"Good"

I do think that once in a while Jackson will say something and actually mean it. He says mama a lot! But sometimes when he's crying and says it i really believe he wants me. Maybe it's just a mom being wishful. but it truly sounds like there's some meaning there! And sometimes i even think he means it when he says no- because he sure is figuring out that shaking his head means something and he knows that the word "no" goes along with it.
Anyway, I am very excitd that jackson has learned a new word!!! But this one, i think, he has yet to figure out the meaning for. We were all playing last night and jackson was putting his toy ball through a hoop and we kept saying good and good job and suddenly, he started copying bryan! It was so amazing to hear! He has never copied what we've said before. So he's sitting there going "goo-d" and a couple of times he just got the whole thing out all at once. It was the happiest moment to date i think. I can't believe how fast he is changing. It seemed like it would take forever for him to grow and change and now it's all happening sooo fast!
Jackson has a bad cold right now so we were comforting him and he was falling asleep on my chest and i was amazed by how big he is! he hasn't slept on my chest in a couple of months and he was soo long!!! We actually had his 9 month check-up on wednesday and he is still just barely under 20 lbs and is 29 inches long!! That seems huge to me, but it's only between the 25-50 percentile for his age.
Bryans birthday was also wednesday! It wasn't much of a special day, i am sad to say. He already got his present from me, because he bought it- lol. I let him get tickets toa concert in april (muse). And on sunday we'd had ppl over for cheesecake! (my first attempt and i think it was delish!). Bryan even made his own birthday dinner! I did buy a little peice of cake from the store for us to share that night and Jackson drew on a birthday card for him..ok, i did most of the drawing, but it was cute. I hope he had a good day anyway. we tried to make him feel special.
Sorry there are no pictures this time- i will get some up soon- i just haven't taken a lot since christmas.
P.S. I won the baby eggi contest that i posted at the end of my last blog!!! I never win anything. i am so excited!!!! It totally made my day/week better :)

Christmas Catch up

This year we went home to Canada for Christmas. We stayed with Amber's parents but were able to visit Bryan's often. It's so nice to have both families close.

Family Picture, not the best, but it will do. I just love Jackson's smile here:)

We stayed with Dave and Shirley (bryan's mom and dad) our first night home. We left at about 7:30 am and didn't get home until about 10 pm. Normally a 12 hour drive, it wasn't extended by Jackson being a crank, but by our tire blowing out in Idaho. Talk about crummy luck! We had to stop in a little town called Hamer for 2.5 hours to get 4 new tired put on our car. Good thing Bryan and i hadn't gotten anything for one another for christmas... because that was it.

Here's Jackson playing with Grandma Burrows

He loved trying to open the presents grandma and grandpa burrows gave him. Though we soon discovered he liked the paper the most.
Christmas eve was also spent with my side of the family. Here's my mom with Jackson and his second cousin, Austin. They're about 4 months apart.

Christmas morning with Grandpa Schaalje

My mom bought Jackson a little Santa hat- so cute!!

opening presents with mom

Playing with uncle mo and all of his new toys

Jackson's spiffy new outfit from grandma and hat from aunt Kerri and uncle Bryn

Riding on his new walk'n'ride. He sits really well on it- not tipsy at all. But when we turn it into a walker, it moved to fast for him still and he does a nice little face plant.

Every morning Jackson would wake up have a bottle and his breakfast and then grandpa would get up and feed him yogurt while he ate breakfast. Jackson really looked forward to it.

Jackson had his first experience with stairs our first night in Canada at grandma and grandpa burrows'. But he really mastered the art of going up them while we were at grandma and grandpa schaalje's. No luck with the going down the stairs yet though.

Jackson also figured out how to crawl on his hands and knees while we were in Canada, whereas he was only rocking on them down here. He also figured out how to pull himself up to furniture that is higher than he can reach on his stomach. He is now doing kissed in the air too- grandpa schaalje taught him that one. It is so cute!He can even sit from laying down now!He's waving more, but it's still inconsistent. And he started feeding himself for the first time! All of that in just under 2 weeks. I'd say that's progress, and a good reason to have gone back to Canada.

Opening presents with grandpa on his Birthday. The two Jacks together :)
We are back home in Provo now. Our drive back home took much loner than expected too. We got stopped at the border for just over an hour. Then we stopped in greatfalls to get some shoes for bryan that were on sale and when we came out somebody had smashed our driver's side door with their door. Our handle is no longer on the car and there is a big dent in the door. We get that assessed tomorrow. In addition to the hit-and-run adn tire blowing out, we also hit a dead deer on a drive from cardston to lethbridge and damaged the plastic under our car so that needs to be fixed too. We also all have colds- i'm the worst right now, Jackson is about over his, but still a bit stuffy. He also has the worst diaper rash ever!!! His little bum has raw spots on it! It happened when he first got sick. I went to change him one morning and his entire bottom was red and puffy. Poor little guy wouldn't even let us hold him cuz you have to touch his bum to do it. He's getting better though.

P.S. If anyone wants to co-sign for Bryan's student loan for dental school we could really use a hand :) We just found out that to get a student loan for a school not in Canada we need a co-signer and we don't have anyone eligible yet. Isn't that a stinky deal? But we figure with the bad luck we've had in the past couple of weeks we're in for a blessing soon and we hope this is it.

P.S. if you go to http://thatsitmommy.com/2010/01/11/baby-eggi-review-giveaway/ there is a kid's clothing give away contest. There are some super cute clothes so it's worth a look!

Indiana, Here we come!!!

For those of you who haven't heard our awesome news yet, Bryan has been accepted to Indiana School of Dentistry, in Indianapolis. School starts July 8th so we'll be heading out there at the end of June. So far the plan is to pack all of our stuff into a POD and ship it out there, and the family will go back to Canada for 2 months after Bryan graduates in April. That way Jackson will only have to suffer through the car ride once. We could not be any happier about this news! It was bryans top choice and we are sooo proud of him and the amazing man he is!

The official acceptance letter!!!

We knew that if Bryan was going to be accepted to IUPUI it would happen the morning of December 1st. Neither of us could sleep that night! Bryan was up for a few hours and kept checking his e-mail to see if he was accepted (the official letter came later). They start sending out acceptance at midnight, so by 5 am he had decided he wasn't getting in. I didn't know this, as i had finally fallen asleep. I got up with Jackson at 7, as usual that morning, took a shower and was just starting to do my hair when bryan came into the washroom and told me he was accepted. Emotions were running very high, to say the least. So what had happened was that the university had messed up Bryan's e-mail address. He should have had his acceptance at midnight, but because it was the wrong addy they didn't find out it wasn't sent until school opened in the morning. They found the right one and called bryan too, just to make sure he got the awesome news.