Air Jack

We got Jack his first basketball goal for Christmas...it was LOVE at first sight! When we put him to bed tonight he was holding his blanket and paci while softly whispering ball...ball...ball.

Jack, meet Santa...Santa, meet a crying toddler

This past Sunday we took Jack to La Cantera to have his picture taken with Santa Claus. As you can see below, the day didn't start off to well. Jack was not happy about...well I don't really know what made him so unhappy in this picture.


Can you see the look of fear settling in? He's got a good firm grip on my sweater.

If you can't tell he's crying in this picture. I almost wish they would have taken a picture of Kris and I trying to get Jack to stop crying and look at the dancing puppy or "silly daddy/mommy".


The final product;this is as good as it was going to get. At some point you need to know when to say "ok that's good".

He got it from "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine"...

Check out this kid.... At the beginning he yells "maaa" because I changed the song. He dances, says ball and shows us that he knows how to be gentle. He's learning so much right now, it's a blast!


He is too funny! This video captures Jack so well. He spends his day running around, throwing his toy balls (or anything else he calls a ball-like a puzzle piece) and running some more. He definitely keeps us on our toes and we LOVE it!

Lemon face

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we were joined by Kris's parents and Kate. It was great to spend so much time with them. Both of us always talk about how much we miss Abilene and living so close to his parents. I never thought I would say it, but I REALLY miss ole Abilene.

One night at dinner Jack thought a bright yellow lemon looked appealing, so we gave him a taste:) Sometimes parents do things at their child's expense-all in good fun. Jack's face after Kris let him try the lemon was priceless! In the video you can see his lemon face and just how friendly he is. Anytime we go somewhere he always finds a way to befriend someone-usually a woman :)

A Madd Halloween

We had a blast last night! We were really nervous about Jack's costume because he is so aware of things around him and we didn't know what he was going to let us put on him or do to him :) He was supposed to be Einstein but after reading the back of an aerosol can of white hair color we thought it would be a good idea to not subject Jack to those chemicals. Instead Kris and I took a madd scientist trick or treating last night. I think his personality fit the costume. Thank you Mama Kitty for the adorable lab coat! It fit perfectly and everybody loved it!



Cass and I really wanted to take the boys trick or treating together. You know, doing what moms do, creating precious memories and creating potentially embarrassing moments (in 15 years) for our boys.

Jack would get so excited every time trick or treaters came to the door. This is right before I opened the door for our first trick or treater. He was practicing his madd scientist laugh for the trick or treaters.

It's hard to get a nearly 17 month old to stay still....



This was right before the chaos of trying to draw a mustache on his face...he didn't like that.




Here he is last year...

A precious little monkey eating his banana and below is our madd scientist this year.

This one's for my father-in-law

Well, a few weeks ago Kris was outside taking care of the yard, which consists of moving and pulling weeds. When I went out there to give him some water I noticed the tooth pick hanging out of his mouth. Kris tends to keep a tooth pick in his mouth for way too long and I tend to find toothpicks through out the house-obviously out of Jack's reach. This is a habit Kris gets from his awesome dad. Anyways, I took this picture for you, Gene. Kris is mowing the lawn with a toothpick hanging from his mouth-I thought you would be proud of him.

I promise I will try harder

The story of my blog life is playing catch up. So, I'll start with what Jack did today. Maverick and Cassidy came over for a few hours and we had a play date with the boys. It was amazing, mainly because the boys are too cute when they play together. They are so entertaining to watch. Both Jack and Mav want to show each other affection so badly that they usually end up hurting each other. Really, Jack usually scares Mav. At one point I went to the fridge to get something and both boys had a field day with the open refrigerator.

Jack and the turtle

Yesterday I only worked till noon so we went to Sea World in the middle of the day! Jack has been to Sea World a few times but yesterday we took him to the water park for the first time. He immediately LOVED the water! He started trying to run in the water until he nearly went in face first...the water was about 3 inches deep but it still startled me. He was so comfortable in the water that he didn't even want us to hold his hand at first. Eventually he didn't even notice the tight grip we had on his hands. He really enjoyed walking through the water and didn't even mind the occasional splash as a big kid went by him. The video below is from the "Lil Gators" area where Jack found a turtle he loved. His favorite thing was to climb on the turtle then turn around and jump/slide off, laugh and then say, "ooohh" with a serious face. It was hysterical!

