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.

getting ready for Christmas

We're in the Christmas spirit at the Fleming household! Grandma Jane visited a couple of weeks ago so Mom and Dad could have a night out for Nike's firm's Christmas party. We put up the tree, decorations, and lights and cleaned the house like it's never been cleaned. We got so much done and were so grateful to have her out here. We did have some fun while she was here--we got all bundled up to see the Denver Zoo's Zoo Lights. It was great! It was cold, but so much fun to walk around to see the lights.

I took the video below to show how good Jack's been standing up. He stands up at the footstool playing with his toys for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. It's so fun to watch him concentrate so hard on grabbing a toy that he has his eye on.

And this next video I took because I just had to get the sound of those giggles on video. Jeff had finished dishes and was just throwing the dish towel over his head, and Jack just couldn't stop laughing. That's a sound that will never get old!

Crawling

I finally took a few minutes to get some crawling video of Jack. It's not the greatest, but it'll do for now. We spent Friday night and Saturday in Fort Collins visiting Jeff's college roommate Brad. He's the athletic trainer for Fresno State, and they were playing at Colorado State. Jack loved his first basketball game! He was clapping along with the band and when the crowd clapped. It was so fun to take him to the first of many college basketball games. Unfortunately Fresno State lost, but it was fun to see Brad and have an excuse to get out of town for a night. Next weekend, Grandma Jane comes to visit!

First Thanksgiving and other firsts

Thanksgiving week started off with some excitement when we picked Jack up from day care on Tuesday to find that he was crawling! He had been up on all fours all weekend, rocking back and forth, but he hadn't started moving. By the time we picked him up Tuesday afternoon, he was cruising. No videos yet, but we'll post them soon.

We drove back to Iowa on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Jack slept during the entire drive Tuesday night and did pretty well on Wednesday morning. On Thursday morning, we celebrated Thanksmas (or Christgiving, if you prefer) with Nike's parents. Jack got to open his first presents. He wasn't particularly excited about the toys or the wrapping paper until we got the toy unwrapped and in front of him.

We celebrated regular Thanksgiving later on Thursday afternoon with the Lenoch clan.

Jack was kind of fussy Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning, we figured out why: he was getting his first tooth! It hasn't made its way completely out yet, but there's definitely something poking through. We spent Friday with the Flemings, and Grandma Jane and Grandpa Randy got to spend time with both of their grandsons.

A reluctant giraffe

We received a hand-me-down giraffe costume for Jack, so we figured we ought to put him in it at least once. We dressed him up for costume day at day care, and we felt like the parents in The Christmas Story making their kids put on the bunny suits. Thankfully, he tolerated it pretty well.

We also went to a "pumpkin patch" at a neighborhood church. We didn't make it until the day before Halloween, so the only ones left were scary ones with warts. Maybe next year we'll get the obligatory cute-baby-sitting-next-to-a-pile-of-pumpkins picture.