Counting to 20!

Jackson has been continuing to learn his numbers. At 14 months he could count to 13, now he is progressing up to 20. He's still having a little trouble past 13, as all the numbers begin to sound the same to him so 13 is 14, 15, 16 and so on. Here's a little video of him counting. You'll see he gets a little distracted in the middle:-)

Jackson is 18 months!

Wow, where is the time going... my baby is becoming a boy... then he'll be 18 and grown before you know it. I know I have said this before but I just still can't get enough of him. He truly brings me sunshine everyday!

Well he's almost 22 lbs, I know only in the 5% range but it's because of his lean diet, meat veggies and fruit, and almost 31 inches. He's talking up a storm, we believe he will be the social butterfly. He loves telling people "hi" when we go out, especially kids. I feel bad sometimes because he's so excited to tell people hi, sometimes they don't hear him. I also took out his potty to see if he is interested since he knows when our dog and we go potty. First day I took it out he told our nanny, "potty" and she put him on his potty and he went #2! He's done it one more time... we'll see how it goes.

His favorite things right now...
- my wallet - he loves to pull the credit cards out and give them to me. If he can't get them out he grunts and fusses until I help him.
- randomly counting - i'll here him, say "five four three two one" just out of the blue, or count real fast to 10.
- Dr. Seuss books - if you show him the covers of the books he can tell you what books they are, Hop on Pop is his favorite
- Beans- can't get enough of beans, and given a choice will pick beans over fruit!!

Here are a few pics with him at the park with his friend Zoe..

Jackson Can Count to 3!

Jackson is one smart cookie. Here he is counting to 3 at 14 months!! We've been practicing a little with him, so when we say one he says two then we say two and he says three. He just can't get his fingers to go past one but I'm sure he'll pick that up soon. Look out Harvard:-)

Jackson's 14 months!!

Jackson turned 14 months this week. Key milestones:
- He got his top two teeth New Year's eve weekend, that makes a total of 4
- He has learned how to get off of couches and beds by turning on his stomach and
pushing himself down until he feels the ground
- After months of sign language for the word "eat" he is finally saying it
- His vocabulary continues to amaze us, now he can repeat almost any word you say
- He loves to walk around pointing 1 finger in the air, we've now told him that
means one, so now when we start counting he puts up the 1 finger for one1

Horsey, Lions Oh Boy...

We've been practicing saying animal sounds and movements with Jackson. Here are a couple of his favorites...

A Day at the Park

Today we went to the park and Jackson had his first adventure on the swings. Jackson absolutely loved the swing and swinging high. This was also his first time sliding down by himself and he of course loved it.


Today we went to the park and Jackson had his first adventure on the swings. Jackson absolutely loved the swing and swinging high.

Trains at North Park Mall

We've been looking at a few options to participate in the holiday fun and after a miss at the lights in downtown Frisco due to Jackson's allergies, we decided to join Zoe and her mom to watch the trains at north park mall. The exibit was short but very intriguing, still think Jackson was a bit too young to be fully engaged but he did get a kick out of it. Of course he was not feeling the conductor hat:-) The exhibit had small replicas of the dallas skyline, New York City, neighborhoods and the white house of which the train circled around.

After we watched the trains we walked around the mall and found a puppet show that was near it's end, so we sat and watched what was left of the show. Next year we will definitely plan our holiday events earlier so we don't miss out.

Getting Ready for The Christmas Card

So we thought we would have a great picture to use for our Christmas Cards from a photographer we hired for Jackson's birthday party. Well there was a miscommunication and so she ended up not showing up and we were left to hire my mom as our photographer to try and capture a great shot. Those of you with children know that with little ones the adults have to be ready every shot because you never know when the shot of them smiling will occur. Well of course I had to get on Jarvis for not being ready every moment:-) Here are a few of the ones that didn't make the cut, but were cute nonetheless.

Dr. Seuss Ice Exhibit

We've been spending some time with some friends of ours we met through Gymboree who have a little girl named Zoe whose 3 months younger than Jackson. Turns out they are friends with a mutual friend of ours from Cincinnati. The Dorrah's told us about this exhibit that happens every year at the Texas Gaylord Hotel where for the month of December they create an elaborate ice display based on a theme. This year's ice display was based on Dr. Seuss. We were in awe, it was truly amazing, everything you'll see in the pictures was all ice! Apparently people come from China (I think that's the country) and work on building the sculptures for 30 days. They keep the temperature at 9 degrees in the exhibit so they give you huge parkas to keep you nice and warm as you cruise through the exhibit. This will definitely be an annual thing we will do!

All Bundled Up

I just had to take a picture of jackson in his jacket and hat. He looks just too cute in the hat! He's ready for winter.



I just had to take a picture of jackson in his jacket and hat. He looks just too cute in the hat.

Jackson's Birthday Parties

To celebrate Jackson's first birthday with family and friends we threw him 2 birthday parties.

Jarvis and I typically go to his family's house for Thanksgiving so I think 2 parties will be an annual tradition since Jackson's birthday falls near Thanksgiving. The first party in Montgomery was mostly family but also a few good friends. As you guys know from previous entries, Jackson's allergies prohibit him from enjoying the things we love...cake, icing...ice cream so being the good mommy I am I scoured Montgomery in search for gluten free ingredients to make him his own special cake. After staying up late the night before the big bash and making two cakes (in case one didn't turn out right), Jackson's cake was ready for him to dive in. Of course when it came time to dive in, he needed a little help from me but ultimately was OK not having cake! He had such a good time at his party and enjoyed playing with his cousins. With the party wrapping up around 3:30, the Boyd's were packed up and on the road for our 10 hour trek back to Dallas and Jackson slept 9 of the 10 hrs!

