Family Photos... sort of

Today was nice and not overly sunny, so we decided to head up to campus and take some self-portraits. It didn't go very well. I wasn't expecting anything professional looking, but it ended up being so frustrating. It turns out that taking pictures with a tripod, a self-timer, and a toddler is basically impossible. Especially if that toddler trips and gets a fat lip after the 2nd picture. My 2 favorite pictures didn't turn out because of Jackson eyes being closed and the picture being out of focus, which are both impossible to control without being behind the camera. And none of them are properly exposed, which is my fault, although it's still hard to control when you aren't behind the camera. Oh well, live and learn. Anyway, here's the ones that turned out okay.

Whale Watching

After how excited Jackson got about Shamu at Sea World, we decided to take him on a whale-watching tour. The whales were a lot more difficult to spot, and they didn't do any fancy tricks, but it was still fun to spend an afternoon out on the water. Jackson got bored with trying to spot whales, but he enjoyed exploring the boat anyway.

Some silly pose that Tyler came up with. Jackson loves being his little side-kick.

Enjoying the view from the docks It was really cold. This hat was my present from Tyler's Peru trip.

Finding hiding spots on the boat was way more exciting than waiting for whales to pop up.

I love his giggling smile

The only picture from the day of all 3 of us. Taking a self-photo with a DSLR doesn't work very well, but Tyler always insists.

Blankets, Jam, Play Dough, Easter

Easter was a lot of fun this year. We invited 3 families to join us for a big Easter dinner. It was the biggest group I've ever prepared a holiday meal for, but it was great. Everyone brought delicious food. Our apartment was a little cramped, but the kids had so much fun together. It's nice to have good friends when you have to spend holidays away from family.

Jackson at the Easter Egg Hunt for UW Family Housing. He was in heaven. Enjoying the Easter package from Grandma Trish. No, I couldn't get him to put the Peep down and smile for a picture. Great-Grandma Boyd also sent an awesome Easter package. Jackson is so spoiled :) Baby Stuff:

I'm starting to feel like myself again. It's nice to have a little energy and be able to feel excited about this little baby boy, instead of spending every day worrying, which is what I did the first 4 months. We were thrilled with our ultrasound results. I healthy little boy is exactly what we were hoping for :) We've been clearing out Jackson's room. He has been sleeping in a queen bed, which he loves, but it just didn't allow a lot of space for a baby crib in the same room, so we sold his bed and we've been shopping for a bunkbed. We've also been going through tiny little Jackson clothes to get them ready for baby #2. It's been an exciting couple of weeks and I'm starting to feel a little more prepared.

To add to the excitement, my friend Robin made an adorable baby blanket. It was so sweet of her and I absolutely love it! It's baby #2's first possession, since most of his stuff will be inherited from Jackson.

The other day, Jackson said, "Mom, I have something really cool to show you. It's beautiful!" He ran into my room, found this blanket, and brought it to me. Sometimes he spreads the blanket over my tummy and says that his little brother is cold. The other day, I found him watching TV with his arm around the blanket, but it wasn't like he was using the blanket. It was like he was protecting it for his brother or something. He's so cute and SO EXCITED! It's fun to have him understand and be so involved.

The last few months, I have been feeling a little discouraged about myself as a mother. I'm sure part of it came from being too sick to do very much. And part of it came from the fact that I'm just not a natural stay-at-home-mom and sometimes I worry that I'm failing. So a few weeks ago, when I was finally feeling energetic again, I decided to do some of the "typical mom stuff" that I don't always make time for.

Jackson helped me make strawberry jam. He was really good at sneaking strawberry bites and dipping his fingers in the sugar everytime I turned around. (Also, notice the 3 little tupperwares on the counter? That's the homemade play dough I made. Jackson has become obsessed with playdough. He will sit and play for at least an hour. His favorite shape to make is a snow ball. He's pretty good at making them)

We also dyed easter eggs (the Tuesday AFTER Easter). It was a little late, but we still had fun.

Baby Brother

This post should be a lot more creative, but I spent my day washing & sorting boxes {and boxes} of Jackson's old baby clothing, and cleaning/selling Jackson's queen size bed to make room for a smaller bed and a crib, so I'm pretty exhausted, but I figured I should at least blog about our big news from yesterday.

It's a boy!

More details, stories, excitement to come, when I can keep my eyes open.

Big Brother

Jackson is going to be a big brother! We're so excited to be adding a new addition to our family. I am 16 weeks along and the baby is due September 17th (although I'm already planning on the the baby arriving about a week late based on my last pregnancy). This pregnancy has been just as rough as the first, although I have a 2 year-old this time around, which means it's been a lot rougher. Being sick with a little kid is hard, and makes you feel guilty and useless. But we have survived so far and I am feeling mostly better. I still get a little sick in the evenings but nothing compared to what has been happening the last few months. And the last few days I've started to feel little kicks, which makes it all worth it. I'm excited to start enjoying the fun part of pregnancy.

My fabulous mom decided to fly out and help when I was about 10 weeks along, which was when I was at my worst. It was fabulous to have her come. She is the greatest house guest in the world and definately welcome back when the baby arrives. She did all the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, Jackson entertaining/diapers/bedtime, and even left our freezer stocked for the weeks to come. I seriously would not have survived this time around without her.

Of course she brought gifts, including a giant Lightening McQueen coloring book.

Jackson helped her make cookies. He was very good at unwrapping the Rolos without eating any, until his mom broke the rules and ate one. It was downhill from there.

Drumming like Daddy

Thanks for all your help, Mom. We love you!

We'll find out in a few weeks if it's a boy or girl, so stay tuned.

