The world according to Jackson

Jackson got a camera from his Aunt Boo Boo for Christmas this year. He LOVES taking pictures and having his picture taken. Here are a few:

Taken by Jackson:

 There are so many of these! He loves the self portrait! :)

Taken by mommy:

 My fav!

Rhett-10 months Jackson-3 1/2 (also few family updates)

Yay-a post sort of on time! Our baby turned 10 months old a few weeks ago and it seems he is doing new things every day!

-He has taken his first steps at 10 1/2 months! He will only take 2-3 at a time before he sits down, but I am sure he will be officially walking soon.

-He said his first official word (other than "up"). He says "Dada!". I think this is because Justin has been putting so much effort into getting Rhett to say Dada first and has been saying it over and over to him. That's ok- since Jackson said "Mama" first, I will let Justin have this one ;)

-He is FINALLY trying some finger foods. He will eat a few bites of crackers and a few baby puffs (like cheerios). He also tried a small bite of biscuit, which he seemed to enjoy. He is loving his baby yogurt and he gobbles it down like a little pig every day. I have scaled back giving him the thicker meat blends because it was turning him off of baby food altogether. Now he is back to eating fruit and veggie baby foods, so I will re-introduce meats again in a little while. His doctor says he must be a vegetarian! :)

-Not that he ever took a bottle to begin with, but he is now drinking out of a sippy cup!! I give him a little bit of water in it and does great!

-He is positively giddy to nurse. He starts kicking his legs, laughing, and gets the biggest smile when I take my shirt off. haha! He will be so embarrassed to read this when he is older! So, that being said, it is safe to say that I wont be weaning him any time soon. Also, when he is breastfeeding, he will hold my fingers as tight as he can and sing himself to sleep. I am not kidding, I think that is seriously his happy place! He is nursing approx 6 (sometimes 7) times a day.

-Tooth number 5 (upper lateral incisor) has finally broken through, and the other one is soon to follow.

-He still naps for 2 hours a day and sleeps at night from 8 pm until 7 am, still waking about 1-3 times through the night.

-He continues to favor his left hand. It will be interesting to see if he turns out to be left handed.

-His eyes get more and more green as time goes on. Several people have commented on his pretty green eyes, even though they are still mostly blue with a green ring around the pupils.

-Rhett and Jackson are able to play and interact more and more now that Rhett is getting bigger and more mobile. Jackson now tries to pick him up when they are both standing. Jackson also grabs onto Rhett and gives him big bear hugs, which makes Rhett squeal with happiness. I know I say this all of the time, but Rhett laughs at Jackson every single day. Even when Jackson is crying about something, Rhett thinks it's funny. He just adores everything about his big brother! Well-as I am typing this I realize that there is one thing that Rhett does not find funny and that is when Jackson takes a toy away from him. In fact, Rhett gets pretty mad and cries now when that happens.

-Rhett is a dancing machine! He loves to boogie and gets really excited when music comes on. I will try to post video.

-He is clapping a lot and waving every now and then. He loves when his Daddy walks in the door and he starts screeching, talking and reaching out to his daddy.

-He doesnt seem to have the stranger anxiety like Jackson did. Rhett just gets really bashful and lays his head on my shoulder when other people talk to him, but he smiles at them. He also stares at people all the time in public until they acknowledge him.

-We are going to start planning his first birthday soon! It will be at our house and low key like we did for Jackson's first birthday. We are tossing around a few themes, but we need to get started soon!

That's really all I can think of for now. I can't believe that my baby is getting out of that baby phase and will be 1 year old in about a month and a half!

Some family updates:

-I finished donating all of my stored breastmilk! I donated a total of 350 oz and I love that it will be going to NICU babies that really need it.  I have a small backup left in our freezer, but I have a feeling it will end up getting tossed out.

-Our first nephew was born! Now our boys have 5 girl cousins and 1 boys cousin! My older brother an sis-in-law had a little boy and he is SO cute and I can't wait to love on this baby, hopefully this spring when we take a trip to TN! Welcome to the world Eli!

