Ringing in the New Year

What a week!  It seems like Christmas was a month ago already.  We had a nice, quiet Christmas Day at home with just the three of us.  It took Jackson a span of eight hours to open his presents because he wanted to play with all of them as soon as he opened them.  Then of course, we had to give him time to take naps and to eat.  We were exhausted at the end of it all!  It was a big change from last year, though, and much more enjoyable to see him rip open the paper himself and get excited about his new things.

On Boxing Day, we spent the day with Lee's family at his Grandma and Grandpa's house in Neston.  Jackson had a lot of fun and skipped both of his naps that day so that he could keep playing with his cousins.  We ended up leaving with three unopened presents because Jackson was distracted with all of the toys that were already set-up and also, he was quite pleased to just run around and chase the other children.  (It wasn't until Friday that he finally opened the remainder of his gifts.)

Tuesday was still a Bank Holiday, so Lee had the day off with us and that was the day that my brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Kirsten, arrived!  We had a really fun week with them going around Southport and Liverpool and luckily, we had really good weather every day.  It was great to see Jackson playing with some of his Ohio family and he acted like he knew them his entire life.  Thankfully, this week went really slowly and although we only got to see Scott and Kirsten for a few days, we fit in a lot of quality time--at least enough to last until we see them again this Summer.

Seeing Jackson happy and healthy on Christmas and getting to spend time with my family made for a perfect holiday celebration.  And just like that, we're moving on to a new year.  Happy New Year to all of our family and friends all over the world!

Showing off the shopping items in his trolley and looking quite proud

Drawing a pretty picture on his new Aquadoodle mat

Dipping the water Aquadoodle pen in the water 'paint pot' to colour.  Jackson kept 'mixing' the pen in the pot so that he could draw on his mat.

Out of all the books Jackson has, he found my "Pretty Patterns" colouring book and decided he wanted to read that to his Aunt Kirsten.

One last photo for the road

Developmental updates:  Jackson can safely climb on and off of his ride-on pirate ship toy.  His legs are now long enough to stretch up and over the toy so that he doesn't need someone to lift him onto the seat anymore.  He also started playing hiding games this week where he will sneak behind a wall or into a corner and then 'appear' again and laugh as we are surprised by his trick.  Jackson's other hiding game is a one-sided hide-and-seek where he looks for us while we kneel behind furniture (he hasn't quite caught on to the hiding and waiting while we look for him).  This week, we noticed that he is talking a lot more in 'sentences' and he is using new sounds to pronounce his 'words.'  He definitely has a grasp of the word 'no' now and he shakes his head when he hears it sometimes and he is starting to answer questions by shaking his head no.  With all of his new toys, we are seeing his pretend play skills come alive, too.  Jackson has been playing with his plastic food and shopping trolley and likes to 'eat' the food and share it for others to try.  He also enjoys stacking his boxes of play food in a very neat row on the coffee table and it ends up looking like a shelf in the supermarket.  The best think Jackson started to do this week is come to us to get our attention and then reach out for our hand to follow him.

If you see Sammie Miles Davis, Jr. and Bella, give them my love.