Pictures are now on a new site

We're not able to update here as often as we'd like, so for the time being you can see new pictures at http://jgatlin.elsewhere.org/pictures.html. We'll post new pictures there as often as possible, and may continue to update this site occasionally.

Happy Halloween!

Jackson needed a new raincoat and rainboots, so this year he got fireman-themed gear and got all dressed up for Halloween. It was far more successful than last year, which was comprised of about 15 minutes of costume time and a lot of tears. (Toddlers don't really like having their arms strapped onto big dragonfly wings.) This year Jackson was very excited about getting dressed up and even more excited to be allowed to eat M&Ms and Crunch bars. But even better than candy was the steady stream of people coming to the door (we got 200+ kids). Jackson loves visitors. Over the monitor after we'd put him to bed he kept saying in this pathetic little voice, "I want my people." How did this social little creature come from two introverts?

Baby tomatoes

Jackson has discovered cherry tomatoes. I grew too many this year - didn't have the heart to pinch off the weaker starts, and as a result we probably have 20 tomato plants. They're starting to get ripe and Jackson has been enjoying picking the "baby" tomatoes and eating them. That's my boy! He even likes the green ones. I'll raise a veggie-loving hippie yet... Pictures to come.

Camping with a toddler

Well, it was an adventure, to say the least! On July 3rd we arrived at Trillium Lake - about an hour east of Portland - and settled in. Jackson was thrilled to be surrounded by so many trees, plants, rocks, and bugs. Click here for pictures from the whole weekend. Our plan of having him sleep in the play yard changed when we realized he could vault himself out of the play yard with little effort. Just imagine tiny little fists banging at the tent walls and shrieks of joy as he used the inflatable mattress as a trampoline. Nap time was nonexistent, except for a brief hour of exhaustion when he fell asleep in an inflatable boat. Overall, though, the weekend was fantastic. Jackson voluntarily went into the lake up to his neck and even dipped his head under water. We went rowing, we caught salamanders, saw a bald eagle, watched osprey looking for fish, and enjoyed plenty of s'mores. And when we got home we slept. Now that we've recovered it's time to plan the next trip.

Our little old man

No pictures yet, just a story. Lately Jackson has been saying phrases that make him sound, well, old. He's been saying "Be careful!" and "Watch out!" for quite a while now, not surprising considering that he's been walking/running since 11 months and those are two phrases we use pretty often with him. But lately it's gone farther. Music on the car radio? "Too loud!" Windows rolled down as we drive? "Too windy!" Hot Italian sausage? "Too hot!" (To be fair, it was pretty spicy.) As he was griping about the wind in the car yesterday, we decided to teach him a new phrase. We are now the proud parents of toddler who can say, "Get off my lawn!" I can't wait to try that one out on the neighborhood kids.

Memorial Day Weekend

Jackson turned two on May 21st! He went to his 2-year checkup with the doctor and he is doing really well. He's tall for his age and she was impressed by how well he's talking. Yay, Jackson! We celebrated Memorial Day weekend and Jackson's birthday with a visit from Gram and Bebo. We went to Little Gym, the farmer's market, and the zoo. We even rode the zoo train. Jackson practically exploded with excitement ("Oh, train! Oh, ride train! Animals!"), but by the end of the ride he was falling asleep on Bebo's lap.

Gram and Bebo went home on Sunday, and on Monday we went out to Cannon Beach. It was a perfect day - warm sunshine, blue skies, and just enough of a breeze for kites. Jackson fell into a puddle almost immediately, but seemed unfazed by being soaked and covered in sand. All in all, a great weekend.

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.

531 days

I know that I need to come up with more witty titles to these posts. But if you are reading this then you know us. I am form follows function and well Mary can be more...wordy. We have been just as busy as always. But we have taken plenty of pictures. And without much further ado (i.e. delay), here they are: October 18th as we picked out our pumpkins, October 24th around the house and then in Seattle, October 25th and 26th are good portion of our trip to Seattle for the weekend (just FYI: Jackson liked visiting the Market, a got some special treats), then on Monday and Tuesday we raked leaves ( will it ever stop) and Jackson "helped", then on Wednesday we carved the pumpkins. I have some pictures from tonight and I will get some more tomorrow at little gym. I hope to get those put up tomorrow or early next week either way this should help.

