Pete and Emotions running wild around here......

Meet our new friend Pete the Peacock.

We love him. Welcome to the Johnston's Pete. Get ready to be slobbered on by a boy named Jackson and a dog named Dixie, I think youll prefer human slobber but thats just my opinion. And if your lucky, the cat, Bosco will sniff you.

I have a plethora of mixed emotions right now. Excitement, curiosity, nervousness, anxiety, apprehension. You name it, I've got the emotion.

Why you wonder? Taylor and I are going with the Kirk's and the Peterson's to my dad's beach place. Alone. No kids. No messes. No dirty diapers. No bottles. No crying. No temper tantrums. No getting up in the early a.m. to feed. No Responsibilities. We will sleep. Eat. Play games. Go fishing. Sleep. Get out on the boat. Lay out by the pool. Sleep. Eat some more. Sleep. And think alot. Alot about someone or someones who wont be there. Am I scared about leaving mister Jackson for the first time? Yes. Am I excited? Yes. Do I have any clue what it will be like sleeping in? No. Do I have any clue what it will be like to just...go...go layout with out worrying about who is going to watch him and how I shouldnt be gone longer than an hour or so. Go out to eat without worrying about how close we are to bed time. Just.....Go. Wow.

But then, in comes the guilt. Guilt at getting excited. Guilt at leaving him. Will he know Im gone, will he miss me, will he be able to sleep, will he eat well, will he...will he...will he. I guess this guilt thing comes with the territory of being a mom.

But then, in comes the excitement again. Oh boy, am I a mess. I havent cried. Yet. I will I am sure have some waterworks flowing as we are pulling out of the driveway Friday morning. You know though. I dont have one worry for the lucky folks who are taking care of him. His grandparents. THEY are so excited. Happy, looking forward to spoiling their grandbaby all weekend. I dont worry about him crying, because they wont let him get a tear out before they are satisfying his need at that moment. I trust my mom, with my whole heart. But....He's my baby. And I am leaving him for two nights and almost three whole days. Oh My. How will I do? I think that is the real problem here friends. How will I do?

I am not even taking the dog. All my snuggle buddies will be away from me except one. And boy do we need this weekend to be just us again.

How will I do?

Stay tuned :)

Im gonna miss this face.....

BUT not this one.......

If you pray, please pray for this little boy now. He is in serious condition. Pray that God holds his family and him in his arms and leads him to health.

I dont know this family personally but through blogging, it has opened my eyes to a world of people who need prayers, and this family is one of them.

Thanks.

Video of Jackson's Story Telling Time!

Finally the video of Jackson babbling. I like to think he is telling me great stories when he babbles. We want him to have focus after all!!! Just kidding of course! I just love that he talks. Its so cute and funny. So enjoy :)

New Development: Yesterday Taylor was playing with Jackson while I was cooking and he had his pacifier in his mouth (Jackson not Taylor)!!! Jackson is really into bringing things to his mouth and tasting them (he is like a little buggy right now!) sooo he pops his pacifier out of his mouth and then tries to put it back in, only he is putting it in the wrong way...plastic handle part first, so he makes a face and keeps trying to put it in, finally finds the way he wants it and puts the pacifier in the right way!! So smart right? Again, Im not sure how much he was really actually knowing what he was doing, but the fact he kept turning it and putting it in his mouth until he found the nipple part was really a high IQ moment for a 3 1/2 month old I think!!! Of course I am just a proud mama. Man I love that guy. He makes my world light up! I never knew I could love someone so much and it just keeps growing and growing. Thank you God, for giving me life's greatest blessing. I am humble and eternally grateful.

Enlightment!!

Make sure you pause my playlist at the bottom right before you watch these videos! And turn the volume up for the second one!!!
I am having serious trouble with the video of Jackson so I am going to get another one and put it on here. BUT in the meantime....I have been enlightened today!
1- I learned the correct way to peel a bannana - see video below


2- I realized I walked down the isle all wrong...I so should have done this 6 years ago! Hilarious and I could watch it over and over!



