Photography Class #2

I had my second photography class yesterday evening at Houston Center of Photography, and I've had fun playing around a little today with the settings on our camera. Here's one of the better shots from today. There are more in the album.

Happy 1st Birthday Jackson

Friday was Jackson's 1st birthday, and he has had a great birthday week filled with several firsts. Monday Jackson had his first taste of whole milk. We're combining it with his formula this week, and he seems to love it. Tuesday Jackson started letting go and taking a few steps on his own at day care. When I arrived to pick him up, his teacher ran to grab him, stood him in front of me, and let go. He wobbled his way over to me with the biggest grin. I was filled with very mixed emotions! Wednesday I gave Jackson his very first hair cut, so he has less of the "faux-hawk" look as I like to call it. I followed him all around the house to get it done, but he did pretty well. He even took the comb from me at one point and tried to comb his own hair. It was very cute!

Friday was lots of fun as well. We started the day by visiting Jackson's old day care teachers. They were so excited to see him...one of them even cried, which was very sweet. You could tell how much they loved him. From there we went to the mall for a special birthday treat. While Jackson was taking his nap, Ross got home from his week-long trip to Canada. He was so excited to see Dada when he woke up! Bailey had a vet appointment that afternoon, so we made it a family outing. Jackson got LOTS of attention from everyone there once they found out it was his birthday. I think it even helped us get in a little sooner. :-) We ended the day with an early dinner at Lupe Tortilla with our friends, the Montpools. Their three adorable kids played with Jackson keeping him laughing and smiling the entire evening. By the time we got home Jackson was ready to crash. It was such a wonderful day!

Yesterday we took Bailey to the new dog park where she got to run around with a pack of beagles. They were all much younger than Bailey, and it showed. She had more fun watching them run around in circles than joining them in the fun. Jackson got to play at the park too. He had a great time swinging and rocking on a horse. That afternoon we went to a birthday party for Jackson's friend, Chase, from day care. Jackson and Chase actually share a birthday, so it was a special celebration. They had all kinds of fun activities including moon walks and a ball pit. Jackson was in heaven!

Today we went to church as usual, and then spent the afternoon running errands. When we got home we all spent some time lounging in the baby pool in the backyard. Jackson had a great time splashing around and putting grass in the pool. Our friend Heather then came over to watch Jackson so Ross and I could have an evening out. We stumbled upon a restaurant called La Tapa Tapa, which turned out to be one of the best places we've been in Clear Lake!

It's been an amazing year with Jackson. Ross and I really can't remember what life was like before he got here, but at the same time this year just flew by. We have been so blessed to have such a healthy, happy baby boy and to be surrounded by such loving friends and family. It's amazing to see how much he's changed in such a short time. Here are my favorite photos from each month of his life so far.

The Good and The Bad

It's been another good week at the Taylor household...for the most part. We had some plumbing problems with our kitchen sink that started the day of the crawfish boil. The disposal decided to quit, and in the process of replacing it, Ross discovered a leak on the other side of the sink that wasn't going to be easy to fix. Fortunately, Ross knows his limits and decided to call a plumber for that one! We now have a fully operational and draining disposal and sink! We also got a quote from a painter for the garage, so we're making progress there too!

I took a photography class from Houston Center of Photography this week, which I really enjoyed. I'm hoping to be able to learn how to really use our camera. I'm excited to now understand the simple stuff like shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. I see a whole new world opening up with this knowledge. Hopefully I can retain and apply it!

Saturday was a full, but extremely fun day! It started with breakfast with a friend from work, Melissa. I really enjoyed getting to know her better and am excited to have another girlfriend at work...no offense guys. From there we went to the Chili Cookoff hosted by Johnson Space Center. We met up with more friends from work and made our way to the cookoff in support of Stephen and Sara who were part of the competition this year.

We had a great time wandering around eating lots of chili. Of course, Stephen's was the best in our opinion. :-) Here are a few action shots of the fun.

It was a HOT summer day, so we were excited to spend the late afternoon and early evening celebrating our friend Emma's b-day and introducing Jackson to a real swimming pool. Jackson loved the pool and even went to bed at their house so we could continue the celebration. I didn't want to miss out on the fun, so we didn't get very many pics. You can see what we got in the album.

Today has actually been a rough day. Jackson is in the process of dropping his morning nap at day care. We didn't try it yesterday because he seemed really tired. However, this morning was a different story, so we decided to give it a try. He was a grump all day, which is not at all normal for Jackson, so I'm wondering if he's really ready to give up that nap.

