new life

I just put Jackson down for the night and couldn't stop smiling as I was rocking him in my arms. He is such an amazing little boy and makes me so happy! I'm so lucky to be his mommy! He is getting to be so active! His favorite positions are sitting up or being held - he spends most of his time either in my arms, in a stroller, in his bumbo chair, or in his "exersaucer". He really doesn't like being on his tummy, back, or really on the ground much at all. He LOVES being out and about, and is really a social little guy (remind you of anyone?? ahem ahem Tyler ahem ahem)

It's slowly starting to get a little cooler here in Florida, so today we went swimming in our new little pool and went to the park and on a walk around the lake in our new neighborhood. Jackson didn't fuss the entire time we were outside. He LOVES it!


We've been so busy over the past month and I haven't really taken the time to sit back and write it all down. Since I'm better at blogging than journaling I'm going to write down some early memories here.

Thursday, August 26th was the big day, we drove to the other side of town to the title office to sign the papers and close on the house! We brought Jackson with us of course and he sat on my lap for the whole process and helped me sign my name time and time again. As we were going through all the little details, it was kinda crazy thinking about all the responsibility that comes with owning a house. But it was a little late to back out at that point and we were happy to sign all the dotted lines.

A few hours later we were in the house! I was cleaning the kitchen, Ty was putting together some of our new furniture and we had someone come to get the carpets steam cleaned. We learned right away that owning a house comes with maintenance when the carpet cleaner found mold stains hidden under a conveniently placed shoe rack in our master closet... we still need to get that replaced...

The next day we did some more last minute packing and started moving things over to the new place. Then we spent our last night in the townhouse and I got more emotional than I thought I would. But spending the last moments with Jackson in his nursery were really special. I will always remember that room, his first home ...



Saturday morning we got right into the moving business! We had 8 guys from our ward come and help us and we could NOT have done it without them. Once they all left and it was just the three of us, it felt so awesome to have all our stuff in our house!

A few hours later we picked up my mom from the airport and she really helped us get unpacked and finished bringing all the random stuff we'd left over from our old place. She helped that first week, and now for the past 10 days we've been on our own.

I know a lot of people want me to post pictures of the new place and I will .... but I really wanted everything to be put together first and I'm now realizing that might not be for a while. So hopefully pretty soon I'll get some pictures up here! But for now we're busy making this house our home...

Quick Updates in Pictures

Yes ... this is the cutest baby in the world. Jackson loves hanging out on our bed.



Jackson's new nursery -- this is the only painted room in our house, and its blue - perfect for Jackson's nursery! Here he is hanging with grandma/grammy still figuring out which name she likes ...



I zoomed my camera as much as possible and then took this pic from our back window in our house. If you look closely you can see Tyler (in a red shirt) playing tennis at the courts across the lake. He plays basically every morning, and now I can check up on him haha.



My mom and I before we went to the airport ... and proof that baby gear dominates our house. Swing, Bumbo, Bouncy Chair, Activity Mat, and you can't see the exersaucer and carseat just behind the couch...



Jackson has a rash ... I don't know what it is. He has a few bumps on his arms and legs that look like mosquito bites, but then he randomly has these splothchy things appear and disappear throughout the day. It doesn't seem to be affecting his mood or making him sick, but I might be taking him to the doctor tomorrow. Has anyone seen this type of thing before?



My guesses are an allergy to our new wool rug, allergy to rice cereal, allergy to bug bites, heat rash???

We're in

The past week has been crazy, surprising, busy, tiring, rewarding, awesome, chaotic and now we are finally starting to feel settled in our new house. There's not a single room that I feel is completely put together (while Jackson's is pretty close) but we are starting to get comfortable living in our house while only a few boxes are left to sort through.

My mom was here all last week and helped tremendously with unpacking, cleaning, and most importantly, "jacksoning." She left yesterday and now we're fending for ourselves and getting used to our new lives as home owners. We love our house!

Since I'm too tired to take pictures or even load pictures onto my computer, these pics from Ty's iPhone will have to suffice.

Jackson watched his first football game with daddy yesterday - go cougars!



And here's the view from our back patio a few nights ago.



Happy Sunday!

5 Months of Jackson

Our baby is growing up way too fast -these pics are for you Steven!

