Santa's Village

We went on our first family vacation last month (August 13th & 14th). We met up with Carly's family and went to Santa's Village.

First, I met up with my old friend Tom. You probably know him as the mayor of Santa's Village.


I met Tom back when I was in Santa's Helper school. I dug out this picture he took of me at graduation. Coincidentally, I was wearing the same shirt.


Before we started hitting the rides, Jack had to make the height requirements.


As you can see, he didn't quite make it. So, we set out to discover exactly how tall he is.


We didn't get a picture of it, but we did get an accurate measurement (he's always up on his toes), and he was 27 inches tall. After all the measuring, Jack got a little hungry. We tried to tell him that this wasn't a real cupcake, but he just wouldn't listen. When did he even learn what a cupcake is? Did somebody feed him a cupcake when we weren't looking?


Here's Jack sitting in a tiny chair with a tiny fireplace in a tiny house with his tiny cousin Raegan.


Raegan tried to pretend that she didn't like Santa's Village, but we know she had a great time.


She even took in a ski lesson!


Here's yet another picture of Jack sitting around. The kid just sits all over the place. (Or at least he used to. He's much more mobile now!)

Gone Fishing

We picked up a great new toy last month. It got Jack's attention like nothing we've ever seen! Check out the look of concentration on his face.

Favorite Picture Update

We took a picture of a very tired boy the other day, and it occurred to us that it's basically a retake of Carly's old favorite picture from a post back in March. I don't think I need to tell you which is which!

Assorted Pictures

Crawling...?

Well, Jack's crawling...kinda. He can get up on all fours and rotate around very well. He recently started crawling backwards, which doesn't seem to annoy him as much as we expected. In fact, he has a pretty good time spinning around, rolling, and backing up all over his room. Also, he's getting better at sitting unsupported, and he can even go from a reclined position (like leaning against Mommy or Daddy) into an unsupported sitting posture. We started taking him swimming, using a real nifty float from Nana and Grampa.


He's also doing some finer motor skills. You can sneak up behind him and say something, and he'll roll or twist so that he can see who's talking. He can find and use a nearby pacifier (and find them in the dark of his crib), and transfer things from hand to hand. Also, he uses his hands together to accomplish tougher tasks, such as getting heavier items like his Tivo remote into his mouth. (He liked our remote so much, I had to give him our extra one.)

Besides movement, Jack's been moving ahead with eating, too. He's finished all his "stage 1" foods (whatever that means) - green beans, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, peaches, pears, prunes, and bananas. He also eats rice and oatmeal cereal. We've started giving him a sippy cup, but so far, it doesn't lead to much other than lots of apple juice in his general vicinity. After his doctor's appointment this week, we expect to begin stage 2, which include meats and some more interesting foods.

He's been paying alot more attention to what's going on around him now. For instance, he's got favorite shows. He likes Caillou and the theme song from Beverly Hills, 90210 (Carly's favorite show). In fact, he likes that song so much that he'll stop whatever he's doing and stare at the TV when it comes on. Really, I'm not kidding. I can even play it on guitar and it gets his undivided attention. Another thing he likes is being the only one in the room allowed to eat or drink. It ticks him off to see us eating or drinking anything. We think he has entitlement issues. :)

Playing catch-up

Yeah, it's been a long time since an entry again. Sadly, I've been having some technical difficulties getting the blog entries posted. Essentially, I'd have the whole thing written and ready to publish, and then I'd lose the entire thing. After two or three rewrites, I'd give up. But enough's enough. That ends tonight!

Here's some old pictures I meant to send earlier:

Old Sturbridge Village

Again it's been a while since we've posted. This time we've got a good excuse - we moved! And while that was going on, Jack was busy experimenting with new foods. He started a few weeks ago with sweet potatoes. He didn't like them at first. In fact, he cried sweet potato tears, as you can see here:



He did eventually warm up to them, and also tried green beans (which he never did enjoy), then applesauce (he loves it), carrots (his favorite veggie so far), and bananas (a close second to applesauce).

