stuffed animals

Well, Jack is almost 16 months old and he has recently been making some big strides in his gross motor development. He has started climbing, standing up on anything, trying to stand up from the sitting position, and standing for a few seconds on his own without falling. So he is on his way to walking, we are hoping it happens before daddy goes away, but we'll see, we don't want to rush him, he will do it when he is ready (not that we could rush him if we wanted to :)

So I love stuffed animals, and before I had Jack if Kohls was selling books with stuffed animals I couldn't help from buying them, so Jack has quite a collection of stuffed animals. He has never been too interested in them, but just the other day he found them and got in the middle of a big pile of them and started hugging all of them. He loves his giant dog from grandma and grandpa sweatland (he woofs at it now) it was too cute to not take pictures. Enjoy!
Thrilled by all his new friends!

Hugging his Doggie

Ohh, what happened look

Aww....

tickled

These are better in reverse order...this is jack playing, me getting out the camera, him getting excited and coming after the camera...

Oh, good mommy you got the camera for me...

ohh yeah...getting closer

Excited face and hands....here he comes

What's going on mommy?
He is allowed to play with the plastic cups...he loves to pretend drink from them

He is sooo cute!!! we love him soo much. God has blessed us with such a happy little guy. He has been sick again this week, but just a virus we hope....no screaming so we don't think his ears are bothering him...he has been sleeping better still. last night from 8 to 7:30 (yea for mommy)

Jake is at the Bataan Death March this weekend competing with the team from Ft Bragg. There are 5 of them doing a 26 mile ruck through the desert, so if you think of him on Sunday morning, I'm sure he could use your prayers.

And you could pray for me, it's my trial run Sunday without Jake here...it will be interesting. He has really been there for me on Sundays by taking care of Jack, helping with my Power Point, helping with skits, etc. But God knows, He has it under control.

I will post about Bataan when Jake gets back with the camera.

fun times

Standing like a big boy

chasing the camera

In our PJs

We recently went on an overnight trip to Wilmington. It was really awesome! We went downtown and got good food. We went to Fort Fisher (a very important fort from revolutionary and civil war history) as well as the aquarium, and the battleship :)

we also got a kelty! (backpack for bigger kids)

jack loves it, but he loves to pull my hair too (we're working on that)

Jack loves!!! the aquarium, we stood at the fish tanks for a very long time and he really wanted to hug the fish! Fish is also one of our new words.

sharp!

we think that he thinks we're being silly

on the battleship USS North Carolina

Jack is doing better now, we are on some new ATB and he has slept well for 2 nights in a row...we'll see how tonight goes, maybe make it 3.

he is standing and spidering around the house, but no walking on his own yet. He did climb a step all on his own yesterday. He is talking alot now, he says:

ball, mama, dada, papa, gaba (grandma), woof woof, please, thank you, this, fish, light, stop it (i say this if he is screaming or when i want him to stop something, and now he says it to his toys), he says something that sounds like obey which would be wonderful, but we think it means okay.

His communication is really improving. He still points and is very sure of what he wants.

he is still eating almost everything, but he is having food stubbornness occasionally, he just won't eat something one day that he loved the day before, but we just let it go (not worth the fight at this point since we still can't really communicate) usually, most of the time he just eats around the object he doesn't want...

he has not been sleeping well, but we are hoping it was related to the sickness and lingering ear infection. He has been napping once a day now consistently for 1.5-3 hours. We still go to bed at about 7:30-8.

He can sit and stand now all he wants so he doesn't get stuck standing up in his crib anymore, which is nice.

One last thing before I head to bed. Can I just say how many germs he can now get into....wow! trash, anything on the floor, dirt...thank the Lord for a good immune system!

Thanks for reading!!!

moving

Here is a video of Jack using his new skills. Warning: he is very fussy in this video, not his normal self, we went to the doctor this afternoon and started on some Antibiotics, but it's cool to see him moving :)

I takes to the 1:20 to really see him go...bear with him.
He is doing okay today, but he has not been sleeping well...or eating, that's how we knew he was sick, poor little guy!


ps, jessi, i finally figured out the videos!!!!

what's new

So for the Sweatlands there have been quite a few changes in the past few weeks. Jake graduated from his course last Friday and he has been inprocessing with a new unit. So that is new. I have really been busy with my part time job, and Jack (drumroll please) is finally on the move standing up!!!

Here are daddy and jack before his first day in the new unit!

Us at graduation

Daddy and Jack (aren't they handsome)

Jack being very excited about the camera!

On the radio flyer his most favorite thing! He loves to ride it around the house as fast as he can, as well as outside. He has had a couple of tumbles, but wants to get right back on and do it again. Usually he is upset to be taken off of it!

Jack in the snow with our snowman!

Jack and daddy (daddy threw a snowball at jack)

Outside on the John Deere

So yes, Jack started standing up alot about a week ago, and a couple of day ago he started to push his stand up toys and walk across the room!!! Very exciting. It is all he wants to do now, as well as walking holding onto our fingers. What a big guy!

He does have an ear infection right now, so he has been a little fussy, but we are on ATB now and that should help...

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

WHEW 12 & 13 months

Us at Universal Dr. Seuss world!
Jack and his new buddy Scout!

Jack on his rocking Tigger

HARRY POTTER!!!! Need I say more? (i am a big harry potter fan, nerdy i know)

Polar slider from Uncle Josh and Aunt Kristen

After a very long break from blogging we are back.