-My birthday was back in January and it was really nice! We went out to dinner and had a delicious cake (thank you Jusitin and Lauren!). Jackson refused to sing to me the night of my birthday because he was pouting that it wasnt his birthday ...spoiled child! :) But he changed his tune the next night and we put a candle in the leftover cake so that he could sing to me. My boys and rest of my family made it really special!

-We are pretty sure that Jackson had fifths disease. He had a few days of high fever, cold symptoms, and then the tell tale "slapped cheek" look several days later. Rhett also developed a fever few days after Jackson, but never had the red cheeks. Thankfully it was more of a nuisance than anything.

-We are in the early planning stages for our next vacation. We are definitely planning to go to Chattanooga and Dallas this year to visit family, but we are trying to figure out where to go for our annual big family trip. We are thinking Disney World + Disney cruise again, but we are also tossing around Disney Land + Hawaii trip as well. Right now we are leaning more toward Disney World, but we keep going back and forth. We NEED to get back to Hawaii asap!

-This month I celebrated 5 years with my job at the American C.ancer Society! Cant believe it has been 5 years already. Time flies when you are having fun!

Check out the sweet photos and videos below!

Check out the red eyes/cheeks...leftover rash from Fifths Disease!

Blurry, but too cute not to post!

 Another one of Jackson's "castles" at school in the background!

 Say CHEESE!

9 Month Update

Here are his official stats from his 9 month well visit:

Weight: 20 lbs 6 oz- 59th percentile
Height: 30 3/4 in- 99th percentile!
Head Circumference: 17 3/4 in- 47th percentile
BMI: 15.2

This boy is growing, for sure! In fact, everywhere we go people think he is at least a year old. My baby is starting to get out of that "baby" phase, and I just want time to slow down! At 9 months old:

-He is babbling all of the time! One day he found some new sounds and he loves to use them. He yells things like "yayayaya", "gagagaga", "dadadada", etc. He also learned the "c" sounds and will say "cah" and good bit.

-He is clapping and gesturing. He is reaching for things and he is almost waving. Actually we think he has waved several times, but it's just not consistent yet.

-He got another (mild) cold a few weeks ago, which was horrible for his sleep. He gets so irritated when he is congested and wakes up wailing every hour or so. Seriously it was about 5 days of completely horrible sleep deprivation for me. Thankfully he is better and finally back to waking only once or twice through the night again.

-He still has 4 teeth, but tooth #5 (on the top) is bulging in his gums and taking forever to pop through.

-He is still doing great with baby food, but refuses all finger foods. I have tried many things and the only thing he will put in his mouth is a piece of Mum Mum, which he promptly gags on. The doctor says to keep trying, but I do hope he will start eating some finger foods soon! I started him on some baby food meat purees, and he HATES them! I have to trick him by giving him a spoonful of meat blend, and then a spoonful of fruit to chase it down. He is doing well with veggie blends, though! Also, he loves his yogurt (all flavors!).

-He is in constant motion and a busy boy! Diaper changes are so difficult now. Also, he wants to crawl and pull up on everything. He goes for long periods of standing without holding on to anything. I am waiting for those first steps to come soon and then the real fun begins!

-He remains feisty as ever. He is protesting more and more now when he doesn't like something, particularly if you take something away that he was playing with. At the same time, though, he is a sweet boy that loves to snuggle and be loved on...just on his terms. Most of the time he wants to go go go!

-His new word that he says constantly is "up"! I don't know if it counts as a first word, but he says it first think when he wakes up, all day long, and even in his sleep.

-Jackson continues to be his favorite person ever! It doesn't matter what Jackson does, Rhett finds it hilarious! Rhett just laughs and laughs at Jackson all of the time. It is really sweet to see their bond at such an early age. Now that Rhett is mobile and getting bigger, Jackson wants to play with him more and will often get excited and play a little too rough with Rhett. That is something that we are working on with Jackson right now, but it is all out of love. Jackson is so sweet with his brother and it melts my heart to see them playing and laughing together.

