21 Months - Learning So Much

January 23 - Ft. Worth Stock Show
This was a first for the both of us.  The playgroup we are apart of decided to go one day.  About half the group had membership passes and the other half got in with the people who had passes.  There were at least 20 of us all with strollers.  I'm sure we looked kind of funny to any one else.

First off, it smelled pretty bad...really bad in fact.  Jack sat in his stroller while we strolled through the cow and pig areas. Then there was a little room with lots of different birds and ducks and pigs.  Jack got out and went to look at each animal.  This only lasted about 10 minutes and then he was done.  All of the other kids were still enjoying the animals.  I guess he is like me, "ok, i've seen it, cool, now what's next".

Jack got a cool rabbit hat to wear.  He loved it.  Here he is eating his morning snack while enjoying mommy strolling him around.

Right before lunch we traveled over to a small petting zoo.  We had to go through a showroom that had a lot of tractors in it where some of the kids tried them out.

Big boy standing on the tractor

Jack would giggle as the animals came up to nibble on him.  He had a great time but was once again done in less than five minutes.  I'm glad it was free.

Here he is walking towards the exit, had enough of those animals for the day.

January 23
Jack's favorite show right now is Bubble Guppies on Nick Jr.  Here is a cute video of him "singing" his version of the Bubble Guppies song.

February 6

His other favorite show is Dora.  This is when Jack started saying "Oh man" and doing the little hand gesture that Swiper the Fox does on the show when he doesn't get to swipe things.  Jack just randomly started doing this one day.

January 28 - Mimi babysits

I found these photos of Mimi and Jack from one of the times she babysat him.

Jack giving Mimi a hug hello

Watching I'm sure Bubble Guppies with Mimi before Mommy and Daddy leave,

Jack got his hat and decided this was the way he wanted to wear it.  He walked around the house with it like this almost all afternoon.

I wanted to include this picture.  I think his arm is so cute how it is on the pillow...like he's practicing for when he is 16 and dating a girl.  Haha

February 2 - Open House at Preschool

This was Jack's first open house that we got to go to at his preschool.  We love his school.  He is learning so much and making new friends.  As we are getting ready for the day I'll say "who are you going to see today?" and he'll say "inda" (Linda) his teacher.  Then on the ride to school I'll say who else are you going to see today and he'll name is friends "emmy, eba (Eva)" those are his favorite to name.

Jack's teacher said he actually spends the most time in block center.  This is where they have lego's and other building blocks as well as puzzles.  But on this night he wanted to show us what all was in the home center.  The picture above is him showing us "cheese" as he is saying in the picture.

"oooo, eggs"

Putting the eggs in and out of the egg carton.

These are Jack's snow boots that are hanging on the wall in the classroom.

February 12 - Daddy's B-day

Ben turned 30 this year so I thought it would be cute to use the "Over the Hill" decorations I have had for a while.  I don't think he minded, but people on Facebook thought it was awful.

We went over to KK and Papa's to celebrate Ben's birthday.  Here is Jack playing with shape blocks with Daddy Don.

February 14 - Valentines Day

This year Jack's preschool class had a valentine party.  We got to bring Valentines for his class and his teacher. 

Trying to get a picture of Jack wearing his cute outfit for his class party.

After school we went over to Mimi's so she could give Jack his valentine.  They showed me how he can do a roll over.

The finish.  Looks like he liked it.

Jack playing with two of his favorite stuffed animals that move and play a song.

That night Jack gave mommy her valentine.  

Jack got to open his and he got a red. heart shaped balloon...three of his favorite things, the color red, hearts and balloons.

Pushing the balloon across the living room

This is Jack's valentine that he made for mommy and daddy at school.

The front cover.

Playtime at 21 Months

January 30 - Jack Stacking Blocks

Jack has enjoyed stacking his blocks for a long time now.  He has figured out how to stack them in the right order as well as correct his mistakes.  You can tell he is thinking hard and working to solve some problems in this video.  I love it.

January 31 - Sesame Street Friends

I mentioned in Jack's 20 months blog that he is very particular about where his Sesame Street Friends go in their play house.  He is also very particular when taking them out of the play house.  For some reason when he takes them out he lays them facing down.  For a while he would just do this and not say anything.  But honestly, it kind of freaked me out.  It looked like they were being robbed and were being forced in this position.  I realize this is awful for me to think this but that is how my mind works.  Finally I said, "Are they going to sleep, going night night?" and he said yes.  From then on when he'd lay them down he'd say "night night Burt, night night Ernie" and so on.

