Things I'm thankful for today....

...besides the obvious ones like family, friends, health, Jesus, etc. :

• sunshine - After a week of soggy, wet, rainy days (which is very unusual for this area from what I hear) I really appreciate the 300+ days of sunshine we usually get. I know those of you in Florida would be very glad to have some of our wet weather, though.
  
• eBay and Ross stores - I have gotten so many great deals at these places lately. My being a stay-at-home Mom puts us on kind of a tight budget, and I really appreciate that I can still find nice things at great prices (with a little bit of searching) on eBay and at Ross. I really prefer TJ Maxx to Ross, but we only have Ross here.
• my hubby - I know he belongs with the obvious ones above, but I am so thankful for him. Besides being so great to me and Jackson, he is so smart about finances and real estate stuff (things that I am pretty dumb about). We're closing on our house on Friday and I have had to do nothing to get ready for that and Phil has done a whole lot. I really appreciate him and don't know what I would do without him!
• our bed - I actually will be thankful for this tomorrow (when it arrives with the rest of our household goods). A month on an air mattress has really demolished my back. I can barely bend over without holding on to something! I cannot wait to finally sleep in comfort and wake up feeling good again.
  
• kisses from my baby boy - J will now give me kisses and I absolutely love it. I say, "Give Mommy a kiss" and he lunges at me with his mouth open and tongue out. This gets my face all wet and slobbery, but I love it!
• book club/Mom's night out - The wives here get together at least once a month for this. We had one last night and it was a lot of fun. It's more about having some wine and chatting with friends than having in-depth discussions about a book, which is more fun anyway! It's so great to get out by myself sometimes and socialize with lady friends.
  
• iTunes - I have to be careful not to spend too much money on this. I can get sucked in very easily and get lost in the world of downloading songs. I love that you no longer have to buy a whole CD just to get one song that you like. What a great invention!

Water Baby!

Our swim lesson at the YMCA last night went really well! Actually, you can't really call it a lesson - it was mostly just hanging out in the pool and letting Jackson get used to the water. We were a bit nervous about how J would do, as the lesson was in the evening right around his bedtime, but he was really happy. The water was pretty warm, but the building could have been a little warmer - he was shivering by the time we were done. Phil and I don't have our swim suits with us yet (Jackson is wearing a Wal-Mart special suit), so we both had to wear gym shorts and I wore a sports bra and tank top, too. Here we are before the lesson:



Some of these pictures came out a little dark (I didn't bring our best camera to the pool), but I think you can see from his face that he was a little bit nervous at first:


But then a few seconds later he was back to his old gummy-grinning self!



The instructor grabbed him and bobbed around in the water with him before Phil had a chance to get in there with him first and that scared him a bit. I had to get in the water to help calm him down after that. I think he would have been fine if Phil had been able to ease him in himself.


He loved spinning around in the water. He would even stick his face in the water and try to slurp it up. I had to do some back-whacking after he gulped a bit too much! It didn't seem to bother him, though.

Finally at Home...

Here are a few pictures from our new house. We haven't taken too many because we don't have all of our household goods yet (those come on Thursday) and things are pretty messy. We absolutely love it, though, and are SO happy to finally be somewhat moved in. We feel very blessed! :)

Here is Jackson in the bathtub. We tried to spell out "Hi Grandy", but couldn't find our "D", and "Hi Nana" wouldn't work because we only have one "N". Oh, well.


Here is Phil in our new kitchen. Please excuse the mess! :)


Jackson woke up with the craziest hair this morning and I just had to get a picture before I fixed it. Yes, I know he needs a haircut, Becky! We're going to take care of that when the clippers come on Thursday. :)


He loves to crawl around and explore the house. He especially likes to chase after the dogs. Here he is roaming down the hallway...

First Tooth

Jackson finally got his first tooth at 10 months old! You can see it pretty well in these pictures. It has poked its way through the gums, but seems to have stopped there. It doesn't seem to be growing /moving up/whatever you call it for a tooth very quickly. No sign of any other teeth yet, either. You can click on these pictures to see them close up.

Gums and Grins

Jackson is all about giving us this huge, gummy grin lately. It is the greatest! Again, that's water on the shirt - he's learning to drink from a cup. :)


I thought these pictures were so funny! It looks just like he's giving Heidi a massage. You can almost hear her telling him, "A little to the left, please...ooohh - that's the spot."




Here are the dogs outside enjoying the sunshine. It's a good thing they did, because the past two days have been rainy, cloudy, and cold.


Jackson is up from his nap now and we're going to take a trip to Home Depot. Will post pics from our first night in the new house later this afternoon.