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!

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! :)

Teaser shots from Jackson's 1 yr photos

I can't wait to see the rest!

Happy Birthday Jackson!

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Jackson had a wonderful birthday!! I really don't think that the day could have gone any better! He woke up that morning in bed with Mommy and Daddy. I kept him in bed with us after he woke up at 5 AM to feed, and he slept for another 2 hours in between us. He woke up at 7 AM with a big smile on his face and, as always, a huge amount of energy. Justin's mom and Carl were in town staying with us and we took him downstairs so that he could get his first "birthday song" of the day from them. Then we played a bit and then Justin's mom took over so that we could start getting things ready for his birthday party. Because Jackson LOVES the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, we made that his party theme. We kept it small and at our house so that he would be the most comfortable.

At 10 AM, I put Jackson down for a nap and he decided to sleep until noon! This was perfect because that gave us time to decorate, cook, and get ready before the party started at noon. Once Jackson was up, we got dressed and headed downstairs to the party. I thought Jackson might get a little overwhelmed with the people there, but he was great! He was so cute and was hamming it up for everyone. I dont think he stopped smiling for most of the party. He let everyone hold him and was very interactive. His buddies Liam and Alexander also came to the party. Everyone had a wonderful time.

Lauren made the most perfect cake ever for us and it was also delicious! When it was time for Jackson to eat cake, he did much better than we thought. He actually ate some cake and icing, which we were surprised by, given all of the people watching him. He also enjoyed playing with it and feeding it to everyone else! He was eating up all of the attention from everyone! Then it was time for presents, and it's safe to say that Jackson was completely spoiled! He loved all of his gifts (and the boxes that they came in! :)We also had a special treat at Jackson's party, since it was his great-grandma's 80th birthday as well. We surprised her with a cake and sang Happy Birthday to her too. I think she was really surprised and really enjoyed spending her birthday with her great-grandson and family!After the party he took his afternoon nap and then we headed to dinner to meet my Dad and Grandma A to celebrate. Jackson did great at dinner, although Mommy and Daddy were pooped! He also enjoyed opening even more gifts that evening from my dad and my grandma. What a fun day! Next years birthday will be a much bigger celebration, but this year was perfect in every way!

August and Everything After

That is the title of my favorite Counting Crows album, but more importantly it perfectly fits as a title for Jackson's 12 MONTH update. The reason that title is so appropriate is that with each passing day, it gets harder and harder to remember what life was like before Jackson was born. On August 8, 2009, our lives were forever changed when we welcomed our little boy into this world. This past year has been the most wonderful, exhilarating, challenging, and gratifying year of our lives. It seem so funny to me how, in the blink of an eye, we went from this:

to this:

to this:

to this (the night before giving birth):

In active labor-Ha! But seriously-that pain is NO joke!

And then, at 2:17 PM on 8/8/09, Jackson entered the world and our lives would never be the same.




And he was so peaceful when he was born, which worried us at first because he wasn't crying. Looking back, I now think it was just a part of what was to be his general disposition. To this day, he is still a pretty calm and chilled out little guy, which I love about him. He still lays back in his high chair and stroller and kicks his feet up, which causes so many comments from strangers about how cute, relaxed, and content he looks. More than anything, though, he seems so completely happy, which reassures me and Justin that we've gotta be doing something right. Here are some updates about Jackson at 12 months:

-He is walking everywhere now and he is unstoppable! He started a little after 11 months and now he has gotten so good at it. He has also started walking so fast that he is almost running and he will run right into our arms to give hugs/kisses. He loves to walk while holding our hands and pull us around the house while waving at everything he sees along the way. He climbs up our stairs at lightening speed and holds our hand to walk back down them. Whew, our days of kicking our feet back and relaxing while he is awake are way over!

-He has 8 teeth and is still using them to bite when he gets frustrated. It's not too often, but we are still trying to teach him not to bite. The pediatrician suggested that we implement time out-1 minute per year of age. We will probably start it soon now that I am noticing the very beginning of his assertiveness coming through :) Sometimes he goes through stages where he bites more often, and I am trying to determine if that corresponds to teething. Speaking of teeth, he loves to have his teeth brushed. We do it twice a day and he opens up wide and then claps when we are done.

