Too Much Cuteness

There's been all kinds of cuteness around this house lately.  Jackson is at such a fun age right now and it's so exciting to hear him constantly learning new words and testing out new skills.

He still absolutely loves to help us do anything around the house.  In fact, his latest thing is taking the kitchen towel and wiping up wet spots on the floor (he's drooling like crazy again -- literally leaving puddles wherever he spends more than a few seconds -- so, more teeth must be coming soon).  This quickly turns to the wiping of the cabinets, the inside or outside of the dishwasher (whichever is available), etc.  I guess he's seen me cleaning the kitchen a few times, huh?

His most recent new words are "shut" (the blinds, an open drawer or door, or pretty much anything that is open) and "donut" (sounds like doh-ut, which took us a bit to figure out what he meant) after having 1-1/2 of them for breakfast on Sunday a.m. and spotting extra donuts in a Tupperware the next day at breakfast.  And my favorite: "shhh" with a finger to his lips.  He whipped this one out over the weekend as we (Corey, my parents and I) were gathered around the table eating dinner.  We were trying to decide it if it was raining out and someone said "shhh" (not using a finger to demonstrate) so we could listen to hear the rain on the skylight, and then Jackson did it as well, but did the finger bit.  It was adorable.

And the final story for now...he recently figured out how to unzip his jackets so he enjoys helping take off his coat at night when we get home.  The other morning I went into his room to get him up for school and he was all snugly in his bed, in his footed pj's...which were completely unzipped.  I stood him up and said "what happened to your pjs?!" and he responded with a completely shocked expression and an "uh oh!" like he had no idea what he'd done. 

More stories to come soon.  Promise.

This past weekend brought chilly temps but some good a.m. sun, so we took advantage with a family Starbucks date.

I can't believe how grown up he's starting to look.  What happened to our cute little baby boy?!  (Yes, those are gloves he's wearing - he needed some for school, so we stopped at the store on the way home to pick some up.  I tried them on him, thinking they wouldn't go over well much like his boots, but he loved them.  He didn't want to take them off and finally when we got them off, his poor little hands were on fire!)

The vacuum used to scare our J, but it brings all kinds of fun and excitement now.  This new outlook makes weekend chores much easier, let me tell you!