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!