Spring has Sprung

Jack has had a busy spring.  Here are some of the things he has done.

Loves playing with his cousins- Jack is at an age now where he can play with his cousins.  This is awesome for me and Ben!  It means when we go over to KK and Papa's for lunch, we can let him down when he is done eating and he can go in the other room with the cousins and play with them.  We don't have to watch him like a hawk anymore.

Mommy and Cousin Ben's birthday celebration

Reading with Tessa

She counts the ladybugs, then Jack counts the lady bugs

Playing with Claire and Tessa, putting a large puzzle together

Wearing Papa's hat

All of the kids wearing Papa's hats

Playing Upstairs in his Playroom- 

I just wanted a picture of his cute outfit

Wrestling or riding horsey on daddy

Finger painting... He had fun but was literally "all done" in what had to have been less than a minute

I love how serious he looks when he is drawing

An Artist at work

Very focused

Loves his hats

A new thing- he loves to throw out all of the blocks which then gets scattered all over the room.  Then he likes to sing his clean up song and pick them up.  He started out singing "Kah-Kah, Kah-Kah"  but now he sings "Keen up Keen up, everybody Keen up!"

All cleaned up and back in the green bin.  Yay, we'll see how long this lasts

One of the things I think I've posted about in the past is that Jack loves to "do hands".  This would be standing on his stool and washing his hands.  Here Jack is imitating Swiper the Fox.

Out Door Fun - 

This is MY new favorite toy.  It is a car connected to a shopping cart at Tom Thumb.  This is the nicer Tom Thumb, farther away than ours but it is worth the drive.  This has made going shopping with Jack so much more bearable.  

Jack and Papa playing on Papa's tractor...little did we know that Papa would get Jack his own tractor for his birthday.

Swinging on Papa's swing.

Jack's preschool had a playground play date one afternoon.  Jack enjoyed showing me all of the things he plays with/on during "recess" time.  Don't let his expression fool you. There isn't anyone inside. Maybe playing make believe?

He walked right up to this and knew what to do

This is the slowest slide I've ever seen...no wonder he didn't ask to hold my hand

Although his face makes it look like this is the scariest slide

I couldn't believe he climbed up this  on his own.

Walking over the bridge by himself.  He was hesitant at first but when he did it once with my help then he was off.

This is Josh, Jack's very first friend.  Josh is in the younger class that Jack was in back in the fall.  Josh is the first name Jack would say when we asked him "who is your friend?"

Jack and Grandpa at the bottom of the hill.  First looking and pointing to the bunny, then heading up the hill to see something else.

Jack helping Mommy water the plants.  He loves to water the plants.  This just means he gets to go outside.

Getting ready to slide

Getting the mail from the mailbox

Walking in the park with Daddy.  Ben doesn't do this often so they were both a little hesitant and took a minute to get comfortable.

Relaxing Indoors-

I can always tell when Jack is worn out...when he pulls out his "bed" and lays on it.  He rarely does this so that's usually my signal.

Holding puppy while relaxing

This was another time he pulled out the bed.  I'm pretty sure he just wasn't feeling good on this day.  He's not even looking at the TV!

Here is Jack with a look of worry.  He is watching an episode of Dora where Dora's pet gerbil Memo is missing.  This upset Jack very much. 

Finishing the show on Mommy and Daddy's bed

This spring Jack has learned to enjoy getting his picture taken.  There were about 3 days in a row when he'd ask to get a picture with bear.  

Another day of picture taking with Bear

Here Jack is showing how carefully he studies his toys to figure out how they all work.  It's not the most interesting video but it was one of the times that Jack reminded me of my brother Danny.  Trying to see how it works.

Random picture but I thought it was cute that he got himself up on the ledge and was holding/balancing himself there...notice bear next to him...his favorite!

A new obsession- Mickey Mouse, actually it has now grown to Donald and Daisy Duck but here is Jack and one of the first times I started to realize he liked Mickey Mouse.  I have no idea where this started because we didn't have any MM books or watched the shows.

Pinterest Projects

I think it was in January when I got on Pinterest.  I originally got on for new food recipe ideas.  But as I was scrolling through everyone's pins for food ideas I would see other pins that were interesting.  It was about March when I decided I wanted to conquer some of the pinterest projects I had pinned.  

The first one was the Rain Gutter Bookshelves.  I decided this would be great for Jack.  Up until this point, he wasn't really into reading books.  Possibly because all of his books were stacked in a basket.  I thought if he could see them, like he can at his preschool, then maybe he would be more interested in reading them.  

This wasn't hard at all.  First, Ben and I went to Home Depot and bought our supplies:  plastic rain gutters, the clips that you screw into the walls to hold up the gutters and the end caps.  The funny thing was when we put the 10 foot gutters into my car, Ben didn't have much room to sit and luckily we didn't have Jack with us.

Then my dad came over and helped "cut" the gutters to the length I had measured.  He used his Dremel saw, a tiny saw but it did the job.  Then I drilled the gutter hooks into the walls and slid the gutters onto them and last but not least placed the end caps on.  I did most of this while Jack was napping.  Here is the end result:

Once Jack got up from his nap, we took him down to see his books.  He was so excited and loved looking at each one.

Here are two videos of Jack when he first explored these book shelves.  The first video includes him counting.  You'll notice he skips #7 but starts counting with the #1.  Forever he would start counting with #2 and skipping #1 altogether.  He also would skip #7 until late April.

After completing the book shelves downstairs, I put some up in Jack's room.  

The next Pinterest project I conquered was the $10 extra large magnetic board.  The only place in our kitchen with a magnetic space was on our oven.  For a while this worked to hold Jack's magnetic alphabet letters and farm animals, but as he got older he was getting more curious about the oven and it was becoming dangerous.  I saw this idea of using a $10 oil drip pan from Walmart as a magnetic board and found the perfect place for it in our kitchen.  I bought the pan, screwed in 5 screws and ta-da, plenty of room for all of his letters and animals to safely play with.

Botanical Garden Visits

One day our playgroup was going to meet at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth.  I hadn't ever been there just to visit the gardens and Jack had never been.  Turns out the morning of, it didn't look like anyone was going to be able to go.  I had everything packed and had already told Jack we were going to the "park with flowers" so he was excited to go.  So we went anyway.  

Looking at the fish in the pond

Checking out the purple and yellow flowers

Smelling the flowers

Observing, something he loves to do

Turns out, we weren't the only ones from the playgroup who had gone.  As we were walking (after we had been there about 20 minutes) we ran into James and Jennifer and Heather and Oliver.  Jennifer had bubbles and Jack loved that.

Jack and James playing with the bubbles

Jack and James playing tag

Gotcha!

Trying to get a picture of Jack

At the end of our trip to the park with flowers...hot and ready for some water

After our first trip to the "park with flowers" and seeing how much Jack enjoyed running around (with not many obstacles) I decided we should go back.  So we went the next couple of weeks in the morning.  Even though it was March, it would still get super hot around 11:30am.  So we didn't stay long, but it was long enough for Jack to run around and expel some energy.  

One of the times we went, I took my nice camera and decided to try and take some pictures for Jack's birthday invitation.  I love these pics but I ended up using one that I had taken with my I-phone. 

my favorite