Dance Recital Time

Caroline has her first dance recital this weekend. She's so excited and seems to be really enjoying the production of it all. The most recent video is a close up of her from dress rehearsal this afternoon. And here she is with her girlfriends waiting for their time to practice on stage and one of the "final bow" practice with everyone on stage (this pic shows about 1/3 of the stage).

Birthday Boy

We celebrated Jackson's 1st Birthday on Sunday, April 25th. I can't believe he is already one!

He is such a happy guy - he's crawling fast, pulling to a stand and cruises around pretty brazenly. The falls don't seem to faze him very much. He babbles a lot - "mama" remains to be his favorite word but he also says "dada, gaa-gaa (which I think is what he calls Maggie), kaa-kaa (for Caroline)" and a number of other mostly "aa" ending sounds. He claps at everything - particularly at mealtime which makes eating slow since he claps after every other bite he feeds himself. He just started waving to people and himself in the mirror this week.

At his well-baby doctor visit he still measured very large - 32" tall (95th%), and I think he weighs about 27 pounds (they had him stand to weigh him and he was supporting himself on the wall so it measured lower than I know it to be). His head is still in the over 97th% and the doctor even measured MY head at his appointment to make sure we're big headed people (which we apparently are - but mostly it's from Josh!).


It was just us on his birthday so we had a very simple little party at home. He loved the cake, but didn't care for the icing (which is the only part of cake that Caroline eats - so they make a perfect pair).

Giggle video

This afternoon Caroline (dressed in her ballet gear) was "sweeping" the patio with her magic wand and Jackson just thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. She makes him laugh more than any of us - it is just so sweet. He's cruising so sometimes if she wants to run around out in the backyard, I'll set up the ottoman in front of the screen so he can cruise on over there and check out what big sis is doing. That's the story behind the latest video.

Happy Easter!

We've had a wonderful day here. Lots of traditional Easter fun. Caroline participated in the egg hunt at church and found our yard scattered with eggs upon returning from brunch. The Easter Bunny put a book of Easter knock-knock jokes in her basket, so we are sure to have our fill of those over the next week or so.

Spring break is this week for us and we have lots of things planned to fill the preschool void. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Egg-stravaganza

We went to our playgroup Easter Egg-stravaganza this morning. It's a beautiful day and the kids had a good time. Jackson didn't participate in the egg hunt, but he had fun watching all the chaos with Dad from the hillside.

Caroline, true to form, got some prime real estate for the group pic right next to the Bunny!

Little man on the move

Jackson is desperately trying to stand and get a little more mobile. I put a new video up today of some of his antics. He likes to play hide and seek in the drapes, so excuse my talking so much in the beginning and sounding like a total goof.

Recent happenings

Well, we don't really have anything too exciting to report - just regular goings-on around here. Spring has definitely sprung (January and February were actually pretty rainy here - although I don't expect any sympathy from anyone given how hard winter has been on the rest of civilization!). All that to say, we have been enjoying more of our usual outdoor activities - park time and Legoland.

Jackson got his first haircut last week. He did pretty well and Caroline got the full "Barbie" treatment to boot.

Birthday Girl

Caroline turned 4 last week!

She had a great birthday. Between the Valentine's party at school last Thursday, going to Legoland and a friend's birthday party on Saturday, more Valentine's celbrations at Sunday school, her Pump It Up birthday party on Monday and celebrating her birthday at school on Tuesday, it has been quite an extended celebration to say the least.

I was able to be at school with her on Tuesday as that was my parent-teacher conference day to observe and meet with the teacher. It was a great experience and Caroline received a wonderful report. She is really outgoing, seems to play well with all the kids and definitely tries everything. It's amazing all the things she does in 3 hours of school - I was exhausted just trying to keep up with her!

Jackson's 9 month stats

Jackson turned 9 months at the end of January. He is now 31" long (98th%), 23 lbs. 5 oz. (84th%) and continues to have a noggin that is in the 99%ile which makes t-shirts almost obsolete as the necklines do not fit over his head.
He is a force to be reckoned with now... crawling backwards and lurching forwards (he's SO close to getting it down!), rolling wildly to get where he really wants to go and has mastered the tattling scream so I always know when Caroline has committed some crime against him (usually just stealing whatever is in hand or the sanctified pacifier). He has 2 bottom teeth, although I swear about 6 are about to pop out at once, and a head full of blonde/almost white hair. He started babbling a few weeks ago and has mastered "mama" and otherwise sounds like a leading role from Avatar.
He continues to be a ridiculously happy and content kiddo and enjoyed his first play date yesterday when I watched Caroline's BFF's younger brother, Keaton, so his mom could go to the parent-teacher conference at their preschool. Keaton is about 6 months older (although Jackson is bigger) so it was fun to see what we have ahead of us... boys and girls are so different!

