Jack's Third Haircut

Prepare yourself for one of the most boring, yet intriguing haircut videos you have ever seen!  Jack is usually not happy during a haircut, but he was so calm and peaceful the whole time!  His hair looks great, but he looks even more grown up now!

18 Month Photo

This was the best Jack has ever behaved for his monthly photo!   He is usually trying to get away, eat his bear, jump off the chair or crush the numbers.  This time after he saw Baloo the Bear waiting for him, he pointed to the camera and waited by the chair for me to put him in.  I got lots of great pictures of Jack and had to narrow it down, but I couldn't resist these two.

A Baby on the Way!

I hope Jack looks this excited when the new baby comes!  My due date is June 15.  Jack and the new baby will be 23 months and 2 weeks apart.  We find out on January 20 if we are having a boy or a girl.  We are hoping for a girl to even things out, but would be thrilled with a healthy baby no matter what! 

The pregnancy is going fine so far, just like the last one.  I haven't had many food aversions, cravings or any morning sickness.  We had an ultrasound at 10 weeks and were able to hear the heartbeat!  Dr. Salazar thought I had to be farther along to hear the heartbeat, but we must have one really strong baby!

Jack at Lunch

Ninja Jack

Here I am changing the time on the big clock in the living room and I look
to come down but this is what I see behind me. So fast and sneaky, Ninja
Jack will show up anywhere!

A Monkey Halloween

Jack's second Halloween has been so much fun!  We played at the Greenwood Community Center on Friday night after having yummy lasagna at the Smolas.  They were hosting a Halloween party that was actually sponsored by Endress + Hauser!  Jack and Asher were a little bit too late to enter into the costume contest, but they enjoyed running around in the empty gym when it was over.  We must have taken at least a hundred photos of Jack in his costume, but most of them show him running from us with his cute little tail!  You can see Lion Asher running ahead of him in the picture below.

We spent Halloween driving from house to house to see the grandparents.  At Grandma Karin's, Great Grandma and Blaine came to check out our little monkey too!  He got a vintage Jack-o-Lantern that belonged to Karin and then John as a child.  It had some cookies and a banana inside.  Jack bit the banana right through the peel because he was so excited to eat it! 

Then it was off to Grandpa and Grandma Norma's.  He got another treat bag filled with books, socks and cupcakes.  He got to visit with butterfly Michaela too.  We loved the costume because it was just like a puffy hoodie and pants he can wear anytime!  Jack helped us greet trick-or-treaters once we arrived home.  Halloween was certainly a success when you look back at last year:

Anderson Orchard

We took Jack to the amazing Anderson Orchard this Saturday.  The weather was sunny and perfect.  We got up early, packed a cooler and headed to Mooresville.  Jack was only in the stroller for a few minutes before we saw these beautiful rows of mums and saw a great opportunity for a picture.

Of course I had to come in and snag a kiss!

We've always called Jack our little pumpkin!  One of the pumpkins we bought was 15 pounds and the other one was about 12 pounds.

Jack got rather attached to this baby pumpkin and didn't want to let it go!

This is one of the only pictures we got of him actually looking in the direction of the camera.  He was so excited and wanted to touch and see everything!

Here's John picking some ripe Golden Delicious apples.  Apparently that is about the only apple left in the orchard this time of year.  We plan to go back in August next year to get a better selection of apples.

We walked up and down a few rows picking out some apples before we wised up and drove until we found some apples we wanted to pick.   When we were leaving and showed the guy our apples so we could pay, he made fun of us!  Since our bag wasn't full, he said there are bag filling lessons at 4:30 in the morning.  Haha!  We didn't need a whole giant bag of apples.

We visited the store and concession stand before we left.  I wanted a cider slush which was delicious!  We bought a couple of pumpkins and a gorgeous mum for decorating the house.  John got some apple butter, and we were on our way.  We left feeling very satisfied with our trip and proud of ourselves for providing such experiences for Jack!