We also took the boat out on Labor Day with Lauren, Will, and baby Liam which was a lot of fun. Liam was too cute in his life jacket!! It has been nice to be able to take the boat out without the hassle of dealing with the crowded landings. Fun times!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Crickets....

Is anybody out there? I think by making the blog private, we lost a lot of readers. Several family members and friends have said they have a hard time accessing the blog now and that the whole password thing is causing problems. We are still going to keep it private, but I am looking to see if another blog site might be more user friendly. The whole purpose of the blog was to keep friends and family updated about our family. Hopefully I can figure something out soon.



I have also been really trying to stay on top of the blog updates because I am going to be printing it out via blog2print.com. It basically makes a book out of the blog updates, and it can be edited to exclude the videos and any other posts that I don't want to be in the book. I think I am going to print a separate book for my pregnancy posts and then another one for his first year. I am also in the process of updating his baby book. When I get some free time (what's that!?) I will start working on a video/picture montage as well that I have been wanting to do for some time. There is a bunch of videos from the day Jackson was born that we have that I want to include.



Wow, time seems to flying by so fast. Things in the Whaley house have been busy, busy, busy! There is much to update about, but not enough time to do it right now. Blog posts coming soon:

-Jackson's first ride on our boat
-Our new car
-Jackon's first plane ride
-13 month update
-One year photos

That's all I can think of right now, but I am sure there is more. Now I just have to find the time to write about it and download the photos. Check back soon! :)