Jack's a Big Brother!

...but don't read about it here. Read about it here!

Strawberry

Jack was kind enough to treat his mother (and I snuck in the van before they left) to a trip to a butterfly santuary.



Jack had his 15 month doctor's appointment on Monday. He checked out a-ok, and weighed in at 23 pounds, 8 ounces. After that, we stopped in at Nana's and Jack had a giant strawberry. He's not super tiny - the strawberry was just really huge.

Our new tenant

No, I don't mean Violet. Jack was getting sick and tired of me saying "not while you still live under my roof", so he got legally emancipated and rented his own place. Simultaneously and coincidentally, we found a new tenant for our toddler-sized playhouse. He bares a striking resemblence to Jack, who I'm told has a striking resemblence to me. So it's like I'm my own landlord...and renter.



In other news, Jack can eat chicken now. He first tried it back in December, but was allergic. But now that he's a little older, he handles it just fine. (Which isn't to say he likes eating it, but he puts up with it.) He celebrated with this classic pose, which I'm sure you've seen others do in various publications. What, you haven't? Well, it's up and coming.

Ultrasound Pictures

Check out the new ultrasound pictures!

I'm cross-posting today, but I probably won't always do that. So, to keep up with the Sjolander team, you're going to have to start checking two blogs. Of course, you could subscribe to them, which would make things easier. Email me and I'll give you details about how that works.

"Dada"

Jack said his first word yesterday! He had just woken up from his morning nap, and I put him on the changing table. He looked up at me, smiled and said very clearly "Dada". At first I thought it wasn't on purpose, until he did it two more times that day. So, it's been a big week for the little guy!

First Steps!

Jack took his first steps at 5:05 PM today! He picked up a toy from the coffee table, walked two steps to his mother, who was sitting on the couch, and dropped the toy in her lap. It was maybe 10 minutes after I commented "He's getting so good at walking [with one of us holding his hands]. He'll be walking on his own any day now." I'm glad to see he was paying attention.

And now, a random picture:

The First Haircut

Jack got his hair cut for the first time last Wednesday. He was getting a little shaggy, and we couldn't put it off any longer. (He's got my unruly hair. Ever wonder why I haven't had it longer than two inches in the last 10 years?)

Here's the before:


And the after:

Jack's First Birthday!

Today is Jack's first birthday - at 1:08 PM to be exact. Now that he reached a year, we can make some changes. We switched his car seat to face forward, so now he can watch DVDs in the van. We tried it out tonight, and he loved it. Also, it's really great to be able to look back and actually see him, instead of his tiny reflection. Once we get the official go-ahead from his doctor, we're going to swap his formula for whole milk. We should also be able to start feeding him more foods, but we're going to go slow with that, since he had trouble with meat back in December.



Does this box picture look familiar?


This close up reminded Nana of a Gap ad. Maybe it's the jeans and the angles. Anyway, we love it.

Jack's 1st Birthday Party

Jack had his big birthday bash today, as I'm sure you already know. We'd like to thank everyone for coming and we hope you had a great time. If you missed it, Jack was visited by Blue from Blue's Clues, and he ate his first piece of cake, as you'll see in the pictures below. He had a great time in his walker, mingling with people at the party.

Hiding

See if you can find Jack in these pictures... He's hiding.

Raegan's Baptism

Jack's cousin Raegan was baptized on the 16th. We went up for the event, as did Mike & Diane Mahoney. We didn't get to stay for long, but Raegan and Jack managed to get in some quality time learning to share.

The Big-Boy Tub

We were finally overcome with splashing and decided it was time to move from the kitchen sink into a real tub. Jack really enjoyed playing in the water, as you can see.



Also, he met his first moose today when we went to Bugaboo Creek for dinner:

The Six-month Pictures

I scanned in Jack's six-month pictures. I have two file sizes for them - very large and obnoxiously gigantic. The gigantic ones are too large to even put on the blog, but if you want them to print out a massive poster or something (?) I can email them to you.

Crawling!!

After weeks of crawling backwards, Jack finally learned to move forward. He can't do it consistently, but when the right motivation is there (like Candy playing with him) he gets some good distance.

The Six-Month Appointment

Jack had his six month doctor's appointment on August 18th. He weighed 17 pounds 8 ounces at 27 1/2 inches tall. As you can see in the picture, he was slyly hunting his binkie while waiting for the doctor. He and the binkie both got out unscathed, but the paper sheet on the table got totally destroyed in the process.

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. :)