A visit with Nana and Papa

Jayden had special visitors over the weekend. While Aaron and I went to St. Louis with our friends, Nana and Papa came to stay with Jayden. He was such a good boy while we were gone. Thank you for staying the night with Jayden! He also got his 1st Valentine's Day presents.

Jayden with all of his new Valentine's Day gifts from Nana and Papa and Great Grandma and Grandpa Acree. Jayden is sure one lucky boy!!

Blues Game & STL

Over the weekend, we headed down to STL for a Blues game and out for our friend Aaron's birthday. We had so much fun!!

After the game was over, the guys headed out and the girls headed back to the hotel to change. On our way, we saw a line of people waiting to get an autograph with Cam Janssen, a St. Louis Blues player. Kristy asked if he would take a picture. He got out of his car just to take a picture with us!!

The girls at the hockey game. We were in the very top row, but the seats were perfect for us!

Aaron and I at our first hockey game!

Daddy Daycare

This semester I am enrolled in one of my final classes for my Master's. With extra stress and less time for cleaning, Aaron is helping out a lot more around the house. On Friday when I came home from stress release shopping, the boys were cleaning. I just had to take a few pictures!!!

Mixed Veggies

Here is a little sneak preview of what it is like to feed Jayden dinner.

6 Month Pictures

On Sunday, we visited our photographer, Kim Jones, for Jayden's 6 month pictures. When we left, we were not sure if we would get any to turn out as Mr. Jayden was being a bit grouchy. However, she pulled off some pretty cute pictures of our little man. You can see them at: www.photographybykimjones.com Photo Galleries: Your Proofs: Jayden 6 mo. Enjoy!

A Visit with Great-Grandma and Grandpa

Jayden celebrated his 1/2 birthday with Great-Grandma and Grandpa Acree this weekend in Springfield. They were in town for the Elk's convention, so we met up with them for dinner. Jayden was wonderful and did a fantastic job eating his cereal and bananas. He was mighty impressed with all of the people, lights, and televisions in the restaurant. It was great to visit with them. Jayden also got his first Valentine's Day presents--a new personalized bib, stuffed animal, and a book! Thanks for a great dinner!

Jayden is 1 1/2

6 more months until our little baby is 2.
6 more months until I can stop giving his age in months.
6 more months until we will be the middle of summer and almost ready for Melanie's wedding.

Oh my gosh. Our baby is getting too big, too fast. Time is simply flying by.

Jayden is officially 18 months today. The past year and a half has simply flown by too quickly. Here are is 18 month old stats:

1. He is skinny!! Jayden weighs____ lbs and is ____ inches long.
2. He is wearing size 4/5 diapers. 18 month clothing. He is wearing a size 6 shoe.
3. He runs, he walks backwards, he slide, he screams. He is a toddler. A wild one at that and 100% boy!
4. He loves his new set up in his toy room. He runs in there to play. Opens the door to get into his toy box. Occasionally opens the door to the bathroom and pulls out the toilet paper. He is a happy kid. His TV time is limited because he loves TV too much for his age, which he should have zero TV time. Although he is a TV lover, he still loves his books a lot more than Mickey Mouse.
5. Still picky. He gets that from me. Maybe his Dad can start to influence what he eats.
6. Drinking 2% milk, formula, and juice. He also likes ice cold water.
7. Oh, his poor gums must hurt! Poor baby is getting some gigantic teeth!
8.
9. He has been sleeping OK. I blame it on the teeth. He can make it until about 4 am. He still goes to bed by 8 each night and if not he is mean. He is happy in the mornings and jabbers and jabbers. I love to be able to sleep in a little extra on weekends and listen to him talk.
10. Jayden is on the uphill climb to being 2. I really can't believe that he is now closer to 2 than 1. I am looking forward to seeing what he is going to discover next. Hopefully it isn't climbing out of his crib.....I know....the day is coming!

6 Months Old

Jayden is 6 months old today and time has passed way too quickly. It truly is amazing how much a baby changes in 6 months. After reading another person's blog about their child (thank you, Meredith), I decided I needed to write more about him at each month milestone so I can remember. So here they are...

1. When we weighed him on our baby scale at home, he weighed in at a whopping 16 lbs and 6 oz. He goes to the doctor on Feburary 15 (a day off school). I just couldn't stand to miss one of his doctor appointments. I will post his height when I have the chance to measure him.
2. He is wearing size 9 month jammies to bed. His feet are too big and he is too long to wear size 6 month jammies with feet. In clothes he is between a size 6 to 9 month. Diapers size 3.
3. We are still working on rolling over. He just has no desire to roll over. We will keep working though! He does try to scoot when he is on his belly if there is a toy that he wants to get.
4. He is getting so much better at sitting up. We practice everyday. He does better when he has a toy. He also likes to roam around the kitchen in his little car. It is so funny!
5. Bottles are still not his favorite, so he is now working on a sippy cup.
6. We have tried 5 different kinds of sippy cups, but I think we found one that works the best-Nuby. Next step, get him to drink from it rather than chew on the spout. He does love to eat by spoon 3 times a day. Mixed fruit cereal is his favorite.
7. No, he doesn't have teeth just yet. Aaron got teeth at 5 1/2 months and I got teeth 2 days after my 1st birthday, so who knows when he will get teeth!
8. His still has just a little hair, but it is getting darker and a little thicker. I like to style it when he takes a bath. Bath time is one of his favorite play times.
9. He slept all night for 4 nights in a row this past week. It was awesome. The last two nights he has been awake 4 times in the night. He has to be swaddled to sleep. I suppose it makes him feel safe.
10. He is such a happy and loving baby. He gets very happy when he sees me coming to the door to pick him up from the sitters. It is a sight to see. He also gets pretty happy when he sees a camera or someone smiling at him.

