Silliness, Zoo, and More

I had my appointment this week and everything looks good. Dillan's heartbeat was about 156bpm and everything is measuring right on track. I am feeling him move more often which is lots of fun. Also, lots of fun is the amount of weight I gained this month! Craziness!!!! The doctor was really nice about it and said that usually you have one month where you gain lots of weight...let's hope this was that month :) Oh well, whatever it takes for a healthy baby! I am 22 weeks today!

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Another development from my doctor's appointments...one of the nurses gave Jackson a sucker and he was a big fan. So I bought some to give him in special circumstances. Note to self...stay away from the blueberry...messy!

...but yummy!
This is the face I often see when I try to take Jackson's picture :)

Happy Boy!

Chilling in his chair

Not sure what he is doing :)

Being silly :)

This is not a clear picture, but thought it was cute with the tongue sticking out :)

The work on our house is mostly complete, but the final touches won't be finished for probably another month...it's a long story. But Jackson thinks it is lots of fun to climb into this particular laundry room cabinet.

Here is his "picture" face again :)

Walt took Friday off and we went to the zoo as a family. We had a wonderful time. It was such a beautiful day! Jackson LOVED it! Here are Walt and Jackson in front of the first exhibit.

Tiger statue

Walt took this while I wasn't looking...guess he wanted to make sure Dillan was represented in this post :)

Jackson rode on his first carousel and he LOVED it. He did not want to leave, but we promised him we would ride it again before we left. In this picture, he is taking everything in :)

Looking at Daddy

Jackson really liked riding on the carousel...he was taking everything in and was amazed by the experience :)

I just liked this picture because you can kind of see Walt's expression when talking to Jackson :)

Jackson looking at the flamingos. He didn't understand why he couldn't go closer to them. He kept signing please.

Jackson pointing at the alligator

This picture kind of creeps me out. I never thought my son would be so close to an alligator!

Jackson pointing with both fingers at the fish :)

I LOVE THIS PICTURE! How cute that you can see his reflection!

Jackson sitting on the turtle statue

Showing Daddy the turtle

Looking at the real turtles

We also saw an elephant

Jackson looking at the bears. He thought they were funny because one of them was digging a hole.

Still watching the bears

The bears...see the one on the right that is digging the hole.

I should know what this is called, but I don't :) but Jackson was intrigued by the statue's tail.

Another picture of Jackson and the unknown statue :)

As promised, we took Jackson back to the carousel before leaving the zoo. He was so excited when he saw it again.

There was also a botanical gardens at the zoo. Walt really wanted to see it, but Jackson was really tired and about to reach his limit. So needless to say, we didn't see much of it. But Walt insisted on taking our picture on this bench. I think Jackson was getting dilirious :)

This expression cracks me up :)

Reading a book with Daddy...notice the similar hairstyles :)

I am really starting to see that Jackson looks like his Daddy. Some features he got from me, but there is definitely something about him that is like his Daddy. It is hard to tell looking at Walt as a man because I don't even think Walt looks like his own pictures when he was Jackson's age, but if you look at pictures of Walt as a little boy and compare them...Jackson definitely has some of the same features.

Sweet face!

As you can see, Jackson definitely has some natural "body" to his hair :)

As I have mentioned before, Jackson is getting hard to video these days because he just wants to watch the playback :) He does this thing where he runs in place real fast and I call it "fancy feet". You don't really get to see it in this video because he gets so excited. He does some of his animal noises at the end :)

15 Months

Jackson turned 15 months old on February 6th and he went to his well exam appointment on Friday. He is doing great aside from a set back with sleeping...what can I say...the boy is anti-sleep. He has decided he wants to get up at around 4:00-5:00am. We are trying a variety of strategies, but the doctor gave us the name of some sleep consultants given his history of sleep issues. Just trying to help the little guy get a good night's sleep :)

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Here are his stats.

Height: 30.5 inches (40th percentile)

Weight: 23 7.5oz (40th percentile)

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Here is our little guy with his Daddy.

Jackson "brushing" his hair :)
Getting up so early makes for a tired little boy

Jackson & I

...and Dillan :) I am 21 weeks and huge :)

At first, Walt kept saying I wasn't that big, but he has now changed his tune. Just tonight, he looked at my stomach and said it looked really uncomfortable :) I know a couple of girls that are due in April and I am just as big if not bigger than them :) I have an appointment on Tuesday and I am going to ask the doctor if my size is a concern, but if he says all is well...bring it on!

Happy Boy

Yesterday Jackson turned 15 months old! Hard to believe that our little guy is getting so big! He is running all over the place and so much fun to be around! We are still having work done on our house and the project manager that has been at our house every day commented on how happy Jackson is. He said he was the happiest little one he has ever seen! He is right! Jackson is one happy little boy! We are so blessed!

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On this particular day, Jackson was running around without any pants :) I am sure there was a reason at the time :) Jackson likes hanging out under our dining room table...although you can't tell from this picture :) There's a smile :)

Still smiling :)
I love this picture! It is so sweet! Jackson loves stuffed animals! Dougie (not pictured) is the main stuffed animal as that is who Jackson sleeps with. He also has Puppy, Dog, and Giraffe...original names, I know :) Puppy, Dog, and Giraffe are in the play room and he likes to get all 3 of them and put them in my lap and then come and climb in my lap. Dog and Giraffe are pictured here :) I love the story of how Dog ended up at our house. Walt took Jackson to Target. Walt was letting Jackson run around and he fell down and started crying. So Walt grabbed this dog and Jackson stopped crying. I don't think Walt was intending on buying it, but he said he had to once Jackson got a hold of it :) Basically, I think Jackson "loved" on it (aka slobbered all over it). When I saw Walt and Jackson after their Target trip, he was still gripping the dog :)

Jackson has recently made the switch from drinking milk out of the bottle to the sippy cup. At first, he wouldn't have anything to do with the sippy cup. As I said before, Jackson will drink water out of a sippy cup like a champ and he will drink a ton of milk out of a bottle. But for some reason, he did not like drinking milk out of a sippy cup. The doctor said to keep trying and that it was ok if he didn't drink any milk for awhile. Since he wasn't drinking milk anyways, I decided to stop offering it to him for a couple of days and then I got different sippy cups. He is doing so much better now. I am sure he still needs to drink more, but we have made a major improvement! This transition also managed to get rid of the bottle before bedtime and the bottle around 5AM. So now Jackson goes to bed around 8PM and we won't go and get him before 6AM. He usually sleeps between 6:00-6:30AM. Although he is still tired, he isn't tired enough to go back to sleep on his own. He is then usually awake for 4.5-5 hours before he goes down for a nap which he sleeps anywhere from 45min-1hr 30min. Here is our big boy drinking milk out of a sippy cup!

Here is video of Jackson running. He is fast :) He was getting distracted by the video camera. It is hard to get any video of him these days, because he just wants to watch videos on the display as you can tell from the video.