Brush your teeth!

Open wide!

I was asked to do an article for the Simpson County newspaper, so I decided to do one on children's dental health.  So, I needed a model.  Jason was more than happy to oblige!

Some things I don't want to forget...

Jason has been doing some silly and sweet things recently, and I'm afraid I will forget them if I don't write them down.

 - He loves to walk around with a blanket (which he calls Bah-Bah) over his head, pull it off, and yell "Pee-pie!"

- He calls oranges "rahr-raaange" and bananas "bah-lither-lithers".  I don't understand the banana thing, since he can say ba and nana quite well.  It is really cute, and Justin and I have found ourselves calling them bahlitherlithers too.

- The dogs are "pah-pees" and Butter is still "Bah".  She's been called that since Jason first started talking.

- Jason loves to blow kisses at everyone.  It's so cute. 

- When he wants milk, he says "malll-kuh".  And if you don't get him milk, he will say "mall-kuh-kuh-kuh".  He also calls all drinks milk, but he does know how to say juice.

- Yes is pronounced "yesh" and please is "peas".  

- He has busted his chin several times, so when he's pointing out the features of the face, he points to his chin and says "ouch".  

- Ear is "ee-yur".

- He refuses to say nose.  He can name everything on the face, but he will not say nose.  I can't figure this out.

- He can tell you the sound of a ton of animals.  Cats (which he calls "cacks") say "ee-how".  Goats say "knee" instead of nay.  Peacocks are "pee-pops" in our house.

- Our boy can get down.  He loves to dance, and seems to dance the most to bluesy-jazz music. 

- When I showed him the ladder to the slide, he looked at me like "Why haven't you shown me this before?" and climbed right up to the top.

- He says hey and bye to everyone he sees.  I think he is the happiest and sweetest baby I've ever met.

Oh, how I love this boy!

Outdoor boy!

My friends have been telling me that the way they potty trained their boys was to just let them run around outside without a diaper on.  Since it has been such good weather recently, I decided to try it.  Monday, after work, I got Jason and we went outside.  He was commando, I was not.  After a little while, he went out to the "woods" part of our yard (where the dogs poop), and squatted.  I asked him what he was doing, and he pointed to his booty and said "doo-doo".  I thought he was kidding, but he was telling the truth.  At least he knew the correct place to go!

Jason does love being outside.  He's mastered climbing up the slide, and swinging on the big boy swing.  Here are some pics/video:

Pee-pie!

In the doghouse!

 Here's some video of him swinging:

Family Nap Time

One of my favorite things on earth to do is family nap time.  Jason usually takes a late nap, and occasionally, Justin and I are home to join him.  I'm so glad that we both have jobs to where this can happen.  We spend more time giggling than sleeping, and it is so precious.  I know one day, Jason will be too old to do this, so we are soaking it up now.

 

What does Dada say?

We have been doing a lot of "What does the ____ say?" game.  This is one of Jason's funnier answers!

 

Nanta came!

This was Jason's second Christmas. It was way more fun than the first one! He actually got excited about his gifts and would say "Oooo!" if he really liked something. Santa (or Nanta as Jason calls him) got him some drums, which he was really excited about. Also, he loved looking at Christmas lights. Every little light would cause him to say "Ooo! Light!"

Bunnies galore...well, not really!

We had the great idea to get some bunnies to take Easter photos with. We got one bunny from out in the country past Canton, but Justin thought she was lonely. So, we had to go get another from Briarwood Pet Shop. When it came time to take the photos, the bunnies were great! Unfortunately, Jason just thought they would be fun to sit on or to pull their ears. PETA is going to come after us for this one: Justin intervened, and we did get a couple of pictures with the bunnies.We didn’t get many good pictures with them. This was the best picture we got with Jason and one of the bunnies: Poor bunny had nowhere to go, and Jason couldn't sit on top of her in his swing!

