First Time Swimming

Last night was the Ward Swim Party so we took Jack swimming for his first time. While you can't really tell from the picture, he really liked it. He would get on his belly and do his belly scoot crawl all over, including to where it would get deep enough that his face would get in the water when he plopped down. He didn't seem to mind it a bit. It was kind of cold, so it was sort of hard to fully enjoy the experience. We'll have to try again before the summer is over. This was also the first time I've been in a swimsuit since Jack was born, notice no pictures of that :)

I should have taken more pictures of Jack, but I was just enjoying playing with him and chasing him around the shallow water. 

Sunday News

Something VERY exciting happened today. Jack got a new cousin. Preston Michael Black was born around 7pm. He was 7 lbs 7 oz. and 19 1/2 inches long-Jeannette's smallest baby yet. Both he and Jeannette are doing very well. I have only seen one picture on my phone, so it's hard to say much about him yet, but he looks pretty cute and my mom says he looks like Isaac did as a baby. Isaac was a super cute baby! We are excited to meet him soon.
In other exciting news, Jack pulled himself to standing on the baby gate. Candice and I were making brownies and I didn't even realize what he was doing until I looked over and saw him standing there. Tyler was out back and he got in in time to run downstairs and grab the camera (good thing he was on the opposite side of the gate). Jack also got back to sitting all on his own without any trouble at all.

New Tricks

Jack is learning new tricks everyday. He is starting to move between his "baby butterfly" crawl and a real crawl, but his baby butterfly gets him places so much faster. He also can pull himself up to a standing position if what he is pulling himself up on is just the right hight (no taller than the top of his head when standing) It's so cute. I'm so amazed by everything he is learning!
These pictures were taken July 15th.


Now as amazing as he is doing with everything else, he still is not doing well with solid foods. He likes cheerios and the little baby puffs. He hates eating off of a spoon. Sometimes I can get him to eat small pieces of veggies if I put it on my finger. The other day we tried to feed him sweet potatoes. It of course like the first 10 times didn't go well. So finally we decided to strip him down to his diaper and just give him the bowl out on the grass. It was messy, but fun. I still don't think he ate much, but we got some cute pictures.



There were a bunch more, but I tried to pick my favorites.... really they were all my favorites, he's so stinking CUTE!

Busy 24th of July

Today my niece Grace and nephew Porter came over because the daycare they go to was closed for the holiday, but Bill and Jenny still had work. Needless to say life was a little crazy. My mom had an appointment at 1:00 so I had the task of feeding all five kids lunch and getting the two baby boys to bed. Well lunch went pretty well and I managed to keep food going into Porter's mouth fast enough to keep him happy (that boy eats a lot better than mine does). After lunch I had Brittany and Grace stay with Jack and give him cheerios and puffs while I took Porter to the study to snuggle him and get him down for a nap. I was impressed with how quickly he fell asleep. Then Brittany read to Grace while I took Jack downstairs to get him down for a nap. He went down pretty quick too, but while I was nursing him I heard pounding on the roof (the roof was being worked on) and Porter crying. Porter is a light sleeper. So after I got Jack down I went up and snuggled Porter and realized the only quiet place was down where Jack was sleeping, so I took him down and rocked him in our chair until he fell asleep. Once asleep the only place to put him was on the floor, so I made him comfortable there and then decided to take pictures of the two boys while they finally were sleeping. It didn't last long. Porter woke up within 10 minutes and craziness began again.
In case you can't tell from the pictures Porter is about twice Jack's size. He's just a year old, but he's a tank. Carrying him makes Jack seem very light.

Jack sleeps with his little bum in the air, and I have to cover him with a blanket because my parents keep their house kind of cold.

Milestones

Watching Jack learn and grow it's hard to pinpoint the time and place of each milestone. If I were a better mom I would have a big baby book that had the date of his first smile, first laugh or first time he rolled over, but I don't do so well with that. Tonight I thought I would take a minute to remember some firsts and give the approximate ages of each of them.
-First real smile (we think it was a real smile and not just gas even though they say real smiles don't happen this early) 3 weeks, we say it was a real smile because he did it in response to our voices and smiles.
-First time rolling over, 2 months, but then he didn't do it consistently until about 4 months old.
-Sitting up on his own, 5 months
-Getting up on hands and feet 5 1/2 months
-Moving forward on belly (baby butterfly, like the swim stroke) 6 months
-First laugh, can't remember exactly, but he's been doing it since at least 4 months old, and he does it like crazy now
-First syllables dadadada, mamamama, babababa, and fishy noise with lips, all around 6 months
-Moved from crawling position to sitting up: 7 months (he did that yesterday, and mastered the skill today)
-First solid food, rice cereal, 5 months and he hated it!

It seems like there have been so many more, as each day he amazes us with something new. My favorite thing right now is his really excited uncontrollable laugh. He is crazy ticklish like his dad and if you hold his hands up and tickle his armpits with your chin or mouth he can't stop laughing.

Right now Jack should be in bed, but he woke up 30 minutes after I put him down and now he is 'swimming' around on the floor playing with toys. So cute. He just went out our bedroom door, and got into some sea shells... better go!

Graduation

Well I guess I have officially graduated from BYU with a BS in physics teaching. I say I guess because I will not ever officially walk across the stage in a cap and gown to have photographic proof, but they will be mailing me my diploma. The reason I am not walking for graduation is commencement exercises happen to be on the same day as my new teacher orientation for Davis County Schools. I'm pretty bumbed about it, but at least I finally graduated. I guess I'll walk when I get a masters (yeah maybe when I'm 50). The exciting news, besides the fact that I graduated, is that I am writing this blog on my brand new graduation gift from my parents, a new MacBook. I am really loving it. Here are a couple pictures it took of us the day I got it.













I love Jack's Smile in this picture!












In other news, we moved in with my parents last week. I love having Jack 'sort of' back in the room with us. We have a really big bedroom with a partial wall in the middle to separate our side from Jack's side. We decided if we ever build our dream house and we aren't done having kids at that point (highly unlikely, but we can dream) we will build a master bedroom with a nursery separate but attached.
Jack is really close to crawling, he has decided scooting across the floor on his tummy works just as well so he does a trick we like to call baby butterfly. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks, but he hasn't gotten down the hand knee coordination.

Here's a couple pictures of Jack's latest tricks, these were taken on June 12.