For birthday party #2, I went a little overboard. I handmade all of his invitations.(not sure I would ever do that again after 20+ hrs of work) and attempted to make another cake for him and the cake for the party. The theme was a Jungle so we had blow up jungle animals, jungle treat boxes, jungle theme music and animal tags for the kids. All of his frito lay friends came out to celebrate with him and a few friends that we've met since we had Jackson. I made little mini turkey sliders and animal cookies for the kids. A friend suggested having an older activity for the older kids so we bought some canvases and oil paints for the kids to paint pictures. Everyone enjoyed themselves so I know it was all worth it. Can't believe my baby is one!! This has truly been a blessed year..I will cherish this time forever...

Jackson's Now Walking!!

So as you may remember from my many previous posts, I have been wondering when this day was going to finally come. Well 12 1/2 months and it is here. Jackson took 26 steps today, the most yet and so I will say he is walking! It's soo interesting to watch. It's very robotic, as if they are really thinking "how do I do this walking thing." But we are very excited for this milestone for him. I know we might not be thinking that when we are chasing him all over the house like crazy but for now we are just as excited as he is.

Jackson Turns ONE!!!

Today is Jackson's official birthday. We started the day at the allergist getting round two of his flu shot. Then we went to the doctor for his 12 month check up. Jackson is growing is definitely growing and as the doctor said is very advanced. He weighed in as a lightweight of 18 lbs, in the 10th percentile. He's so active now that the doctor said we probably need to just feed him more to keep up with his metabolism. His height came in at the 30th percentile at 29 in.

Jackson's development continues to amaze us. He's taking steps but not full on walking, but we imagine it will really be any day now. He's becoming more independent and loves to walk around holding his bottle, multitaksing:-) He is doing well with his vocabulary and loves to try and repeat every word you say. His favorite thing to do still is to read. He will sit quietly on the floor and flip through books as if he's reading to himself. He almost likes this more than us reading to him. We believe he is destined to be a scholar:-)

To celebrate pre-birthday parties, we took him to cheesecake factory. He had a good time eating french fries - which he loves and was pleasantly entertained by the cheesecake factory staff when they sang happy birthday. Initially we started out going to this new restaurant, Cozy Kitchen, because they advertised that they had gluten free desserts and breads, but they were closed so unfortunately Jackson didn't get any cake on his official birthday. All Jackson could do was look at his ice-cream sundae that the staff brought out.:-(

Halloween...Tricks & Treats

Halloween was a busy three days for Jackson. Thursday my marketing department invited all the babies born between January 2007-present to a fun celebration where they all dressed up in their costumes. You ask why did they restrict the age, well we've had a bit of a phenomenon in the department where about 35+ babies have been born since 2007. Since I've given birth to Jackson 17 other women have also given birth to babies!!

Friday we went over to one of Jackson's friend's house's, Charlotte for some pumpkin carving. Charlotte's mom also works with me and she had Charlotte 2 months after Jackson. Jackson enjoyed playing with all the children. He's such a social baby he just bounced around from playing with one baby to the next as if he was working the room.:-)

Then Saturday we started out the afternoon going to the Dallas Arboretum. Every year they have a fall festival with a pumpkin patch and fun activities for the kids. We spent some time exploring the arboretum and ended up in a very organized and creative pumpkin patch. Jackson loved the arboretum he was facinated with all the flowers, fun props and the pumpkins.

After the arboretum we raced home to get ready for trick or treating. One of our neighbors invited us and a few other neighbors to her house for some pizza and treats before we all headed out for some trick or treating. We ended up just going trick or treating on our street and then came back to the house to give out candy. Jackson was pooped by 8pm and our little lion was fast asleep by 8:15.

Swim Class With Daddy

Normally I am the one in the pool with Jackson for his swim class but today I was running late from work so I ended up meeting Jarvis and Jackson at the pool. I was able to get a really good video of Jackson swimming with Daddy.

Jackson Feeding Himself

Jackson is getting the hang of feeding himself. He either enjoys it too much or he's just plain greedy. We often have to stop him or limit the amount of food we put on his tray because otherwise his mouth will be stuffed. It's amazing that he only has two little teeth at the bottom but he can stuff his mouth and work the food with his gums and two teeth until it's small enough to swallow...crazy!

Jackson's 11 Months!!

Jackson turned 11 months today, can hardly believe he'll be a year next month. He's taking a few steps...and then of course resorts to his crawling. We made a major milestone this month, he no longer needs us to rock him to sleep!!! We put him down in his bed and he talks to himself until he dozes off or just plain dozes off.

Swimming at Home

Occasionally we think Jackson is taking the skills he’s learning from swim class and applying them in other settings. Here he is sliding across the floor with both hands otherwise occupied. At first we thought, maybe he’s trying to swim but then we thought, maybe he’s just multitasking…his hands are occupied and he still wants to get around so he is going to glide across the floor:-)

We're Almost Walking

Jackson made huge progress on his way to being able to walk. We bought him this push toy several weeks ago to try and get him interested in pushing something around, ya know so that he would walk soon and to our surprise he had NO interest in pushing the toy, all he wanted to do was turn it over on it's side and play with it. Well Jarvis started working with him the past day and voila he is cruising with his toy. I believe he will be walking by his first birthday!

Day Out With Daddy

As you've seen in earlier pictures, Jarvis gets a kick out of dressing Jackson up like him and taking pictures of themselves. Here they are with hats and zip up sweaters ready to go out as "twinkies":-)