ENJOY!!! And have a great weekend!

Babbling, Football and Jumping back!

~This week we are staying at The Kirk's house. "Why" you ask? Well they are in the glorious town of Telluride, Colorado with family vacationing (ironically enough Jackson's Great Grandparents are staying there too right now at Uncle John and Aunt Pam's vacation house! Maybe they will run into each other!) and we were going to dog sit for them, but then I realized, "Hey, you have a pool and I need a tan, can we just stay at your house?" Maranda obliged thankfully! It is just so difficult doing the redneck pool thing at home (sprinklers in the backyard with a lawn chair) with Jackson. Hot + Sweaty+ Grass on feet + Baby waking up from nap = NOT a comfortable situation for me. A pool is so much easier and makes for a much happier situation when baby wakes from nap! We have been over there since Saturday and will be there until this coming Saturday, so one full week! I am at my house today, dropping some stuff off, checking on the cat (who now is interested in Jackson..woohoo!), and updating my blog. Ill be back on Thursday and update again then.

~I have to say (although I am knocking on wood as I type) this whole baby thing is getting so much easier! Now that he is almost 3 and a half months he is happy almost all the time, babbling (video above), great when we take him out (except if its bedtime...my birthday dinner meltdown at Guadalajara..whoops), and is just all around an easier baby than even a few weeks ago. I LOVE my job! I have the best job anyone could ask for and I dont even mind not getting paid any money for it. We have learned that the screaming thing is his source only when he is hungry, tired or has a dirty diaper...thank God. So it happens far less frequently now. We have been working on alot of independent play time lately!

~ So highlights from the last week on Jackson: The only bad thing that has happened is I got my first call from the church nursery. Yep thats right, he was inconsolable and I was paged out of the service (during the prayer when its silent only to have to flip flop it out of the sanctuary quickly and not as quietly as I would like..dang it casual summer at church and dang my love of flip flops). Of course by the time I got there he was fine and the ladies were like "go on back he is okay now, I think he must have had gas". I said "well he looks kind of tired, try putting him in the swing with his pacifier". When we went to pick him up after the service he was in the swing happy as a bug in a rug! I love it when Im right!!He is starting to really be interested in his toys around his exersaucer, he actually can hit the music buttons now (maybe on accident, but still its a hit!) and he reached for the sun today. No pun intended, he literally grabbed at the sun on the exersaucer. The other day he accidentally spun this clicker thing (There are these three spinner things I like to call the coin slot spinners and each one makes a different noise..there is a clicker noise, a clanging bell noise, and another noise I cant think of right now) ANYWAYS he hit the clicker one (its super loud) and it scared him b/c he didnt know he did it and he jumped back in the exersaucer and stared real serious at the source of his startlement for awhile, I guess he was expecting it to do it again! So funny.

~Speaking of jumping back, I have another funny story but this one involves our dog Dixie, who I swear has a human brain. She gets smarter every month I think. She is on allergy medicine right now and she has to take these two pills twice a day. The last time I gave her medicine was a month ago and I gave her a pill a day with peanut butter (so now she's a treat snob, but thats another story). So this time the doc made a comment about her weight and said if you give her the pills with peanut butter, then cut back on the dry food. Well I just decided to throw her pills in with her food, since she garbles it down anyways. It was a success the first night. Taylor decides thats what he will do in the morning as well when he feeds her her breakfast. So he puts the pills sort of close to the top but where she couldnt see them. Dixie goes over there takes a bite and I guess as she pulls back to chew she sees the top of the other pill, JUMPS back and spits all her food out on the floor immediately. All in one action. Laughing yet? So he decides that way wont work so he takes the pill out of the food, and picks the other one off the floor and gives it to her the ol standby way of shoving in back of throat. After, he tries to coax her to her food but she wont go near it and is acting a little freaked out by the whole food in bowl concept. He finally got her to eat out of the bowl but the whole time she would take a bite and then look around and chew. Hilarious right? Well we thought so. If you know Dixie I am sure you can see this happening! Come to find out those pills smell horrendous, which we figured out quite quickly. Poor thing, she could probably smell them! She wont take them in anything at all, not even peanut butter bc she can sniff them out.

