Gardening (or "Don't pull up the baby plants!")

Again, here's a placeholder post while we get ourselves organized and upload all the pictures from the last couple of months. Jackson is coming up on his second birthday here in just a couple weeks (5/21). It's hard to believe that he's not a baby anymore. He's been counting, saying the ABCs (or A-D in any case) and using multi-word sentences ("Jackson rip book, oh no!"). He's enjoying his new daycare and talks a lot about all his buddies there. At home we've been gardening a lot (see picture of Jackson helping plant squash seeds) and getting ready for summer. The yard is looking good. Little Gym has been fun - Jackson is close to being able to do a somersault on his own and loves swinging from the parallel bars and bouncing on the air track. We've also noticed he's getting a lot pushier about sharing (or not), so we're learning how to deal with fierce independence and stubbornness in a toddler. It's a challenge. More pictures to come, hopefully soon.

Flash Backs, part 3 (Jan)

If you haven't figured out the pattern, I am giving three months of "updates" in one day. I finally got the pictures linked from the website to blog, with just enough words in between the links so that you can see them. Jan was less of a blur. For Christmas and my birthday we got OMSI and Zoo memberships. So for the last four weeks we have gone to at least one per weekend. It has been busy. But any thing that can keep a two year old (20 months) attention for 3 hours is not to be taken lightly. So here they are: Jan 3rd, A late "Christmas" trip to Seattle; Jan 11th, one of many trips to OMSI; Jan 17th, Bebo visits, little Gym and the Zoo, Jackson almost exploded with excitement; Jan 25th, Jackson reading his book (not a staged picture he really got up there on his own.) and figuring out soup; Jan 31st, hiking around Trillium Lake ( find the missing mountain); and Jan 31st through Feb 1st (the tubs were a key part of the weekend). FYI Mary and I had the most relaxing weekend ever. I will get one of these tubs one day, oh yes mark my words.

Flash Backs, part 2 (Dec)

Continuing with the theme: Dec 2nd, Jackson and us around the house; Dec 6th, OMSI and home; Dec 7th, Christmas tree set up with the boy; Dec 14th, we got some snow ; Dec 16th, Playing around the house; Dec 21st, did I mention we go some snow? This time with animals; Dec 21st, Jackson around the house; Dec 24th, A boy and his fire truck; and Dec 27th, another big visit with family. After all those years in Maine and Mass. we should not complain too much about snow. But for this area it was a lot. It forced us to stay home for Christmas. We did get to go later ( see next flash back) but it sure was a crazy two weeks.

Flash Backs, part 1 (Nov)

So we have been taking pictures. It has just been busy, it is not as easy to get them all downloaded and posted. There were lots of things going on. So many in fact I just don't remember all of them. So I will just list the pictures a show them here: Nov 18th, Jackson and us around the house ; Nov 22nd, my parents came out for Thanksgiving (I asked them in July, gotta plan a head) so we went out to the coast; Nov 23rd, we had brunch with the family; Nov 23rd, hung around home; Nov 27th, the "meal" and family we had lots over for the big day, it was nice to be the hub for others; and Nov 28th, big family gathering down in Salem. It is so good to see family, I was glad that my parents were able to make it out to see Jackson.

Fish! Fish!

Jason normally does the blog posts, but he's at the park with the dogs and Jackson is down for a nap, so I figured I should take a shot at it. Yesterday we took advantage of our new zoo membership (thank you, Auntie Miooch!) and went to the Oregon Zoo. Jackson's favorite display, by far, was the fish in the area about animals of the Pacific Northwest. He was thrilled to be at eye level with massive salmon and he shrieked and danced around with the kind of energy and joy that only toddlers seem to have. We also saw eagles, bears (he thought they were dogs), wolves, elk, beavers, tigers, monkeys, penguins, and mountain goats. Jackson said "nigh-night" at most of the displays since most of the animals seemed to be napping when we were there. It was getting late and cold by that point so we decided to save the Africa safari section for another trip. 

All in all, a busy and exciting day. I'm sure Jason will come back and edit this so you can see links to the rest of the

 pictures. For now, here they are:

More Little Gym

This weekend we went to little gym again. We have been going for the past few weeks. Jackson has been enjoying himself a lot. He is the most out going one in his class. We are a bit worried that because of amount of energy he has there that everyone will think we keep him confined all day. He has expanded is climbing now to....well...everything. Before he wanted to climb the walls ( not in this case it is not an expression) to turn on or off light. Now, he is trying to climb the door jambs, he swings from the bathroom sink, the kitchen table as well as the cutting block. If you look at this weeks pics you can see that he has really taken to the bar. This would explain the constant climbing. But you can also see by the end of the day he is very tired, that he about to nap there on the floor at the gym. That brings us to this weeks picture. Where Jackson is on the bar on his own. I need to get that boy a rock gym to keep him from climbing all over our house.

Halloween

Okay so we have some great pics from the past few days. First of all we had over 250 people come by for Trick or Treating on Friday. Over the past five years in Eugene we maybe had a total of 20. This was insane. At 8 I had to walk to the store to get more candy, as we were running low. Good thing too, when I got home Mary was handing out cider spice packs. I thought for sure we were going to get egged. We dressed Jackson up as a dragon fly, though for his mood he was more like Mothra. It was good fun. Here are some pics of the evening: Jackson all dressed up and then the pumpkins. On Saturday we went to Little Gym again. This time I was able to get pictures. There don't really do the justice for how busy he was. It was great and here are the summary pictures as well.