The big Dipper

Jack has discovered the wonderful world of sauces lately. He is a notorious double, even quadruple, dipper. Here he is making the most of his french fries!!

Fun at Mimi's

Here are some more pictures of Jack from his Houston visit. Aunt Jen and Corinne came over to play one day. Jack wouldn't cooperate for a picture of them together........ We took him to feed the ducks near Mimi's school one day last week and he loved it. At first he wanted the ducks to take the bread from his hands, but they weren't so sure. He learned really quickly how to throw the bread to them though! There was one duck that followed us around eveywhere for more bread (the one with the big red bumps). He was sad to see Jack leave. :)

Jack's first Shabbat

Our friends Clay and Christine were nice enough to let Jack and me stay with them before we headed to Houston for Thanksgiving. We happened to be there on a Friday and experienced our first Shabbat (Jewish dinner that begins the Sabbath). I think Jack liked the candles the most! He had a blast playing with Carter and Avi that night. Thanks for being great hosts Clay and Christine!

Jack enjoyed spending time with his extended family these past few days. He got to see his cousins and Aunts/Uncles. At first he was shy and warmed up after a while. Here he is feeding crackers to Grand Mama and cousin Cody. He was slowest to warm up to cousin Ashley, partly b/c I believe he thought she was a babysitter and that we were going to leave! He was extra sweet though and gave her a kiss when she left :) Little stinker! Getting pictures of everyone with Jack is tough........ it's the equivalent of capturing a wild animal on film!!!! :)

Fun at Mimi and Popa's

We're in Houston for Thanksgiving and Jack has been getting in some quality time with his Mimi and Popa. Jack loves to ride his Popa's rocking horse. He can climb that thing himself and start to ride. I think he could climb a pole though..... I definitely have a climber. Anyway, we also are testing out the "big boy bed" this week. If it goes well here we'll try it at home :) So far Jack loves to get in it but didn't want me to leave him in it last night. We'll keep trying though. We transfered him over to it last night and he slept in it very well till about 5:30 am. Not too shabby for the first time. I think he woke up and was like ???. He went back to sleep until 7 am though (thanks goodness!).

Rain, rain go away

It's been raining here for 2 days straight now. I had to get us both covered up in our raincoats to go to Toddlearn today. Jack has worn the raincoat before, just not the hood. He's becoming more tolerant of hats these days, which is nice. You can tell he still was a little unsure about it all though!!

Learning tower

We got Jack a learning tower after it came highly recommended by my friend Stephanie. Jack loves to "help" me in the kitchen and I hated to have him stand on a chair so he could reach the counter. Anyway, the learning tower came today and I assembled it while Jack was at MDO. Once he got home I showed it to him and he took to it like a duck to water. He was dancing on it and discovered two very interesting things.... 1) the light switch to the kitchen, 2) the kleenex box that mommy hides from him (hence the picture of him pretending to blow his nose). Now I'm going to have to find other places to stash the mail so Jack won't get into it!!

Louie and Redhead

We have a restaurant here in Mandeville called Louie and Redhead Lady. It's a mom and pop type of joint that happens to happen the best pancakes around. This is not lost on Jack! It's a tradition of ours to go every Wednesday morning for breakfast, just the two of us. Here we are sitting at our typical table enjoying the fare.

All grown up

Jack is growing up so fast. We've long retired the highchair as Jack prefers to dine at the table with us. He's using utensils on a regular basis now as you can see. Next thing Iknow he'll be asking me for the Sports section of the newspaper! My big boy.

Renaissance Jack

We took Jack to the Renaissance Festival today and he loved it! We enjoyed people watching all the "carnies" :) Jack had his first turkey leg and let me say that he made me very proud...... he ate on that thing for a long time. He didn't even make a mess! We got him a Knights' sword and shield (as you can see he had to taste it first). Dave took him on a barrel ride but that was a bit much for Jack's liking since it spun around. This is something we'll definitely do year after year!