~ Enjoy the photos below, the first few are of Jackson in Jake's exersaucer at the Kirks house. Yah thats football he is watching. I tried to get on the floor to play with him and turned him away from the TV but he got mad and I turned him back around and he started smiling and was happy. Whatever. I love college football too. Dad and Uncle Troy were very happy about this development. Only prob, it was a Tech vs. Texas game from a few years ago. We must teach him...they are not our friends!!! Must teach him the sssing noise! But we are getting so excited for football season..woohoo! The video is a look at Jackson babbling earlier today. He wasnt as happy as he normally is when he talks, but I think he wanted up and I was trying to get a video so enjoy it but know that most of the time he is smiling big while he is talking!

Having problems getting video up, will keep working on it and hopefully have it us soon!

Really quick I just wanted to tell you all that I added a new link to my blogs list. Its Taylormadebowtique and I love it! My cousin Vera is friends with the gal who makes all these custom monogrammed stuff and it is all so cute. Check it out and see if you can think of anyone to buy something monogrammed for! No she doesnt know me and no Im not getting anything out of this, I just think the stuff is too cute.

Thats all!

Oh and my son as my grandma likes to say "has made a liar out of me". He was AWESOME today, seems he has reevaluated his communication style and feels being sweet is far more efficient. At least he felt that way today. Geez Im such typical woman, trying to tell you what a boy is thinking. Well, some things never change I guess! Anyhoo, he was really really great today and literally had no fussing or yelling. It was nice to have a day of peace and happiness. And no I wasn't holding him all day. He played and learned independently (like my school terms?) for the most part today. I love a day like this and I could easily get used to it, but no worries, I am sure he will be back to his old tricks tomorrow!!!

First Try of Cereal

Yesterday we gave Jackson his first try of cereal. Okay so technically it wasn't his very first try but it was his first try sitting in his bumbo with a spoon and bib and all of that "official" stuff! He has been eating ALOT lately (33 oz a day) AND he has been getting really hungry (including anger at not being fed fast enough) sooner than he should be, so we decided for our sanity to give cereal a try. We attempted it around 4 yesterday a few hours after he had a 7oz bottle. Now I know that I am technically supposed to give it to him right after his bottle but Taylor wanted to be part of this and he doesnt get off work till 4 and Jacksons bottle schedule ended up with him eating around 3 instead of 4 like usual....and if you think I was going to try and "hold him off" for an hour I suggest you come sit with my child who has decided that SCREAMING is now a quite efficient way to communicate. OMG! Ill talk about that in a few paragraphs. Anyways so he reacted quite like I would expect any baby to act when trying this new stuff for the first time. He was pretty indifferent to it, however wasnt into being patient so the event didnt last too long before he let us know he had had enough! Here are a few pictures from this event:

Now onto his communication style......the screaming. Now I am not talking about just a scream like you would scream if the aggies gave up a ball through an interception. No Im talking about a full out crying SCREAMING fit. So the first few times it happened (started this past weekend) Taylor and I were convinced that something was wrong and he was hurt or sick or something. So this happened when he was hungry or tired we figured out through trial and error. NOW he seems to use this screaming because it gets our attention. Truthfully how could it not at such a high decibel. I am pretty sure the neighbors can hear it. No we arent abusing him my friends. I promise. Take exhibit a for example: Yesterday we had played all morning and the fella was super duper happy smiley giggly. I set him in his bouncer so I could heaven forbid go to the bathroom and enter communication..i.e. Screaming. Oh bother. When I quickly went to rescue him from the obvious pain he was in, as soon as he saw me....smiles. Yeah, hes got my number. Crud. Any advice friends?

Cute pic huh? Had too after I just blasted him about his screaming!

A Date, Birthday Party and Church!

