Dear Daddy,

We miss you bunches! See you soon!
Love,
Mama and Jack

Playtime!

Jack and I needed some playtime OUT of the house today. We've been playing in the living room floor for what seems like days on end. The weather this afternoon was just lovely so we headed outside and plunked down in the front yard. Jack really loves to play with leaves. He just studies them. I love to watch him try to figure things out... the crunch of leaves, the cool grass between his toes, the different sounds he hears. He gets so excited about things that are new and today was no exception. We had such a time just rolling around in the grass and playing in the yard.

Jingle bells, jingle bells...

We went to visit the reindeer at the mall today. Jack wasn't too interested but we still had fun seeing our friends!

Jack and Gabby

Today, Jack crawled over to Gabby's toy when she wasn't looking and decided to shriek to get her to notice. She promptly ran over and took her toy back - after playing with Jack for several seconds. It was super cute!

Jack and Gabby playing

Jack after Gabby took her toy backI'll get you Mama!

Waitin' on Santa

Where's the carseat?

Jason and I went out on Saturday night to his company Christmas party. We've only been out alone a handfull of times since Jack's been born. It's certainly not because we don't want to, or that we have a shortage of babysitters. It's just been difficult because Jack is nursing and pretty much refuses a bottle so in order for him to eat, I have had to be home. Well, we were able to sneak away after his last feeding yesterday evening and we really enjoyed ourselves. It gave me a chance to put on clothes that haven't yet had a chance to be stained by some sort of strained vegetable. We left the house without a diaper bag, burp cloth, sippy cup, or toy. We even went on our journey without a carseat in the car! As much fun as we had having adult conversation, it was wonderful to come home and find that Yaya was able to have a great evening with Little Man and that he was soundly asleep in his crib when we returned.
P.S. Thanks Yaya for taking such good care of Jack... even if you did have to deal with poo in the bathtub! I promise, he's never done that with us! We love you!

8 months old!

Jack is growing so quickly. On Friday he hit the 8 month mark. It's hard to believe this time last year we were just beginning to prepare for our Little Man's arrival - assembling furniture, painting the nursery, putting together the all-important baby registry. I remember buying clothes a year ago that I knew I would need now that, when I bought them seemed soooo big - Jack's now growing out of those clothes!

Jack went to visit with Dr. Hunt, his gastroenterologist, on Friday to follow up with his reflux. Everything looks great as far as the GERD business is concerned. Jack is now 19 lbs, 14 oz and 28.5 inches long. Jason, Dr. Hunt and I decided we'd like to see how Jack does without any reflux medication. As of Saturday, Jack is med free and hopefully, over the course of the next week or so we'll be able to tell if this reflux stuff is behind us.
We also had some pretty scary stuff happen on Friday. Jack's Pappaw (Jason's dad) went in to have a fairly routine day surgery procedure done. Long story short, he ended up having an extremely rare complication during the procedure and had a seizure. He was supposed to go home on Friday afternoon but ended up being in the ICU for 2 nights. We're so glad to say that Pappaw is fully recovered and home now. We are so blessed to have God watching over our family like He does.

THINK before you speak!

I was at the salon today getting my brows done and I had Jack with me as always. Everyone was oohing and aahing at Little Man, as people always do when a baby's around. One of the stylists says to me "He's so pretty. He looks like a girl!" Ummm, is that supposed to be a compliment? Huh. Sometimes folks don't think about how something might sound in their head before they spit it out of their mouth.

A note for Daddy...

Bye, bye paci

Little Man used to be the model for baby sleep. We'd put him down and he'd cry for 15 minutes tops and then sleep for 10-12 hours straight. It was wonderful. Then, he began to pull up. Jack's been having some pretty significant sleep problems since he's been able to pull himself up in the crib. He'll get standing and then just hang on to the side of the crib and cry, call for me, cry, cry, cry. It wouldn't be so terrible if it was just when we put him to bed but he's been waking in the middle of the night and doing it too. It's been nearly impossible to get him settled without picking him up. Once Jason or I got him out of the crib and soothed him he'd fall right to sleep, only to wake as soon as we put him down. Well, we've used the cry-it-out approach for quite some time with success but since Jack's been starting the night wakings we haven't been very consistent about it. Since Jason's been away on a business trip I decided that the time was right for me to solve this sleep issue once and for all.

Sunday night was really hard. Jack cried for an hour before falling asleep. He slept for an hour and the woke up crying again. Cried for an hour more and then fell back asleep. Slept for 2 hours, woke, cried for 40ish minutes or so, fell back asleep. Woke again, cried, slept - and on and on... Finally, at 4 am I could no longer take it and resorted to putting him into the swing to sleep - usually a surefire solution. He slept til 7. Needless to say, we were both exhausted during the day and I was pretty much at my wits end.

I met up with my friend Camron and her son Jude, who's 5 days older than Jack. I was telling her about Jack's sleeping dilemma and she said Jude did the same thing a couple of months ago. Her solution - take the paci away. Apparently, Jude was waking in the middle of the night and couldn't find his paci to soothe him back to sleep so he would cry for mom to come and get it for him. Once he realized he wasn't getting the paci back he learned to go back to sleep without it. Very interesting. So, I took Jack's paci away immediately.

Jack took a short nap yesterday afternoon without his paci - after crying for 40 minutes. Jack went to bed without his paci - after crying for an hour. But... Jack didn't wake up last night. He stirred for a few minutes a couple of times but never woke up screaming like he has been for the past couple of weeks. We both finally got some good rest and, who knows, maybe the problem's solved.