Jason did pose well for some pictures by himself. Granny’s irises that she gave me 5 years ago were a perfect backdrop!

Easter day

Jason woke up Easter morning to a basket full of goodies. As you can tell, he was really amazed! Either that, or he was really tired. This was the first time he has gotten a gift and actually been interested in it. It really is amazing how much he has grown. He picked up each toy and inspected it before going to the next one. This is totally different behavior than from Christmas, where he could care less about anything but the paper.

We then made our way to church, and after church, got a good picture in front of the house and my wisteria.
Except for that dog! No, we didn't get another dog. Our neighbors just let him out, and he likes to come play with Peanut all the time. Unfortunately, this was my favorite picture! I guess everything can't be perfect.

My mom, brother, Jay, and Sandie were able to come over to our house for Easter lunch. I made brisket using the Pioneer Woman’s recipe and we had lots of other sides. Sandie had brought over eggs for dying, and the adults dyed eggs while Jason took a nap. Then, Justin hid eggs. When Jason woke up, we put him in the wagon and let him hunt eggs. Once he picked up the egg though, he thought it would be fun to smash them down. I have to admit, it did look like lots of fun!

10 months

Wow. Jason is now 10 months old. He is not much of a baby anymore, and that makes me sad! I saw a baby the other day in the mall that was sooo tiny, that I had to ask the mother how much he weighed. He was 7 pounds. That's way more than Jason weighed at birth, and almost twice what his lowest weight got to. I have no memory of him being that tiny, much less smaller than that baby!

Look at him! He looks like a teeny tiny baby doll!

Now that he's in the double digits of age, he's pulling up and crawling on everything. We have gotten this gate/playyard thing and put it around our couch. We tried to make it just a rectangle, but Jason didn't like playing in it without us. So, now we've included the couch, and we call the whole area the "Booger Bear Palace". We mainly have it to protect him from the dogs running like crazy. They haven't hurt him yet, but I just get scared when Peanut hears someone at the door and flies from wherever he is to check it out. Now, with the Booger Bear Palace, Jason is protected, and Peanut still has an alley to run through! Everyone wins!

The Booger Bear in his palace

The other day (3/3/10), Justin took Jason outside for a photo shoot to celebrate 10 months. Since it was a little cold outside, Justin put his hat on Jason. What's funny is that one month ago, that hat swallowed him up! Now, it's not so big! Justin had gotten a new toy camera, and the black and white pictures are with the new camera (Holga Twin Lens Reflex). The color ones are with his real camera (Canon 5D Mark II). I actually like the Holga ones, which is funny, since the Holga camera only cost $60! The Canon, well, it costs waaaay more. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Standing up like a big boy!


Surprise!


Crawling


My favorite of the bunch! Guess who he is looking at?

Another fun thing he does now: when I am holding him, he sometimes puts his arms around my neck and hugs me. My sweet baby...I made him from scratch!

Field Trippin'

Justin took his RHS Art Club on a field trip around Jackson. He had Jason and me come along as chaperones.

I really wasn't too keen on the idea of bringing Jason, since I thought he would be a handful. Boy, was I wrong! Turns out that teenaged girls love babies, or at least, my baby, and they took him over the minute I got on the bus.

They even held him while we ate!

We went to Mississippi College and toured the art department and the galleries there. Then, we went to Two Sisters to eat, and then walked next door to the Commons and toured their galleries. We finished up with a trip to Cups, which was really just to keep us from getting back to school before the bell rang. It was loads of fun!

The booger bear turns 9 months!

My little, 4 pound, 11 ounce teeny tiny baby boy is now a 9 month old, 15 pound booger bear! I can't get over that he's this big, or that he's already 3/4s of a year old. He's crawling around, pulling up on stuff, standing up, and I just can't take it! I know everyone tells you that they grow too fast, but they really do! I've tried hard to soak it all in, and thoroughly enjoy all of the baby-ness, but I still think I could have soaked it up more, somehow. This past month has been tough, as I have had to realize that my baby boy is growing up.