This weekend flew by for us. Friday night Taylor and I went on a date :) Jordan came and babysat the little guy while we enjoyed dinner and a movie..I know such a cliche for a date! It was so nice to have some one on one time with the hubby...he even brought me home flowers (BIG surprise!).

Saturday we went to celebrate Cole's First Birthday at the Petersons (check out their blog). It was the first birthday party Jackson has ever gone to and we had a great time visiting with out close friends and celebrating Cole! That cute kiddo got so many awesome gifts, funny thing though, he wanted really nothing to do with digging into his own cake, more interested in eating it off a fork in moms arms! Thanks to the Peterson's for inviting us, we loved it.

Jackson posing with Cole's Bday invitation:

Saturday after the party we were tired so we just came home and played with Jackson the rest of the day. It was nice to have a little time just relaxing together!

Sunday we went to church and had lunch at Panera afterward. I wasn't feeling very well, and Jackson was not in his best mood yesterday either. Not sure if he is just going through a growth spurt and is hungry more than usual or if he had an upset stomach or what, but he was really fussy. We were thankful when bedtime rolled around because I knew the little guy would get some much needed rest then. Today he is all better, happy and playing like crazy. Here are a few pictures I've taken recently of him, hope you enjoyed the 3 Month slide show. I cant believe how big that belly is getting!

First pair of overalls worn!

Loves his excersaucer, a little intrigued by the star fish!

Jackson is 3 Months Old today!!!

Well its official....we have made it out of the newborn phase...WOOHOOOOOO!!!!!

What a month it has been full of many changes Jackson is undergoing. To sum it up since you have already read most of his growths: he is fattening up, trying to sit up (doing crunches i say), rolled over from his tummy to his back (today actually), drooling ALOT, standing on his legs (with moderate support from someone), laughing, smiling ALOT, sleeping through the night, way more happier in his car seat and is just chilling as a three month old!

Taylor and I feel so happy and blessed to have this little man chosen for us, we ask ourselves many times "How did we get so lucky?". Gods divine plans!

If you didnt get the email for his slide show you can access it through here. Enjoy it and Ill post a video of him either babbling or rolling over soon!

Love to all,

Taylor and Lindsey

1 Month

2 Months

3 MONTHS!!!!

Happy Fourth!!!

We had such an amazing weekend. It is so nice when you take your kid to his Grandparents house and you get a little of a break! AHHH so relaxed and rejuvenated now!

As most already know Friday was my birthday and when we arrived at my moms house a.k.a Grandma's she had decorated for me. It took me back to when I was younger, my mom and brothers and I always got into birthdays and we would decorate the house and then wake the birthday boy/girl up that morning with a birthday song and silly string or something else equally annoying! I haven't had a house decorated for me since I left home 10 years ago so that was a VERY nice surprise! They also bought me a "party" birthday cowboy hat. Which I felt was MUCH cuter on Jackson:

The card mom got me played a techno version of Cotton Eyed Joe and Jackson was banging on the card as it played, it was so funny we had to take a picture of it....sorry no video!

The fourth of July started off with a parade on my mom's street for the neighborhood. So we parked our lawn chairs out and watched it go by. It was such a nice morning, not too hot and Jackson enjoyed watching everything go by. Of course we couldnt take a family shot with out our other child in it! SHE really liked the parade. Especially the kids whizzing by on their bikes. Oh boy she wanted to be with those kids! She can't wait for Jackson to get a little older so she can play with him more.

Then the best part of the day was when Taylor and I went to a movie....ALONE!!!! It was our first kind of date since we have had Jackson and it was so great to get out and be a little free for a few hours! We saw Transformers 2 and if you haven't seen it yet, you have to go, its so good! The Fourth was rounded up by a nice dinner at Shogun's Japanese Grill. So yummy. Thanks Mom and James!