But he's been doing more than just eating. His teething, which has been bothering him for the last 6 weeks, seems to have subsided for now, so he's sleeping through the night again (still no teeth, though).

For a while, he stopped rolling over from back to stomach, but he's doing that constantly now. In fact, we often find him on his stomach looking around in his crib.

We were looking for someplace new to take him today...but we ended up taking him someplace really old - Old Sturbridge Village. There weren't many places Jack wanted his picture taken at, but he did insist on joining a band while we were there:


He was so happy, he rewarded us by showing us his new skill - sitting unsupported!

A day at the zoo

Today was Jack's four month doctor's appointment (he turned four months old yesterday), so we celebrated with a trip to the zoo...but before we get to that, we've got some catching up to do.

On most days, Jack helps me with my work...



But then we bought him a new dragon...little did we know that it makes him sleepy.



After the effects of the sleep dragon wear off, he usually spends some time jumping and laughing in his jumper.



On Sunday, we took Jack to the park for the first time. It took him a while to warm up to the idea (he doesn't like the sun in his face)



...but he did eventually have some fun, particularly on this dinosaur:



On Monday, Adam came over for a few hours. Jack wanted to make it easier on us I guess, because he basically fed himself.



Jack loves to watch Adam, especially when he catches Adam enjoying his toys!



Anyway, back to our day. The doctor was a little late, so to pass the time, Jack rolled over from his back to his stomach for the first time! We didn't get it on video like we did for his first stomach-to-back roll, but we did catch a picture of it. I guess this takes a little imagination, but trust us, he's rolling.



We decided to reward him with a trip to see giraffes for the very first time. He was pretty anxious, and he jumped on the first animal he saw:



Turns out, that wasn't even a real animal. Jack was pretty irritated, so we steered him towards the zebras. Again, he mistook this wooden zebra head for the real thing!



Finally, we found the giraffes and took a family picture - the Sjolander family with some giraffe family.



After finding the giraffes, we let our guard down for a second, and that's all it took! We barely made it out alive.



Next time, we'll be ready!

Pictures

Rolling Jack

Jack just learned to roll over! Carly and I were sitting in bed with him and Carly put him on his stomach on the bed. He immediately rolled over towards his right side onto his back! I ran for my phone, and by the time I got back, he had done it again twice. Over the next ten minutes, he rolled over probably 15 times, going to his right and to his left. In fact, I think it's safe to say that he won't be putting up with tummy time any longer. We got it on video, but we didn't bother to take pictures, since a still image of him on his back or stomach doesn't really illustrate it.

Cereal

Today was Jack's first cereal meal. What a mess! Other than the flying food, it went really well. He didn't get sick or anything, and he was pretty happy to eat it. Maybe he'll be hard to feed some other foods, but I guess he's lulling us into a sense of security. I'd like to post a picture of the event, but we were too busy filming video. Since it went so well, though, he'll be eating cereal again tomorrow. Hopefully we can get some good pictures then.

In case eating cereal wasn't enough for one day, Jack made some big progress with his hand-eye coordination. He was grabbing and tossing toys all day - well, the ones that didn't fit in his mouth. He even pulled a placemat off the table at Nana and Grampa's house.

All in all, I'd say he's becoming quite Super...

Some random pictures

It's been a while, and I think we should have some pictures that have been piling up before moving on to today's news (which I guess you already read...)



Jack plays hard - and really tires himself out.



Here's Jack and Adam sailing a sea of striped shirts.



Nana and Grampa kept Jack busy at Outback.



Here's one of the first pictures of the whole family.

Shades

Jack picked out some new shades today, to keep him looking cool all summer.

As usual, we took a slew of unrelated pictures:

Raegan

After getting all packed, Jack came with us to Vermont to meet his new cousin Raegan. She was born at 3:38 AM on April 26th, weighing 6 pounds 9 ounces and 19 1/2 inches tall.



Jack seemed a little unsettled at the idea of having 2 new cousins in the same month, but I think he's getting used to it.