Here's a booger bear, in case you were wondering what that was!

This month, we woke up at 2 AM one morning to hear Jason crying. Well, he had figured a way to stand up in his bed! He has never even tried to pull up on anything, but somehow, he managed to pull himself up to a full stand in a crib that had not been lowered down! Needless to say, Justin lowered the crib that day. Now, Jason is pulling up on everything!

Jason has stopped scooting, and started crawling. He can get to pretty much anywhere he wants to go, but for safety's sake, we have put up a "Booger Bear Palace" in the living room. It's this gated thing that we keep all of his toys in, and he's allowed free reign in it. It also keeps the dogs from running all over him.

Jason's also started talking. His first word was Mama, and he followed that later that day with Dada. The next day, he was over those words and started saying bye-bye. He liked bye-bye a lot, and would say it all the time. Until...he figured out a name for his favorite animal, our cat Butter. He calls her "Bah". I guess that's sort-of like Butter, and she seems to like it. He will say "Baaahh" whenever she comes around. He's been stuck on that word for a week or so now. Who knows what will be next?

Jason still doesn't sleep well. I guess he got that from me. I was never a good sleeper, although my parents say I slept well as a baby. Well, Jason doesn't. He goes down at about 9 PM. We have tried earlier, but he just cries until 9. So, we've given up and let him go to sleep at 9. He usually wakes at 3-4 AM, eats, and then goes back to sleep until 6:30-7. I would love to have had a baby who slept through the night at 2 months, but alas, that was not in the cards for me! I just try to enjoy those moments in the early morning were it's just me and Jason. It really is sweet when I'm not totally exhausted.

Sweet baby boy!

I love my baby boy, more than I ever thought I would. He really has changed my life in so many ways, and I wouldn't trade anything for him!

Jason giggling

I know that I have posted videos of Jason laughing in the past, but I just can't get enough of my little boy's giggles. A couple of days ago, he had some stinky britches. Well, he has those every day, but this day was mighty bad. I told him so, and he thought it was hilarious! Once I finally got some video, he wasn't laughing as hard, but I still got a few giggles in.

I won!

I know this happened a while ago, but I haven't blogged about it yet. I just want everyone to know that Jason said Mama first!! Yep, it was his first word. Enjoy with me, will you?

8 months old

Jason is 8 months old today! Since I guess Justin got tired of me irritating him about the 7 month pictures, he went ahead and did these 8 month photos! Plus, I think he's wanting to make a new business card, and needed Jason as a model. Luckily, our son doesn't mind taking pictures. In fact, I think he rather likes it!

Oh what fun it is to try...

to take a Christmas card photo! For the past 5 years, I have taken pride in getting a good family Christmas photo to send with Christmas cards. With 2 dogs (and at one point, 3 dogs) and a cat, it has always been a handful, but still manageable. Well, throw a baby into the mix, and it is just plain crazy! Our friend Bill came over to help with taking the photo, but next year, I think I will get two people to come over. We really need one person to take the photo, and another to get everyone's attention.

As we were looking through all the shots (over 100), there was really only one that would work. And, it was one of the first ones. We should have quit while we were ahead! But, we sure did get some really funny ones. I wanted to share what all we went through so that I could keep the tradition going for the sixth year. Enjoy!

Peanut was not being cooperative.

Everyone, except for me, is not looking at the camera!

This one is just silly

Now, Justin's looking, but no one else is. Peanut's head isn't even in the shot.

I particularly like Jason's and Bread's faces in this one!

And finally, I gave up on everyone looking, and just picked the best one of the humans! Merry Christmas!

Sippy cups and growing up

He's getting so big so quickly! I can't get over how he keeps learning new stuff each day!

We Love Prunes!!

Jason has discovered prunes! I've tasted them, and they are pretty good!