4 months old!

Sorry to those of you who still check in on our blog for not posting sooner. Life has be hectic, good but hectic. Just to update you Jackson was 4 months old on Tuesday the 9th! He is changing so much with every week.

At his appointment he was 15.2 lbs and 27 inches long. He is in the 65th percentile for weight and above the 95th in length. Looks like someone is still on target to be a tall and lean boy. His eyes are still a grayish brown but turning more brown with each week. His hair is beginning to grow back in lighter than his newborn hair. It looks like the color I had as a baby, very light brown. He is laughing, smiling, cooing and talking to us. He just start blowing bubbles and making wet raspberry sounds when he is happy. He can hold is head up so well when on my hip, in his bebepod seat, or when we hold him sitting. He loves to chew on things, especially his own hand. Teething has begun! He likes his excersaucer and doesn't like his playmat anymore. He loves looking at our faces and watched us to see what we are doing even when I try to give him independent play time. He is so close to rolling over but has only done it once. Per our dr.'s advice I have increased tummy time which he hates! He usually starts off fine and then fusses and sucks on his arm.

He is sleeping through the night with one early morning feeding (yay for sleep!) and usually gets up between 6:30-7:00. We are in the trenches of the Ferber sleep method though. Nighttime is going well, but naps are another story. Since Jack was colicky I was doing whatever necessary to get him sleep, mainly nursing to sleep. While that was working great, mom was beginning to think I needed an ankle monitor because I felt like I was under house arrest. I am constantly anxious about leaving the house for any length of time. What if he gets hungry? Dad can't feed him he's boycotting bottles! What if he gets sleepy? Dad cant nurse him to sleep! How can I leave the house! For my sanity and the well being of everyone else I come into contact with we decided something had to give. Don't get me wrong I love breast feeding but I knew I was setting myself up for a long battle if I let the habit perpetuate.

So naps are a battle. Jackson was so tired today. He had a good morning nap because I nursed him to sleep...shame shame. But I needed him to have somewhat of a decent nap before we dove into the Ferber method. Then he was pretty out of it from taking only two 30 minute naps this afternoon. I'll post soon about our progress. He went out like a light tonight, but I'm still prepared for some (haha lots) of crying in the coming days. So hard! But it will be better in the long run.

Memorial Day Weekend: Mother's Day Redux

Hi boys and girls, Danny writing. This is my first posting, so if you are a regular at this blog and the following post seems... different, then that's why.

As you may recall, Mother's Day was terrible at the McPherson household. We had planned on so many fun things, but all was put on hold because I threw out my back. Yes, there's nothing quite like the pain of muscle tearing near your spine. But two weeks later, I'm surprised to say that it feels completely healed. So this weekend Mother's Day was redone in the form of much needed landscaping, and me taking care of the kid all day Sunday.

When Frances and I bought our house, it was a foreclosure in need of work. Because we prioritized the inside of the house before the outside, the yard has looked pretty terrible since we moved in. Last summer, however, we did make a significant improvement by replacing several large sections of the front "yard" (the worst section being 50% dirt + 40% weeds + 10% bermuda) with St. Augustine grass. Here's a pic from last summer:

If you look close, you can see the new grass on the right side of the yard, bushes by the sidewalk from the driveway to the front door, bushes to the left of the front door, and trees that have apparently never been pruned.

So last week Frances called the tree dudes to come rip out the bushes in front and prune the trees. Then here's what we did on Saturday:

8am came early. Up, out of bed. Get dressed. Get kid ready. Two cars to Home Depot, with Frannie taking a detour to Starbucks. 4 bags of DARK mulch, 2 bags of native Texas dillo dirt. Back home. Move pretty white border stones to drive way for a rinse. Clear out old "decorative" rocks (using the word decorative loosely) and over turn soil in front of porch. Mix in dillo dirt. Place stones in circular pattern around tree bases. Fill mulch in each. Spread dillo dirt to low places in yard. Back to home depot. More mulch, more dillo dirt, 6 pieces St. Augustine sod, 36 monkey grass plants for porch border. Back home. Plant monkey grass while getting sun burned. Cover with mulch. Add art. Plant sod. Watch it rain. Go to sleep exhausted. (In the pic, notice how well the St. Augustine filled in from last year)

Sunday I take over Jack responsibilities for Frances while she experienced freedom. This mainly consisted of her running errands, but it was a good break for her to get away from the house. And since I'm always cold (at work and at home) Jack functioned as a cosy portable heater while I studied about church doctrine and its roots.

Monday. Nothing planned except Frances wanted to trim the remaining bushes near the front door, and maybe spread the last bag of dillo dirt. I don't know what came over us, but we agreed the 3 front bushes by the front door needed to go as well. So what was going to just be another 1 hour of work, turned into 7. Frances + Danny + branch cutters + an ax + two shovels + synchronous tugging and pulling + tending to Jack + 3 hours = victory over the bushes. After Frances made a quick trip to the Home Depot to get more dark mulch, a welcome sign, and some plants, we set it all up and called it good. Check out the before and after:

And finally, here's a close up of Frannie's artistic skillz:

So then we took nice long naps. Thank you Jack for respecting the nap. He did so well through all of this! When he wasn't napping he was outside with us in the shade grabbing his toys and yelling at them with excitement. But there was one tramatic incident where the ice-cream truck stopped at the house across the street to service some kids. It was interesting to him at first. But his interest soon turned to discontent (joining mom and dad).

