Happy Birthday, Hannah

Happy Birthday to our sweet Hannah girl. It's hard to imagine she's been gone two years. Some days it seems like a lifetime ago, and others it seems like only yesterday. That's one thing I've learned about this greiving process, it doesn't get easier, it just gets different. This birthday was much harder for me than her first. I think with Jackson here now, everything we never got to share with her is so much more real. Jackson was such a blessing today though, he gave me extra smiles and kisses, which made it a little easier.

We spent the day with just our little family. I thought maybe we could take a walk through the zoo or something, but of course it was rainy. So, we went to get supplies to make her a cake, which I think turned out so cute. :) It was so great to have Jackson's help this year, he sat in the kitchen and we chatted while I baked.

We took him out to get some pictures by her tree, something I've been meaning to do for a long time. He mostly just wanted to pull the buds off and when he couldn't do that, he thought maybe it was time to head back inside.

We've decided to make a donation in Hannah's name each year on her birthday. Last year our great friend, Brooke put together donations for NILMDTS, which is the organization that took the photos of Hannah in the hospital. They do this for greiving families free of charge, which is a beautiful thing, I cherish the photos we have of her. This year we are donating to a 5 month old little girl, Scarlett Grace and her family. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor at her 2 month well check and has been fighting for her life ever since. I've followed their journey through their blog and they definitely have a special place in my heart.

I will miss my sweet Hannah bear always, but my boys make me so happy.

7 month stats

Jackson now weighs 19 lbs. on the button (as calculated by our scale at home)
Jackson is 28 inches long

A few of his favorite things are:
Playing fetch with Magnus. He LOVES Magnus, unfortunately, Mags doesn't feel the same about him. :(
Saying bu, bu, bu, even though he only hears me repeating ma, ma, ma and Matt saying da, da, da.
His Vitamin D. He gets it each morning before he gets dressed and he gets the biggest smile and his legs start pumping. I'm hoping this continues into the toddler years and beyond, but I doubt it.

He's not so fond of:
Getting dressed after his bath.
Peas.
Being on his stomach. Which means he's not even close to crawling. On the one hand, I'm excited for him to start moving around on his own, but one the other hand, I do like knowing that I can set him down somewhere and he'll be in the same place when I get back.

I was just thinking today, how much he's changed in the last seven months. It's been an amazing journey with this little guy. I can't remember any other time in my life I've smiled so much. :)

Jackson likes it!

Well, most of it anyway. "It" being food. We started REAL solids (not just rice cereal) a few weeks ago. He really enjoys his food, I know big surprise, right? It's so cute, you put him in the highchair and his little legs start going and he gets pretty excited.

He does seem to be more of a vegetable man than a fruits guy. He thinks sweet potatoes and squash are pretty great, and he likes bananas, but he's not so sure about apples or pears. He'll eat 'em but he squishes up his face.

He's really getting the hang of it too. He opens his mouth nice and wide for each bite. Sometimes he even helps put the spoon to his mouth. He gets rice cereal for breakfast and dinner and either fruit in the morning or a vegetable in the evening. We are trying to introduce the foods one at a time and give him at least three days to make sure everything agrees with him. Bon Apetit!

Jackson Rolls Over

I wanted to add this into the blog as a post so I could remove it from the top. Watching it for the 500th time, I'm still amazed he did this at 4 weeks. It's hard to remember he was ever that little, his little cries....I love being able to play with him now and him laughing and smiling to let me know he's having a good time, but I miss those days too!

Totally Charmin'

That pretty much sums up Jackson! I found this cute little shirt for Jackson way back at the end of January and had to get 12 months because that's the smallest they had. I was worried it wouldn't fit him :) Obviously, not a problem.

Jackson had a great first St. Patrick's Day. Although, I think his cheeks probably did get pinched a few times today, but that happens most days. We had peas for dinner in the spirit of the day (they're green), but Jackson was not about it. So far, peas are the only food Jackson has absolutely refused to eat.

Hope you all remembered to wear your green! Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

A day at the beach!

Jackson and I were able to sneak away to the beach for the weekend with some friends. My friend, Heidi and I took off for the beach with the kids on Friday afternoon. She has Ryeike, who's almost 7 and Kya who is 3. My friend, Shelby joined us Saturday with her cutie, Kasen, who is only 6 weeks younger than Jackson. We all had such a blast! We even got lucky and saw the sun :)

Ryeike and Kya absolutely adore Jackson. They were so good to him, providing lots of attention and entertainment :)

And it's always so much fun for me to see Kasen and Jackson together. We love us some Kohlers! It's so nice to have great friends who have a little guy who is so close to Jackson. I am so looking forward to watching these two grow up together and be the best of buddies :)

Hopefully we can make another trip when it's a little warmer and we can stay and play on the beach without bundling up. Kya was a little bummed she didn't get to break out her bikini and flip-flops :)

Lemme see that!

