It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

I haven't blogged in forever but here are some new pictures of us to catch you up....

Del and I went to see the Zac Brown Band a few weeks ago in Minneapolis and got all geared up!  We had a great time!

From a photo shoot to show off one of the pairs of leggings I made him from a pair of knee socks :)

Jackson had his first Christmas Pageant a week ago.  His class was brought up on stage and shook bells to "Jingle Bell Rock!"  It was so cute.  Jackson was the only one that actually shook the bells, since that's basically his favorite thing to do :)

 From our 10 month photo shoot one day when I was post-call.  He's such a big boy!

Right after he discovered the tree.  It was up for two days before he suddenly noticed it was there.  He enjoys shaking the branches, shaking the lights and shaking the bell ornament I have (handily) hanging at the bottom of the tree.

Helping me decorate the tree :)

Finally....the best part of the post.  We visited Santa today for the first time and he did awesome!  He sat right down in his lap and only briefly had a look of terror on his face which then resolved when he saw that I was going to sit down right in front of him.  He then immediately smiled when I pulled out the camera!  He enjoyed looking at Santa and relaxing on his lap :)

Stationery card

Hand Drawn Joy Religious Christmas Card

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Trip home and a visit from Aunt Rachael!

We have had a lot going on in the last few weeks.  I have been working nights this month and so I have had little time to update the blog until now. 

Jackson has become substantially more mobile in the last few weeks.  It seems like overnight that he was not only crawling but also cruising.  He really only crawls (preferentially army crawls, I think because of my hardwood floors) when he wants to get somewhere fast- and boy, is he!  He can be across the room in a second :)  He has mastered a trip around the room with a combo of cruising and crawling.  His favorite things are to pulls all the DVDs out, pull everything off the couch (especially if it's newspaper) and stand at the baby gates and shake them!


We had a wonderful time during our visit to Tennessee.  We stopped in Indiana on the way down for Lauren and Jared's wedding which was beautiful.  I, unfortunately was unable to remember to get anyone to take pictures of the three of us together.  We then went on down to Tennessee and got to spend a great week with our families.

Jackson showing Aunt Beenie and Queenie his favorite toy (Leapfrog activity table)

Pulling all of Queenie's books off the shelf

 

Eating breakfast with Memaw

Spending time with Memaw on her 70th birthday!

Three generations

We survived the drive back despite an increasingly sick child.  We got back and I took him in to clinic the very next morning and found out he had his first ear infection!  So sad.  He was such a trooper though.  It was really hard to tell he was even sick except that he was a little clingy to me. 

Jackson LOVES the cat!  He is typically the source of split-second army crawling across the room :)

After some recovery time we had a playdate with KT.  He and J are one week apart.  His mom and I worked together (she finished her pediatric residency this past June).  They are definitely getting to the age where they are able to interact a little more.  It was pretty cute!

 Sharing the table

Patting KT's head, much like he does to the cat

This past week we got to have a visit from Aunt Rachael!  We were all three so excited to see her!  We had a wonderful time together and did so much fun stuff including checking out Rochester, eating sushi, an evening Target run, massages, cooking and a trip to the Mall of America.  Unfortunately I am an idiot and did not remember to take pictures until the very last night she was here.  We made an awesome dinner that night (steak, butternut squash risotto, sausage-apple stuffin' muffins, bacon wrapped Gruyere stuffed asparagus and chocolate pie)!  It was a wonderful pre-Thanksgiving meal and a great end to a fantastic visit! 

 

Post-chocolate pie face :)  He kept coming back for more so despite the look, he must have liked it!

Angie and Scott's wedding

I was lucky enough to get to be a part of our friends' Scott and Angie's wedding this past weekend.  Here are some pictures from the event as well as some shots of Jackson's awesome mohawk (per request of bride and groom).

The bride and her lovely mother

 The bride ready to head down the aisle

Our beautiful bridesmaid bouquets.  They had tulips, a dahlia, scabiosa, dusty miller and lamb's ear

One of the flower girls with her sign (made by the bride) to carry down the aisle

 

Our family at the reception (note awesome hair)

 Paul and Molly

Again, awesome hair!

So cute!  Kids lined the floor to watch the bride and groom's first dance

Jackson's first dance with a girl (other than his momma).  This was around 9:30 pm- waaay past his bedtime but he was such a champ :)

And, of course, bath time pictures...I can't resist and someday he is going to hate me for it :)

He has started loving to splash, splash, splash while in the tub.  I tried to capture some of it here.  I didn't have my video camera with me in the bathroom.

This is what happens when mommy has to finish cooking and leaves you to play on your own.  Sweet boy doesn't sleep much at daycare and so he has started taking a mid-evening nap some nights. 

Saturday Fun!

J and I had a busy day yesterday!  We started the day by getting up really early and driving to Minneapolis with Angie and Molly to walk for Chloe.  We had a GREAT time and were so impressed with the turnout (over 400 people!)

 

After that, we headed back to Rochester.  We threw a Pre-Halloween Halloween party at our house last night.  I am going to be at work on the night of Halloween and we will be out of town the two weekends before so we decided to have it a little early.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and I will spend my next post discussing details and showing off a few more pictures.  We decided to do a Tennessee-themed family costume.  Jackson was Smokey (thanks to Queenie!), Del was Fat Phil and I was a hillbilly aka Backwoods Barbie aka Tennessee Princess!

Finally I thought I would include a shot of one of my most recent (and biggest) crochet projects.  I started the squares for this blanket on our drive to Tennessee in May but had to give up working on it through some of my more difficult work months.  I finally finished it this month which was quite the accomplishment for me because I typically avoid blankets due "crochet fatigue" (ie my ADD)

Recent videos

We finally got a video camera and have a couple of videos to share.  The first was from tonight and was Jackson's reaction to Del shooting water at him from a bath toy my mom got him.

J giggling at bathtime

The second is a video I shot yesterday of Jackson's army crawl that he has started doing in the last week.  It's easy to get him to do it when I put my cell phone in his line of sight :/

Army Crawl!

Family Friday

Del and I were lucky enough to be off on the same day a few weeks ago (it hasn't happened very much lately) and so we decided to take a day trip to the Cities. We don't go up there a ton and are trying to make an effort to take day trips regularly so that we can see the sights. We had been wanted to go to the Walker Art Center sculpture garden for quite some time and it was a lovely day so we went for it.



We had lunch at The Lowry, which was a upscale diner (ie raw oysters for appetizers, breakfast served all day). It was really good and Jackson was really well-behaved. He sat in a high chair for the first time and did great. We brought food for him so he was pretty happy :) In the last 2 minutes we were there he leaned forward and hit his mouth on the table and got upset of course but recovered very nicely.



We then headed to the Walker Art Center. The garden is in the middle of the city (ie next to the interstate) but once in the park, it did not feel like it. The most famous sculpture there is the spoon and cherry, as seen here:



There was also a really cool bronze of a horse, "woodrow." It is made entirely of wood that has been bronzed and put together.



A garden was at the very end of the garden and had a beautiful arbor with quite the array of flowers.


We stopped on our way back to Rochester at our favorite apple orchard and picked some Honeycrisp (ie the second best apple around, surpassed this year by the SweeTango- both developed at the University of Minnesota). J LOVES some apples and so we let him taste test as we pick.


One other shot to share from the last couple of weeks:


This boy loves some books!