15 month well check (finally) and other news

We are just buzzing along here this week. I am in the 5th week of bootcamp, only one more week to go and it has been great. I will definitely do this again! I wish it could continue indefinitely, I like the trainers, the group, the whole thing and most of all the RESULTS. I put on a skirt yesterday morning that I could not even zip up due to my a** prior to bootcamp. NOw it fits great....the changes I see in my clothes are the best and most obvious results to me. I am definitely down one pant size. I would still like to go down one more size and lose another ten pounds, but Rome was not built in one day either so slow and steady wins the race. I decided to join this gym, I REALLY like it and it is close to my work so my plan going forward is to work out 3-4 times over my lunch hours and then once on the weekends and that frees up my evenings for family time. This whole time I have been doubling up my workouts about 3 times a week working out over lunch and it is awesome. The gym is not crowded during this time and I get first pick at the equipment and can just get in and out and do my thing.

In other news, I finally got Jackson to the ped today for his 15 month well check...never mind he is over 16 months at this point! We had the hand foot and mouth a few weeks ago (joy that that was) and so could not get our immunizations at that time. This happened to us at the 12 month too so it seems that we are getting double the fun with the doctors visits this year and with the co-pays!! Darn insurance...good thing this co-pay is only $20 bucks. Jackson checked out great and was in the 90th percentile for height again, very tall as the doctor commented, and skinny coming in at only the 50th percentile for weight. His head was in the 70th percentile...lots of brains I am convinced! He weighed in standing on the big kid scale at 25 pounds and was 33 inches tall, almost three feet! I checked JOn's baby book (thanks Mimi for keeping such excellent records) and he was only 22 pounds and 31 inches at this check up. Jackson has been bigger than Jon though all along at each check up so it is likely he will be quite a big kid. One thing is for sure...he is NOT slow moving. He does everything fast and RUNS everywhere which results in a few extra scrapes and bumps but it does not seem to even phase him. Even the teacher comments that he is "speedy gonzales" at the school and just seems to love buzzing around all day. Hmmm...does this sound like anyone we know........??!! I am now convinced that I live with TWO Tazmanian devils!!

Since Jackson is on the move now at all times...and being that we are in major project mode here, we also got the child safety fence installed around our pool this week and had the main drains replaced and brought up to new code so they cannot suck anyone down into the pool! That was no small feat.......those things are not cheap but it was necessary! I must say that I am still getting used to the new look of our back yard but again, it is a necessity. I am convinced that one morning I will wake up (ok this may take more than one morning to accomplish) and not even notice the "fence". It is more like a "fortress" but, it is what it is and it can come down if we entertain or have people over to use the pool. We need to keep the tazmanian devil in training safe! He is a major fish and LOVES the pool so we only want him in it when we are there to supervise. He has this new suit that he wears and he loves it because he can be totally independent and kick and swim around the whole pool by himself (of course with close supervision). Last Saturday he even got bold enough to JUMP OFF the edge of the pool into the pool and then just swam around in his suit, nothing to it! His entire head was soaked and it did not phase him...we have a fish!!

Pictures soon..........its too dark out now though to take some!!

playroom pictures...finally!

We are finally moving things into the playroom and the office. The desk is finished, our computer is hooked back up, toys are in place. Now we have to sort the contents of the old office (that are strewn all over the guest room presently as you will see in the photo) and get the office really put together. Hope everyone is having a good week, is it really almost Wednesday already???!!!

not nice, uh oh, and other news!!

It has been another busy week in our household with work, bootcamp, playroom renovations and just life! We still do not have the room together completely (hopefully by the end of this coming weekend) and then we can download pictures to our computer and post them!! THe crown molding and chair rail are up, the walls are painted including the tree mural that Jon did.......now we just need to unload the closet (sort all of that stuff and figure out where to put it) and build that into an office. This will require another trip to HOme Depot I am sure, but we will get it right and it will be nice when it is finished.

