Life with the Liggetts: Feeling Blessed

There's something about driving around on a beautiful day with my precious baby boy babbling {and grunting and growling} in the backseat that makes me realize just how completely blessed I am. I honestly have too many blessings to even begin to count them all, but here are just a few of the thoughts running through my head these days.

I have a son who is both healthy and completely adorable, who puts a smile on my face every single day, who makes me so incredibly proud, and who has turned my world upside down.
I have a husband who supports me in everything that I do, who works super hard so that I don't have to, who never forgets to tell me how beautiful I look, and who truly is my best friend.
I have a family {both sides!} that would do anything for us, that loves our baby just as much if not more than we do, and that is close {both physically and relationship-ly speaking}.
I have so many wonderful friends, and although I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like to, they remain close regardless.
I have an employer that allows me to work part-time and have flexible hours.
And on top of having a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and good health...I love the layout and location of our new house; my closets are literally overflowing and in need of a good cleaning; and my body is finally starting to somewhat resemble what it did before I had Jackson.

Seriously -- how did I get so lucky? Life is good. VERY good.

Here are some of the things we've been up to this past week.

Hanging out in the office parking garage waiting for Mimi and watching all of the cars.

Mastering the pincer grasp while eating dinner with mom and dad.

No meal is complete without dessert {a.k.a. an ice cube in his mesh feeder}.

He touches everything with just one finger these days. It's so funny!

Before we bought our house, we found out during the inspection that the sliding glass door was made of non-tempered glass. The inspector recommended that we replace it for safety reasons -- especially since we have a baby and pets, so on Tuesday, we had it replaced. I originally wanted to replace it with something exactly like it, but after finding out that it would be a super expensive custom door because of its size, we ended up replacing it with a regular size sliding glass door and filling the rest in with glass panels.

Before

During

After

I also took Jackson to his 9-month well-check appointment, and despite the fact that it ended up being when he usually goes down for a nap {things have changed since I made the appointment 3 months ago}, he did great. He started fussing towards the end, and I was doing my best to ask all of the questions that I had prepared -- which mostly centered around his eating and my concern with getting him to eat 3 meals a day like it says online in addition to all of the times that he nurses or takes a bottle. I had "first time mom" written all over me. Thankfully, Dr. Dawson said that I was doing a great job and that I should probably stop reading so much -- haha.

Playing with the paper was the ONLY thing that would make him happy.

He was just making sure that the nurses knew that this paper was used. He's such a good little helper. ;)

A picture in his new fleece PJ's -- that only lasted for all of a couple nights. Come back, cold weather!

My mom was out of town for a few days, so Jackson spent the day with Ben on Wednesday. They went to a meeting in Bastrop, one at the office in Round Rock, and they even went to check out the bike trailers at REI.

There was some normal baby stuff thrown in there, too -- like eating and napping.

He looks like such a big kid to me here. I think it's the jeans and the fact that his diaper looks like it could be boxers sticking out.

When I got home from work, they greeted me at the door with a bag of frozen okra on Jackson's head. It turns out Ben was trying to score extra points by cleaning the house while I was on my way home from work and set Jackson on the bed while dusting one of the nightstands. Unfortunately, he crawled off, and just as he was about to hit the wood floor, Ben grabbed him and tried to yank him back up, but he ended up hitting even harder. Thankfully he had stopped crying by the time I got home and seemed perfectly fine. Ben, on the other hand, was still a little upset.

Oh, and if you're wondering what the crazy hair is all about, it apparently looked like that when he woke up from his afternoon nap. I asked that same question. ;)

Goodnight, sweet boy.

Ben will use any excuse to go back in and see Jackson while he's sleeping, so of course, the bump warranted a couple of visits. Apparently the video monitor wasn't enough. ;)

On Thursday, we went to Stroller Strides.

Jackson fell asleep in the car on the way home, so since it was so cool out, I decided to leave him in the car with both the car door and garage door {the one leading into the house, not outside} open so that I could hear him when he woke up. I'm not sure if that makes me a bad mom or a genius, but either way, I got an 1.5+ hour nap out of it. And to top it off, he woke up super happy!

Again with the one finger.

And a little game of roll the pumpkin...

...all over house. Seriously, this is the best dollar that I've ever spent!

Baby's 1st obstacle course.

When Ben got home from work, we walked to Phil's Ice House for dinner. Eating out is not quite as relaxing as it used to be -- we fed Jackson while we waited for our food, and then he played with plastic spoons and condiment cups {a.k.a. dropped them on the ground} while we ate our burgers. I wouldn't have it any other way though. :)

This week, we ventured out a little with Jackson's food a little and tried both string cheese and toast. He liked both, but he didn't necessarily love them. He gummed them a little bit, played with them for a little while longer, and then eventually dropped them over the side of the highchair. I'm trying to teach him "all done" in sign language but dropping it over the edge of the highchair is still his preferred way of communicating that he doesn't want anymore.

Aunt Holly and Uncle Nelson came over to watch Jackson so that we could sneak away for Tiffany's surprise birthday party, but we didn't stay out too late because we knew our little guy would be up bright and early the next morning.

Breakfast at Galaxy Cafe.

Getting my oil changed.

Later that afternoon, we walked over to Gullet Elementary for their fall carnival. It was such a beautiful day, and there were so many people there. Most of the booths were geared towards kids older than 9 months {shocker, huh?}, but we had a great time walking around, and Jackson loved watching all of the little kids run around.

He also had fun staring at all of the animals in the petting zoo.

They had goats, a turtle, a pony, a baby pig, and chickens...

...but the ducks were by far his favorite. I have a feeling it was because they were the loudest and fastest {they were running from all of the kids that were chasing them}, but he could not take his eyes off of them.

Just taking it all it -- and teething at the same time. This boy is quite the multitasker. ;)

After finding the ticket table, I bought a few tickets so that I could take him inside the fence and get a little closer. He was pretty serious the whole time that we were in there, but he was so sweet with the animals and would either gently pat them or just touch them with his pointer finger.

While we were there, we also stopped at the playground, and Jackson and I did a little swinging. It's so fun to think that Jackson will be at that school and playing on that playground in just 5 short years.

Before we left, we needed to find something else to spend our tickets on, so we stopped by the concessions and picked up some popcorn and some cotton candy. It's embarrassing to admit it, but I'm pretty sure I was just as excited as the other little girls about the edible glitter.