Jackson has become very aware of EVERYTHING going on around him. That means if he thinks it's within his reach, he's going for it. This includes, but is not limited to, hair, earrings, glasses, food, drinks, and any electronic device. And he's fast!

So, for mommy that means a whole new strategy for lots of things. For instance, if he got fussy at mealtime I could just kinda hold him and bounce him while I ate. Not anymore. I turned my head for a second the other day and he's got a handful of my salad! When we read together he wants to hold the book, OK really just put it in his mouth :)

The one advantage to all of this is that at night, he can replace his own binky. Although, he lets us know (LOUDLY) that he'd rather have Mom or Dad do it most nights. But, I've seen him do it on his own, so I'm hopeful this will mean longer stretches of sleep for Mom and Dad sometime soon....

Surprise!

OK, so I had a whole different subject to blog about tonight, but when I was uploading pictures and came across these, I just had to post them. These were taken right after the first of the year, so he was just 4 months old. How did I forget about them?

I'm just not sure how this little boy could get any cuter?! He MAKES me smother him with kisses :)

6 month stats

Jackson had his six month well check on Wednesday.

*Jackson weighs 17 lbs. 9 oz.
*Jackson is 27.5 inches tall

We're thinking he might have been mis-measured at his 4 month appt., otherwise he only grew half an inch these past two months and as the person who dresses him each day, I know this isn't true. He's still in the 70th percentile for his height and only in the 40th for his weight. I find this hard to believe, anyone who's seen his thighs would :)

He was such a brave boy, he got three shots and didn't make a peep until the last one. This kinda made me feel worse than if he would have cried the whole time. I figured he was tough for the first and even second, but by the third, he thought I better let them know this hurts so they'll stop poking me :(

He's healthy as a horse and as far as we're concerned, PERFECT!

FeBLURRary

I've decided Jackson is changing so much from day to day that I'm going to have to update this blog more often! So, I am vowing to do shorter updates more frequently. This one will be a little longer as we've had quite a busy February, so here it goes.....

On the 10th we headed down to my parents' house for an extended visit. As I mentioned, Matt had a guys trip planned, so Jackson and I stayed with G&G and Auntie Alex (or Auntie Bob, as she is now referred, that's a post in and of itself for those of you who aren't familiar). What a GREAT time we had! It was so nice to really spend some quality time with them! We see them pretty often but it always seems like we've got something on the agenda so this time it was nice to be able to just hang out. Alex got her permit, (YIKES!) so Matt took her, or rather she took him, driving. She's doing a really great job. She also had her first formal high school dance. I helped her with her hair and makeup, she looked so beautiful. It made me want to go back to high school. (ok, maybe not!) We made it to the last of her basketball games. She's had a rough year in bb with injuries, so I'm glad she was healthy enough to play to finish the season.

And I guess Jackson didn't want Auntie Bob taking all the spot light, because he started rolling over (again) and sitting up! Put him on his tummy and he's on his back in two seconds flat! I know the sequence looks like he is rolling to get the ball, but he's actually rolling away. Sometimes he will see a toy he wants to get and he'll get about halfway when he realizes this will result in him being on his tummy, and he immediately rolls to his back! I guess he's just finally that fed up with tummy-time :)

He's getting so good at sitting by himself, too. The ball in the picture lights up and plays music and he just loves it. Sometimes he even sees his tootsies and likes to try and get a hold of them too. He still has to have pillows surrounding him because he does like to lurch backward without warning!

I'm so glad we were able to spend the week-and-more with them, I know Jackson loved it too.

Daddy had a great time in Tahoe, they got TONS of snow, but boy was he ready to come home! Being away from Jackson was pretty hard on him, and Jackson and Mommy were so happy to see Daddy too!

G&G and Auntie Bob got so used to having toys scattered all over the house and being awakened at 3:00am, they had to come visit us in Portland this last weekend! Blair and Griffin (Ashely wasn't feeling well and we missed her) were able to come over and we all had such a good time together! Jackson is VERY interested in whatever Griffin is doing. I can hardly wait for the day these two little boys are running around playing together. I just know they'll be best buds. We really enjoyed having everyone here. We miss them all already and can't wait to see them again!

So February was a blur, March is shaping up to be pretty full too. Jackson keeps us on our toes and we are anxiously awaiting his next "trick!" I know I say it all the time, but we really do LOVE each and every moment with this little guy! It's almost unbelievable how someone so small can fill our entire lives with so much love.