Attitude

Jackson has been making some weird faces lately. This is his "I'm feeling a little insecure about my smile" look.

This one was after me taking a lot of pictures and he was just so over it. This is his "I won't take one more picture" look, I think. What an attitude he's getting

He's growing up

Here's Jackson growing up:
3 Days old (6 lbs 10 oz):

1 Month old:

2 Months old:

3 Months old (we moved this month so I couldn't get a bear pic):

4 Months old:

5 Months old:


He has definitely gone from being a scrawny little thing to a chunky monkey! I think he's much more cuddly now! :)

Date night Shmate night

Tonight my husband and I had a double date with a friend of ours who is newly engaged and her fiancee. We met up at the new Applebee's at 6:30. While Applebee's in most places isn't anything special, in our small town it has become a VERY big deal. It's grand opening was this weekend and the wait was an hour and 1/2. We were all hungry so we left to go to Shaker's which had a 45 minute wait. Finally someone (I think my husband) suggested IHOP where there is never a wait. We all laughed and then said "SURE!" It was SO good. I had a rooty, tooty, fresh and fruity. Instead of mixed drinks, we had a carafe of orange juice. The dinner was actually great and we all laughed a lot. It was nice to have adult conversation as opposed to "aaaaaaaaaaaaaahh gaga gaaaaa". We were going to see a movie but my husband wasn't interested in my chick flick choices so we went to Barnes and Noble and had Starbucks and I caught up on the celeb gossip. An all around wild evening!
As we were rushing around tonight before we left making sure the house was clean, everything was ready for the baby-sitter, I was pumping, and feeding Jackson applesauce, etc. I looked at my husband and said "Remember when every weekend we'd say 'Let's go out!' and then we'd just leave?" We both kind of laughed. Going out with a baby requires so much effort that I almost prefer a quiet night at home with a movie and popcorn.

My husband and I when life was a little more carefree (but not nearly as WONDERFUL as Jackson makes it now) in North Carolina.

Delicious Books

We try to read Jackson several books a day. We think "Dinosaur's Binket" (from my cousin Rachel) is one of his favorites! Here's Alan reading Jackson the book:


And here is what usually ends up happening:


I keep telling Alan how important it is to read to Jack but every time he tries to, Jackson pulls the book into his mouth. It's pretty funny. But he just can't help himself cause apparently books are delicious.

Two words...

LADIES MAN.
He's already playing hard to get to. Please notice his disinterest in the girls.


His friend, Sharla...


and his friend, Grace.

Playing with color

Here's some pictures I took while playing with different settings on my camera.
Jackson's eyes are still blue. I wonder if they'll stay like that. His Daddy has brown eyes and I have green eyes.



And here's another one. His Gigi brought him this bilingual Baby Einstein dragon. She spoils him with lots of learning toys. He's gonna be the smartest baby in the world! Look at his lashes. I'm so jealous of them. I use three coats of mascara and mine still aren't that long.



This is my sixteen year old sister. She likes to get her picture taken. This is the jacket her ex-boyfriend, might still be her boyfriend, but no one quite knows gave her for Christmas. I love you, Boo. ;) That's what we call her. It's not like "boo" that some black people say when referring to their significant other.

Jackson Looooves Bathtime!

He's recently learned how much fun it is to kick and splash in the bath and he really is in a great mood when he's squeaky clean. Can I just say that typing that last sentence took 5 minutes? Jackson likes to slap my keyboard and to kick my arm while I type. Violent little guy.

Christmas continued

Next we headed up to my parent's house in NoVa. We were having a late Christmas because Anne went on a cruise with her husband's family so we waited for her because we're nice. Plus Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if we weren't all there. I wish we didn't have to do the whole inlaws Christmas thing. I have super inlaws and all but Christmas was so much less complicated when we weren't married and having to take turns with holidays.

Here's our Christmas morning. Aunt Becky and Aunt Lizzy helped Jackson open his stocking. His favorite stocking stuffer seemed to be this duck (even though it doesn't seem to be that way in the picture below). It quacks when you squeeze it and he always looks at it with a puzzled look when it does.


And this is my Dad with his collection of American things from his family. His parents are very proud of their FBI son and think he represents all things American. We referred to him as Captain America all morning.
Here's Alan and I:

I really like him. I mean, I've always loved him since we've been together but now I REALLY like him! I think marriage is much harder than people expect the first couple years. But now that we're going on 6 years it's pretty smooth. Alan says that he thinks one of the reasons God wants people to have kids is so they'll stop being self-absorbed and overly analytical. I agree with him that you stop thinking of yourself as much because your baby becomes your number one focus. But I also think this was his way of saying that he's glad I don't say "let's talk about our feelings" much anymore.

