Pumpkin Patch

Phil was able to come home last weekend, so we took advantage of the extra family time and beautiful weather and made a visit to our local pumpkin patch. We took a gazillion pictures, as usual, but with our little digital camera this time, since right before we left I dropped our expensive SLR camera on the laundry room (tiled) floor. I was absolutely sick about it. Everything still works on it except for the auto-focus on the lens. We have to manually focus all of the pictures now, which is not good for me since I wasn't taking great pictures even with the auto-focus! Oh, well.

It was pretty neat to see Jackson pick out his own pumpkin this year. Although he tried several times to pick up ones that were almost as big as he is. He eventually settled on a good-sized one, and even picked one out for Emmett, as well.


I tried so hard to get cute pictures of the boys together with some pumpkins. You should see the progression of the close to 20 pictures we took in this spot. Jackson is in a different position in every. single. picture. He was so excited. These were the best of the bunch.

And this kiss was not solicited... J is so loving to his bro. As soon as we set E up there, J was ready with a big kiss (and a pet in the next picture).


The place we went to is pretty fun - there's a corn maze for older kids and adults, and then a smaller maze made out of bales of hay for the little ones. Jackson had a ball running around through the hay and all over the place. He also loved sticking his head in these picture holes.

Even the dads had a good time!

Here's our cute little chunky pumpkin. He was amazingly good this whole evening. He had woken up from his last nap around 2:30, so I thought he would be a tired mess at the pumpkin patch. He must have wanted to prove me wrong, because he was happy the whole time at the patch (except for a few minutes when he was trying to remind me that it was time to eat) and even let us go out to dinner with friends afterwards! What a guy!

P.S. He has now been sleeping 7 P.M. - 7 A.M. for a whole week (knock on wood)! Hooray!!!

"Hi, Baby!"

Here's a video of Jackson going in to greet Emmett after a nap. Sorry for the shakiness... I took Jackson out of his chair at the table, set him down, and he was off to the races. I had to run, myself, to keep up.

Did you hear him reading the letters on the wall? It took me a second to realize what he was doing. I think he thought the "F" was an "E". Don't you just want to eat him up?

Just For Posterity...

I thought I would jot down some of the fun things that Jackson has been doing lately. Phil and I totally love this age! Jackson makes us laugh all the time and is such a good boy and a great big brother.

He has started repeating things that we say. On Sunday Phil was watching football and said, "Oh, jeez" when something bad happened during a game. Jackson immediately repeated, "Oh, jeez". We laughed, but learned our lesson!

He loves his brother. He only calls him Baby, though - not Emmett. Whenever he hears Emmett wake up from a nap he says, "Baby! Baby!" and runs to Emmett's room, opens the door (after getting the go-ahead from me - he's gotten in trouble a few times for barging in there while E was still sleeping), and pulls himself up on the side of the crib to look at E and say hello to him.

Yesterday I went to get Jackson up after I heard him rattling the door handle at 7:30. When I opened the door I saw him standing there in just his diaper. He had unzipped his footed pj's and taken them completely off. Saved me a step.

He likes to hand Emmett toys and give him kisses. He'll be running around the house playing and will run by Emmett, do a double take, walk over and say, "Hi, Baby!" and lean in to kiss him and rub him on the head. Sometimes if I'm holding Emmett on the couch he'll walk over and say, "Baby kiss" and lean in to give Emmett a kiss. Lately he likes to hand toys to Emmett and say, "Thank you!" really loudly and run away.

Today we were playing in the living room and I wanted to move us all out into the family room. I told Jackson what we were doing and said that we had to take Emmett out there. Jackson walked over to Emmett (who was sitting on the floor), put his arms around E's middle and tried to pick him up, all the while making these struggling noises - "uuhh, uuuhhh". Needless to say, he wasn't able to get E off of the ground.

He's talking more and more every day, but we still have yet to understand everything he says. It's so cute when he gets really excited about something because he says a lot of jibberish words really fast and Phil and I can usually only make out one or two of them. Like today, for example - Phil was going to take him for a ride in the jeep to get some gas. Jackson was so excited about it (he adores the jeep) and ran up to me almost yelling, "jibberish, jibberish, jibberish, Dadoo, jeep, gas" while frantically pointing toward the garage.

He for sure knows where we keep the food in this house. When he's hungry, he walks right into the pantry and stands there looking at all of the food and going, "hmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmm" while he decides what he wants to eat.

He loves to sing the ABCs and count to ten. Sometimes he'll be playing by himself and I'll hear him counting over and over again. He says the numbers in this sing-song-y, high-pitched voice. It's so cute. And his favorite letter is "W". He just calls it "double". When the Fox News Channel is on TV, he loves to stand in front of the TV and call out letters that he sees. The other day I put out my Halloween decorations and J stood in front of this one sign that I have, pointed to the letters, and spelled out, "B-O-O".

He's getting really good at saying "please" and "thank you". We just have to remind him to say something with manners and he rephrases his request right away for us.

He loves to run around the house at warp speed and lately he has been enjoying running and making himself fall down. While he's running he yells, "Be careful!" over and over at the top of his lungs.

Here are some recent pictures that I've taken of the boys. I have to apologize for the quality of the photos - I am so. not. good. with my digital SLR camera. I've read the manual and even looked at some on-line sites for tips, but nothing helps me. The community college here is finally offering a digital photography class (I've checked every semester since we moved here), but, of course, it's only offered this coming Saturday and Phil will be gone. Figures.

Oh, and don't be alarmed... Phil has shorts on in the bath picture. :)

Jackson was sitting on the edge of the ottoman and accidentally fell in at one point. After that, it became a fun game.

Stop the Clock!

I have to admit, sometimes in my sleepy haze in the middle of the night when Emmett has woken up yet again (he is truly fighting sleeping through the night), I think just for a second, "Oh Emmett, I can't wait until you're a couple months older and finally sleeping well."

And then I look at pictures like these and realize that time is moving way too fast! The boys are growing up so quickly - sometimes (when I'm not being woken out of a sound sleep) I just want to freeze time.

Emmett is sitting up on his own now (for the most part - sometimes he still topples over) and the boys were "playing" together for the first time yesterday morning. So sweet! *sniff, sniff*


Jackson's "Cheese!" face... and please excuse his bedhead. This was pretty early in the morning...


Look how gifted Emmett is! He can already balance on his bottom! Just kidding - this is mid-topple.


When I looked at this next set of pictures after I took them, I could not believe how grown-up Jackson looked. Such a big boy! *sniff, sniff*

He loves his toothbrush...

I just had to post them all. I think he is so adorable.

Here are some other cute ones from before our trip to Florida that I forgot to post earlier.

Love those boys!
P.S. It is now 9:30 P.M. Phil and I just heard Emmett babbling in his crib, but he didn't start crying and has apparently gone back to sleep on his own! Hooray for small victories!