Jackson playing with Fisher. He loves to sit and talk to Fisher and read him stories. I'm sure Fisher would appreciate it if he was ever awake to enjoy it.
"Take a picture of ME, mom!" He thinks he's really funny when he purposely closes his eyes for pictures.
I would say that if "studying" is an understatment for what Tyler has been doing the past few months, "waiting" is an overstatement. Jackson and I have been pretty busy with my job and baby preparations, but we've been having a lot of fun too.
This is the Spiderman costume he picked for Halloween. Ever since he realized he can get it on himself, we've been seeing a lot of Spiderman around the house. Sometimes he honestly catches me off guard and scares me in that little mask. It's kind of creepy when you're doing dishes in a quiet house and notice out of the corner of your eye a mini-Spiderman perched on the edge of the couch just silently staring at you...
You have to love the muscles in this suit.
Doing a Spiderman move in the water fountains. I don't know how this Spiderman obsession started...
Playing in the fountains with Jackson's friends
This picture makes me cringe. I look in the mirror and think "I look okay for how far along I am", but when I see it on camera, I always feel a little shocked and disgusted. I think the mirrors in my house are overly-forgiving. Anyway, this was 37 weeks I think, and Jackson wanted to be in the picture... which I gladly agreed to. His cute little smile keeps some of the focus off my chubby cheeks, right?
Have I mentioned that Jackson has absolutely no instincts when it comes to swimming? He needs to start swimming lessons soon, but they are so expensive here! I took him swimming with his friend Saydee, and was shocked at the difference. She can doggy paddle around the whole pool all by herself, but if Jackson falls in, he instantly freezes and just floats facedown, looking lifeless, until someone scoops him out. It makes me pretty nervous. Shouldn't he at least kick or struggle or make some effort to keep his head above water? I guess we need to work on it.
We found a little tortoise on our back patio. Crazy. We couldn't figure out how it had gotten there. We aren't allowed to have pets in our apartment complex, so our friends who were moving the next day decided to adopt him. Unfortunately, two days after they moved, there were "missing pet tortoise" posters all over the neighborhood. He has been returned to his original home now, although I'm guessing he would have had a lot more fun living with our friends, who moved into a big house out of the city. They even had a turtle pond for him.
The day before our friends moved, we had one final game night with them and a few other friends. Everytime I have people over, I think about how I wish I had a bigger place for party hosting. But then when I see us all crammed into this little apartment having fun, it makes me smile. We're never going to forget these fun years we're having "crammed" in this little apartment "suffering" with the student life... it's actually pretty great!
Above is all the kids distracted by a movie so us adults can play Settlers of Catan, which we did a lot this summer. It's been fabulous.
And a couple final pictures, just because they're cute. Here is Jackson enjoying some delicious jam that our neighbor made for us.
Tyler thought he looked like the Joker on Batman, and made him say "Why so serious!?" It would have been creepy if he wasn't so stinkin' cute about the way he said it.
We had all of Jackson's favorite "Buzz Lightyear Green" snacks
Opening presents
This umbrella is one of his favorites. He insists on using it even when it isn't raining.
The week before Jackson's actual birthday, we did a mini-celebration with Tyler, me, and Jackson here in Seattle so we could give him the presents we got him before we left for Idaho for the 2nd time. He got glow-in-the-dark chalk, so we let him stay up late and we had a glow-in-the-dark party outside.
I will never get enough of those eyes...
Pretending to be asleep because he doesn't want his picture taken (this was the 5 minutes earlier when he was insisting he just wanted to go home)
Driving the golf cart
I love the way Jackson tries to copy everything Tyler does when we go golfing. He really does want to be just like his dad.
Playing Trivial Pursuit by himself at the condo. He didn't really get it, but he insisted on playing it anyway. He basically just sorted the cards and moved the pieces around for a while.
The beach in Gearhart right in front of our condo was one of the prettiest places I have ever been. Tyler and I decided it was like putting Island Park right next to the beach. Thick gorgeous forests and amazing ocean. We loved it.
Trying to smile into the sunshine
I usually think it's kind of silly when people take pictures of their food unless it's for a recipe blog, but the birthday breakfast that Tyler made me was so pretty and so delicious I couldn't resist. Blueberry waffles topped with fresh strawberries and homemade caramel syrup, my breakfast of choice every Mother's Day and Birthday :)
We went yesterday, and I had a panic-moment. I said to my friend, "Did Jackson just run around that corner? He was going so fast I didn't even see which way he went." She looked at me, glanced at my stroller, and tried not to laugh while she pointed out that he was riding in the stroller I was pushing...
The picture below is out of focus, but the smiles are so cute I'm posting it anyway. And these pictures are actually from a previous trip to the zoo, not from yesterday. Yesterday was gorgeous and sunny and warm and required sunscreen instead of jackets. I'm already loving summer.