Happy Baby

We are so lucky to have such a happy baby!

Jayden's New Trick!

Jayden loves his walker! Everyday when he comes home from the babysitter he gets some practice in his car. He has to wear his little tennis shoes so he can grip the ground. We love watching him stroll around the kitchen. In this video, he is a little camera shy, but you get the idea!

Soo tired!!

Now that Jayden is eating off a spoon for most of his meals, we have changed his nighttime routine. He is adjusting well and has now slept two nights in a row all the way through! We are hoping that this continues and that he doesn't get off schedule for a while! Last night when he was eating his evening snack, he simply just fell asleep. We thought it was so cute and so funny at the same time. He would wake up and look at us and then just close his eyes. Aaron snapped a few pictures before I put him to bed. Let's hope Jayden sleeping trend continues!

He Slept ALL Night!!

This is a picture of a little boy who slept ALL night long! He also tried to drink out of his sippy cup when he got out of bed. It is amazing what a full night of sleep can do for a girl! Let's just hope this trend continues!

Dinner with Friends

Over the weekend, we enjoyed dinner with some of our friends. Actually, 14 of us made it out to dinner! We celebrated Jason's birthday at Toyko of Japan in Springfield. We have never been there before, so it was a lot of fun!

Our dinner crew minus Meredith and Patrick. Thanks for taking the picture Meredith and Patrick!

It was so nice to have a night out with our friends. Thanks to Aunt Lori and Uncle Mike for babysitting Jayden!

Go Illini!

Jayden got all dressed up this weekend to watch his favorite college basketball team. He ended up falling asleep. I don't blame him--it was a bad game. Maybe next time?

Family Pictures

Today we had family pictures with my Mom's entire family. I think they are going to turn out pretty good considering all of the people (maybe between 40-45 people) who were in one picture! I am sure Kim (our photographer) was worn out after the job today. We are looking forward to seeing the end results within the next week!

Grandma got a quick snuggle with Jayden when he fell asleep today. I am not sure how he could sleepd admist all of the noise. He must have been a tired guy!

Working on Sitting

Jayden is now working on sitting up everyday. A few days ago I had the camera out while he was practicing, so I got a few shots of the work in progress.

He fell over a few times before getting the hang of what he needed to do. Oh my!! I got it!! I am sitting!!

Yea! I did it!

ABC

Jayden picked out a new toy to play with this week. Elmo's bus sings the ABC's. Jayden plays the ABC's about 10 times while he eats his dinner.

Jayden's Breakfast

Jayden decided that he wanted to feed himself breakfast today. He took the spoon from me, so I just let him try. He knew exatly where to put the spoon, so it is a step in the right direction.

My Dad's Real Estate Blog

I recently built my Dad a blog for his listing. You can see it at: www.taylorvillerealestate.blogspot.com. His company has a site, but he wanted one with just his listings. Check it out!

Snow Day!!

Today we had a snow day at school. Although I would rather get out early, I was happy about the snow day. I did not want to drive with Jayden in the car. I am too much of a nervous nelly. Better to be safe than sorry!

Since it was a snow day and the snow was coming down, I just had to get a picture of Jayden in the snow. It took me a lot longer to get him all dressed up in warm clothes (his hands would not fit in the gloves) and get his chair on the front porch than the time we were outside. I promise I only had him out there one minute. Just enough to snap a few pictures--luckily they turned out pretty good.

He liked the snow falling on him and was pretty happy to get a breath of fresh air! As for the rest of the snow day--we will be taking naps and just hanging out!

J's Cup

He doesn't like binki's. He doesn't really care for bottles. What's next? A cup. He got a new cup from Santa and one from his Nana as well, so I thought I would give it a try. He liked holding it, but had no desire to drink out of it. We will try again soon.

A Rest with Daddy

Before I headed out to the store for some grocery shopping, it was time for Jayden to take a nap. It also meant that Aaron had to be in charge while I was gone. This is how they managed. Whatever works!

Jayden's New Coat

Jayden got his first winter coat over the weekend from his Grandpa. He is getting to be such a big boy!

Jayden meets Mayson

Melanie and Mayson had the chance to drive down to Mt. Carmel over Christmas break. We were so excited to meet Mayson and visit with Melanie. It is going to be fun to watch both the boys grow up!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! We had some great people over to ring in the new year. We had a wonderful time with some wonderful friends!

All 17 who made it over for the night. We had a lot of fun!

Playing the in Snow

We took Jayden out to touch the snow over the weekend. He really didn't care for it-but he didn't cry!