We had a great weekend and Jackson got so spoiled. So much so that when I took him to the YMCA this morning so I could work out, the ladies said " you know he wasn't fussy but he definitely wanted our attention while you were away." I said "Yeah, he has been with his Grandma and his pa all weekend" and the funny thing is that both ladies went "OHHHH, I see, that makes sense now!" SO Jackson obviously was given the grandparent treatment over the weekend! I felt a little bad though because his Aunt Sonorah was sick and I really didnt want her giving it to him b/c what she had had been contagious, wasn't while we were there, but still you dont want to take any chances. SO she didn't get to hold him all weekend :( sorry Aunt Nora!

Anyways, I hope everyone had as good of a weekend as we did and now that Jackson is talking (babbling) non stop, Im going to video it and put it on here. I cant help it, he is so much fun to play with and take pictures of. Jackson will be 3 months old in 3 more days!!!!

A Day of Visiting!

Today was an awesome day for us! For starters, Taylor is off work for the rest of the week. (YEAH!!) I love having him home with Jackson and I. To be honest, I think Jackson loves it the best. He just lights up when his dad is around. The other reason(s) it was so awesome is we visited three places today and Jackson never once lost his cool. I mean dont get me wrong he got fussy a few times, but not inconsolable fussy/angry!

The first visit was a quick one over to my friend and new mom Christi's house. She has a new baby boy Asher and its crazy because he is a little bigger than Jackson was when he was born and seems SO little to me now! I cannot even remember Jackson being that small....I know he was but its so hard to think back to it. Such a cute and precious new life God gave to the Morrisons, and I am so happy for them, they are doing such a great job and hanging in there right now!

The second visit was to the GG's (Great Grandma and Grandpa) house. Boy do they love this little guy. I think no matter what I say about him if it isn't talking about how perfect he is, they dont believe me. They think he hung the moon and then some, its sweet but also a little worrisome for me.... "How on earth am I going to keep him humble"?!!!! Here are two pictures that we took of them with him today. Grandma was of course loving him and gave him his bottle and then Grandpa was cracking us up poking him and tapping him on his nose. Jackson was just looking at them both and smiling and thinking..."this is the life"!! We can't wait to go visit them again, or have them come over. They have baby-sat for me already, and to be honest they were pretty good babysitters and cheap too!!

Note: In picture with Grandma pursed lips and chipmunk cheeks mean

there is spit up to be...well spit up... Next picture with Grandpa, check

out the stain on the shirt of Jackson, Yeah totally spit up after the shot

with Great Grandma. Nice right!

The Third and last visit of our day was dinner at our friends the Friedel's. Greg, Courtney and Emma to be exact! Courtney and I are friends from college...we were D.J.'s together (Daisy and Rebel we were called) :) Court and I are like two peas in a pod we are so similar. Anyways she is 12 weeks pregnant (YEAH) and has Emma, who is almost 4. Emma might possibly be the most precious, sweet, smartest 4 year old I have ever met. She is so funny and she LOVED being Jackons little guardian tonight. Not 5 minutes after we arrived she was asking to hold him so below is there picture. Next to that is the picture of Courtney and I at my couples shower back in February. We had a great visit but had to leave sooner than we wanted because of a certain someone whose name I wont mention!!! It was his bedtime and well, we are on his schedule now! We ate a great meal Court insisted on cooking (even though she was battling through off and on nausea today), and we were sent home with yummy brownies which may or may not have been eaten on the way home:) I am counting down the weeks till we find out if the little bean in her belly is a boy or girl!

So it was a great day with friends and family and we feel blessed that our monkey hung in there and let us haul him around. What a good kiddo! Tomorrow is my birthday which I am so looking forward to, I still love birthdays I cant help it! The big 2-8! We have plans to go to Tyler to see my mom and spend the fourth with her, but my step sis Sonorah is sick and on the mend. So if she is recovered fully (right now I would say she is about 85% recovered) we will go, if not I guess we will just have dinner with friends and hang out here the fourth!

No matter what you are doing or where you are we hope you have a blessed holiday and feel as lucky as we do to live in this country. Celebrate and enjoy your time with family and friends and thank God for the life you are living!