Monday, April 28, 2008

Baby J's Crawling!!!

This weekend was busy (as usual). We got a ton of things done around the house. We've rearranged a few things and we've been babyproofing! I also got a bunch of sewing done, including a few things (blanket and burp clothes) for my friend Daphne's baby shower. Hopefully in a couple of short months we will see her beautiful baby boy Ben, who is making a long trip here from Ethiopia! Her shower was Sunday afternoon, then after that we had Mary and Chris and Leslie and Lee over for a shrimp boil. I think Wes and I could eat that once a week and never get sick of it :-) Here's a few pics from the weekend:


Don't let this pic fool you...shrimp boiling is hard work ;-)


Sweet Emma - I can never get her to smile when I've got the camera on her, lol.


Jackson and Emma playing together. It's so cute to watch them interact. Jackson also saw a bunch of babies at Daphne's shower. There were 3 babies all within about 3 months of each other. He's still not sure what to think of other babies, but it's funny to watch them eye each other.


Yummy!!!


Sweet Baby J growing up so fast.

Jackson has been crawling for the past couple of days now...and really crawling - putting one hand in front of the other instead of the lunging/pushing/pulling stuff before. It's amazing the changes that he has made in the past month! I can't believe it. This isn't the greatest video, but without further ado, here's Jackson starring in:



"I've got places to go and things to put in my mouth" :-)





Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sittin' and Grinnin'


In just the past few days Jackson has started to sit all by himself! He still can't sit up like we do (and still is doing his ab workout crunches) but he pushes back when he's creeping and crawling and just sits up. It's so cute :-) He's getting the hand movement part to crawling now and is moving more and more each day. Scary!!! We've been babyproofing everything. Hope everyone has a good rest of their week.


Sitting up and playing with his leap frog.


Like always, with a grin on his face :-D





On the move....


Jackson is still eating well (and growing everyday it seems). So far squash has been good. I wouldn't say he loves it, but he opens his mouth to eat it. Sweet potatoes tomorrow...

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Jackson's First...

Braves' game!!! We took Jackson to his first game this past weekend to watch the Braves beat the Dodgers! So, we can take him back to lots of games according to Wes b/c the Braves won :-) What a relief, haha ;-) Even though Jackson skipped a nap and had two puny ones before that, he was a trooper. He got a little fussy around the 2 inning and by the 3rd we were up walking him around, but we stayed until the mid of the 8th. And we only left then because Wes and I were worried about getting supper and getting him asleep at the hotel (both of which were a breeze). We stayed at the Holiday Inn Select on Capitol Ave right down the street from the stadium. We stay there all the time when we go to the games - very convenient b/c it's walking distance from the stadium. We put a blanket over J's pack'n'play so it would "separate" him from us. Worked like a charm...that and the fact that he was tuckered out! What a great trip - I hope we can do it again soon :-)



Playing on the bed, working on sitting up by himself - tomorrow I'll get some new pics up - since Sat he has learned to sit up all by himself :-) How fast they change!!!


Daddy and Jackson in their Braves' gear




They took all the balls that were outside the stadium out and replaced them w/ statues of people...not sure why. This is a bust of Hank Aaron.


Too many things for J to look at...couldn't get him to look at me lol.


And the perk about being on the 3rd base side...Chipper Jones!!! My fav player on the team. Unfortunately (or not) he never would turn around :-D

Monday, April 21, 2008

Washington DC and Mama Monday

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but we've been sooo busy the past week and a half. Last Saturday left and spent 5 days in Washington DC for the AANA's Midyear Assembly. It was a great meeting and I learned so much! We had such a great group of people from the ALANA that went and I think we did a great job representing our profession :-) I didn't get back until Wednesday afternoon. That was just in time to spend a little time w/ Jackson before he had to go to bed. It's amazing what he learns in that little time (more on that later!). Thursday and Friday I worked, then we left again for the weekend. We took Jackson to Atlanta to his first Brave's game. That's another post though! Here's some pics from DC.



This is w/ Rep Mike Rogers. Our parents live in his district.


We had a little bit of time in between a couple of our appointments, so we browsed the Library of Congress. There are so many designs on the walls and ceilings. I took about 20 pics in there of quotes that I liked. Since this trip was about nurse anesthesia, I thought the medicine pic was appropriate.


