Sunday, January 31, 2010

Jackson at 16(ish) months

About a week ago, Jackson turned 16 months old! He continues to grow up very quickly!

He's totally into mohawks (or just deals with it when we have fun with him in the tub...).He is quite a ham. He loves to smile and laugh and make funny faces. Here he is cheesing for the camera.
Lately he's gotten into eating apples whole. He can really do some damage with those apples!

How can you resist that smile and those sparkly eyes?
Another tub shot. His eyelashes are so long!
He's also really been getting into trouble. He knows what he's not supposed to do, and at any given time, whenever he's quiet, I know he's getting into something. For instance, this day I found him snuck behind his crib playing with the fan...

He also climbs all the time, and has even gotten a renewed love for climbing anything and everything. Chairs are always a favorite. It's actually quite funny to see how he works himself up on a chair. He grabs the far end, wiggles his bottom and legs to shimmy up while pulling with his arms. Then, once he has mastered the chair, he stands on it to see what he can reach. Ugh...

This particular day he was very excited to discover that there were two water bottle cases stacked on top of each other. What a great thing to climb!Jackson continues to show a lot of understanding of language. He will follow many simple directions, such as "Go get your shoes and sit on the stairs" or "Go to your chair to eat". He still has a temper, and when he gets mad he's started running away so he can throw his little fit. It's kinda funny, actually. He is still super cuddly when he wants to be, and loves to give sweet hugs all the time. He loves the tickle game, where he runs toward someone and then collapses on them to be tickled. He also loves to play chase, read books, and play with his doctor set. Getting into things that make a big mess, such as many blocks, is also a favorite. He's a great dancer, and has started a headbanging motion in his dance sessions. Not sure what that means for the future...

His eating remains unpredictable. Sometimes he eats like crazy, other times he's picky and won't eat much at all. Some favorites include: avocado with yogurt, oatmeal, frozen veggies (as in, straight from the freezer, not cooked...), cheese, bread, pretzels, grapes, raisins, and anything he thinks may be a treat.

He is transitioning to one nap in the afternoon, but still sometimes needs a morning rest time, where he may or may not fall asleep. If he does fall asleep, I tend to wake him up after about 30 minutes, just giving him a little power rest but not a full nap. If he does sleep too long in the morning, it messes up his afternoon nap and he has a really hard time taking it (which is not good for mama!). He still goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 each night, and wakes up anytime between 6:15 and 7:15 in the morning. He's still an early riser, unfortunately!

Finally, he went to the doctor for a late 15 month check up, so here are his stats:
Weight: 23lbs 9oz (31st percentile)
Height: 32 inches (68th percentile)
Head: 18.8 inches (62nd percentile)
So, he remains a pretty skinny but tall-ish kid. I keep wondering why, if he was gonna end up skinny, he had to start out so big. Couldn't he have helped me out a bit and started out on the smaller side? Oh well!

Jackson, we look forward to all that the next 16 months hold for you. We love you, Buddy!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Quotable

This morning, while Jackson was resting, Kathryn and I got out the fingerpaints (for the first time).
Kathryn: Mama, you get these fingerpaints for me?
Me: Yes, I did, for Christmas.
Kathryn: Oh! Thank you, Mama!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

New Years

Every year, our group of friends from college gathers together to celebrate over New Years. It is rare that we can all make it, with everyone scattered all over the place (including, at times, all over the world!). But this year, we were blessed to all be able to get together this year! We met up in Roanoke this year, since Josh's brother was getting married on January 2nd. (In the past we have met up in Pulaski [ok, Draper, really], Alexandria, Roanoke, Richmond...) Every year, we have more and more kids as part of our group. We are up to 12 kids now, between everybody, with two more on the way! Kathryn is the second oldest of the group (Noa is older by about 3 months.) So, 12 kids ages 3 and under! And it was a blast!

