Jackson: 3 months!

Oh, I feel like this month has been so big in terms of development for Jackson!  Time moves so quickly, I can't believe it has been 3 months since Jackson joined our family.  In my teacher interviews, I always give a brief introduction, and I always state the general age range of the kids.  Since I interview Mondays and Tuesdays,  I always get to remind myself of how old Jackson is (turn around day is Tuesday). When I said 13 weeks last night, I was cringing!  He is such a cutie pie though, I can't complain too much!  Here's some updates at 3 months:

1.  Jackson is growing like a weed!  He is approximately 15 pounds, and 26 inches long!!!  I don't have percentages, that's just what he was at his cardiology appointment!  
2. Jackson is starting to move a ton more.  He started rolling this month from tummy to back, and rotating himself on his play mat.  The other day, I put him on his mat to play with his toys, and when I checked him not 10 minutes later, he was just shy of having turned a 180.  He LOVES to arch his back and turn his head all the way around to look at what's behind him...sometimes that's frustrating, like when I need him to go to bed, or when he's in the swing and he manages to nearly fall out!  He hasn't rolled back to tummy yet, but he can get about halfway before just deciding to rotate instead. 
3. Jackson loves to hold things. He will grasp toys for a few moments, and he loves to get a good grip on his blankets.  He also loves to shove his fists in his mouth, his blanket in his mouth, and cover them with slobber.  He will also bat at toys with more purpose.
4. Jackson talks so much, and it is so adorable!  If he is well-fed and I start talking to him, he will just coo and squeal and squeak back at me!  He has these adorable little, sighs of contentment where he says the "m" sound, and I just like to think he is trying to say my name.  
5. Jackson giggled!  That was probably my favorite development this month, coming on Valentine's day.  He was just so happy, the giggle erupted and made my day!  He loves to smile, and will smile at pretty much anyone who smiles at him.  I just love how happy he looks when he smiles at me first thing in the morning or after a nap, or after he has been sad.  His smile stretches for miles and usually ends with him looking away shyly....so adorable! With Jared, he tends to get this spark in his eyes, like he knows it is playtime-that's the way it has been with all the kids! 
6. Jackson is sleeping great!  He usually nurses the last time around 11:30pm and then sleeps until 7am.  I am at the point where, IF he wakes in the middle of the night (which is rare now), I will usually just retuck him with his binky to go back to sleep, or I'll put him in his swing to doze off.  If he doesn't go back to sleep or seem content in 5 minutes, I'll feed him, but those moments are getting even rare-er.  It's nice to feel like I have a solid chunk of time for sleeping.  I just need to work on getting him to bed earlier, and then I will be fairly content with his sleep schedule at night.  Daytime naps are still when he wants them, but I feel like he's too young as of yet to force a nap schedule.

Those are the biggest updates from this month, though I am sure there are more I could share!  We love Jackson, he is such a joy and such a happy baby!

I Can't Help It....

I know Jackson is sad, but look at this cuteness!!!!  And look at Jackson's big tummy!

The holiday that is today

I admittedly forget what today's holiday is....President's Day maybe?  I think that's accurate.  In any case, we spent a good chunk of our day off at Grandma Erickson's house doing everything we could to stay physical!  We jumped on the trampoline a TON, which was seriously awesome because it was actually trampolineS--plural!  It may seem weird to have two tramps lined up together, but now that we have jumped on them, I really don't see how you can have a trampoline WITHOUT a matching buddy....

In other activities, we did a log of swinging....

 ...bike riding...

 ...playing baseball (JD pitched to me at one point and I beamed a ball straight over the neighbor's fence-oops!)...

 ...playing basketball-I taught Karianna and JD how to play Pig and Around the World, and JD taught us how to play a points game that has no name other than that...

 ...we went to McDonalds for some playtime and ice cream...

...and then we went home because I was deadbeat tired and ready for a nap!  It was a fun day-my work schedule has been so darn busy, I felt the need to put all that on hold for a day and just play with the kids.  Those are great days in my book!

Resurrection: A Fish Story

 This is our pet fish.  In the above picture, he is actually dead-I just thought it was somewhat morbid to take a picture of him floating at the top of this cup, so I was stabalizing him.  Karianna was sad when she found him floating tonight around 6:45pm; I realized I had no pictures of her first pet, which is why I snapped this one.  During the process, I realized his gills were still moving-and then I saw him gulp in a huge mouthful (gillful?) of water.  We were all certain he was probably on his way out, that was just his final tribute to life.  But then it happened again, and I found myself wondering if there was something to salage.  Jared suggested I push him under the water to let the water travel through his gills as a way to resucitate him-fish CPR, essentially.  I was doubtful, but did it for a few minutes.  What do you know-the fish started gulping water faster and faster, and some fins started to flutter.  I did this for about 10 minutes, and before we knew it, he was swimming around trying to keep his body from turning to the side in the dead-fish-float.  When all was said and done, the fish was back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.

So the fish is officially alive!  We have no idea what happened, and the kids have deemed it a miracle-it was a great object lesson to explain what resurrection is realy like!  James is still walking around saying "fish die".  In any case, it was an interesting experience to save our fish' life and to share that with the kids.  Jared and I are officially heroes!