-We are slowly making progress with introducing new foods. He is trying new foods, but it is a slow process to get him to really be interested in them. He still LOVES his baby food, though. We usually include chunky "table foods" and a whole jar of baby food in with each meal until we can get him eating more of a variety of table food. We have been given the go ahead to start cows milk, which we will start soon. Recently we have tried giving him scrambled eggs, mashed egg yolks, blueberries, and watermelon with no luck. He will put them in his mouth and then take them right back out and throw them on the floor. I am going to just keep trying in hopes that he will get used to them. We have had success with pancakes, bread, grilled cheese, stage 3 chunky baby food (which used to make him gag), and noodles. And speaking of food, I reached my goal of breastfeeding for a year!! YAY! The last few months have had their challenges, but I stuck through it. We always kept a small stock of formula on hand just in case we needed it, but we never did, so Jackson ended up never having a single drop of formula. I feel fortunate to have been able to do this, and it has also been a huge cost savings for us this year. (side note-I know not everyone can breastfeed or do it this long for a variety of reasons, and I certainly don't judge anyone for using formula. I am happy that it exists and that there is another option for women who need it or prefer it!)

-Sleep, sleep, sleep-I feel like a broken record, but it is still inconsistent. And it has been awhile since I got a full nights sleep without waking to nurse him back down. I know I have said this before, but the time is upon us to start working to make this better. I am going to quit offering it up at night in hopes that he will learn not to rely on it to get back to sleep. Then I will continue to slowly cut out his daytime feedings until he is completely weaned. Who knew weaning would be so hard? I think the reason it is harder than I thought is because we have tied nursing and sleep in together, which in hindsight, probably wasn't the best idea. Still, he is happy, healthy, and he still gets an average of 11 hours of sleep per night and 3 hours of naps a day, so I feel that we aren't a total failure in the sleep department. I am looking forward to getting a full nights sleep again soon...hopefully that is not just wishful thinking! :)

-Jackson had been very clingy to me the last few months, but lately he has become quite the Daddy's boy. He flip flops over which of us he prefers each day, but he seems to become increasingly more affectionate with Justin by the day. Sometimes Justin will be holding Jackson and Jackson will spontaneously lean in and give him kisses over and over and lay his head on Justin's shoulder. He had been doing that with me for a little while, but now some days Justin gets more lovin' than I do! Jackson also seems to have begun finding more and more things about me and Justin that he finds funny. We make him laugh all the time. The difference is that he laughs a lot at us when we aren't trying to make him laugh. Usually we will just be talking and there is a phrase or sound that he finds hilarious. It is ADORABLE!

-Jackson's latest obsession is with anything involving water. I swear as soon as he sees or hears running water, he yells out "WAWA!" and gets really excited and begins to wave at the water. He continues to love bath time and the other night I took some of the bubbles from his bath in my hand and blew them on him. He thought that was just the greatest thing and we had to do it over and over again while he giggled the whole time.

-His favorite bedtime stories are: Goodnight Moon, I Love You Stinky Face, I Love My Daddy, and My Go To Bed Book. He now has his favorite pages in each book that we have to spend extra time looking at during story time so that he can "talk" to them. He is great at turning the pages and pointing things out.

-He is becoming a pro at rolling and bouncing a ball toward us. He is also mastering simple commands. If we ask him to bring us a ball, book, or car from his toy collection, he will pick out the correct item and bring it to us. If we ask him where things are (aka the fan, kitty, etc), he will look toward that item and point to it. He also loves playing with magazines and ripping out pages to bring to us so that we can make over it. He gets so proud of himself when we make a big deal out of it. He is really into sharing everything right now ( I know this will change one day!) and wants to share with us his toys, food, and basically anything he can get his bear paws on.

-This little man is a dancing machine! Anytime some music plays he starts clapping and bending his knees and bouncing, all with a huge smile on his face. I really think I could sit there and watch him do that all day long! And I know I may be biased, but I think he's got some good rhythm...he often claps and stomps his feet the beat!

I have to admit, the night before Jackson's birthday, I had a little moment right before I laid him in his crib for the night. He was in such a peaceful sleep and I just looked down at him and I felt sadness that he is not really a baby anymore. I also felt such pride and happiness of the little boy that he is becoming everyday. Still, it seems like so long ago that we held him for the very first time, yet also like no time has passed at all. And I thought about how even though the next day, he would officially no longer be a baby, he would always be our baby. I guess that's how our parents must feel too, and maybe I am beginning to understand a little bit why our grandparents keep saying that they can't believe that the "babies are having babies". Jackson has brought us more joy than we could have ever imagined and I thank God for him every single day. Our little boy is truly the light of our lives, and our love for him grows with each passing day! :)

Speaking of growing, Jackson is growing like a weed! His official stats from his 12 month visit are:

Height: 31.5 in ~92nd percentile

Weight: 22 lbs 8 oz~45th percentile

Head Circumference: 18 inches~65th percentile

PS-1st birthday party photos coming soon! Also, Jackson takes his 1 year photos tomorrow...will post them when I get them back!