"Jack, you'are growing up too fast" -Mom and Dad

Our sweet baby had his first birthday party earlier this month. We had a BLAST and learned a lot about hosting a birthday party :) At first, Jack was a little overwhelmed with all of the people and attention but he quickly adjusted. We had so much fun watching Jack enjoy every minute of his day. We are constantly taken back by how funny he is and how much he enjoys entertaining everyone. We are blessed beyond words!
Enjoy the pictures!!

Long time coming

We are FINALLY having Jack's first birthday party this weekend. Please don't say it or think it...I know I'm a horrible mother because my son's birthday was on JUNE 4th not JULY 18th, but I'm doing what I can. Needless to say, since we are still trying to unpack boxes along with getting a birthday party ready, we are a little busy. I will post plenty of pictures of the birthday party since some of our family can't make it to San Antonio.
By the way--My amazing husband is one step closer to becoming an officer in the San Antonio Police Department. He passed the written test today and takes the physical on Saturday. We will continually pray that Kris is making the right decision! I'll keep you posted.

I also need to post pics of Jack's first trip to Sea World so expect those in the "near" future :)

Our new house

Here's a picture of our new home! The interior is a work in progress, it's a little hard to unpack with a curious toddler walking around.

We love blue icing!

On the day of Jack's actual birthday Kris and I had a small cake for Jack at the apartment.
Here are a few pictures and videos of the big boy...

Here he is opening a birthday present. Yes, it's a baby shower gift bag, my mom REALLY needs to wear her glasses while shopping.
He may be the only one who loves the sound of his mommy and daddy singing :)


He LOVED his cake!

So sorry for the delay....

We're back! Where do I start?

Kris graduated from ACU on May 9th, the next day we moved to San Antonio to live with my mom for a few weeks (haha-or so we thought), then I started work the next day. After a few weeks Kris got a job with FedEx, this is temporary because he is hoping to get into the Police Academy. That's right, Kris is pursing a career with the San Antonio Police Department. He takes the written test on 7/16, please pray for Kris during this period of studying and test taking. After a month and a half of house searching and a few set backs with houses we finally closed on a house and have now been here for a week. We moved to San Antonio with the intention of living with my mom in her 1 bedroom apartment for 2-3 weeks. After 6 weeks of living in tight quarters we were finally out of there:) We have not and do not have a clue what God is doing with our lives but we pray daily that we are following his path for our lives. Our decision to move to San Antonio came from a lot of prayer and in the end feeling like we could live a very comfortable life in Abilene but God calls us to go beyond comfort.

Within the mess of the past few months our precious baby turned 1!!! He now has 6 teeth, started walking in mid-May, loves his milk, loves dancing and has a beautiful precious personality. We love the joy our happy baby brings to our life!

More details to come as I update more regularly.

10 months ago

Zoo

For Christmas Kurt gave Jack (and us) a family season pass to the Zoo. Both Kris and I love the Zoo and have been looking forward to taking Jack to see all the animals. Our first family trip to the Zoo was everything we hoped it would be. I know Jack is only 10 months but he was definitely interested in the animals. Even though he got more excited over the ducks than he did the 2 huge black bears I know he was taking it all in. We had so much fun with our monkey and look forward to many more visits to the Zoo. Here are a few picture of Jack's first Zoo adventure...

He just loved this bird/duck-clearly I didn't read the plaque near the display

Look at that man!!
Oh my goodness, I am one lucky woman.

Jack enjoyed looking at the animals. The whole time we were in the Creepy Crawler exhibit Jacks was making noises with his mouth. I promise everyone in there heard Jack at some point..

He was EXHAUSTED at the end of the day.

Honestly, we had a great time at Abilene's zoo. They have been updating it for a while and it really shows something about the community and all the hard work they have put into it over the years. Next weekend we will be in San Antonio for Easter and lucky for us our zoo membership carries over there as well. Hopefully, we can make it out there and show Jack a really big zoo this time.

He Stands

We put up a video of Jack standing but here are some pictures.

UGH OH!!

TRY AGAIN...

WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU, JACK JACK!

Happy Birthday Grandma Rose

Happy Birthday to the most incredible mother! We love you and wish we there with you to shower you with wet slobbery kisses!!


**Thank you to my incredible baby sitter/sister-in-law for making the beautiful sign.

Will the real Jack please stand up?

Sorry about the title, I guess it says something about my generation. Not that I was ever a fan of Eminem. Anyways, here's a great video that I thought could not possibly wait. I'm sure Amanda will have a great rebuttal later. Have a great day!