O Christmas Tree...

I love Christmastime.

Gig 'em!

I can't believe I'm just getting around to posting about this but, HOW 'BOUT THEM AGGIES!!! Our beloved Ags beat the hell outta t.u. - WHOOP!

Image courtsey www.mysanantonio.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day. Our's was VERY busy! We had lunch in Mountain Springs with Yaya and my dad's side of the family and had a wonderful time. Jack really enjoyed being passed around (really) and made lots of friends. We then headed over to Gigi and Pappaw's house and had round 2 there. We love spending time with our family and days like this make us realize what is truly important in life.

Family Picture Day!

Last Sunday, Jason and I took Jack to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens to take some family portraits. Gigi (Jason's mom) and Aunt Emmy (Jason's sister) met up with us along with Emmy's in-laws. Emmalee's father-in-law, Billy, took some amazing pictures of us and we're very thankful to him for spending so much time and doing such a wonderful job. I'm sure we'll treasure these photos forever. Here's a little taste...

Sorry Mama.

New teeth + nursing baby = OUCH!!!
'Nuff said.

Look out world!

Well, today has brought some interesting developments. Jack is officially "crawling" - really more of an army crawl but he's definitely mobile! If that wasn't enough for one day he also started pulling himself up. I had just put him down for a nap and was in the other room. I heard squealing coming from Jack's room and I run in to see if he's ok and he's... STANDING in the crib! Goodness, we're in trouble...time to get babyproofed!

Blackmail!

Jack and Riley will probably want to wring our necks for this in about 15 years...

Fall Fun!

At our previous house we had one tree. I use the term "tree" loosely. It was really more of a very tall stick in the middle of the front yard. When we were looking at houses this past summer, one of our requirements was that the home we bought have several established trees. Well, we got 'em. One of the bonuses (or downsides if you're a pessimist - which I'm not) are all the leaves that we now have on the ground this time of year. I spent several minutes raking the backyard on Saturday afternoon and came up with a pretty good pile of leaves. Of course, I immediately thought - "PHOTO OP!" We had so much fun playing around and getting dirty. Little Man loves leaves!

Every time...

Jack's new carseat is like a La-Z-Boy for babies. We put it in the car on Friday and every ride since (save the 5 minutes it took us to get to church this morning) he's fallen asleep in it. The only downside - we have to take him out to get him in the house!

Sniff... sniff...

I'm blotting my eyes as I type this. Jack made me cry - in a good way. He's been saying "mama" for a couple of weeks now. Saying it as in making the sound "mamamamamama". He says "mama" when he's tired, hungry, mad, etc. Jason and I determined that he says it when he needs help and since I'm the main helper he says "mama". He's never actually said "mama" to me or called me Mama yet - til today. He was waking up from his nap and I was cuddling him when he spit out his paci, looked me square in the face and said "Mama". I lost it. What an amazing blessing it is to be someone's Mama. Little Jackaroo, Mama loves you so much.

7 months old!

Jack turned 7 months old yesterday. Time flies, blah, blah, blah... Seriously though, I love my little man and he's growing so fast! 7 months ago I was in the hospital with my little nugget and now he's saying Mama! I can't believe it. I'm so thankful for him each and every day.

We marked the day by going to the doctor - not a regular checkup but a re-check on Jack's tummy and ears. Poor little guy had an ear infection last week and some troubles going to the bathroom. Dr. Raine took him off one of his reflux meds that, after prolonged use (Jack's been on it for about 5 months), can be "binding" if you get my drift. Well, we got the infection cleared up and Jack is so regular now you could set your clock by him but he had a rough few nights this past week. On Monday night no one in our house got much sleep. Little Man was up crying most of the night and appeared to be in severe pain. We thought it might still be his ears but when Dr. Raine checked them yesterday they looked fine. Soooo, we're trying some things related to his reflux diagnosis to see if we can pinpoint the problem. Interestingly enough, Jack's been refusing solids for a couple of weeks now and yesterday afternoon and evening he couldn't get enough of them! He slept all night too so I wonder if the two are related? Hmmm... I wish he could just tell us what's going on.

On another note, the last several weeks have had our house turned upside down. We've been doing quite a bit of renovation and improvement on the place and it's really starting to feel like home. We (Jason and his friends, not me) have been in the process of replacing all the flooring in the house with wood laminate. The project's almost complete - just the dining room left to go and then the trim and interior doors will be replaced. It really looks and feels like a whole new house.

Mama's a little camera crazy!

Ok, I admit it. I'm a snap-a-holic. I can't help myself. I love to take pictures of my son. We spend every day together and I want to remember every moment. I know it's cliche but time does fly by; he will be grown up before I know it. I want to capture every bit of his baby-ness that I can. That being said... here are some morsels that continue to feed my addiction. I love every little drop of this kid.

Little Jack in all his cuteness

Laundry baskets are so much fun!
Adventures in eating - apples and green beans!

Rubber Ducky, you're the one...

Jack has a new bathtub. He's actually had it for a couple of weeks now but, of course, I'm just getting around to posting about it. Jack outgrew the baby bathtub awhile back - when I say outgrew I mean he was slinging too much water around the kitchen to continue using it. We tried bathing him in the big bathtub but, as many of you know, a wet squirmy baby in a hard bathtub is no bueno. We saw this inflatable duck tub at Target - my favorite place in the world - and decided to try it out. It is wonderful!! It fits Jack just perfectly and he's got plenty of room to play without me having to worry about him bonking his head on the side of the tub. The little duck even quacks when you squeeze its beak. So fun!