Shamu & Sunshine

We had a fantastic week in San Diego with my mom and sisters. Jackson was in heaven. Sunshine, Shamu, sandy beaches, Whitney to play with him, and Grandma to spoil him. What more could he want? Although he did once make the comment, "I just want to play with daddy right now." (Tyler was in Peru)

Meeting Elmo was one of his favorites. After the problems we had with Halloween costumes, I thought he would be scared by the giant, fuzzy costume, but he ran right up and gave him a hug. I guess Elmo is the exception.

After we were done taking pictures, he kept saying,

"I want to meet Elmo again!"

Jackson is all wet in the picture because we just finished with the fountains (see the video at the bottom of this post)

Me and my mom

Jackson loved the deer in the petting zoo

He really loved them, and they were amazingly tolerant

Does anyone watch Scrubs re-runs like we do? He looks like he's doing JD's hide-the-nipple dance. It cracks me up.

This is how you know the day was a success

What a gorgeous beach. Jackson was an expert sand castle maker.

So here is Jackson enjoying the fountains. It started off as innocently putting his hands in the water. But once I realized I had spare shorts and a dry jacket in my purse, we decided to just let him go crazy.

Why We Love Target Dollar Bins

Happy Easter, a little early.

(at least I talked him out of the pink bunny ears that he really wanted)

Humidifiers & Things I Like

This is just a random cute picture of Jackson today. I had the humidifier on the kitchen table and Jackson climbed up there and stuck his face in the mist. Tiny water droplets all over his face... Cute.

It's been a really long time since I did a writing post, and since I'm still waiting on my mom to email our San Diego pictures, I figured it was time. Jackson and I spent the last week in San Diego with my mom and sisters. We decided to get out of town because Tyler is in Peru for 12 days, but now we are back from our vacation and Tyler still has 2 more days to go, so I've been feeling a little bummed.

My friend Lara from Pocket Full of Prose did a "Things I Like About Myself" post and challenged me to do the same. I decided I should give it a try, although I should warn you that I've had a rough couple of days, so I'm not quite sure how this will come out. So despite my recent self-loathing, here are a few things that I love about myself:

• I'm good at keeping a clean house most of the time, and I'm good at knowing when it's time to drop everything and let the dishes pile up so I can do floor puzzles with Jackson.
• I'm good at running. I'm slow, but I'm still good at it. I almost never forget which foot needs to move forward next.
• I write good emails. During college, I wrote my father emails constantly and I think they were fairly entertaining to read. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that I'm not afraid of a little bit of exaggeration. So I'm not always perfectly honest, but people are entertained, and isn't that more important?
• I'm good at grocery shopping. That sounds like something stupid, but I just have this amazing system down, and I always finish grocery shopping trips feeling very proud of my efficiency. I even had a cashier tell me once that I was the most organized grocery shopper she's ever seen.
• My hair has pretty natural blonde highlights. And if I spend too much time in cloudy Seattle and my hair gets too dark, I spray a little Sun-In, whip out the blow dryer, and call it natural anyway.
• I'm really good with Excel. My dad taught me Excel when I was like 5 or something. I thought he was such a dork, but now I'm fairly addicted to it. I make up stupid excuses to use it all the time.
• I'm a terrible mother, but at least I can admit that. Some women are built to be super-stay-at-home-moms. I'm not, but I still try. And I have a very happy little boy that I love very much. And he knows how much I love him, and he loves me too, and that counts for something.
• I'm good at proof-reading, and maybe even a little obsessive. Everytime you send me an email or write a blog post, I proofread as I read it. I can't help it. But don't worry, I usually won't mention your typos unless they are really bad :) And my own typos devestate me.
• I make efforts to take care of the environment. I use reusable grocery totes and I am very good at following Seattle's ridiculous recycling rules. Although I guess the fact that I call them "ridiculous" probably means I don't care about the environment quite enough.
• Despite how rough the last few days have been, when Tyler gets home in a few days, Jackson and I will both still be alive. That is impressive.

So there you have it. I have a few good qualities. You have them too. Write them down :)

Good Surprises

We had a good weekend, despite the fact that Tyler was gone for 5 days to an ASDA conference. It was hard to have him gone, but Jackson and I enjoyed some quality time together, and we had a few fun surprises too.

One of my sweet friends brought me a homemade fruit bouquet. It was so thoughtful of her that it almost made me cry. Jackson and I snapped a few quick pictures and then devoured it. It was delicious! She's so talented.

Saturday morning we awoke to another fun surprise. We did some indoor plant starts for our garden. It felt so early, but Seattle's planting season starts really early so we figured it was time. I was amazed to see these cute little plants pop up just 6 days after planting them. And of course, Tyler came home with gifts (even though they were just the free gifts that he got from vendors at the conference). Jackson enjoyed his little airplane, which he played make believe with all morning after Tyler got home. He would fly it around the room, land it on the couch, and then pretend to open a tiny little door in the side of the plane and say, "It's Daddy's plane. Daddy is home! He came home!" I thought it was really sweet.

A New Hobby

Jackson is currently obsessed with puzzles. And I have learned the vast difference between cheap puzzles and expensive puzzles. Nice puzzles are definately worth the money. Cheap puzzles fall apart and the pieces are distorted and won't stick together and are very frustrating to a 2-year-old. So over the past few weeks, we've been investing in some high-quality floor puzzles from Ross's, and Jackson has been in puzzle heaven.

My favorite part of the puzzles? When Jackson finishes one on his own and then stands up, holds his arms out, and yells "Tah-duh!" It makes me giggle every time.