Karianna's Science Project

For the last few weeks, Karianna has been putting together an AWESOME science project based on a package of "growing globies"-little balls that grow in water.  These are always fun projects to do, and Karianna was curious about why they grow...thus a science project was born!

We researched the basic "why" (these guys are made from polymers, ie, little sponges that soak up liquid), and then I asked Karianna what kind of experiment we could do now that we know what they are made of.  She suggested seeing if the balls would grow in apple juice and apple sauce!  Great idea, I was going to suggest apple juice and soda!  She rationalized that it would be interesting to see if the apple juice worked because it was more of a solid than a liquid.  I wondered too honestly!  

With that, we set up the experiment as you see it below.  I made up an observation sheet for Karianna to fill out 3 times a day, during which time she would trace 3 of the balls, measure them, and then figure out the average size.  I took pics each step of the way, and was pretty interested to see what happened....

Observation 1:  Look how little!

 Observation 2:  definite growth everywhere!

 Observation 3:  So much growth that more water needed to be added!  You can see the apple sauce balls are definitely bigger.

 Observation 4:  Added more water, and the apple juice balls are nearing the top of the liquid line; the apple sauce was super thick at this point.

 Observation 5:  Maximum growth everywhere!

 By the end of the experiment, it was clear the water balls grew the most, to the degree that I had to add more water!  The apple juice balls grew as expected, but by far not as much as the water balls...interesting, since apple juice is a liquid and we expected it to be the same!  The apple sauce balls were awesome-by observation #5, they were basically the same size as the apple juice balls, and the apple sauce itself had gotten very thick-the liquid in it had basically been sucked up by the balls, leaving only the solid left!

Needless to say, it was an awesome experiment, and we are excited to put all her information on a display board and showcase it at the Science Fair on Thursday!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last year Valentine's Day seemed overloaded trying to do too many things, and it ended in stress.  This year, I was determined to be laid back-and that was the tune of the entire day, which ended up being a fantastic day as a result!  All the kids had fantastic days at their class parties-Jordan even got to go to Butterfly Wonderland (or whatever) for a field trip.  Sara got to dress up for her class party-she is such a cutie!

 Once the kids got home, I let them open their simple little valentine bags-just a treat for each child, and all treats went over well!

I got Jackson to sit in his bumbo for the first time, both with and without a pillow behind him!

Jared and I got to go out on a rare date with Stephen babysitting the five oldest kids at home!  Yea!  We don't usually give gifts for V-day, just time together.  Regardless, Jared surprised me and took me to Barnes and Noble to pick out any book of my choice!  I love, love, love to read, and it was such a sweet gesture-I really loved the thought behind it.  I picked out the Five Love Languages, as I've been wanting to read that.

We walked around for a bit and ended up at Culver's for a quick dinner (for Jared anyway, I went with a Sierra Mist to calm an upset stomach).  It was there that I got my 2nd valentine's Day gift:  Jackson laughed!  A beautifully purposeful, amazing little laugh!  He did it several times for me upon me saying Boo right up in his face....oh, I was in heaven!  Such an amazing sound!

So while nothing huge and grandiose happened, it was a lovely valentine's day spent with the people I love the most in the world-and that, ladies and gents is the way to celelbrate valentine's day.  I sure do love my kiddos and my amazing husband who is so much a part of me, and I of him.

Gilbert Temple Open House

 We had the privilege of going to the Gilbert Temple open house tonight!  I had originally asked my mom to babysit Sara and James, but at the end of the day, I couldn't leave any of them home...when will we be able to go into the temple as a whole family again?  Not until the kids are grown, and I couldn't pass up that opportunity.  We had 3 of Jared's co-workers with us, and thankfully they didn't mind the kids at all!

 We had 8:00 reservations, and even though we got there at 7:30, we didn't get into the stake center for the short video until 8:35, and we didn't get into the temple until past 9.  It was a longer wait than I was anticipating for the kids, but they handled it relatively well given that they were standing in line, in the cold, without much wiggle room.  Plus they were excited!

 The temple was, of course, amazing.  The rooms were beyond opulent, especially the beautiful chandelier in the Celestial room.  The sealing rooms were similarly beautiful-just an amazing spirit.  Most of the kids said their favorite room was the baptistry, which really was magnificent.  Sara said her favorite part was the stairs...though I am not sure why!  Jackson did fairly well in my moby wrap until 5 minutes into the actual temple tour-he woke up at that point screaming his head off because he was due to eat! Thankfully I had the foresight to pack a bottle, which I quickly fed him before taking him out of the moby to calm him further.  I wasn't very prepared to have him out of the moby as I wasn't expecting to be there so long-he was sockless and blanket-less, so I had to wrap him in the moby like a blanket just to keep him warm!

 It was certainly a fantastic experience and I love being there with my whole family!  We know families are forever, and that spirit was certainly felt in the temple today!

First Things

This is the first thing Sara does when she gets up in the morning:

 This is the first thing James does when he seems Jackson doing tummy time:

If I had pics, I would post them!  But the other kids are the same way:  the first they do when they see Jackson is run over to him and try to maul him or kiss him or hug him or cuddle with him.  12 weeks later, and the novelty still has not worn off!

The Extended Lautenschlager Family

February 2014