January

Here is our January in photos, in sequential order:

At Lake Highlands High School stadium, the day before the Cotton Bowl. We went to see the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band practice their half time show. The picture of me (shown first) was actually taken by Julia. Not half bad!

As I've pulled out various toys and equipment for Jackson, Julia LOVES to pretend that she's the baby and will try all of them out. I'm amazed that she still can squeeze herself in to all this baby gear. Here she is in the Baby Bjorn:


Here she is trying out the Bumbo:


Here she is pretending to be "wrapped up like a little baby", as she loves to do after every bath:

She also pretends to get her diaper changed (she lays on the floor and sticks her legs up in the air), to get a bottle (she sits in our lap, lays back, and pretends to drink from a bottle), and to get burped (she sits up in our lap and has us hold her under the chin while we pat her back.)


Julia's morning bed head (thanks to Andrea for posting Paige's, thus reminding us to get this beauty documented):

After several days of reading the 3 Little Pigs, Daddy built Julia a "house" and pretended to be the bad wolf trying to blow her house down:

Yummy smiles!:

All geared up for snow day:

Two of Jackson's faces I tried to capture while holding him - (1) the furrowed eyebrow look that everyone seems to comment on, and (2) his precious smile:

He loves that light-up star, just like his sister did:

How to blow $700 in the most boring way possible...even the garage door repair guy, who I'm sure has seen every imaginable problem with garage doors, said, "Wow. That's really bad.":

Kendall's birthday dinner at Olive Garden, followed by cake and presents at her house. We cannot believe she is now 10 years old! She is such a wonderful niece to Jarret and me, and she is an outstanding cousin, friend, and helper to Julia and Jackson. Notice a trend how in each picture here and in multiple other posts she is always holding Jackson? She loves that little boy!

Jackson's first time to get carried in the Baby Bjorn:

The four of us headed to WillowBend mall on MLK Day since Jarret had the day off. We just happened to run in to our neighbor Jessica and her daughter Audrey, who is in Julia's class at Mother's Day Out.

Jackson hung out on the bench. He already loves chewing his hand, and both of these shots show more of how he keeps his eyebrows all pinched together. So serious!



Family outing to the park:










Jarret's pre-birthday dinner with me at Del Friscos. Many thanks to our Foundations Group couples for such a generous gift that allowed us to celebrate there (we'd been holding on to that gift card since the Group ended last June!).

The evening of Jarret's actual birthday, we celebrated with his family at his parents house. I provided one of Jarret's favorite appetizers, and his parents made some of his favorite home-cooked dishes.

Somehow my camera got on the "compact video" setting, so this is a little blurry. But regardless you can see Julia's full out throw-caution-to-the-wind sprint to jump in the ball pit (thanks Pierson for sharing your toy with her!!):

My parents recently got a new dog named Ruthie. Dad and Ruthie decided to join us at the park one day (Mom was sick). While I was feeding Jackson, the 3 of them went off to explore. Julia has really taken to Ruthie, and even wanted to walk her all by herself:





On the last day of January, I put my to-do list down and simply held my son in my arms against my chest - for three hours!

Jackson 3 months

Sweet Jackson,

You are absolutely adorable to us. You generously share your big smiles with us, and you love to coo and talk to us.

I hate to admit it, but you are high maintenance! I want to get frustrated with you over this, but then you flash that smile at me and my frustration melts away. A few days ago, you woke up during the night at 12:30, 4:30, and woke up for good at 6:30....all this after you've proven that you can sleep 8 hours at a time if you want to. I was so exhausted and upset that you were awake at 6:30 after waking so many times that night. Then, you flashed that smile at me! I told you, "Don't look at me like that! I still want to be frustrated." But, nope. It's impossible for me to be upset when you give me those huge smiles. All in all, I'm pretty darn smitten with you.

Some fun facts for the record:

• You can still fit in a Size 1 diaper.
• You weigh 13 pounds, according to our home scale. At your 2 month doctor visit, you weighed 11 pounds, 12 ounces.
• You've outgrown most all of your 0-3 month sleepers, but you can still easily fit in the 0-3 shirt/pant sets.
• You almost never spit up or suffer from gas. What a blessing!
• You love to hold hands with us. This was something Julia never liked to do, so we enjoy holding hands with you as often as possible.
• We are in the process of training you to fall asleep on your own during the day, which involves a lot of crying. We're starting the sleep training because you have a habit of falling asleep in our arms (which sometimes can be a long process in and of itself). But what's worse is that if you fall asleep in our arms and then we go to put you down, about 1/2 the time you wake up immediately and start wailing. You like to be held, which is oh-so-sweet when one of us has the time to be solely dedicated to you. But since you have a big sister who also needs some TLC, it's just not possible for us to hold you all the time.
• You take naps either in your crib or in your swing (it's actually your car seat locked into place in the swing base). You often do well falling asleep in your car seat while we're out and about.
• Your nap schedule is all over the place. Regardless of the time of your naps or their length, you seem to consistently be going to bed lately between 8-8:30.
• You still despise tummy time. Despise, I say! Proof shown here:



• You do not like a cold or lukewarm bottle. Sometimes you don't drink your bottle when we first prepare it. If you start crying a little while later, we're convinced you're ready to eat but you still refuse it. Then we'll remember to check the bottle's temperature. Sure enough, if it was even mildly lukewarm and then we re-warm it, you'll drink it right away. Stinker!
• The most bizarre high maintenance thing to us is that occasionally you won't eat sitting down. There have been times before when I try to feed you the bottle while I'm sitting down, and you fuss the whole time. I stand up, and you start drinking. A couple minutes later after you're eating well, I sit back down and you stop drinking. Stand back up, and you start drinking again. Do you realize how long and heavy you are, and how tiring it is to stand up the whole time I'm feeding you!? And what could possibly be different about your eating experience by me standing up?

I took you to Portrait Innovations today for your first professional photo shoot. Look how cute you are!!!!

My Little Angel, you are dearly loved!