So the Thanksgiving pics were from right when Jack had his first birthday. We had a great time in Orlando and we got to go to Universal Studios, Jack did really well all day, we just took turns riding rides. It was so fun!!!

We celebrated with Uncle Josh and Aunt Kristen, then when we got back we celebrated with Grandma, Papa, and Great Grandma. He had carrot cake cupcakes with orange cream cheese icing. Daddy was in the field for Jack's actual birthday. And we didn't get him anything because he really didn't need anything, but he still received many presents from lots of people :)

At 12 months Jack was scooting very well, he was trying to pull himself up, but couldn't quite do it. He then did successfully pull himself up for the first time at Auntie Jessi's house around the 13th of Decmeber. Right before his one year appt!!! I was very excited to be able to tell the provider that he could pull himself up if he really wanted to.

He is ahead in many skills though. He can say mama, dada, papa, light, woof woof for doggies (always at the pictures in his books) and occasionally will respond when asked what a sheep says with raahhh!!! which is awesome. he can point to his nose most of the time. He also had started to point to things he wanted. Like food, toys, daddy, etc.

He can feed himself at all meals and he finally started sleeping throught the night when we got back from Thanksgiving. He consistently slept from 7:30-8 till 5:00 in the morning at least. He then gets some milk if he wakes up and stays in his crib either playing or sleeping again till about 7:30 or 8. some days he sleeps till 7:30 without waking up. (those are good days for mommy)

Before Christmas I was still nursing him at night and in the morning. We stopped the night nursing right after Christmas and then about a week later right after New Years stopped nursing altogether. The transistion was really smooth, no engorgement or issues, he was upset one morning when I wouldn't nurse him, but I gave him his milk cup and he happily went on with life. I think it was harder for me, but it is very freeing!

The transition to milk was slow at first, just a few onces at a time, but now he can drink 8 oz at once when he wants it. He still eats everything!! He hasn't turned down any foods yet. Which is great! At his 12 month appt he weighed 24 lbs 7 oz and was 29.5 inches long. He is a big boy! We love it. He is wearing 12-24 month clothes, but most pants are now 18-24 months.

Just last week he finally learned how to sit up on his own. He has been a good sitter since he was 6 months and the scooting, but he could never get himself from his belly to sitting up. Last week he started to crawl like a snow plow. He would use his face like a plow and use his arms and legs. That lasted for 1 day, on Tuesday last week, the 11th he actually crawled with his arms and legs and head up and then figured out he could sit up from there. Since then he has been sitting up all the time and he claps because he is soo excited!

The only down side to this development was the first couple of nights where he would wake up and decide he needed to sit up right away and then because he was sleepy he couldn't figure out how to lay back down and would then cry till we came in to lay him back down. That lasted for about 2 nights, then it was done. He is now able to sit up and has slept good the last couple of nights.

Today before his nap he was standing in his crib, so he is making good progress in his gross motor skills :)

He also now has 11 teeth. He cut his eye teeth on the top over Christmas/New Years and this week his first molar broke the surface. No fevers or break outs, just alot of chewing and some drool.

He is loving his toys! He loves to play and read books. He will sneak away from us and we find him in his room looking at books. Of course he also sneaks away and unrolls the toilet paper, takes books off the shelves, gets into the pens, and just the other day ate half of a crayon before I realized it.

He can scribble with a crayon and we are working on using the spoon and bowl, he is doing well with it and gets very upset when I take it away.

Discipline is still in place and he is beginning to really throw a fit when we take away something he wants, but we are learning along with him how to handle it. Tonight for example I would not let him have my phone, he screamed at me, I promptly left the room and he screamed a few more times then decided to follow me and calm down. It hasn't always been that easy though and I am learning to deal with the rearing of his independence and try to encourage it without giving him everything he wants :)

We want him to know his boundaries. He still does well with no touch and is generally still pretty laid back in attitude and happy.

Naps: he just started taking 1 nap a day, which I was not ready for, but he was. He now naps from about 1-4. Some days we still take 2 if he had a bad night, or got up really early, but it is nice for me when I have Bible study or MOPS to know he can make it till 12 without a nap and not meltdown :)

WHEW, time flies I will blog more about Christmas, New Years and my new job soon, but wanted to get this update before he gets any bigger. He is such a joy to us, and we are soo thankful that the Lord blessed us with such a wonderful little man.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

We are in Orlando with Jake's brother Josh and his wife Kristen. We had and are having a great time!

We had a wonderful family meal, Jack has been really good, besides waking up at 5:37 on Thanksgiving morning, I guess he was just excited to see his Aunt and Uncle :)

We had some professional pictures taken on Friday, they turned out soo well. Since Jack will be the big 1 year old in 2 days we are counting them as his 12 month pics.

Here are 5 of my favorites, more to come, but we don't want to spoil the Christmas card.

Freaky 4 miler

On Saturday we went up to Durham for a Freaky 4 miler fun run, it was a costume contest too. We entered Jack, he took 3rd place, (there were more than 4 people entered) these were the top 4.

The race was put on by a running shoe store that our friend Holly works at, here are daddy and jack ready for the race.

Dave and Jake and Jack

In the Bob ready to go.

Mommy and Jack, I pushed jack, it was a very nice smooth running trail, very stroller friendly. Jake ran really fast, and I had a good run too, it was a great day!