5 Months

Where has the time gone. Did you know this little guy is 5 months old? I can't believe it.

Jackson is such a joy. He has this way of catching your gaze that just makes you want to cuddle up with him and have a deep conversation.

He loves to watch everything that Graham does and coos at him if he feels slightly ignored. Graham is super sweet to him and is always putting toys in his hands (like literally prying his hands open) and telling him "my be right back" if he leaves the room.

Jackson has discovered the springs in his legs and would spend the whole day in the doorway jumper if we let him.

He still comes to work with me and charms all of my coworkers. He is a fabulous sales-baby and can sell a carrier or teether like no one else in the store. Since I'm not working full days like I was with Graham and he gets to come with me, Jackson still refuses to take a bottle. Big bummer for us... but we're still working on it. While he's not as intense as Graham was with strangers (he'd scream instantly if anyone he didn't know touched him, even as a baby), Jackson does look around for me if I'm not holding him or he can't hear me. Smart little cookie, that little Jackson.

We love this little guy so much. Even though he still has trouble between the hours of 4-7 am.... I melt at his sweet little face.

I am one blessed momma for sure!

Snow!

Like the rest of the country, we've had a LOT of snow recently. It snowed all day Christmas Eve but we were busy with family and didn't make it outside.

Then it snowed overnight on January 10. Graham was THRILLED to wake up to a white world. He has this funny way of saying snow, sort of like he can't get the "sn" sound out...and it comes out sounding like "HHnow." It's adorable. Especially the little crinkle in his nose that happens with that heavy HH sound.

He's not a big fan of coats, or any hat but the penguin hat. So naturally me wanting him to wear something to keep his head warm was pure torture.
I asked him to look at me for a picture and this is what I got. He's very into covering his eyes if he gets put on the spot or embarrassed.

Sweet Baxter. LOVES the snow. In case you can't tell.

Then we had 8ish more inches last Wednesday night (the 2oth). It was absolutely beautiful! My work was cancelled that day which meant we had plenty of time at home to play. Graham kept begging to go outside as soon as he saw the snow. I of course loved playing in the snow growing up and look forward to Graham and his buddies playing hard outside and then coming in for hot chocolate and a long nap. He's not there yet. See, he likes it...until any snow gets on him. Which happens when a toddler runs in 8 inches of snow. Any amount of snow really. I knew our adventure outside would last 10 minutes tops, so I went out in my bathrobe and just put Graham's boots on top of his pj's.

He looooved it. Way more than last time.

This last picture is of him trying to take his gloves off. Once the gloves came off.....it was only like 30 seconds until there was a fall. "Special chocolate hot milk" made everything better.

New Years with Nana and Guh-Daddy

Graham spent New Year's Eve with Nana and Guh-Daddy. And if a whole entire evening wasn't enough fun for a two year old... he spent the night. Matt and I were thrilled for a break. So were our ears. This guy can do some serious talking. He. Never. Stops.

Anyway, we left the camera for the fun to be documented.

Doesn't this look like the face of a toddler who is NOWHERE near ready for bed?

Nana let Graham help make pancakes in the morning. AND play play doh. Seriously awesome morning by G's standards.
"Say Cheese!"
We are so incredibly blessed to be so close to our parents. Our family lives a full day's drive from extended family. It was so hard growing up not to see my cousins or be able to spend the night every now and then with my grandparents. It just melts my heart (and I'm sure our parents') when G runs in the door screaming their names at the top of his lungs!

Thank you Ron and Jenny for entertaining Graham for the night! We know he enjoyed every minute!

Covenant Babe

Little Jackson was baptised the day after Christmas. We love infant baptism and how it extends God's covenant with his beloved to their children. How sweet to know that God has initiated a relationship with little Jackson at such a young age. We pray that he grows up never knowing a time without Jesus in his life.

Ron was able to come baptise Jackson and my dad prayed for us. What a blessing to have our families part of this covenant along with us!

Merry Christmas!

We had such a wonderful Christmas with our family. I hope you did too! Beware, this post is lengthy. There are a lot of us...

We love spending Christmas day with both of our families. And this year we realized that we wanted to start making a point to spend time at home as just the 4 of us. So we celebrated with our little family on Christmas Eve. It worked out nicely since it snowed all day long.

We had Matt's family over for brunch. We spend Christmas evening with them so they wanted to spend some time with Graham and all of his Christmas-morning-excitement.

G is eagerly awaiting everyone's arrival. He's also very concerned about the snow covering everyone's cars.

I was really excited to have everyone over. Nothing like decorating for a holiday and no one seeing it.... Thank you family for coming over. In the snow.

Graham playing with his new kitchen. He loves it. Loves it.
Even more than the kitchen though... he loves this new guitar that uncle B gave him. Every morning he has to locate and play with the guitar and then make himself some breakfast (with the wooden food.)
We spent the day indoors as a family. Matt got the Harry Potter DVD series, so he watched the first one. We also packed up ourselves (and the dog) to head over to my parents' house.

The evening was spent over dinner, dessert making, merry making, and of course watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. That movie never gets old.

This is everyone (minus Matt) Christmas morning.

T and C weren't quite sure they were ready to be awake...

Traditional "stairs picture". J was already back asleep. But wow, we are filling up the stairs!

Graham is thrilled about being able to eat a sucker first thing in the morning. That sucker lasted an hour and by the end of it was covered in hair and fuzz. Gross.
Daniel and his creepy hoodie that zips all the way up. What's the point in that?
Graham's first encounter with snow.

As you can tell, he loved it.

We were heading over to the Steel's and I just wanted one picture of all of us dressed. It was too much to ask for. But can you see the boys' matching red and white pants? Only babies can pull off such loud pants. I thought they were cute.
We had a lovely time at the Steel's for Christmas round 2. Graham got a tent and tunnel contraption and spent the evening begging everyone to come in with him. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and some amazing dessert. Oh, and there was a lot of chatting and just plain old enjoying each other. It was so much fun spending extended time together. You'd never know by this picture that they were both falling apart begging for their baths. I think J likes having an audience.

Thank you family for having us and for loving us. Christmas is such a sweet time celebrating Jesus, the best gift of all. And we loved sharing it with the ones we love most!

Almost 4 months

Little Jackson isn't so little.

Where did my little baby go?

He is so stinking adorable. I mean seriously adorable.

This smile makes my day!

Such a sad face! Bink and yuh-yuh make all things better.

"What? You want me to smile?"
Enter big brother: He's totally awesome. J loves him.
And bonus, he's sweet.
Jackson had his 4 month check up on the 20th. He's doing great! He rolled over on the table... but I think it was an accident. No more rolling at home.

He loves to put all things in his mouth, grab his knees and feet, laugh at his big brother, and sit up where he can see everyone. He is so incredibly sweet to snuggle and his eyes can see into my soul. I love him so much!

His stats are...

Height: 26 in. (84%)

Weight: 14 lb. 4 oz. (36%)

Head Circumference: 17.01 in. (75%)

Sugar Cookies

My mom came down to make some sugar cookies and Christmas treats in early December. I'm still playing blog catch up here.

This was G's first time using cookie cutters for real food and not play-doh. He was thrilled.

So thrilled in fact that it's like the kid grew 13 extra limbs. I could barely get the dough and flour out for him to roll. He was reaching and grabbing and snatching from every direction.

And every time I turned my head I heard "mmmm, nummy!" from his direction. He ate more dough than cookies.

He was beside himself with the sprinkles. A little confused about how they were worked though. He wanted to sort of brush them off the cookies.
Which obviously turned into smashing.

They were definitely worth the wait.