So here we are at the conclusion of the long weekend. One of these days we're actually going to relax and take it easy. But we'll enjoy it more if all the chores are done first :)

So this is Mother's Day

Ok, so this Mother's Day wasn't quite what I had pictured when I envisioned my first Mother's Day. Daniel and I had planned to take out first family picnic and Jack's first trip to the park. We had a productive Saturday of yard work so Sunday would be wide open for family fun. Well Saturday afternoon Daniel leaned over in the living room to pick up a pillow from the couch and BAM! his back went out! I mean completely seized up! He could barely make it to the couch to lay down and then when he got there he was down for the count. Picnic canceled!

Well, I wake up Sunday morning feeling a little sorry for myself but find that Daniel had managed to make it to the kitchen and make me pancakes! He was worn out and uncomfortable but said he wanted to do something to make the day special for me. Too sweet! I then ordered him back to the couch. As I was cleaning up in the kitchen after breakfast I looked out the window into the backyard and see Sebastian laying down and chewing on something. Never a good sign! I take a closer look and see that it's a dead bird! Soooo gross! I go outside and shoo him away from the bird, well actually yell at the top of my lungs to get inside the house. I gave him a bath like he had never had before and then went out to pick up the bird. Daniel said he would get i,t which was really nice, but I knew bending down like that was out of the question and to lay back down.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until bedtime. My little man usually goes to sleep between 6:30 and 7:30 depending on how late his afternoon nap goes. Well he woke up from his afternoon nap around 4 so I figured he'd be out by 7ish. Wrong! Jackson fought bedtime until 10:00. He hasn't been this hard to put down for over a month and I have gotten spoiled by that. Everytime he was alseep in my arms by either rocking him, bouncing him or swaying him he would instanly wake up when I layed him down in his crib. His eyes would pop open and he'd smile and coo, too cute but exhausting. Well here's to hoping that today is better!!!

Jack is 3 months old

It's been a long time since I've posted, sorry! I wonder if anyone is even checking our blog anymore? Well if you are here's the scoop on Jack! He is about 15lbs now and doing really well. He has definitely outgrown his colic and his reflux is sooooooooo much better.



He is sleeping really well! Not completely through the night yet but he only wakes up for one feeding between bedtime and morning time and I am super excited about that. He has been going to bed between 6:30pm and 7:30pm and waking up between 6:30am and 7:30am with a night time feeding around 12-1am ish sometimes it's as late as 2:00am.




I've read that breastfed babies take longer to sleep through the night- any comments are advice? I've been super excited with the amount of sleep I've been getting, it's like night and day from a month ago when I though quite literally I might go crazy from sleep deprivation. Jack is also napping better too and takes about 3-4 naps a day. I'm trying really hard to get him on a nap schedule so that I know when I can leave the house during the day. Right now its a gamble when I leave so I don't take him many places just yet.



Jackson is also making lots of baby noises and loves to "talk" to me and his dad. He smiles all the time when we talk to him and slowly starting to enjoy tummy time. We have still only rolled over once so I'm starting to get a little nervous about that but he is so strong I know he'll get it soon.

Enjoy the pictures from the last month!
Frances, Daniel and Jackson

Guess who's 2 months old?

Jack turns 2 months old on April 6th! He has changed a lot over the past two months. He now weights 11.07 lbs and is 24 inches long. He is in the 95th percentile for his height and 50th percentile for his weight, he is long and lean.

This month Jack had his first trip to church and a visit from his Grandma McPherson. Jack has been battling some pretty serious acid reflux for the past 4 weeks. It seems to bother him the most at night no matter what position we put him in to sleep, it's pretty sad to see him gag when the reflux acts up and then wake up crying. He has been on medicine for it but our pediatrician said that more than likely he will just have to out grow it. Mom and dad are pretty tired most days from trading night shifts and can't wait for Jack to sleep a little more soundly through the night. He is adorable and we love him more than we can say but we also miss our sleep... oh well, I guess we will sleep when he goes off to college!

Enjoy the pictures,
Frances, Daniel and Jackson

1 month old!

Jackson is one month old today! Daniel and I can't believe that its been a whole month since our son was born. It really has gone by so much faster than I could have believed. Jack hasn't changed all that much since he came home from the hospital but he has grown a lot. At his last weighing he had gained a pound, but that was over a week and half ago so I'm sure its more than that now. He had grown an inch and half at his two week check up and I had to put away about 6 newborn outfits this week. Jack has started to sleep for longer stretches at a time (about 4 hours), unfortunately there not always at night ; ). We love this little guy more than we can say and are so happy to have him in our lives! Enjoy the random pictures from the last two weeks!

Jack's big weekend

This weekend Jackson had quite a few visitors! His grandparents from the Houston area came up to visit him. Daniel's parents and my dad and his wife drove in to see him. It was my dad's first visit with Jackson and Daniel's parent's second visit. Jackson is the first grandchild on both sides of our families so naturally he received lots of attention! All the grandparents think he's perfect and I can't argue with them!

sleeping in Grandpa Champlin's arms

Hi Grandma Champlin!

Sleeping in Grandma McPherson's arms...do we see a trend ; )

Thanks for coming to see me Grandpa Mac!

Grandma Mac showing equal love to Jackson and Sebastian

Hanging out with dad at the end of a long day