Best 2 Years of My Life

Happy 2nd Anniversary to the most amazing husband I could ever ask for and the sweetest daddy in the world to our precious son! 

Thank you for making these the best 2 years ever... 

I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you!

"Love is a Gift"

by Bonnie Jensen

Love is a gift received by humble hearts

and cared for with kindness and respect.

~

Its beauty isn't faded by time,

but enriched through deepening trust,

unbending hope, and growing faith.

~

It is restored by forgiveness,

enhanced by friendship,

and protected by truth.

~

Love is a gift... and God is the giver.

I love you more today than yesterday - but not as much as tomorrow.

(Check out the Our Wedding page for a little nostalgic walk down memory lane.)

Our "First" Date

Last Saturday (7/30) Jason and I left the little man with Mimi for a little bit and went to go see Harry Potter 7 pt. 2!! It was soooo good. I already want to see it again! 

We got in the car after the movie and all we had to do was get in. What a strange feeling since we're now used to putting Jack's carseat in the back and making sure we have the diaper bag, etc. 

Now, don't be sad for Jack that he didn't get to "get Pottered" -  I'm pretty sure he had more fun with Mimi than he usually does with me.  :)

It was a very great "first" date since our little guy's been around. 

"Digital" Birth Announcements

(photo by Becca Rocha Photography)

Jackson's "digital" birth announcement - inspired by pinterest! :)

And another "art" project (inspired by pinterest) that I'm going to print on card stock and frame in Jack's room:

Found anything fun on Pinterest lately??

Relaxin' at the Pool

The best part about this summer (other than having a SON - duh.) is spending time at my parents' house! They have a pool and while I didn't always appreciate it growing up, I sure do now!

Me and Baby Jack just chillin' in the shallow end. He will tolerate his feet in the water, but no higher than that! (Hopefully this will change because I want him to be a waterbug!)

When he's not in the water (and I want to be), he relaxes in his stroller. And I mean RELAXES:

Like I said in his 1 month update, I think the warm sun reminds him of his tanning bed days. :)

Paper Clutter

Last week I looked around our living room and realized that we had a lot of paper clutter. Not just the average few pieces of paper here and there, but SERIOUS PAPER CLUTTER!!!

All of this CRAP is from the 3 flat surfaces in our LR. Wow. 

Most of it was just that - crap - that needed to be recycled. The reason it got this bad is because when we opened our mail since Jack has been born, we just dealt with the super important ones and left the rest. I will say again - WOW. How in the world did we accumulate this much in just a month?! I'd like to say I have a solution, but we just have to be more disciplined about filling and recycling.

This is what mister man did while I sorted.

He discovered the mobile that day! :)

That Good 'Ol Newborn Cry

One day when Jack was crying, my mom said "You should get a video of this because before you know it, the newborn cry is gone."

So I did.

Listen, if you can bear it - the end is super cute.

(You probably shouldn't listen to this at work, though, 

since it's over 30 seconds of a baby crying...)

"Huh-whaaa, huh whaaaa" - that's the typical Jackson cry right now, around 26-27 seconds. 

Then it get's real cute. :)

Baby Jack - One Month!

I can't believe our sweet baby boy is already 1 month old!

Jackson had his 1 month check-up last Friday and I was so anxious to see how much he weighs! I told the nurse that he was 7lbs 8oz at birth, lost about a pound in the first week and at 2 weeks he was almost back up to his birth weight at 7lbs 7oz. I asked her what to expect for how much he weighs and she said "He could be close to 8lbs probably." And guess how much he weighed???

9 POUNDS 4 OUNCES!!

I was so happy to know that he's eating well (since he's exclusively breastfed) - the doctor said "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!" (He's also grown from 21in to 22 3/4in!)

Here's what Jack is up to at one month:

• He loves to be outside in the sunshine (which may have been encouraged by his "tanning bed" experience)
• He almost always smiles when he's falling asleep. 
• He doesn't particularly love to be put in his car seat but he sleeps like a log when we're in the car.
• He's been sleeping in his crib at night since Sunday 7/24, and he slept for a record 4 HOURS that first night! We're not always so lucky, but he'll usually give us around 3 hours of sleep between nighttime feedings.
• He's doing well with bath time, but really doesn't like having his hair washed.
• He HATES getting his diaper changed and squirms like a madman every time.
• Also, we call him a "houdini pee-er" because the stripe on the front of his diaper will still be yellow (it changes from yellow to green when he's peed) but you'll look down and your shirt is soaked or your pants are wet!! I have been peed on more times than I can count... :)
• He's very alert, always looking around with his eyes open really wide, but he definitely sleeps a TON during the day.
• He grunts a lot, especially in the evening, and rarely "coos" but when he does it melts my heart!
• A lot of times he will sigh very dramatically after he sneezes. Adorable.
• He sleeps best when he's swaddled tight, but often manages to get his hand out so he can suck on his fingers. (Which is absolutely precious, by the way.)

We started our cloth diaper adventure last Friday! We're not doing cloth 100% of the time yet, but I decided that when he outgrew the newborn diapers, that we would start doing cloth rather than buying the next size up. (We have a few packages of size 1 disposables that we're using on and off.) We have several BumGenius and Fuzzibunz diapers, and I just made an order for several Flip diapers to round out our stash so we can cloth full time. I'll keep you updated!

And now for your viewing pleasure, 

a video of Mr. Jackson on his one month "mirthday"!!