Jackson has been learning up a storm at school and is talking constantly now, even if a lot of words are jibberish. He can say a lot though and parrots just about anything we say to him including PAPA and the newest one,MIMI!!! Sorry Grandma and Grandpa, he cannot say the "G" sound yet but we're working on it. He also knows he is "Jackson" and will point to himself when I say who is Jackson and he will try to say his name but that's a tough one for him. If you listen real close, you can here some semblance of "Jackson" when he says it. What words do come out clear include: Daddy, mommy and momma, dog, car, boat, not nice, uh oh, bye bye, no no no......maybe some others but these are the big ones. He has learned to say "not nice" from school. When the toddlers take toys from each other, the teachers say to them, "that's not nice" so his teacher told me the other day that he now says directly to the kid taking the toy from him "not nice" and shakes his finger........pretty funny! He will also say "uh oh" like 100 times when he drops something and sometimes i think he drops things on purpose just to get to say "uh oh" and see our reactions.

He is really really into reading these days and repetition of just about anything. We love the Brown Bear Brown Bear book and also farm animal books where we can make the animal sounds as I point to them in teh book. He can do quack quack for a duck, "cock a doodle doo" for the rooster which is HILARIOUS and also moo, meow, woof woof or bow wow for the dog and some sort of noise for a horse.

If you ask him wehre his nose, ear, toes, fingers, eyes, mouth and teeth are he will point and show you, he also knows his belly button and will try to lift YOUR shirt and show you yours too...watch out for that one!! Finally he will blow kisses to you and say "mmmmmmmmmmaaaa". If we ask him to get a certain book, he will go find it and bring it to us...it is amazing how much he understands from us even though he cannot 100% verbalize it all yet.

Pictures coming soon, I promise...its almost TGIF!!

P.S. IN BOOTCAMP NEWS:I am down about 8 pounds, and one pant size!!!

just when I said we're not up to anything this weekend...

That's what I get for saying "we're not up to much this weekend".......last night we were thinking out loud and decided we needed to renovate our office/dog room/4th bedroom and make it a play room NOW rather than waiting until after the first of the year!!! We were at Ikea a few weekends ago and bought Jackson a really cute white table and chairs and an awesome art easel and chalkboard. Now we have nowhere to put those things as our family room is getting very cluttered and he is more and more into coloring and crafts since he does this daily at school......so we emptied a book case last night, donated a bunch of old paperback fiction books that I've already read, emptied the entire room out this morning....rented a carpet steamer to clean the carpet, moved the dogs to their new room in the laundry room (bought Bella a new cage and water bottle in the process so they could both fit) and Jon is half way through painting the room now...I forgot to mention his trip to Home Depot where he bought a new light fixture, several gallons of paint, and crown molding and stuff to make a chair rail too!! He has cleaned and covered the carpet and painted half the room. Once the paint is done and dry, our neighbor who is a carpenter is going to help JOn with the crown and chair rail tomororw....meanwhile I have been clearing out the little half book cases and locating the bins and other cute things for Jack's playroom......pictures coming soon, the big computer with the pictures on it is dismantled now, as is just about every other room in our house since the office contents seem to be everywhere. Below the chair rail the walls are a soft chocolate brown, above the chair rail will be thick stipes to the ceiling in a light blue and a cream....we're keeping the awesome curtain with those colors that Grandma made for us last year so the curtain inspired the colors...plus just about the rest of our house has those colors too. I think it's going to be a super chic, gender neutral playroom!!! Jack is slowly taking over the house! Where is the office going you ask? We're rearranging the contents of the play room closet and shifting that stuff somewhere else (guest room closet) and the computer and office stuff is going in that closet so we can shut it away, out of site when we don't need it and have it all there and just open the doors when we do need it.......remember we have NO basements in Florida and we cannot really put anything of value in our attics either as it gets so DARN hot. So....no storage other than closets IN the house...what would you all do without your basements...do tell??!! One thing is for sure, you don't aquire a ton of crap as you are forced to constantly stream line what you have on a yearly basis!!!

happy birthday to Elisabeth!

Our cousin, niece and God Daughter Elisabeth is TWO today! Where has the time gone.........we are sending birthday wishes north today:) WE HOPE YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL SECOND BIRTHDAY ELISABETH!!!!!

In other news, we are still recovering from the attack of hand, foot and mouth. I ended up getting it (even though adults are NOT supposed to get this, I got the rash and all) so it was a pretty miserable week for all involved but Jon still has not come down with it and Jackson and I are on the mend. We're not up to much of anything this weekend, just catching up on sleep and getting our health restored!

what a week!