Now 522 days

I know that it has been over two months since the last post on the blog. But I will try to play catch up on what we have been doing in the meanwhile. First of all we have been taking pictures, we have just had a hard time uploading them to the "intertubes" but as you can see from the following seven posts that we are not complete shut ins (although a weekend of that might not be too bad). So, as they say, "previously on our show....", well we sold the Eugene house, closed on the Portland house, had the electrical redone, bought some new appliances (Fridge, washer, dryer, TV ( the old one we inherited from my parents back in 2000). We finally got a mover that was not a flake and got our stuff. We did have a week of indoor urban camping in our house. But we love this place, it is bigger than Eugene, and we got rid of some excess on the way out of town. Jackson has his own room and we have an office back ( where I am now), we are trying not to add to much new clutter. We have also convinced my parents to come out for Thanksgiving ( I am very excited), my brother is coming down from Seattle, but my sister and her fiancé can't make it over from NC (darn short holiday week, we will miss them). We have been unpacking as fast as we can, we have been doing at least two boxes a day. Jackson has been getting plenty of walks with our close park. The dogs however have not been getting the same number of field trips, but they do have the huge (relative to the condo) back yard. We (Mary has) have been doing lots of yard work raking leaves, moving plants, planting shrubs and what not. This last week week went to little gym (no pictures, sorry) he had a blast, and we changed the locks on the house, (oohh, yeah we got a new front door as well, it is like the one we got in Eugene before.). So basically we have decided to do the fixing at the beginning of ownership. There is no reason we should not be able to enjoy the nice house as well.

Oh, you don't care about that, you just want pictures of the boy, oh well then here they are: August 26th (Jackson exploring the new house), September 7th (Jackson just being cute at the condo), September 12th (a messy boy and finding the dog door), September 16th (Jackson and the giant peach), September 21st (busy week: Bebo, finding long lost toys, sniffing Rosemary in the garden and leaning to buckle), September 24 (helping with yard work) and October 12th (exploring the Portland Nursery for Apple tasting). We have some from this last week but I have to save something for the November post (kidding). But as always we have the age progression series (meant to be weekly but is, on average about every 6 days) of the weekly update. We will try to be better but it is not easy.

Jackson 453 days old

It has been a fun couple weeks since our last post. This last week the Day care was on break so Gram and Bebo came down to spend time with Jackson. He loved it. Last weekend we went to Ikea ( a surprisingly fun experience, despite the parking looking like Disney World) and we got Jackson his own little tunnel. He loves it. It is so fun to watch him and hear him laugh. We have some pictures from the last week. The 11th, the 14th and from the 16th, as well as the "weekly update" of him. This next week will be very busy as Mary goes to Denver for work for the week. I will have to play single parent for the week. Mary better enjoy the quite she gets. I may be too over loaded this week to get a new post up, but we will see.

Upto 440 days

Every time we work on the post, which we do know is far between, we can't help but see and think how much he has changed since the last post (let alone since the beginning). We have been busy in Portland. We have made an offer on a house, that has been accepted. Here you can see us visiting the outside of the house This coupled the soon closing of our house in Eugene will make August a very busy month. But for now a recap of the past few weeks. Two weeks ago Gram and Bebo came down for a visit. It was an action packed weekend. We showed off the house (see above), we went down town for the Beer Festival. The theory was to try lots of beer and get out side, instead it was like a bad frat kegger just with better beer, if you could stand the "lines" ( and I use that word very, very loosely). The three beers we tried we great, but the hour it took to get them made this a less than fun part of the day. We have a better plan for next year. But we did go play in the fountain, and boy did he ever have fun. This last weekend was busy as well. Jackson got his first real hair cut. He would have done much better had not just hit his head on a counter. But it looks good. Then on Sunday we went to the beach. He did real well, the water was cold, but he had fun. We have updated the "weekly pictures" as well, which is what sparked the comment about how much he has changed. I am not sure what we are doing next weekend, other than the Farmers Market. But we will keep all y'all posted.

update

For the weekends of June Mary and Jackson were down in Eugene and then on Friday I would drive down from Portland to work on house projects. We had been busy then. And we are still busy. But now there is less driving. It is nice for us to be back together in the same location. We have had a busy week with Jackson in day care and Mary back at work. Our days have been long. But now getting to why you have really come to the blog. Pictures: Jackson eating blueberrys, House work on June 15th, Jackson playing in an almost empty house, Jackson playing in Portland, our July 4th weekend, the house that is now finished and staged down in Eugene, and then Jackson playing in Portland during July 8th and 9th. We have also updated the "weekly" photos. I need to fix the dates. But it is still great to look at how much he has changed in the past year.

It has been so long

I know that it has been quite a while since there has been an update here. But for this short late time I will just give the short version now. We have moved up to Portland (Oregon). I have been at new job for the last four weeks. Mary had been in Eugene for the last few weeks in Eugene. She has been able to transfer her position to the Portland office. She, Jackson and the dogs have been up here for the last week. Mary starts her new job on Monday, and Jackson starts a new day care then as well. But since I have been quite busy I do have some pictures from the last month before we left Eugene. Here are some pictures: April 27th at home, April 29th at home, May 12th at home, May 14th at home, May 15th at home, May 17th with Birth to Three, and finally for this update May 17th with his Birthday cupcake. We have some more pictures that we will get up soon.

Walking

This is the beginning of the end. Jackson has been walking for the past two weeks with help. He holds hands and then down to one had. For the past few days he has been standing and practicing his balance. He has done a few steps for Mary before, maybe 5, but by the end it was more of a dive than a walk. Then last night he put the pieces together and has begun to walk more and with more confidence. Here we have a short video of a very proud little walker. As I said this is now the beginning of the end. He will almost never stop now. This summer soccer and then this fall someone is getting ice skates.