With Artur Davis


Our nation's capital


Outside one of the buildings where our representatives work


Our whole gang


Mount Vernon - home of George Washington. We had a dinner and a tour here - it was so much fun. I've been here before, but it's been a long time, and I can definitely say I have an appreciation for places like this that I didn't have the first time I was here - lol. Guess I'm getting old ;-)


There are beautiful flower gardens at Mt Vernon. I thought these tulips were esp pretty!



Today's Mama Monday topic is Children's Music.

This is short for us b/c there are only a couple of things that we have played for Jackson so far. One of the things that I really like is this website.

So far there are only 2 CDs that we have played for him: 1) children's hymns. 2) Calling all Children to the Mardi Gras

I love the Mardi Gras CD - it's so upbeat and fun, and it has special meaning to us b/c it's by Mike Artell, who is Noel Mark's father-in-law. He's a great singer, as well as children's author and artist.

Jackson really likes when we sing to him (esp when my mom does - probably b/c her voice is MUCH better than mine ;-)) so we're looking forward to many more singing days w/ him!

Friday, April 11, 2008

6 Month Checkup

Wednesday Jackson had his 6 months checkup and all is well! He is now 16 pounds and 2 ounces (which sounds like a lot but is 20th percentile) and he is 27 inches long (75th percentile). He again had to get 4 more shots and his rotavirus vaccine, which is given orally. I could tell he felt yucky that night, and his mouth has been hurting him, so we've had multiple tylenol doses over the past few days. He's also moving more and more. Now he can push his legs under him when he's trying to crawl and can sit up from this position. It's all happening so fast! He's beginning to enjoy his cereal more. We taped him a little today, but I didn't get a chance to edit the video. This will be that last blog for about a week b/c I'm off to Wash DC for an AANA meeting. I'll be away from my guys for 5 whole days!!! Hope everyone has a great weekend :-)



Sitting up like a big boy in the chair




And now trying to crawl out of the chair, haha

Monday, April 7, 2008

Mama Monday: Healthy Eating

Today's Mama Monday is Healthy Eating:-) In case you missed last week's post, a friend from high school, Erin, has started a GREAT blog idea - Mama Monday. I told y'all about this last week, but forgot to mention that if you haven't checked out her blog, you really should. She's an amazing photographer! And she posts about how to take great pics...now I just need to find that time to get all that together...

Anyway, onto healthy eating. Here's what we try to do to get ourselves to eat the best things possible (and the challenges we have) - let me know if you post about this too:

1. Eating those fruits and veggies - this is a constant struggle for us. Wes hates fruit, and even though I like fruit, fresh fruits always seem to start to get past their peak when I buy them. So I buy more fruits in a can than I would like. I always get stuff in light syrup though or now they have fruit packed w/ water sweetened with splenda (learned that while I was pregnant). We do a better with veggies, but we eat the same ones over and over. It's a problem that we're both picky, and I hate that for Jackson. I hope he eats more than we do, but I'm worried his taste buds may be a bit restricted as well. Luckily my taste buds accomodate many more veggies than they used to, and I try to influence Wes with this (hey, he eats asparagus now!!!).

2. Planning and shopping - we try to plan out our meals at the beginning of the week. Sunday nights we try to figure out what we want for the rest of the week. We do leave a little slack in case we want to go out to eat with some friends. Planning things out really works for us. This way we know what we have to take out of the freezer and if we have to go to the grocery store. Speaking of the grocery store, we try to shop for things when they are on sale and freeze them (aka meat). Usually every 6 weeks or so different meats go on sale, so I encourage you to watch for these sales and use your freezer. We have a deep freeze so that we can keep a turkey and ham on hand as well (get those after Thanksgiving and Easter).

3. Sams - Another place that we go other than the grocery store is Sams. We only go there about every other month, but we stock up on things that we use a lot: peanut butter crackers, olive oil, frozen chicken breast and chicken tenders. We also will buy a few bottles of wine while we are there. It's a great place, but you need to know what you're going there for because their deals aren't always the best (like on cokes).

4. What do we eat - like I said, we plan almost all of our meals. In a typical week we eat a couple of chicken meals, a couple of beef meals, a pork meal, and usually a pasta meal. We have a seafood meal at least every other week. We recently learned that much of the shrimp they have at the seafood counter is previously frozen. One of the meat men told us it's the same shrimp that's in a bag frozen and often on sale buy one get one free. Last week we took one of those bags, defrosted the shrimp by letting it sit in water, then shelling it and made yummy shrimp!!! Here's a quick recipe:
Take the thawed, shelled, and deveined shrimp and toss them in a bowl with EVVO (for you Rachel Ray peps and extra virgin olive oil for everyone else) and some sort of Cajun seasoning (we use Joe's) and put in a skillet that has hot olive oil and garlic (a couple of cloves). Add some lemon juice and lemon rind if you want. Add either 1/2 cup of white wine or add water if you want it nonalcoholic (if you have some fish stock, more power to ya, add it!!). Let this cook for a couple of minutes, then turn when the shrimp turns pink. A couple more minutes and you have yummy and really easy shrimp! We serve this with pasta and asparagus, or just with bread. Super easy and super good!