Here they are "sleeping"

He also went through a little phase where he'd put them in his art tray facing the wall. 

The other thing he loves to do with them is line them up, in the same order each time, one at a time, and then push them down the slide.

Here he has added cookie monster.  I think the flash on the camera was a little bright.

February - Hands

One of Jack's favorite things to do is "hands".  This is how he started saying "wash our hands" and after about a month he then said "wash our hands?" He loves standing on his stools upstairs or down, feeling the water as it comes out of the faucet.  He does not like warm water, he always asks for cold water.  

Jack upstairs doing "hands"

Watching the water go down the drain

Doing "hands" at Grandpa and Sissy's house

February 4 - Being a clown

Wearing his star sunglasses that he got from Carson's Birthday party

Jack wearing some large sunglasses at the birthday party.  The theme was a circus party.

This clown nose was Jack's favorite.  He loved when we put it on him.

Random, shirtless picture.

Stacking his Sesame Street Characters.

20 Months

I have been terrible at keeping up with these posts.  Part of the problem was I guess I post too many pictures and didn't realize that there is a limit to how much storage you have.  So I decided to create a blog book using blurb.com.  I just now finished that and sent it to get printed today.  It should arrive just in time for Jack's 2nd birthday.  This is fine since I decided to do a book each year.  Now I have deleted almost all of 2010 posts so that I can start posting in 2012.

I don't have any facts and can't tell you all the new words Jack is saying or things he is doing.  (I'm writing this at the beginning of May) but I have started a better system of capturing these little milestones.  A piece of paper taped to the fridge so we can write these things down.  So, when I am ready and in the mood to blog, I'll have information to blog about.

January 1st is my annual day to put up the Christmas decorations.  Jack was helping me pack up wearing his Aggie Santa hat.  

One of the toys that Jack got was this Sesame Street playhouse.  Ben really wanted to get this for Jack even though Jack doesn't watch Sesame street.  Somehow he still knows all of the character names.

Even to this day, Jack is very OCD/particular about where each character goes.  Ernie, Burt, Cookie Monster, Elmo, and somehow Alvin (from Alvin and the chipmunks) have their own spot in this play house. If you try to put them in a different spot, he grabs them and puts them back in their "correct" place.  Just recently Jack got Big Bird and Abbie to add to this playhouse and I guess since they were not there originally, they do not have a place.  If you try and put them in the playhouse, he takes them and throws them "outside" of the playhouse.  He also loves to open the front door put in one character close the door and repeat with each character.

Jack climbed up in this chair all by himself.  Takes a lot of arm strength to do this.  Plus turn around and get situated without falling off since the bear is so big.

Jack loves to go to Grandpa and Sissy's house.  He has so many rooms and things to explore.  I'm pretty sure he wears them out.  He goes from playing in the truck in the garage, to playing the piano, to going outside either backyard or frontyard, to the "clock" room (it's really the Dr. Pepper room, has tons of antique Dr. Pepper stuff in it but also a lot of Dr. Pepper clocks), to sitting on the couch.

Jack found this flashlight in the garage and said "flashlight".  Then all he wanted to do was turn it on and off.

You can put in your own caption here.

One night while waiting for daddy to get home, Jack found a set of PJ's and decided to put them on...himself.  I was a little surprised.  Didn't know he could do that.

He thought it was the funniest thing.

This winter was very mild.  Jack loved being able to go "ou-side".

Having fun with his bear

Yippeee

I was trying to get Jack to read this book so that I could take a picture and put it on facebook as the way we announced we were expecting Baby #2.  At first he didn't want anything to do with it.  Then I found the page where the big brother was playing basketball and asked Jack "What is he doing?" and he pointed and said "Basketball"  I knew that would work.

Baseball Progression

Jack got a T-ball set for Christmas and we were curious to see how he would do with it.  Here is Jack and his progression of baseball skills hitting the ball.  (we already knew he can throw the ball well)

Here is Jack playing "t-ball" on an old metal t-ball stump before he even got his T-ball set.  November 7, 2011 (17 months)

Here is Jack playing with the actual T-ball set when it was warm enough to go outside.  January 14, 2012 (almost 20 months)

This is Jack the very next day.  Notice the difference?  In one day...crazy.  January 15, 2012 (almost 20 months)