Quick Update

Here are a few new things that you are doing:
-About a month ago you started waving bye-bye. (I meant to post this earlier). Up to that point you would only wave hello but now you will wave to tell someone bye. Yea!

-A new word you have started saying is "du" for "door". You either point to a door that is in one of your books or you point madly at our door and say "du" over and over again to tell us that you want to go outside.

-You have learned a new sign! You now sign "eat". For breakfast, lunch or dinner I will ask you if you are ready to eat and you will do the appropriate sign to tell me "eat".

-AND, just today you started pointing to your eyes. You were in the bathtub tonight and we were being silly and then I randomly said, "Where are Jackson's eyes?" and you pointed directly at your eye. Of course I made you do it over and over. You are so smart!

-We are in the middle of a pretty big transition. You are transitioning from one nap to two. It is somewhat difficult because you don't really need two full naps but just one isn't enough. If you take a morning nap then you only sleep about 30-45 minutes and then you will sleep anywhere from 1 to 2 hours in the afternoon. On the days you have taken only one nap you only sleep about 1 1/2 hours and that is not enough for you. You are so cranky without enough sleep! We'll keep working at it.

All Boy

You are definitely all boy! You love to play with your cars and trucks. You like to climb up and stand on your riding car and you like to ride on it backwards (as shown in picture). You also like to throw all your toys in your dump truck and drive it all over the house. Daddy put you in the dump truck and pushed you around and you loved that too!



You also love to throw and kick your balls, pull and push, open and close and get into whatever you can. You are also getting to be a pretty fast walker. You are getting close to running! Today was such a beautiful day that Daddy and I took you to the park. We hadn't been in awhile since it has been so hot, but this time you were all about exploring. You wanted to climb up and down and in and out and you even enjoyed the slide! You are really growing up.

Art Time

You really enjoyed "art time" this week. This is something I have just started recently. I started out letting you experiment with crayons but you had more fun with the paint. It was much easier for your drawing to show up with paint rather than crayons. Here are pictures of your first time painting:



Summer is unofficially over. Unofficially because it is technically still summer but school is back in session. I am back to work 3 days a week. Grammy is keeping you until your Mother's Day Out starts in September. I think that you will really enjoy going to "school".

Spurts

What a sweet face...


Yesterday you did a lot of new things. It seems to come in spurts...
-You started saying "nanu" for banana.
-You also imitated me saying "bye" a couple of times after getting off the phone.
-You and I were playing in the living room and you took my hand and took me into the sun room and took me to your stroller. You obviously wanted to go for a walk. You just started taking us by the hand to whatever it is you want. I told you that we couldn't go right then and that did not make you happy. You are definitely understanding so much more.
-Last night for dinner you were eating chicken, cheese and blueberries. You were pointing at the table and telling us you wanted more so I would ask you what you wanted more of. When I got to the one that you wanted you would shake your head yes! You did this several times.

Here you are really enjoying your cracker. You always want to eat whatever we are eating and it makes you so happy!

Spaghetti Face (And Hands)

I was catching up on some reading from the book 'What to Expect the Toddler Years' and a discussion about self feeding caught my attention. Here is what the book had to say: "If a toddler with a spoon (or a fork or a plate or a bowl) can be considered armed and dangerous, you're going to have to learn how to live dangerously." So I decided to live dangerously and give you full control of your spoon and a plate of spaghetti. Yes, I could have guessed the outcome and yes, I know spaghetti is messy but who doesn't love a kid covered in spaghetti? You quickly figured out that using your hands was much easier and faster than using the spoon and here is how it turned out:


You have added a couple of new words since my last post about your vocabulary. You now say "mi" for "milk" and "udu" for "all done". But when you say "udu" you also sign it. It's so great! I love that you sign too. I have been signing "more" and "all done" for awhile and I just love that you have picked it up.

Lemony Blueberry Muffins

I love all the fresh fruit in the summer and you do too! I am so grateful for what a good eater you are. You eat a variety of meat, vegetables, fruits, grains, etc. You will really eat almost anything I put on your plate. One of your current favorites is yogurt. You call it "du" because there is a picture of Dora on the container. I haven't given you too many sweets but I decided to make some home made muffins for us to enjoy. I like them because they aren't too sweet and they are made with fresh blueberries! You definitely enjoyed them.