We ended the day with a little scare. Jackson coughed up a little blood after going to bed tonight. He'd been asleep for almost an hour when he started fussing, which is not unusual. We typically let him cry for a few minutes to see if he settles back down, but tonight he got himself pretty worked up. When I went in to check on him, he made a sound like he was about to throw up, and when I looked in his crib, there were little spots of blood! I talked to the on-call pediatrician, and no one is too concerned at this point. I'm just supposed to keep an eye on him tonight and check him out in the morning since he's sleeping so well right now. Please say a prayer for him!

Jackson's 1st Birthday Party

Sunday we celebrated Jackson’s 1st birthday with a smaller group of family and friends at a nearby park. His birthday is actually June 12th, but we wanted as much family as possible to be able to celebrate with us. Since everyone was already here for the crawfish boil, it was perfect timing!

The party had an animal theme focused on monkeys since JD is our silly little monkey.

Balloons are one of Jackson's favorite toys these days, and since this park didn’t have swings or anything appropriate for Jackson’s age, I came up with the idea to fill his baby pool with balloons like a ball pit. It was a great idea…it made the rest of the park look really festive since the wind quickly blew them away. :-) We managed to keep a few of them in the pool though, and Jackson really enjoyed it.

He also enjoyed his first taste of cake, so I guess he has his dad's looks and his mom's taste! It was a very cute process. The little smash cake had curled ribbon on it, which he carefully removed and handed to me before poking the cake to decide if it was edible. It didn't take long for him to get the hang of it though!

Jackson loved being the center of attention. There are more pics of him hanging out with friends and family in the album. He got so many wonderful gifts, and it really meant the world to us to have everyone there to celebrate this milestone with us. We are so thankful for all of our friends and family!

The Perfect Equation

188 pounds of crawfish + 72 cobs of corn + 20 pounds of potatoes + 10 pounds of mushrooms + 10 loaves of bread + friends and family = an awesome crawfish boil (in my opinion)!

Ross’ sister and brother-in-law came in Thursday night followed by all of our parents and my grandparents on Friday. We enjoyed a relaxing dinner with the Taylor family Friday night, and then we all got busy Saturday morning preparing for TWO parties, the crawfish boil and Jackson's 1st Birthday!

We had a great time hanging out with everyone at the crawfish boil on Saturday. Unfortunately, we forgot to pull out our camera until almost everyone was gone, but we managed to get a few pictures. Jackson liked petting the crawfish, but he’s not yet a fan of eating them…we’ll keep working on that!

Part 2 of the weekend (b-day party) is coming soon...

Our Week...

This week started off a little rough, but ended well. On Monday Jackson was sent home from daycare with a low fever, so Ross took him to the doctor on Tuesday where we found out he has bronchiolitis again. He's now taking 3 meds for it, an antibiotic and 2 breathing treatments, which both have to be given twice a day. Honestly though, I think I dislike the nebulizer for the breathing treatments more than Jackson does. He's doing pretty well with them so far. As long as we can keep him entertained, he really doesn't even notice it.

Late Tuesday night our friends from our life group, Pam and Brian, had their baby, Jace, and I got to hold him Wednesday after work. He is absolutely adorable!

Towards the end of the week we got to spend some time with our friends Jenny and Brandon. I honestly can't remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did that night. We always have so much fun hanging out with them. If only our schedules didn't make it so hard for us to get together...we literally planned this dinner over a month ago.

The weekend has been fun too. We had dinner with our friends Bekah and Jeff Friday night. Saturday and Sunday we spent all day cleaning up and running errands for the parties next weekend, and Ross finished the fences!!! (Yes, one of them has been down since Ike...we were one of those people.) Sunday night, our wonderful friend, Heather, babysat so Ross and I could have a nice dinner out. Today we did lots of yardwork and more cleaning, but we ended the day by grilling out with our friends, Emma and Chris, and their daughter, Clara.

Throughout the weekend I tried to capture a few pics of Jackson doing his favorite things since I never got an 11 month post out there. Here he is closing the doors to one of his favorite toys.

Here he's hugging a bear, but not just any bear. This is the bear that I had as a baby. My dad even did a sketch of me holding this bear, so it's really sweet to me...

Jackson also loves turning the pages of books, playing with them, and being read to.

Now that Jackson has mastered crawling, he's decided to check things out from a different perspective...like his exersaucer. He seems to like crawling through obstacles...maybe he likes a challenge.

Of course, he also loves Bailey, and we just think he's the cutest little guy ever!

There are more pics from this weekend in the album too.

CAT Gear

For Aunt Leslie and Uncle Philip...there are a few more in the album too.