ONE MONTH


TWO MONTHS


THREE MONTHS


FOUR MONTHS


FIVE MONTHS (aka today!)



PS - he is sitting up like a pro now!

He did it!

He finally did it!! Just before his 5 month birthday, Jackson decided to roll over today! He rolled from tummy to back twice this morning and looked very proud of himself. I was honestly getting a little worried since he was already sitting up pretty well but couldn't roll over yet ... but now this first time mom can rest easy!

Also, I put Jackson in little baby jeans for the first time today - he looks like such a big boy it kinda freaks me out. I didn't have him wear them for long, since we live in Florida and w/ humidity it feels like 105 all summer ... He normally just rocks the onesies and I'll add shorts if we're goin out. It's too hot for anything else!


PS Is it normal that Jackson fits in size 9-12 month clothes but can't even fit in his 3 month (or size 2) shoes yet?? The shoes he's wearing above are 3 month size and are still falling off his tiny little feet haha.

J.T.

Jackson (AKA J.T or Jacksy) is only 4 1/2 months old and is ahead of the curve in learning to ...


Sit up on his own
Stand up while holding onto the couch


Grab his activity mat toys with his toes


But he's a little behind with ...


Tummy time


Rolling over
And most recently ... Eating rice cereal
He would not even let us put it in his mouth!

But he's still the cutest little buddy!

Big News

After tempting you guys last month it's time for the reveal ... later this month we're going to be home owners!
We started looking for a house almost 2 years ago when Tyler first took the job. We were really excited back then because we knew there were lots of great deals, but we soon learned with all the foreclosures and short sales it was almost too overwhelming! Since then we have been casually looking, but we weren't wanting to rush into anything. Because we have a really cheap month to month rental contract we have been waiting for just the perfect house before we made an offer. And now, we've found that house!

I asked Tyler if he thought it was cool that I started sharing the news about the house, and he said yes - as long as I told the awesome story about how we found this house... so here goes!

Back in November, Tyler and I spent a day looking for houses when we came across a house that we really liked. The floor plan and neighborhood (and price) were perfect for what we wanted but it was a short sale and the previous owners had stripped the house of light fixtures, blinds, and had nasty stained carpet. Also, the backyard was kind of terrible. It sloped down into a nature preserve which was basically a swampy forest, hence, really bad for little kids. So we left the house telling our realtor great potential.. but not perfect.

Here's where it gets interesting ...

As we were getting into our car, a neighbor stopped us. He noticed we were looking at the house and wondered if we would be interested in looking at his house across the street. He eventually told us he had just found a great deal on a larger home, and was going to be listing his house soon.

Interestingly enough, his house was the same floor plan and on the other side of the street. They had a very clean home with amazing taste, hardwood floors, a pool, and the house backed up to a little lake so it had amazing views. It was so incredible and didn't even compare to the house across the street! Although he hadn't listed the home yet, we asked what he was planning on listing it for, when he told us we almost laughed. He was planning on listing it for twice as much as the one across the street. We then realized the place was way out of our budget and left the house bummed about it.

In the next few months, Tyler and I often thought back about that house and how amazing it was, wishing we could find something like it! It was our "dream house" and we compared everything else we saw to that house.

Here's where it gets even more interesting ...

Flash forward to April 30th - it's the last day to be eligible for the first time home buyer tax credit and we had an appointment with our realtor to go look at 10 houses. Before we left I looked online one last time at all the recent houses listed for sale ... and randomly enough - the "dream house" had just been listed that day as a "short sale" -- right in our budget! I was freaking out, I showed Tyler and we really couldn't believe it.

This is getting long, so I'll sum it up - we couldn't get in touch with their realtor so we just showed up at the house later that day. Hoping he would remember us, Tyler went to the door with our realtor as 6-week-old sleeping Jackson and I waited in the car... They were invited in, and I waited out there for about 15 minutes before finally Tyler came back outside and said, "come inside now, we're buying this house today."

AND WE DID! It took almost 3 months, but we found out on JULY 19th that the Short Sale price was approved by the bank. We now are planning on closing in a couple weeks.

Here's a pic of Ty and Jackson in the empty house ... we're so excited!