-Rhett loves to dance! I love to see him shaking his little bootie! Jackson also loves to dance and I LOVE watching them both!

-Both boys continue to be on the same nap schedule during the day (YES!). I won't lie, it is really nice! Rhett does take an extra nap in the morning, but they are down the exact same time in the afternoons. There are at least 1.5 hours in the day where the house is quiet and we get a break. On the weekends, we all take naps and it is wonderful!

-Rhett's 10 month update is coming soon, as he actually turned 10 months old a few days ago. Here are some pictures and photos of Rhett at 9 months old (and Jackson at almost 3 1/2). Love them forever and always!

Christmas 2012

We had a wonderful Christmas this past year, despite the nasty respiratory illness than ran through our house! Jackson had a very mild case of pneumonia and Rhett had a respiratory infection a week before Christmas. This is after I had Bronchitis that lingered for almost 4 weeks! Justin made fun of me for having the "black lung", but then he turned around and got the same thing after Christmas. Thankfully we were all relatively healthy for the Christmas Holidays!

We had a nice time visiting with family. Justin's mom came to visit a few weeks before Christmas, which was great! We started the festivities on Dec 23rd, and celebrated Christmas with my mom's side of the family, my dad's side of the family, and then we had our own little Christmas here with the boys on Christmas morning. Christmas Eve was a bit rough and was definitely NO silent night...ha! Rhett was on an antibiotic and with the hustle and bustle of Christmas Eve festivities, I did not give him yogurt to help his tummy tolerate the medicine. That night, he was up crying out in pain many times and I could tell it was his tummy. I felt horrible for the little guy. Needless to say, he was sort of a crank pot Christmas morning, but after some yogurt and a nap, he was back to happy! As for Jackson, he was in  hog heaven this year and it was SO exciting to watch him on Christmas morning. He really got into Christmas this year and both boys were totally spoiled. Santa went all out this year!

All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas together and I really enjoyed making memories and traditions with our boys, as well as celebrating our first Christmas as a family of four! We went to the Festival of Lights at James Island County park (which just gets better every year). I LOVE taking the boys here, because I have been going since I was a little girl. We also had our special elf of the shelf "Chocolate Cake" who stayed with us in December. Jackson loved finding him every morning. We had so much fun baking Christmas cookies, decorating our Christmas tree, singing songs, watching Christmas movies (We all know Mickey's Christmas Carol by heart!), seeing the Christmas tree at Marion Square, and making Christmas crafts together. This year was also a particularly nice Christmas visiting with family!

As for New Years Eve, we stayed in and had a wild night of playing on the 3rd floor playroom, bath time for the boys, bedtime stories, and me and Justin were asleep by 11. Yee Ha! Of course I woke up at midnight from the LOUD fireworks in the neighborhood that lasted an hour (ugh!), but thankfully the boys stayed asleep.

2012 had some ups and downs and it is sad to think of staring 2013 without my sweet grandmother and both of Justin's amazing grandparents. Despite that,  I am so thankful for the many wonderful blessings that 2012 brought us. Most importantly, I am thankful a safe delivery of my sweet baby Rhett, and for the health and happiness of my beautiful boys, husband, and family. Here's to a wonderful 2013!

Here are some photos from Christmas 2012:

 Meeting and falling in love with Emerson!

Super Jackson

Jackson's teachers took this photo of his "castle" that he built at preschool today. They were amazed that a 3 year old built this, and they pulled Justin aside this week to tell him that Jackson is really advanced and pretty much already at a kindergarten level. His primary teacher is a retired elementary school teacher and she said that he will most likely be pretty bored in kindergarten. We are noticing more and more that he has a crazy good memory. I know, I know-everyone thinks their kid is a genius, right? :) But the fact that his teachers are always pulling us aside to tell us that he surprises them all of the time with his memory and comprehension is pretty special. What can I say, I am a proud mommy (of both my babies!)

And for good measure, here's one of our "super hero" himself (notice the cape!) last night!