steps

i'm a proud mama...jackson just took a couple steps all by himself! two times, he took two steps! it's just really fun to watch him learn and grow and do new things. in just a couple of weeks, we'll be celebrating his 1st birthday and maybe by then he'll be taking even more steps! (however, i'll be happy if he's walking well by the end of november when his baby brother will be born...which, by the way is less than 90 days away!)

another tooth

jackson's 4th tooth finally made it's appearance on thursday. i know, not necessarily very exciting news, but i want to post it so i remember for his baby book. deal with it!

nature

we've had some neat sunsets recently...this is one i got a picture of last week. i think it kinda looks like a fire.
we've been having lots of rain the last few days (which i've really enjoyed) and last evening, as the rain stopped and the sun came out, we saw the most amazing rainbow. the picture doesn't do it justice...

jackson's new house

eric brought a big cardboard box home last friday to make a house for jackson. he got to work on it after jackson went to bed on sunday night. he left it out in the living room as a surprise for jackson on monday morning. he told me not to show it to jackson, but to wait and see what he'd do. it didn't take him long to find his new house...and he loved it!

this is him looking through the window
even daddy can fit inside...aren't they cute?!

100 days to go!

only 100 more days until my due date. here's to hoping carter decides to not make it too much longer than that...CHEERS!

sleeping, part II

it's been just over a week since we've allowed jackson the pleasure of learning to fall asleep on his own. IT'S BEEN GREAT! he's now sleeping from 7pm to 7am each night (it's been that way for the last 6 or 7 nights) without needed any assistance from mom or dad! his naps started out a little rockier...he kept waking up after just 30 minutes. we tried letting him cry to see if he'd fall back asleep, we tried holding him to get him back to sleep, we tried a little of both and he kept waking up. i tried to stay patient knowing it had only been a few days, and what do you know?...he's started getting past that 30 minute mark and has been taking 1 1/2 hour naps twice a day for the last few days! i can't tell you how much less stress there is in the woods' house. i was starting to get kinda worried thinking about how i was going to deal with rocking jackson to sleep for his naps (and often once or twice during his naps cause he would wake up a lot) and at night while dealing with a newborn. i'm sooooo happy we read healthy sleep habits, happy child by marc weissbluth. i highly recommend it to anyone with kids or anyone planning to have kids.
oh, yeah...he also cries very little or not at all when we put him down now!

helping?

jackson decided he'd help me with the laundry this morning. he doesn't know how to fold clothes yet, so he thought it'd be helpful to pull the basket off the couch. it ended up on his head!

thanks to help from his mom, he finally got the basket off his head.