Jackson's first smile!

Jackson started smiling at 5 weeks old. He is so precious. It has been difficult to get the moment on camera and I was finally able to with my phone at 6 weeks. What a challenge!
He is such a big boy! He has already exceeded Lily's weight at 8 weeks by 2 lbs. Solid, chunky boy! He also grunts all the time. Don't know where he got this from, but it's hilarious! Apparently, his Uncle Chris and Daddy have now nicknamed him "Grunt". Poor guy :)
He is picking up his head really well and enjoys being on his tummy.
I am looking forward to his 2 month visit to see how much he has grown. He is almost out of his 3 month clothes and moving on to 6 months!
We are really enjoying watching Jackson grow. He is such a joy.

Lily's 1st hunting trip

After church on Sunday, Justin decided to take Lily on her first "hunting" trip. Boy, was she excited! She had a whole list of things to do to prepare. First, we had to coordinate a "dark-colored" outfit for her since she doesn't have any camo...yet. We chose a brown sweat suit and a black top. It was very important to Lily that she was in all dark clothing so the "deer would not see me".
Next on the list was coordinating the snacks and entertainment. I mean, what is hunting if you cannot eat and watch a movie, right? Right. So, she received some fruit snacks at Grandma's house that she transferred to a "quiet" bag so as not to disrupt the deer while chomping on her snacks. She made sure to have Justin charge the DVD player so that she could listen "quietly" to her movie with headphones while waiting for the deer to arrive.
It was amazing to me to watch her get so excited about this trip. Since I did not grow up with hunting in my culture, it was a new experience to see my own flesh-and-blood get excited about something other than shopping :-)
As you can tell by now, this was not a "true" hunting excursion for Justin. He was prepared to come home early if needed and just make this trip about her experience. What a great dad he is.
When they came home after dinner, Lily was asleep. In fact, she was so excited she did not take a nap all day, so she was OUT! I didn't get to talk to her about her experience until this morning. When I asked her what her favorite part about going hunting with Daddy was, she replied, "spreading the corn, watching a movie, and eating my fruit snacks". I guess one out of three odds isn't too bad! :-)
Justin said she had a great time and although Justin spotted a couple of deer and alerted Lily, she was too busy watching "Annie" to notice.
Looking forward to many more successful hunting stories to share!

Lily the big sister

Jackson just turned 6 weeks old and Lily has been having a great time with her new little brother! I anticipated that she would be quite the helper, but of course you never know until the baby arrives what will actually be the case.

I have to say...thankfully, I was right!

Lily is fantastic. Every time I need to change Jackson's diaper, she is right there racing me to the changing table to get his diaper for me. She even runs to get her step-stool so she can watch the whole diaper-changing process. When he is crying in the other room, she goes to "calm him down" (as she likes to say). His crying doesn't seem to irritate her and it's very funny to hear her voice jump up about 3 octave levels when she speaks to him. Apparently, that's how you talk to a baby!

Yesterday was my 6 week checkup at the doctor. I had asked Justin to come, but then decided I could handle it on my own. Big step on my part. Jackson does not like being awake in his carseat right now. In fact, he REALLY does not like it. So, here we are in the doctor's office and Lily is "in charge" of Jackson. I had to laugh at myself as I was giving her instructions. The fact that she is almost 4 years old, yet I talk to her as if she were 10 does surprise me at times. She was supposed to rock his car seat AND hold his pacifier for him so he did not spit it out. This was all while she was eating a sucker that one of the nurses had given her. Honestly, I did not think she could handle it. I had given her a lot of tasks and figured I was just going to resolve to the fact that I would have a screaming baby in the exam room. Well...she did it! When my midwife came in, she was shocked that Lily was so responsible, caring, and affectionate toward her little brother.

I know there will be times coming that I will be blogging on sibling rivalry, but for now, I am very happy that Lily loves her baby brother and they are bonding as siblings.