Warning.... really long overdue post to follow!

Well, it's about time I updated the blog. I guess it shows how our life has changed with the addition of Jackson!


Let's see... October: Jackson was baptized in October at our church - St. Michael's by-the-sea Episcopal Church. All the grandparents came out - it was a really fun weekend. Then, of course, Halloween. Caroline was Sleeping Beauty AND a ladybug (depending on the day and event). Jackson was a pumpkin, although it was so warm and his suit was pretty warm so most of the time he just wore the black & white striped under piece and looked like a prison escapee.
Caroline enjoyed preschool this fall - two mornings a week. She comes home singing new songs with lots of artwork to share and talking non-stop about her classmates. She pretty much talks non-stop about anything these days! Three has definitely been a very chatty age!!

November: Jackson's first two teeth broke through and he started really rolling and playing a lot on the floor. He is such a happy baby and very content to tag along to all of Caroline's playgroup outings or a walk... he pretty much goes with the flow (thank goodness!).




We also discovered a couple of local charms as far as family fun goes - our two new favorite spots are Legoland and the Botanical Gardens, particularly the children's garden with its wonderful tree house. Needless to say, we joined both and will be frequenting them a lot in 2010. As as side note, in measuring Caroline's height to see which rides she can do at Legoland, we realized that she has grown 6" since last December! She's the tallest kid in her class and is all legs and elbows these days. Jackson remains in the top 90% of all growth categories and I just switched his clothes over to all 12 month or 18 month sizes. Caroline only outweighs him by about 9 pounds now.



We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home, just the four of us which was pretty much the calm before a wild frenzy of travel, holiday stuff and hosting family in December.



December: We had to get the Santa visit in pretty early in the month as we headed to Hawaii on Dec. 12th. The Santa visit was awesome though! Caroline has a history of traumatic Santa encounters, but she was totally into it this year and Jackson was fine with being set in the jolly man's lap.



So we headed to Honolulu (Josh had a week-long conference there so we tagged along) and enjoyed the Hilton Hawaiian Village's many pools, cafes, gardens and beach. The kids did great on the long, thankfully direct, flight (close to 7 hours) and we were all up at the crack of dawn the first morning literally waiting for the sun to come up, and more importantly, the Starbucks to open! But we had a great view from our suite and had a wonderful stay there.

My parents joined us at the end of the week and then we all flew to Kauai for a few more days to enjoy its beauty. Christmastime in Hawaii is really special if you ever get the chance (plus it's not too bad spending your days in 80 degree weather either - and we thought we were spoiled in SoCal!!).



We returned home late on the 22nd just in time to make the last preparations for Christmas. Caroline was very into Santa this year and "Jingle-dum," our Elf on the Shelf, even made it to Hawaii and back with us. On Christmas Eve, Caroline sprinkled the lawn with reindeer food that she made at school and we laid out cookies and milk for Santa. Caroline decided that she should probably share the milk with Santa, so she took a few sips for good measure before heading to bed.

The day after Christmas, Josh's mom, sister and her three girls arrived! Lots of cousin fun ensued as you can imagine.


We went to the Oceanside Pier... we went to the Botanical Gardens... we went to Legoland... Pat took the little girls to see Princess & the Frog... I took Haley, Amy and Jackson down to Coronado to see the Hotel Del and lunch at La Jolla Cove on our way back up one day... we went to the beach at sunset... we rang in the new year... it was a packed week!



We had a few extra days with Josh's parents after Amy and the girls left and celebrated Nana's birthday with her before they headed back to the frozen tundra of Indiana on the 5th.

Now we're finally sorting through the pictures and getting back to our normal routine! There is a new video at the top of the page that pretty accurately depicts our daily life with the two kiddos. You'll have to excuse my laughing and shaking the camera, but my kids just really crack me up sometimes!! Jackson has started semi-crawling... he can move a little but is not at full steam yet.