Category: Jack

Is something broke around your house? Do you need help with a pipe, or need to cut a piece of wood?

If so, call Jack – The Fixerupper:

Jack has all the tools you might need, and knows the importance of keeping them in order, so only one tool comes out of the tool belt at a time (haha, yeah right) and he always keeps them in really good shape.

(Photos taken on January 28th – yes, I’m a little behind)

Some parents hang their kid’s first drawings on their fridge.

I’ve decided I’m going to hang Jack’s first picture here on my vitrual fridge:

Click for larger version

Yesterday, Jack and Christine brought me this first picture. Totally cool… and when we point to the elephant and ask him what sound an elephant makes he puts his arm in the air and goes “brrrrrrr” just like an elephant lifting his trunk and trumpeting.

Kids do the darndest things, don’t they?

Today was an exciting day for Jack. I got up early with him, because Christine was up last night late due to a bad headache.

We got up and played, and read a bunch of books, after breakfast.

After Christine got up, I took a break on the couch, while she watched Jack and cooked him lunch. At some point, I heard a large crash … like a bottle breaking, and then Jack started wailing!

I ran into the kitchen, and Christine was picking up Jack. He was kicking violently and doing one of those silent screams that you know would just be louder than hell if any sound could come out of his mouth…

Turns out, he dropped a soy sauce bottle from the fridge on his big toe. The bottle didn’t break, but it hit him hard enough to break the skin on the tip of his toe and make him bleed a little.

So now, Jack got his first booboo that needed a band-aid.

Jack got to wear a super-manly Curious George band-aid all day:

So while he became a man with his busted lip in October, he’s now graduated into a new class of man-hood.

Christine and I have really enjoyed the last two weekends at home. It’s been a big change from all of the traveling I did last year for work, and the last two months worth of traveling we did as a family during the holidays.

On the 7th, we took Jack and Wesley to Patterson Park, around the corner. It was a gorgeous clear but crisp cool day, and I was on a mission to take some photos. We did pretty good with the photos, and Jack and Wesley had a blast.

We let Wesley run loose without a leash, and he had a blast playing with the kids from the surrounding neighborhoods that were there with their parents:

We took this photo of Jack while he was climbing up one of the playscapes:

We think that photo is easily the best photo of Jack we’ve had since Marc took the black and white of him in the air almost a year ago.

We also got this photo of Jack swinging. I love the action in this shot:

See more photos of our day at Patterson Park here.

Then, just this past weekend, after playing with Jack and Patton inside (you have to admit Patton is a pretty kitty), I decided to rake the leaves off the front lawn finally. About half-way through putting the leaves into paper bags, Christine and Jack joined me, and Christine took over raking and bagging. So I took Jack, and ran inside to get the camera.

Jack and I had fun walking around the front yard, and in the little red wagon.

And we even got to see the day lillies that are coming up in our neighbors yard:

When the day was all said and done, I’d fertilized the front lawn, watered half of it, and Christine had finished raking 8 bags of leaves and putting them on the curb for pickup later this week:

See all the photos from Saturday the 14th, here.

If you can’t tell, I’m really enjoying this photography thing.

Jack started walking in December, right after we went to Houston to hang out at the annual Teaff Christmas Party at Debbie and Raymond’s. Christine and I are convinced that he saw all of the other kids walking around, and he decided: “Screw this crawling business, if they’re walking, I’m gonna walk to!” Because on Monday after returning to Austin, he started walking:

Sorry that it’s 8 minutes long, I just couldn’t edit it down any more… enjoy!

Christine came and grabbed me out of the office at 5:00 today, and we headed to Central Park here in Austin (it was 79°) and we had a blast. Here are three choice photos from the day:

A Window on Jack:

Don’t mess with me:

Running down the hill (about to face plant):

See more from the evening here.

Now that Jack is really walking on his own (there’s a movie coming soon, I just haven’t had time to edit it) we figured the park would be lots of fun. And boy, was it!

After playing at the park for an hour and a half or so, we ate dinner at the Central Market Cafe. I had Rustic wood-fired pizza. Christine and Jack had fish, veggies and mashed potatoes. I got to watch the 3rd quarter of the Notre Dame vs. Ohio State game while sitting on the patio with my family.

What a great afternoon!

I sent a photo of Jack in to the Austin American-Statesman, as a submission for their “Holiday Photos” extravaganza, and they accepted it:

Click for larger image

Cute eh?

Jack got his first haircut today.

And he was great.

We got his haircut at this little children’s only haircut place: Hair’s Lair, by Margo, the owner.

Jack was much better than poor Liam, never cried out, or squirmed one bit. And he looked much more sure of himself and what was going on (actually he was ignoring the hairdresser) than little Jaiden. And the funny thing is that his hair wasn’t as crazy as Riley’s was before her first haircut.

More photos from the first haircut session here.

Christine and I figured we should post an update about some of the things Jack is doing now that he’s a year old.

So, here it is…

As you can tell from that photo above, Jack is getting pretty inquisitive lately. He’s definitely asking us lots of questions. He asks by pointing and saying “uh?” We reward the questions with answers, telling him what he’s pointing at.

This has grown into Jack wanting things.

At dinner, Jack invariably starts asking Christine and I for our food (he eats the same thing we do, but he wants to eat off our plates) and our drinks… even though he has is own drink. We’re trying to teach him that the coke and milk on the table in our cups are “our” drinks, and that he has his own drink.

It sort of works. When he throws a fit, we know he’s almost done eating.

Jack has also started blowing on his food. Because we feed Jack the same food we eat, it’s usually hot when we all sit down to the table, so Christine and I typically blow on it before we put it in front of Jack. Just the other night, we were watching Jack eat, and we realized that he was holding his food in front of his mouth, and was “blowing” on it. He wasn’t very good at it, but nonetheless, he was blowing on his food. It was too cute. He’s done it a few times since we noticed it, so we know it’s not a fluke. Now we just have to teach him to blow on hot food, not cold food.

Jack has also started to learn to “be gentle”. It started with the kitty. When Jack used to pet the kitty, he’d pull his hair, but after saying “be gentle” and showing him how to pet the kitty, he understands “be gentle”. So, now that the Christmas Tree is up, we’ve told him to “be gentle” to the Christmas Tree, and he gets it. He doesn’t pull on the tree, but rather points to the lights and ornaments, and gently feels the leaves on the branches. We’ll have to get a real tree next year, so he knows what Christmas smells like.

Jack also walks now. He doesn’t walk a lot without help, but he can do it. He usually walks with one of his push toys (Josh and Elise gave him one for his birthday and we gave him one), and that gives him something to balance against (he’s pretty darned wobbly still) and that gives him confidence. It’s really funny to watch him step, squat, stand up, and step… which is what he does when he’s really not sure if he should be walking. If one of us is near him, he’ll reach out for help walking, but if he is standing by himself, about half the time he’ll take a few steps before starting to crawl.

Just the other night, we coaxed him into walking from his bedroom through the dining room and living room towards our bedroom with his red popper push toy in hand. When he got to the hallway, we realized he was doing this because he was chasing the kitty with the push toy. When he cornered the kitty in the hallway (all of the doors were shut in there) he laughed a hearty belly laugh, and as the kitty ran by him, he quickly turned and started following the kitty.

Jack likes to have his teeth brushed, but he doesn’t really get what we’re doing. We load the toothbrush up with water, and then put it near his mouth, and he sucks the water out of the toothbrush, while we attempt to brush his teeth. We then repeat this process a few times until we call it “good”.

Here’s a link to some photos I took tonight.