Here's the family at our delicious Christmas dinner. The fam + Matt (Lizzy's boyfriend). I like ham so much better than Turkey. It's one of the many reasons that Christmas is better than Thanksgiving. Just a side note.

This is what Jackson did during dinner. He slept on the floor next to my Dad, the baby hog. This was a big step for Dad since he usually insists on holding Jackson in his lap during meals.
It was so nice being home. My Mom is an incredible hostess and I just love being with my family. I'm a bit biased, but I think I got the best one...ever. That about sums Christmas up!

1/06/07

1/06/07
Christmas was lovely! Alan, Jackson and I were very spoiled. We got gifts galore and had great times with our families.
We started Christmas at Ted and Barb's (Alan's Aunt and Uncle) for the annual Christmas Eve celebration. Jackson got to meet his new cousin, Tanyon Jackson, who was almost a month old. He was a big ole grumpy butt that night (which he really never is). He was really thrilled to meet Tanyon.

Later that night we opened presents with Alan's family. Here we are at their house.

Jackson and his mommy

Jackson and his Daddy. This pic resulted in an arguement. I kept telling Alan to look at the tree or at Jackson and not at me. He was like "why do you have to take a fake pic?". I was like "I'm documenting Christmas memories." He was like "Fake ones?". He so does not appreciate my photographic genius.
The next day we went to Alan's Granny and Poppa's for Christmas.

There's Jackson being snuggled by his Great Granny.

Here we are with my inlaws. They are a very nice family!

This is one Alan took of me. I snuck out to feed Jackson and an hour or so later Alan came in and found us asleep and he took this one. It was a lovely Christmas nap!

This is one of the great gimmicky things my camera does. It can highlight and accentuate any color I choose. Red, for example!
It was a lovely Christmas and I'm getting used to all of Alan's 3rd and 4th cousins and random aunts and great uncles that show up (this was our 5th Christmas together). They live way out in the country and some of them bring their own moonshine. And yet, Alan's Granny and Papa are two of the most proper and polite people I know! There's more but I'm realllly tired! I'll pick up with a few more from this Christmas and the ones from Christmas at my parent's house!

12/16/06

Tonight we had a Young Life Christmas party and it was great seeing a lot of our alumni from back in the day! A lot of people got to meet Jackson for the first time which was fun. And we watched some old videos of camp and YL club from 4 years back which was cool.
This is Jackson before the party in his pimp a sweater vest. Curtis said tonight that sweater vests went out two years ago. Curtis is a dirty liar, though.
I'm pretty sure that Jackson is thinking "Throw your hands in the aaaair, and wave em like you just don't caaaare!"

This is Steph and I taking our mandatory pic together. If you've never noticed, Steph is always on the right side because it's her good side. Seriously. EVERY picture, she's on the right.

Here are lots of my favorite girls!! Cassie, me, Ann, Tiffany (holding Jack), Kitty Kat B, Whitney, and Stephy (at the bottom):
Here are Cass, Caitlin, and Whitney looking HOT!
And this is a picture from this morning. I asked Alan to dress Jackson and he said "what should he wear?" and I'm like "whatever you want!" I mean, seriously, the kid has probably a hundred outfits to choose from. Alan decided on a pair of sweat pants with a penguin shirt that didn't quite match, a red plaid hat, and Jack's sneakers which he never wears. You can sense Jack's confusion and annoyance with his father in this pic:

12/15/06

12/15/06
I got one of my big Christmas presents in the mail yesterday! It's a Canon Power Shot S2 IS. I don't really know what that means other than it's a much better digi camera than my older one. Here's the first video we took with it:


I have a nice video camera, but for shorter clips it's a lot easier just hitting record on my new camera!
What else is new? We had a Christmas party last Sunday and I have some pics from that. Lots of people wanted to hold Jackson, of course. These pics are crappy cause they are with my old camera.


Before the party my sister Liz and my friend Steph came over and we made lots of beautiful cookies:


Oh, here's my funny random blog story. I was approached by a sort of sleazy looking guy at Wal-mart a week or so ago and he said "I like your look. You should think about modeling." Then he handed me a business card with his name, number and e-mail printed on it and this business logo for Cash Models. I laughed at him. I put the card in my pocket and kind of forgot about it until I was cleaning out my coat pocket later that night. I was about to throw the card away when I noticed it said in small letters at the bottom "connecting the adult industry on both sides of the camera". I proceeded to look up the website and it was a page all about Cash's "adult film" actresses and models. Yep, he wanted me to be a porn star- nice. That agent really knew what he was doing looking for hotties at Wal-mart. Eww.


Here's some pics with my camera as I was experimenting with the different settings: