Jason is happy to be on holiday

Jason is so excited about winter break; still in his pjs at lunchtime.

AJ loves meatballs!

A picture of the little guy in action!

Jason: too darn funny!

Today Jason was particularly funny with the following:

Note: Jason has two new shirts from Nana and Papa for his birthday, one is a monster wearing headphones, the other, a growling bear...

Jason: (while brushing teeth) I think the bear shirt is more dramatic, because his mouth is open!

Will post pics of shirts ASAP

Fork and spoon please!

AJ will only eat if he is allowed to feed himself; with fork or spoon
preferrably!

Nature walks with AJ

Picked these leaves up on our nature walk this morning! AJ is walking
strong!

AJ likes steamed carrots!

Caterpillar update!

They were misidentified! The caterpillars are actually black
swallowtail. Once they grew we could see all of their colors. As you
can see they really like parsley! The plant is decimated! We purchased
a new one today and hope to keep them around for a bit!

Monarch caterpillar hosting!

We have parsley we purchased as a host plant from the group monarchs
across Georgia, Jason and I were able to watch one of our caterpillar
friends molt this afternoon!

Playing race track

One of my favorite ways that Jason has found to play with aj! AJ is
the pit crew and examines the cars as they pass by each lap.

Had a great time at jason's pre school picnic today! He starts school
next week!

AJ is 1 year old - seriously?!?!

The boy is 1, unbelievable!

When I think of AJ, the overwhelming word in my head is "sweet". He is such a sweet little boy! From the very begining he's been gentle with Olivia and giving her nice pets. Other's might say "chilled out", "calm", "smiley", "cute" and while those words totally apply behind all of it, he's just very very sweet and such a joy!


I haven't taken the time to write this all in a baby book, so I'm documenting here, hopefully I'll get it transposed at some point!

Some things about AJ's first year...

Just the Facts:
a one year AJ is 18# 14 oz (4%), 27.5" high (1%) and his head is 44cm (3%). AJ's only health concern all year has been... why isn't he growing?!?!?!? Well, that and the fact that he used to only have one BM a week to 10 days. AJ is on the small side, but he's proportional, so Dr. thinks it will all work out for him.

Big Milestones:
First tooth at 9 months (he's got 7 of them right now!! - maybe that's why he isn't getting taller, he's too busy pushing teeth through his gums!)
Crawling: army crawl at 10 months, crawling, crawling around 10.5 - 11 months
Smile: really early, he loves to smile!!
First Word: not totally positive on this, but I'm calling it "Mama" at 11.5 months :-D
First solid food: ha ha ha ha - AJ was perfectly happy to nurse, not into solid food until we were able to introduce yogurt at 9 months... AJ LOVES yogurt! Although he started to branch out to other solid food around 10.5 months (started with bananas) yougurt is still the go to food. AJ never ate baby food, not once, spit it out every single time. At one year he is cool with chicken, chicken salad, pasta, bread, yogurt of course, steamed carrots and sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, veggie burgers and cottage cheese. He also likes bananas, but only if he eats them out of the peel, if you peel and cut up he wont eat it.

Things he likes to do:
Crawl up the stairs - he is very proud of himself
Play trains with Jason
push buttons on toys
He loved the exersaucer when he was little, but once he started crawling, forget it.
Loves to take things out of drawers and/or boxes and throw down/to the side
Throwing toys is the latest development
Loves the gathering drum and he sings with Jason and I in the car
Loves his big brothers, he cried when I would drop Jason off at camp and he likes to hold his hand in the car. They like to make noises at each other and start cracking up in the car.
His latest trick is walking behind the little red "bike" while he cruises through the house.

Things he is good about:
AJ is so relaxed, he's totally fine with getting dragged everywhere, from Jason's swim classes to Karate class, grocery store, doctors, dentists, etc. He just chills out in his stroller or car seat and watches the world go by. He loves to watch everything around him.

He is so good about spending time at the child center at the gym while I work out (or as I like to stay, while I do the things I need to do to stay sane).

In June we took a car trip up to CT, 12 hours in the car, total trip was about 24 hours and he never cried, up OR back. When we go out to dinner, he just hangsout in his high chair and again, watches the world. He's been such an easy baby.

In the next few weeks, Jason will be starting school and for the first time he will be at school 5 days a week... I'm not sure what AJ will do without his big brother to play with; or how it will feel for him to be the center of attention!

Happy Birthday AJ!!!!

Celebrating his first birthday; playing trains with Jason!

Jason gives mommy a "sleeve"

Jason felt it necessary to place all his trader joes stickers on my
arm... He wanted to use the backing as drawing paper. Like my new
"sleeve"?

Celebrating AJ's First Birthday

We celebrated AJ's birthday early. Nana and Papa were in town so we took advantage and had a party. I think Jason was more of the star of the show than AJ; but AJ delivered once it came to cake time!

From AJ First Birthday

We had an inflatable slide that all the older kids played on while the babes hung onto their mommies.

LINK TO ALL THE PHOTOS HERE

AJ says hello!

AJ wants to let everyone know that while we cannot capture
photographic proof, he is waving hello and climbing stairs!!

The boys were blowing raspberries at each other in the car yesterday and cracking each other up! Too funny! Jason said he wanted AJ to stay a baby for always; so that he could see him in the car (AJ is rear facing in his car seat).

Crawling!!!!!

AJ is doing this adorable fling myself forward with foot propulsion
move, but it does get him where he is going. This is AJ in the hotel
in CT (we are up here for rev3 triathlon) while I was repacking the
cooler.

Having Fun Together

Jason and AJ have been enjoying each others company now that school is out for Jason!

AJ loves kisses from his big brother

working on the cute face

From Summer 2009

Dessert

Jason's idea of dessert; tomato and cottage cheese... He made it up,
seriously, there is no way I would try to convince him of this one.

AJ is too fast for the iphone camera

Trying to get a picture of the emerging top tooth! Bottom two came in
last month!

Jason starts Karate

About 6 weeks ago now Jason saw at Karate school in an episode of Sesame Street and he was intrigued. He talked about it a bunch and eventually asked me if he could take classes. I looked around for a bit trying to find a good fit, etc.

We settled on the Dojo in Roswell. Yesterday was Jason's first class. It was an assessment class by the owner to determine if he is ready for class. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with Jason's focus during the class.

When we met with them about a week ago, they mentioned that kids need to do 5 things around the house without their parents asking them to do it to earn their white belt (the first belt). Jason was really excited about it, and he did a great job (picked up toys, cleaned table, etc. without being asked.) Jason and Alex really had fun with it and within two days he had done his 5 things. He brought the sheet in to his assessment class and proudly handed it to his teacher, so he gave him his white belt!

Here are the photos:

Jason gets his white belt

From Jason

9 months and shouting!

AJ is officially 9 months old! His 9 month dr. appointment was
interesting as he isn't very big. He weighed in at a not so whopping
16 lbs. 9 oz. With a towering height of 26.5 inches. This puts him
solidly in the 3rd percentile for weight and 5th for height. As dr.
Jennie said; he's proportional. Dr's. orders are to start him on high
fat foods, baby yogurt, avocado, eggs made with butter and offer them
every 1-2 hours. Plus still nurse him every 3 hours. The funny
thing... Yesterday was out first attempt at the new regimine and AJ
didn't have a problem eating that much!! Hopefully we will see some
growth soon! We go back to the dr in three weeks to check height and
weight and if there isn't any improvement then we will have some tests
run. The interesting thing to me is that AJ is now in the same
percentiles as he was at birth, the other 9 month milestone in his
life :)

Other than height and weight he is right on track! He is into playing with blocks and balls and loves things that squeak and play music. He will sit on his own and look at books and watch Jason play with trains for several minutes at a time, which helps me have time to make meals and get things organized without carrying him with me all the time! AJ is super sweet and seems to only cry when he is hungry. He also loves to grab his brother :)

Soccer - check!

Jason finished his first season of soccer! He is still a little unsure
about getting shoved by the other kids on the field during scrimmage
but seems to be liking it a little more each week!

Ahh! Growing too fast!!!

Both of 'em are growing too fast for me to keep up!

Jason started riding a two wheel bike, no training wheels. He's been at it for about a year now, but he's finally at that "not causing mommy a heart-attack every five seconds" stage. I will get some photos up soon!

AJ is also growing... although physically not quite a quickly as the dr.s would like. He had his first adjustment from Dr. Pam last week, we will see how that works out for him. I have to say, he took to adjustments, the same way Jason did... as soon as Dr. P started he was like a little blissed out jelly belly! He just layed in my lap without a care in the world.

Latest pics of the boys:

West Virginia cracker

Jason ate his cracker into the shape of west Virginia on the way to
the store; or so he claims.

Sticker number six!

Jason successfully completed 20 feet of freestyle and backstroke as
well as demonstrated breaststroke kick and arms to gain sticker number
six in swim class. He is ecstatic about the accomplishment. When
asked about his latest sticker award Jason said "can I go pick out a
train now?" Way to go Jason, you are on your way!

A good day for a hike

AJ sits up and takes notice

It's official AJ is sitting up! Yippee!

I Love a Long Weekend!

Jason's school was off on Tuesday, so we headed to Brays for the long weekend.

Nana is a little worried about AJ missing his 6 month milestones, so she set up Nana's Boot Camp. He was working on rolling over and sitting up:

Pre Boot Camp snuggle

Save the drama for your mama kid

The cognitive skills stress test

From AJ six months

Meanwhile, Jason washed his bike, and helped out on the Shooting Clays course:


He feels the bike washing requires the assistance of Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs:

Boosterthon Fun Run!

Jason is in school, and therefore we have become "fund raisers". Yippee! Hitting up your friends for money for your kids school is never actually fun, however, Jason was so excited about this event, it actually ended up being fun.

They held a "boosterthon fun run". The kids were sponsored so much per lap and then they set up a track at the school and the kids ran laps. Doesn't sound that cool, but to a 4 year old, this is apparently THE COOLEST! Jason ended up running about 1.75 miles, he's got energy, ha ha

Check out the pics and video:

Growing Kids

Things have been funny around here lately! Jason was driving his Jeep at Nana and Papa's and after doing something new and nifty in the Jeep he said to Papa "I'm going to show the ladies" meaning Nana and Mommy. He's been very vocal about "ladies" and "men" lately. If he and his daddy do something without me, he says it is "for men only".

AJ did his part and started cracking up (as much as a 5 mnth old can) after he rolled from his side to his back.

Jason driving "for the ladies"

From New Year's Day 2009 Brays

AJ in his usual riding position:

From New Year's Day 2009 Brays

View all the New Years Eve/Day photos here