Anyway, enough ado about all that. We all met up at Famous Anthony's on Thursday night to eat dinner together as families (for all who could make it). We forgot our camera for that part. Then we all split up to put our kids to bed in various places, and then met back up at our house to hang out and bring in the New Year. (Don't worry, all the kids had sitters, so they weren't alone!)

We had our annual gift exchange......and Brian was reunited with a very special blanket (that happened to be in our gift exchange last year)!
Naomi got a Snuggie! (It was my first time seeing one in real life!)
Then, on Friday (New Years Day), we had everyone and their kids back over to our house. We were keeping the Lookabill kids for Josh and Tabitha while they were at Josh's brother's rehearsal dinner, so we had everyone over to eat pizza and celebrate Kathryn's birthday with cupcakes. She was soooo excited for her "party".

Here's a view from our steps. And this wasn't even everybody, since there were people in the dining room and kitchen (and probably other places) as well. There were 16 adults and 14 kids, ages 3 and under, in our house! (We had another family over that we are friends with who live in town.)
So excited to have all her friends over!!!
The Weissmans (including baby girl Weissman, who is due in June!).
Chase was trying to decide between sippy cup with juice or an IBC rootbeer.
It looks like the sippy cup won out, at least for now... And he's very excited about it!
Blowing out her candles.
Another shot of the chaos!
Auntie Jenny bought party favors for all the kids. Jude is sporting the very cool glasses.
A group shot of all the kids from Friday night (minus Gloria, who was asleep in her carseat). Also, Madeline was at her grandparent's house. From left to right, they are:
Oliver Glenn, Erin Vos, Patrick Vos, Ansley Jordan, Caedmon Jordan, Jude Lookabill, Kathryn Sink, Naomi Lookabill, Chase Whited (on top), Martha Noll, Noa Noll, and Jackson Sink.
hehe, funny! Siblings, can ya tell?
This was our back porch after all was said and done. Totally trashed!!
On Friday, Noa and Kathryn got to hang out for a few hours together while the other kids were napping. They had an absolute blast playing together! Can you tell?
To give them some rest time, they watched a video while having a snack break. Of course, they had to take care of their babies, even while they were resting.
(For more pictures of Kathryn and Noa together over the years, click here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. How cool is it that even though the Nolls have spent their past two years in Japan (but now are back, living in Orlando), we have been able to see them so many times?)

Finally, here's one last picture, of Kathryn sporting her cool glasses.

We praise God for such amazing friends, and for the ability to stay so close despite the years and the distance!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Lots of updates!

So, over the past few days, I've done some marathon updating. I decided to forget about scheduling the posts, and just publish them all at once. So, if you have any extra time the next time you visit the blog (or how about now?), go ahead and look through them all. As you can see, our Christmas was very busy and full, so there were lots of pictures to post. (There are 6 new posts containing 57 pictures!!!) Enjoy! Oh, and check back soon for more posts about our New Years fun...!

Christmas: Yes, even more!

We were also able to celebrate time with mom's side of the family, the Goode family. We each get a stocking filled with fun goodies from everyone...Kathryn was soooo excited to spend time with her Great-Grandma! Can you tell?

More presents!
The following are just some of the family that I got pictures of...

My cousin Katie and her husband, Tucker.
cousin Becky.
Uncle Keith.
cousin Willow
Aunt Darlene.
My Grandma.
Sister Ali and Aunt Sandy.
Nick.
Mom.
Cousin Diana and her son, Payton.
Aunt Linda.
Payton showing off his signing skills. Payton is exactly one week older than Jackson, and is growing up so fast! Such a cutie!!
Willow and Char.
Kathryn and my uncle Dave (her great-uncle, of course).

Christmas: More!

The day after Christmas, we traveled up to the Harrisonburg area to celebrate with my family and my mom's side of the family.

Kathryn loved spending time with her Uncle Nick!
Grandpa shared some treats with Kathryn...
...and he shared some kisses as well!
Ali got some snuggle time with Jackson.