First love

This morning an old co-worker and good friend came over with her 11 month old daughter, Sonali. Look at those beautiful big brown eyes.....Well Jackson was in love with her and couldn't stop hugging her. Not sure she was as crazy about sharing cooties as he was!

After they left Jackson and I sat down to lunch and he said "Mama, Sonali really pretty". Watch out Deepa---my son has eyes for your daughter!!

Ho Ho Ho

Putting cookies out for Santa

Dark family shot

Christmas morning. Santa brought Jackson a BIG DIGGER! (there's a video but at the end of the blog)

Checking out the stocking loot

Mid way through opening presents

Christmas dinner. Hard to tell by Jackson's plate but the menu was: turkey, dressing balls, mashed potatoes, green beans, fruit salad, cranberry relish, and rolls. YUMMY!

We've had such beautiful holiday weather that we couldn't resist including all these great outdoor shots. We even got a few good bike rides in. Here's Jackson on his digger

See....he does smile (just usually not for the camera)

Even the dogs got in on the fun (Cousin Oliver and Bear)

Taking a quick break

Jackson tackles Mike

We couldn't leave Baby Manes out. Looks kind of like I swallowed a ball by the angle of this shot

Brotherly love.............

Jackson showing us how the digger works on Christmas morning

SANTA

We've had several opportunities to see Santa this year. Jackson seems to think Santa is his new best friend! So apparently a year makes a big difference. This was Jackson with Santa LAST year: (not happy!)
Here's Jackson this year patiently waiting in line to see SANTA. He was waving and saying "hi Santa" the whole time.
He even was brave enough to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas: "diggers"

Then last week one of our good friends had Santa come to her house. What a special treat! Here's the first time Jackson sat on his lap. And of course he told this Santa he wanted diggers as well.

Here's the second time he crawled into his lap

The third time he proceeded to tell Santa how the garbage truck that he was holding worked

The fourth time he got a chance to sit on Santa with several other kids as well

And here's our attempt at a group shot of all the kids

What a fun day!!

Unexpected visitor

Look who came to visit last night!!! Laura's brother, Tim!!! What a surprise! Jackson was thrilled to see Uncle Tim. Tim had an unexpected delay as he was flying through Houston on his way to Tennessee for Christmas so he decided to rent a car and drive up to Dallas. He got here about 5:00pm and stayed the night and left about 8:00am this morning but we were really lucky to get the short visit we did. How fun for us!

Thanks Uncle Tim for making the long road trip to see us. He's back in Houston now and on a flight to Tennessee for the holiday.

Parties and more parties

Jackson has a couple of friends that have birthdays in December so in addition to all the holiday parties, Jackson has had his fun of birthday parties too. Here's Jackson with birthday boy Tate at a Gymboree party! FUN. Of course for Jackson the best part was the cupcake!

In between parties we squeezed in a Christmas parade

and a ride on Jackson's favorite Big Red Dog

Yesterday we went to Finn's party at a bounce house place. Jackson went into the bounce houses and down the slides for the first time by himself---wheeeeeee!

And of course there was pizza

and cupcakes to complete the event

30 weeks and counting

Here we are at 30 weeks and still growing!

Aunt and Uncle time

We never take very many pictures of Jackson with his Aunt "Bab" and Uncle "Dak"(a.k.a. Barb and Jack). I think because they live here and we get to see them more we forget about bringing the camera. Jackson loves every minute he spends with them---probably because they spoil him rotten.

Cookie making fun

Before all the cookie making fun we had to try out making caramel popcorn. It was a little chewy but otherwise yummy

Jackson has had two more opportunities to try his hand at cookie making this week. Yesterday we had our good friend Tate over (and his mama). The boys had a good time cutting out the cookies and decorating them.

And of course taste testing them!

Couldn't resist including this shot because it's so cute. The boys have gotten to be good friends and like to share a hug or kiss.

Today we went to a cookie making party. Here's Jackson with his friend, Sydney deep in concentration