A walk in the park...

A few weeks ago we took advantage of the beautiful weather and had a picnic on campus. Like I've said in previous posts Jack LOVES being outside. On this day we put him in his new adorable overalls (Thank you, Aunt Heather and Uncle Dave) and enjoyed the beautiful Abilene day. Lately, Kris and I have been talking about not being such paranoid parents and just letting Jack experience things. Jack's played outside many times but I've always tried to keep him on the nice and clean blanket. It may not seem like a big deal to some that I just let him crawl around on the grass (video below) but it was difficult for me at first. When I put him on the grass and let him take off the thought did go through my head "oh no, what if he crawls on a sharp stick or something bites him" and then I thought to myself, "really, Amanda". I really need to stop being so paranoid. You can read articles and books about parenting all day long but it's hard to know when to let your baby try new and different things. Anyways, by the sixth kid I'll have it figured out or, we'll stop at three and I'll never figure out this parenting thing:)
On another note, we heard back from Tittle/Luther and just like everyone else they aren't hiring because it's just too risky to take on a new person. BUT, today Kris went to another place and had a really good conversation with the owner. I'll keep you posted. We know the Lord is our provider and he'll continue to take care of us, so we're not too stressed about this period in our lives.

Enjoy...
Let me say a couple of things about this video. 1.Jack is so well trained at staying on the blanket that it took a while to coax him off of it. 2.I barely have enough time to blog so there's no editing in the videos, which means it's a little long. and 3. Jack's so BIG! 4. Mom, enjoy this video and know that we miss you!!

Time to breathe

As usual work has kept me extremely busy lately. Jack is quickly approaching 1o months and life is flying by us. Kris is getting ready to graduate. I'm so proud of him, he's worked so hard for so long. I'm counting down the days/months/years till I get to stay home with Jack. Just to update everybody Kris had an interview with Tittle/Luther (an architecture firm here in town)..so keep that in your prayers.

Here are a few things Jack is doing at 9 months and 3 weeks...

• he says "daadaa" and "daad" all of the time.
• he loves to be outside
• he's been pulling up on things for a while, but lately he's started to let go and try to stand on his own
• he's "cruising" a lot more
• he loves giving Mama and Dada kisses

Some of his favorite foods right now are:

• yogurt
• bananas
• peaches
• well, everything!!! The only thing we tried that we will never try again is...Prunes. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to let him eat 4 oz of pureed Prunes. You can imagine why he won't be eating that again.

Enjoy these pics. I know we have enjoyed the memories behind every picture!

Jack really likes going on walks with Mommy and Daddy! He LOVES the feeling of the wind and HATES the sun in his face.
His favorite place to play is under the table. I promise we never let him play with the cords. It's the cord to the xbox. Wouldn't it be a shame if Jack accidentally knocked it over one day:)
His favorite game is when we chase him under and around the table. Kris and I have both found ourselves crawling under the table at some point.


I'll leave you with this one of my two boys. Jack absolutely loves his daddy and can't get enough of him.

Pig Pen is 9 months

Officially today Jack turned 9 months. I cannot believe how fast this whole first year seems to go by. It seems like he just got used to crawling and pulling up on things and then all of a sudden he decides to go right into try standing on his own. I know that might seem shocking but really it's not as big as I have lead on. Although I am proud for his efforts it is pretty scary. First, sometimes he will stand up on his exer-saucer and he will be playing with a toy and he gets so excited that he doesn't realize he lets go for a couple of seconds at a time. Granted it's for about 2 seconds, but yesterday he did pull up on my knee and he purposely let go for about 2 seconds but this time me and Amanda knew he knew what he was doing.

We can tell when he grows because he's grumpy that day and naps for longer periods. It's usually at the beginning of the month and it's funny when you know your child's growing patterns. Another new thing that he's been able to do is sit outside when its warmer. He loves the wind and always shrugs up his shoulders like it tickles him. It's also a great chance for him to try out his summer hat which looks like a sombrero which is great. I'm sure he'll hate us in the future but its just too cute.

Jack with his summertime sombrero

I'm sure your wondering what the title of this post means. Well the other day after his bath we dried Jack's head and he looked a little like this.

Totally Jack minus the dirt cloud.

I think the resemblance speaks for itself.

Finally just some pictures to show how much he's grown.

His new favorite thing. Sticks.


Happy after eating his favorite yogurt and bananas.



I'm pretty lucky to have these two.