5. Other meals - we have go to meals that we eat every couple of weeks i.e. tonight we have fajitas. Buy the thin skirt steak, or any other steak on sale, cook in the skillet with fajita seasoning (either bought or made), add any toppings you want and it's great. A great way to add veggies to a meal is to cook them in a casserole. We add frozen mixed veggies to rice and either chicken or pork at least once a month. Much better that way!

6. Sweet tooth - Y'all know I have a huge sweet tooth...and Wes doesn't (not sure what's wrong w/ him :-)) So, I constantly fight the urge to buy sugary substances. Luckily, since Wes doesn't want it, it's easier to keep out of the house. However, I have found that if you really want something sweet, you should keep something in the house and just eat a little bit of it...a piece of chocolate (like a kiss) is the perfect amount.

7. Here we go with Jackson - Tonight we fed J his first rice cereal. I know it's later than most people do, but we wanted to wait because there's an increased chance of allergies in some children if you introduce foods too early. Around 3 months Jackson had a spot of eczema come up on his face, and that sealed the deal - we decided to wait until now. So today he had his first bites of cereal - see the picks below. We've also decided to feed him homemade foods. I know some of you think we're crazy, but I at least want to try. We'll see how he does with it in the upcoming weeks. If any of you have made baby foods, please let us know how it went!
Anyways, here's J in his high chair - thanks to Uncle Rod and Aunt Susie!!!


He loves to sit in it...and throw his toys off of it, lol. So happy before the food :-)



Here's one of the first few bites.


Yep, definitely an acquired taste I guess :-)


What do you think???

Friday, April 4, 2008

6...5...4...3..2...1

Here's the countdown of the past couple of days:



6 Months Old: Jackson is now 6 months old!!! The time has flown by and in the past couple of weeks he has really started to fill out some. It's amazing the changes that he has made!







5 days: We have completed the garden - sort of. What we've finished is actually hauling the dirt and peat moss and stuff in. It was finished this morning and now we have to wait 5 days to let the dirt "heat" and kill off anything in it. This pic is one of the plot after it's been tilled. Since this pic we have covered the garden with a clear plastic tarp and will take it off in 5 days. This will let the soil heat up and kill anything bad that might be there.






4 hours: Wes and I drove 4 hours today to Pensacola for a wedding. We were actually just about 5 minutes ahead of the tornadoes a.k.a. the "naders." Literally we had gotten just past Helena when James Spann said a wall cloud was over the area. Scary! We had hit and miss showers the rest of the way down, but we made it :-)



3 day: I have a 3 day weekend!!! I was on call again last night, so I was off today. It wasn't too bad, was home about 0100, but didn't have to go back. Wes and I got up this morning, and like I said before, finished the garden plot. I dont' like working late b/c I don't see Jackson go to bed, but I love having the next day off!!!



2A: 2 days away: This is the first time that we have really spent away from Jackson. For the next 2 days we are in Pensacola and Jackson is with my parents. So far, so good :-)



2B: 2 teeth: Jackson's got 2 teeth coming in!!! He's been drooling since he was 8 weeks old, and gnawing on his hands, feet, and generally anything he could get in his mouth for ages, but last week his little gums looked purple, and this week his first two teeth started cutting through. He's been great through it all; in fact, we were a little surprised because he hasn't fussed much lately or anything. Look closely at the pic below and you can see those little teeth on his lower gum!








1: 1 precious baby learning to crawl. Not that we're biased or anything, but Jackson's such a great baby! He's doing great crawling on our bed and his crib and starting to get it on the floor. We've been soooo blessed with him over the past 6 months and can't wait to see what he'll do next!!!



J on all 4s on our bed....


and he's off...what are we going to do now, lol?!?!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Congrats to Daph

Congrats go out tonight to Daphne!!! Hopefully in May and not later she will be travelling to Ethiopia and bringing home the most precious gift - her son :-) He's six months old, so he and Jackson will be the same age. We can't wait to meet him and are so happy for you!!!