Coming soon to a mailbox near you! (If I haven't sent you any kind of mail in the past year and you want to receive one, please send your address to me).
I often think of posting, but get pulled one way or another (sleep usually if it's past dinner-time :)) but decided I needed to document at least a little bit of our last bit of time before Jackson turns 3 and Baby Boy #2 arrives. I can't believe it's less than a month until that all happens. Since Jackson ended up being a c-section baby, I felt more comfortable with a repeat c-section than the VBAC procedure. It's been on the calendar for a while but now it's getting so close. June 7th - sometime around noon...just like with Jackson, is now less than a month away - 4 weeks from tomorrow. We are definitely more excited than nervous this time although we know that having 2 boys will be a lot of work, we also feel confident that Jackson will be a great big brother and what a fun team we will all make!
Jackson turns 3 in less than 3 weeks so that's definitely keeping us on our toes too - not only with party planning, but with making sure he doesn't turn into "that kid" - the little monster. He is definitely starting to come into his own personality more and more every day and while I'm glad the terrible 2's haven't been that terrible, I have a feeling the terrible 3's aren't leaving anytime soon. God is definitely testing Joey's and my patience through Jackson and we are focusing on remaining calm with him in the hopes that this will help him learn the right behavior. One of these days I will put some updated pictures on here, but I fear it might not be until we're a family of 5 (can't forget big brother Buddy)!
AGH - it's been over a year and finally with all that's been going on in our world I'm hoping to resume blogging about what's going on in our world (or Jackson's world because really it's all about him and we're just living in it. :) ) In the meantime, please enjoy the slightly updated format, complete with a couple of the pictures taken on his 2nd birthday by the amazingly talented Erin Jensen, one of my K-State Alpha Chi sisters (if you need a fab photog in the KC area - please contact her HERE ) as well as a few "About Jackson" updates.
More pictures will follow of recipes using the fruits of our labor (aka our trip to the blueberry patch where we successfully picked a gallon of yummy blueberries, enjoyed some hot dogs and blueberry lemonade), but for now, let's start with a family picture of us with our blueberries!
Happy 234th birthday, America! Thank you to everyone we know who has served, is serving, will serve, or is a supportive family member of someone who has/is/will serve! Let the freedom to pick blueberries, worship as we please, BBQ and drink beer with friends, etc RING!
I'm sure we're not the first parents to think that our children know exactly when we go for the camera - whether for still shots or video, but we still call Jackson Michigan J Frog for this reason and he shows it again. Last night when I got home, he crawled out of the kitchen, stood up and walked 6 steps to greet me. It was one of the best moments EVER. He did the same for Joey too and I know we're both overflowing with joy with each milestone and can't believe that we can love him more every day, but we do! Of course catching as much on video is the tricky part, but after a few attempts and a mean mom moment (I pulled Mater away from him), we caught a few steps! Enjoy - Jackson has learned the Shoup Shuffle!
We've known it was coming for a long time because as soon as he really started crawling, Jackson had us chasing after him, but it's a whole new ballgame now - Jackson got "Mater" from Trent, Amanda, Riley (and Baby V) for his birthday and is loving being able to push it around as evident by yesterday's video (sorry that part of it is so dark - the hall light is at the other end of the hall, but you can see him motoring around and then making a beeline for the toilet in our guest bath - which he seems to think is one of his own personal toys (along with Buddy's water dish that seems to serve as his "indoor pool".
Yesterday, however, he took his first solo step and while most of the time he still chooses to sit down and crawl to us...or if he gets close enough just fall forward into us, we know that these first few stumbles will soon be a distant memory as Joey and I run after him as he learns his own Shoup Shuffle! Scary, but exciting, all at the same time!
Stay tuned because I still will get a few blog entries finished soon with titles like these: *Decade in Review *Up and at 'em *Jackson is 9 months *Snow day(s)! *Jackson is 10 months *Chompers *Bluebonnets *Happy Easter! *A hippy no more *Play Ball! *Jackson is 11 months *Picture time! *Having a ball *A trip to the beach *Margaritaville *Turn around *Jackson's 1st birthday party *Holy Water Some may be brief, but I WILL finish them all before this year is over! :)
My little man is 1! I have so much to write and many blogs that really just need to be finished with a few words and then have some pictures added. I'm REALLY hoping to make that a priority this Memorial Day weekend since we don't have much planned beyond preparing for Jackson's party and baptism next weekend and hanging out with some friends, but we'll see how well that works out.
In the meantime, though, I still can't believe my "baby boy" really isn't a baby anymore. He's 1!