For a FOUR day week, this has been a doozy. Jackson has not been himself all week, and up until today, he had all the signs of teething and he has the teeth coming in to support this theory! Today however, the ugly signs of hand, foot and mouth disease showed themselves........he has a rash on his lips and in his mouth, on his hands and all up and down his legs. I had a hearing this morning at 11:30 and then after that I had to get him out of school. This is highly contagious and I am sure it is going through the school, we know someone else with a child in a different class that had it last week...too bad that they just told me that TODAY so I did not pick up on these signs earlier and chalked the excessive crankiness and other symptoms up to teething!

Here is some information I read up on Hand Foot and Mouth disease:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/enterovirus/hfhf.htm

So, Jack and I are home this afternoon, the hearing went well, and I am thankful it is the weekend. I have been doing well with my workouts, my clothes are getting looser and I can feel how much stronger I am getting and the exercises we do now are easier than they were two weeks ago, phew! The diet is also not that bad as long as I balance enough protein in so I don't feel hungry. I do not feel the dips in blood sugar that I felt before so that is a major bonus. It is just hard to have much fun on the diet as keeping below 1200 cals a day makes it really hard to eat out or do much of anything other than eat whole foods that are pretty plain.

Here are some pictures of Jackson (pre-onset of this nasty virus) with his new Ikea table and chairs.......good thing we upgraded and did not get the baseline set as I think it is going to have to stand up to a lot of action from this rough and tumble little boy!

Have a great weekend everyone, we'll post more updates later on.

Adventures at Disney World.........

We're back safe and sound after a mini-vacation over the long weekend at Disney World! We stayed at the Yacht Club and it was AWESOME. It is a really great place for both adults and kids and has the best pool on the entire Disney property! We played in a huge pool with a ship-wrecked water slide that looks like a real boat, a lazy river where we could float around with the current, and a pool with a real sand bottom and a beach to build sand castles in! There was even a baby splash pool in the midst of all of this and a playground....needless to say Jackson loved it and it was like "what do we do first"!!

The biggest surprise of all was when we checked in early Saturday morning after a trip to Ikea to get Jackson a little table and chairs...we have been looking for a good set for a while now and found a few at Ikea so we knew we'd be up there this weekend so we went there before we checked into Disney. When I went in to check in they told me that I had better go back to the car to get the rest of my party as we had a special check in upstairs on the penthouse club level! This is usually only for Disney Vacation Club members so I did not know what was going on. Sure enough, when we all got upstairs, we had our own concierge to check us in and as part of the club level, we got special gold cards for the elevator to allow us to access the top floor, and we even got club perks, breakfast served everyday in the club lounge, snacks throughout the day including juice and milk for Jack and sodas and juice for us, special happy hour drinks and appetizers each night and desserts and other snacks before bed........this was all thanks to one of my friends that is the director of room operations at the Vero Beach Disney Resort...long story but apparently he used to be the head of room operations at the Yacht Club so when we were at our recent United Way volunteer training and I mentioned we were going, he looked up our reservation and upgraded it all...what an amazing surprise! We even came back to our room the first night and found triple chocolate dipped strawberries as a treat. Needless to say this was a really great perk but hard for me due to the diet, but I was very good!! I did workout at the Hotel gym each afternoon when Jackson was in the room napping and I ate mostly salads and fruit for meals. I am not even joking, the gym was along the same level as the pool and I ran on the treadmill while I watched others sun bathe...now that is dedication!!

We did a combo each day of park, back to the room for nap time, and then pool in the afternoon and boardwalk or epcot at night. The best part is that they run such amazing specials for florida residents, we were able to upgrade the pass that we already had for just $100.00 more for Jon and I each (Jackson is free until he is 3) and we have an unlimited all park and park hopper pass until next June!!! So......if anyone wants to come and go to Disney, we'll meet you there, you just name the place!! This really is an amazing perk because one day visit to only ONE park is 79.00 now!!

I'm not sure what Jackson's favorite part was......the bus ride, the monorail rides, the train rides, or the boat rides! He also loved just running around on the playgrounds, the Little Mermaid splash pad area, and of course, the Aladin flying carpet ride, the merry go round, the Flying Dumbo ride, and the ice cream treat he got at Beaches & Cream!! I think we'll make this a Labor Day weekend tradition...the parks were not evey busy...all the northern guests are back home for school/work/life!!

Jackson is ready for the start of college football....

In honor of The Ohio State Buckeyes playing their first season game tomorrow, Jackson is wearing his OSU jersey today! Enjoy some quick shots I took of him this morning.....TGIF!!