Moving and exploring

It was a pretty uneventful weekend around here. Jack is moving and exploring all over the place. He is standing all the time against the couch, against the footstool, with his walker, but not making any moves beyond that yet. His top two front teeth are really coming in now, so his smile looks so different. He's also starting to talk more--his babbling is starting to sound more like he's trying to make words. With all of this exploring, it also seems to mean he's less interested in sleep. We think Jack may be on the verge of giving up his morning nap, but his afternoon nap hasn't gotten any longer, and he's staying up later than usual. We're hoping it's just a phase while he's busy learning instead of transitioning to less sleep. We're not ready for that! All in all, we couldn't be having more fun watching our little guy grow and learn.

Happy New Year!

Jeff and I welcomed 2011 as I'm sure many other first-year parents did: in bed. We managed to stay awake until about 10, and then we just couldn't make it any longer. Jack has been teething the past few days, which means his sleep schedule was completely unpredictable. One of Jack's top front teeth has come in, and the other one should be poking through any time now. His side top ones are also about to break through. Today he seemed to be back to normal, and we're hoping that going back to day care tomorrow will also help him get back in a routine. As much as we've loved having so many visitors (and taking so much time off!) the past couple of weeks, it'll be good for all of us to settle into a routine again. Here's to a happy, healthy, and productive new year!

This video is from yesterday. Jeff found Jack trying to climb onto his piano to get to the other push toy behind it, and then also to get toys that were on top of the radiator. It was pretty funny.

Merry Christmas!

Merrry Christmas! We hope all of you had a wonderful and blessed Christmas. This blog is serving as a stand-in for our Christmas cards this year. When it came to Christmas, we adopted a rule of "if you don't want to do it, don't." Picking out the perfect pictures and getting everything ready to go for Christmas cards was too much for me this year, so these pictures will just have to do! Jeff also decided that he was applying that rule to putting up Christmas lights, but within a few days he changed his mind and we had lights up.


We were lucky enough to have Nike's cousin Kacie visit for about 10 days to help out with Jack while his day care was closed. Unfortunately, Jack brought a stomach bug home from day care. He was sick for almost a week (including an ER visit on Christmas Day), and Jeff and Kacie both got hit for a couple of days. We went to Winter Park with plans to ski on Christmas Eve, but since everyone was sick, James was the only one who made it to the mountain.

We didn't buy Jack many gifts for Christmas since he got so much when we were home for Thanksgiving. And with his birthday in just two months, we'll be buying him even more.

The video below is from Christmas Eve morning. Jack loves to blow bubbles, and he was on a roll.

This is the one big toy we bought Jack for Christmas. The video is blurry, but you can still see how good he is at moving. Only a week and a half later, he's moving even faster. He doesn't know how to turn though, so he can only go so far as the next piece of furniture--that'll have to be the next step he takes.