Earning His Keep

This morning Jackson and I headed outside to do some "hard work". 

This wagon was empty when Jackson started.

I tried to load some leaves in too, but Jackson wouldn't allow it. 

We can't wait till next weekend when we can do it again! 😉

Snapshot

Norah
Favorite things right now: Climb .. on benches, chairs, steps and stairs.
Struggles: Norah's doctor recommended us to move her from baby bottle to sippy cup and formula to cow's milk. She wants no part of either change.

Jackson:
He is in a copying phase. He tried to sound like a grown up and act like grown up. He even copies Will's coughs.
Food he likes: Yogurt, fruits, hot dog, waffle and eggs. Of course also cookie and milk. 

Selfie at neighborhood Oktoberfest

This year lake highland's Oktoberfest is at Flag Pole Hill. Four of us enjoyed beautiful walks, bounce houses and Kurby's bratwurst plus watermelon snow cones!

My baby girl

As I cradled a sleepy Norah in my arms, I looked down and noticed she's a tad too big to look natural there now.  It hit me that my baby girl's not so little anymore, and a tear came to my eye...

Our star student

Jackson has a new teacher since last week, her name is Mrs Sneeze. She has been given me good reviews of Jackson every time we met briefly in the hallway. We were skeptical.

Today is the first teacher-parent conference with Mrs Sneeze and both of us went. She started by telling us how great Jackson behaved -- He is most times the first kid to sit down in circle time so other friends will gather; He sleeps from 1pm to 3pm the whole time everyday; He enjoys being the caboose and keep the class in the line; He earned the most stickers(3 in a day) now they started the sticker award system; The list goes on....

She also talked about discipline issues for some of the classmates. Other parents looked at us so jealously that I can feel the pressure on my face. I was trying to hide my smile but it was hard. This feels even better than when myself was praised by my teacher when I was young, even though this achievement has nothing to do with us. :-)

We had this silly and confused smile on our face and asked Mrs Sneeze how did she do it. She thinks Jackson is naturally a disciplined child. Are we talking about the same kid?

Although Jackson still challenges his parents at home every chance he get, he is our star pre-school student! We are so proud of him!

First steps on first birthday

Today we took the family to Perot museum for a rainy day activity. Norah had fun in the infant area of the downstairs playground. Jackson discovered the sand pit the first time and all he did was sweeping the sand back to the sand box. He also gave us a lecture of how "rude" it is to bring the sand out of sand box and make a mess.

Norah tried to stand up without support a few times and she took a few first steps toward me

We had a new rule today that toys in the play area are common toys. The outcome of the new rule is that we have a super clean play area. Jackson started to put toys away just to claim ownership. Those kids... :-) 

Birthday photo shoot in Dallas Arboretum

Today we went to the beautiful Dallas Arboretum for Norah's 1 year old birthday photo shoot.