Lately

I guess I can't use the excuse of moving anymore for not doing blog posts very much. We've been in Liberty for about a month now and are getting settled. We got some new living room and kitchen furniture this week, and our to-do list is getting a little bit shorter. Now on to the good stuff, updates about and pictures of Jack...

First, a picture I love of Jack and Nathan. To say Jack is a big daddy's boy is a bit of an understatement. He asks me probably 20 times a day where Nathan is. "Where?" is one of his favorite words and a frequent question regarding Nathan. It's especially confusing when Nathan is traveling and isn't under the bed pillow when Jack looks for him in the morning. As soon as Nathan gets home from work I can forget Jack caring about me. He's all about Nathan.


Jack had a great time on the Fourth of July in Marshfield at Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Lewis's house. He got to go to a parade, swim, plays with dogs and ride his first horse. He didn't stay awake for fireworks though. Here he is with Aunt Christy riding the horse.


He still loves Little Charlie, his stuffed lab puppy, and sleeps with him. The real Charlie is my mom and dad's huge yellow lab who used to be as small and cute as Little Charlie. This week Jack decided to also start sleeping with a stuffed duck he named Quackie.


Another new thing he is doing is laying down on his back to read books. He loves it. He'll lay down anywhere and read to himself. Right now his favorite author is Dr. Seuss. He got three new Dr. Seuss books last week and he loves them. His favorite Dr. Seuss book is "Hop on Pop" and we've read it so many times he can tell you the main word from every page.


Going to the park is also a favorite thing to do, and we are finding some great playgrounds here in Liberty. Last weekend Great-Grandma Pat and Great-Grandpa Bill visited and we discovered a park with a good playground and a nice walking trail.


Last night Nathan put up a swing for Jack in a tree in our backyard. Jack loves to swing and will just keep telling you "more" if you ask if he wants to do something else. This morning he was in the swing for about 30 minutes.

Last, here is a picture of Jack and Uncle Will, and one of our new house. Will is home for a few weeks from the Air Force before he leaves for Ohio.


Okay, that's it for now. I'll have to start posting a bit more regularly now that life is getting back to normal.

Hats

Jack has decided he likes to wear hats. A few weeks ago he wouldn't keep a hat on his head for anything. But now he's changed his mind and thinks it's a fun thing to do. Here are a few pictures of Jack and his hats during the past week. We are going to the Royals/Cardinals game in a few weeks and hope to get Jack his own Royals hat so Nathan can have his back.

I do realize shorts are not technically a hat, but it made me laugh that he let me put them on him. He kept the shorts on his head and sat there and read Cook's Illustrated for at least 15 minutes. In addition to his hats, he is also really enjoying reading to himself lately. Sometimes he would rather do that that have one of us read to him. In other news, only three weeks until the big move!

Summertime

Summer is agreeing with Jack. He loves going outside and asks me all day to do just that. Here are some recent pictures from a typical day.

First, begging to go outside, with his ever-present carrot bat.

Outside with Daddy, playing with his ball, grass and dirt, and anything else he can find.

Swinging at the park. He also just got a new wagon the other day that he really likes. He's already figured out how to climb into it. Getting out is a bit harder.


















And last, here's a picture of him with his first ice cream from the ice cream man. Grandpa Bill got it for him this weekend. Jack has tried ice cream a couple of times before and not liked it. This time, though, he liked it a lot.

Sold

We finally sold our house yesterday! Our closing date is the end of July, so now we need to find a new house. Also, we haven't done a post for awhile, so I thought I'd share some fun pictures from the past few weeks. Jack now brushes his hair after his bath. Nathan helped him quite a little bit in this picture to make him look silly.


Here he is combing his hair, and next enjoying spaghetti.


Tonight he learned how to push himself backwards while he rides his 4-wheeler. This was so fun that when it was time to go to bed he had to cry and go limp, and throw his head back dramatically. Too bad for him he still had to go to bed.

Bookworm

It is fair to say that Nathan and I are both bookworms, and have been since we were little. I used to carry around a little bag with books, cassete tapes and a tape recorder so I could listen to them wherever I went, and Nathan's favorite book was the Sesame Street Dictionary.

Jack seems to be following in our footsteps in the books category. His new favorite thing to do in the car is read books. We went to Liberty today to look at houses and he looked at the same book for the entire 30-minute car trip.

Another funny book incident happened one evening this week while Nathan was supposed to be reading books to Jack. I was cleaning up the kitchen and realized I didn't hear Nathan's voice. This was what I walked out to find.

Both of them -- as happy as could be, just reading their books together.

Snow Day

Even though we've had quite a bit of snow this winter, we hadn't taken Jack out in it to play until today. He has the perfect snowsuit, thanks to my mom and dad. He didn't care much about the snow, good or bad. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but he did like looking at it out the window during dinner.

He's changing so much lately. He's currently getting his 12th tooth, becoming much more confident walking and trying lots of new foods. He seems to like spicy foods. So far his favorite grown up foods are taco and fajita meat, chili and baked beans.

New Favorite Pictures

Today Jack learned how to say "cheese" when he's getting his picture taken. His discovery resulted in some pretty cute pictures, or at least I think so! Two of them are almost exactly the same, he's just showing more teeth in the last one.

Big News!

Considering our typically infrequent posting schedule, two posts in one day must mean something huge has happened. See for yourself!

Birthday Boy

Jack turned one on Saturday. He had quite the exciting day, with lots of family coming to celebrate with him. He enjoyed playing with his new toys and going to our neighborhood St. Patrick's Day parade. Much to our disappointment, he wasn't impressed with his birthday cupcake. He did stick his fingers in it and rub chocolate frosting on his face, but he would have no part of eating it.

Here are a couple of pictures from his big day. This first one is Jack opening presents with Aunt Lindsay. He was really excited about waving the wrapping paper as fast as he could.

Brownies and Milk

Well, I don't know if life can get much better for Jack. Tonight he got to try brownies for the first time. First, Nathan tried to feed him a little piece, but Jack would have none of it. Instead, he wanted to bite his own piece off of Nathan's bigger brownie. And he took quite a big bite. As you can see, eating brownies is lots of fun when you're 11 months old.

Since he was eating brownines, he then needed some milk. I introduced whole milk this week and he likes it okay, but he really liked it after his brownies. Drinking milk, however, is much more serious than eating brownies -- especially when you flip the straw and get it all over your face.