He's Got A New Trick

Look what this guy's doing now:

Whee! I'm so strong now!

Just like in the video, Jackon's continuing to be happy these days. Yay, yay, YAY!!! :D :D :D. What a relief!

On another note, it's been pretty darn cold lately, especially with the wind. Ben is still loving the snow and acting like a huge puppy every time we go out. I enjoy myself too, but I do need to suit up:

 That is me, under there, wearing all my clothes at once ;)

I dunno, can you see the water on my eyelashes and eyebrows? That was ice a minute before.

I'm thinkin' maybe I should walk the dog a wee bit earlier. Like before midnight. Just maybe.

Happy Jackson, v. 2.0

Jackson has been in such a good mood for the past 4 or 5 days now. Whew! Finally! Yay!!!! :D :D :D

Here's some video of Mr. Happy Pants:

Listen to him talkin' away

Ha ha, I want them ALL!

PS: oops, sorry Mom, made you wait.

Snow!

No Jackson pictures, thought I'd warn ya right away :D. But some pictures of the grand-dog. The first snow was actually last night, but I didn't think to bring the camera until halfway through our walk. Oops. But I brought it tonight. Here's some pics of puppy and of our snowy walk tonight:

 Out of focus, but look how happy he is!

 What a beautiful night for a walk

 Note the "droolsicle" on the left :D

 Walkin' down the train tracks downtown

 Downtown's so pretty in the snow

 The old train station

Warming up after

Same Old, Same Old

Things have been cooking along pretty well lately. Jackson's been in a pretty good mood overall, and thankfully, HE LIKES THE CAR!! :D :D

Well. When someone's in the backseat with him, anyway.

Silly me, I drove Shawn to work today, since he had to take the truck in to get fixed (it's fine, BTW, something simple) and on the way home, with no Dada, Mr. Man screamed like he was being MURDERED!! Mom, Cathie, Brian, you know the scream I'm talking about. Ugh, I know he's safer there in the back seat, facing away from me, but if I could just have him in the front where he could see me and I could stick his nuk back in . . . well, I'd probably drive off the road digging for a nuk. I just hate it when he cries like that. I pulled over a bunch of times to calm him down and give him his toys back, etc, but it would just start up again as soon as I pulled away. Well, poo.

However, like I said, happy baby overall. I don't know where I thought I read about backpack carriers being unsafe until they're 1 year old, but I totally made that up in my own head. As long as babe's got a strong neck, he's good to go, so we've been using that (me around the house, Shawn on walks). Babe loves it.

 Mmm, tastes good too

 What a nice fall day. I shoulda brought my sunglasses.

Babe still sometimes has a "bonus" awake time around 2am, but hey, he's only 4 months. And he's usually pretty mellow about it these days. I took a picture one of those times, when I had just been heading to bed when babe woke up. Shawn stayed up with him, which is the usual routine.

Sleepy mellow guys, or is zombie baby just happily full of Dada brains?

Jackson is now sometimes ticklish. Or maybe he just finds the noises I make that day funny. Either way, this video cracks me up, and I love the way that bibs are toys to him now.

New Pictures and Video

Nothing earth-shattering this week, just thought I'd put up some new stuff, since I know some of you check here every day (*cough* Mom *cough*) :D

 All bundled up, ready for a walk

Obligatory nakey-bum picture, for future embarrassment

Just playin' with his new rattle. Look how well he can control his hands now!

Wow, Two In A Row!

I was shutter-happy tonight, so you get another post today!

Babe was in a funny mood today. He wanted to nurse and chew on things. All. Day. Long. It wasn't like when he was teething before, so I guess he's going through a growth spurt. That or he's a zombie:

Baby wants brains

And here's just a cute pic of babe in his jammies, cuddling with Dada:

 Aww

And here's poor Ben, who doesn't get nearly as much attention now that he's not the "baby" any more:

 

OMG did you say WALK??????

And a quick video. How do you cheer up a grumpy gus? Like this:

I Did It

It's been driving me nuts for a while now, and yesterday I finally decided to do something about it. Now, some of you will think that what I've done is a crime, but that's okay because look how cute he is now:

 Haircut boy

 Look, no more scraggly hair!

It's not the most even haircut, since he's worn off his hair unevenly and since it's REALLY HARD to cut a 4-month-old's hair AND make sure nobody gets stabbed in the eye with scissors. Don't worry, babe was not in any danger. Shawn, on the other hand, felt the need to get some distance between the scissors and his eyeballs more than once. But, I say again, everyone is fine. Although I miss Jackson's little baby scraggles already *sniff*.

What else is new this week? I tried babe in the backpack carrier, and he loved it!

 Whee! I'm lookin' at stuff!

 He had a ton of fun in there, and I got to do a bit of picking-up, although nothing that involved bending over. That backpack carrier is really comfortable! But I need to look up when it's safe to put them in there, I seem to recall reading somewhere that they're not supposed to get carried on your back until they're a year old. I imagine it has to do with how developed their little skulls and spines are and what happens if you happen to trip and fall with them on. So I won't be using the backpack again until I know more about it.

So I know this isn't news, but babe continues to be really really long. Here's a picture for perspective:

Look at me, I'm too long for the playpen this way now!

I know, the picture's dark, I'm still getting used to my camera. But his head is touching the other side of his playpen. And that's a 12 month sleeper he's in. Cathie was saying that Uncle Evan was like that as a baby too, and he's around 6'4", I think. Looks like I'll be yelling up at my teenager ;)

Action Jackson

Okay, I've been promising a post about all the new things he can do now for a couple of days, so here it is :D

It seems like overnight, Jackson started doing all sorts of new stuff. For example, he finally likes tummy time! After months and months of him completely going on strike whenever I'd put him on his tummy (he'd put his head down and start to scream), now we have this:

And I haven't mentioned it specifically before, but Mr. Man has some pretty darn good head control now. We no longer have to be ready to rescue his head. Which means, it's Jolly Jumper time!

He's looking at his shadow. He loves shadows.

And one more cute picture. For those of you who don't know, we use cloth diapers, which we absolutely love, but they're pretty bulky. We call him "little peanut" sometimes, because he kinda looks like one with that huge diaper on. Because of this, it's sometimes hard to find pants to fit him. But, thank goodness, they make a product called Babylegs, which look like this, which is to say, really cute:

Look at my Babylegs!

Now he can be a peanut all he wants, and his legs will still be warm. And yes, I know, his hands are blurry. Action Jackson does not have time to stay still for photos :D Oh yeah, and this was the only picture where his legs weren't blurry. He is definitely into kicking now. He likes to put his feet on things and touch them, just like with his hands.  When you sit next to him, or when you change him, he puts his little feet all over you. Little monkey.