Lemony Blueberry Muffins
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
4 t baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 beaten egg
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup cooking oil (I like canola oil)
1 lemon (zest & juice)
1 pint blueberries (two cups)

Mix together all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix together beaten egg, milk, and oil, lemon zest, and squeeze in the juice from one lemon. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just moistened. Try not to over mix your batter- I know it's hard! Fold in blueberries. Place in prepared muffin pan. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Be careful not to overcook these- they cook quickly!

Blogiversary

Happy Blogiversary! I have officially been blogging for one year...as of yesterday! It's been fun. I have enjoyed keeping up with all the things you do and sharing them with friends and family.

Currently, you are in the process of getting your one year molars. It took me a few days to figure out what was going on but you have been VERY cranky. Your temperature has been in the 99's off and on and you pull at your ears a lot. I finally figured it out by feeling and seeing a very large swollen lump in your mouth. It's been about a week now...I wonder how long this will last...

Buying and Selling: We are currently trying to sell our townhouse and we are looking to buy something a little bigger. Although we aren't in a rush we may be moving sooner rather than later. And though we are excited to get a bigger space I was sitting out in the sun room this morning feeling a little sad about selling the townhouse since it has been your first home. But we can't stay here forever and it's time to move on. I guess we'll see what happens...

Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July! It occurred to me that now that you are a year old you will be celebrating holidays for the second time around....the Fourth of July being the first. And it's fun to look at pictures to see the amazing changes that can take place in just a year!

July 4, 2008:








July 4, 2009:











So it was another quiet fourth for us. And that's just fine. Last year you were too young to do anything and this year we canceled our plans of going to Chattanooga because you got sick. You had been coughing for awhile and then you got a fever on Thursday. You are taking medicine for bronchitis so we are home taking care of you. I hope you are better soon.

Clapping!

So earlier today I was singing and clapping to you as I do every day and you grabbed my hands and began clapping them together. You didn't clap your own hands but you clapped mine together. Then this afternoon you were playing with your toys and you began banging two balls together. Although banging toys together is a skill that babies usually do around 7 months you have never done it. Banging toys together is also sort of a prerequisite to clapping. So tonight Daddy, Grammy and I were all eating dinner together and I was telling them all these things. I told them that I just knew you were going to clap any day now since you had done those things earlier today. We were all talking and laughing and out of the blue you just started clapping! I couldn't believe it! You did it over and over and we all got so excited. It's funny how we get excited over such little things!

You are also doing lots of other things. You have been sporadically pointing at pictures in books but now you are pointing at everything. Last week at the beach you were pointing all over the place wanting us to tell you what everything was. I would even give you a choice between two foods and you would point to which one you wanted. You are definitely communicating more! You wave all the time to tell someone hello but you still don't wave bye bye. You are also beginning to use a spoon to feed yourself. You can't quite scoop your food yet but once it is on the spoon you can get it to your mouth.

Right now you say about five words:
"ba" for ball
"moo" for a cow (and other animals)
"hey" while waving
"dada"
"mu" for more

Yea Jackson! Also, you give lots of kisses...which I just LOVE!

Another sweet beach picture:

To the Beach and Back

We just got back from a week at the beach! It was your first beach trip and it was so much fun. We rented a house on Fort Morgan Road and it was really nice. Grammy and Pop came and stayed part of the time and even brought the dogs. You loved that! The house was on the beach side but not on the beach. We had to walk about a block to get there and with towels, chairs, toys, a tent and everything else Daddy came up with a great solution for carrying all our stuff. We called it the beach express:


Monday morning we got up and headed straight for the beach. We couldn't wait to see your first reaction:


No, you didn't like it at first. You stood in the sand and cried for us to pick you up. You screamed as the waves came up and touched your feet. It was just all a little too overwhelming for you. But you warmed up quickly. Daddy helped you get adjusted:
Before long you were playing in the sand, walking in the sand and loving the water! I was curious to see how you would do with sleeping in a new place. We brought the pack and play and you did great. You took all your naps and slept great every night. Toward the end of the week you had a slight reaction to your 12 month shots which were taken about a week before we left. They told me 7-12 days after your shots you may get a slight fever and/or a rash and you got both. You were a little cranky at the end of the week and I think you were ready to get back home. Overall we had a lot of fun and I got some precious pictures: