The Boy, his bat, tent, and dog...

Jack has become obsessed with his football tent he got for Christmas. All we have to do is set up the tent in the living room and he is occupied for hours. Roxy has now gotten involved in the action. (God forbid she be left out of anything!)  It cracks me up to watch both Jack and Roxy sitting in the tent together.
Jack has always been a fan of his bat, but he has now figured out how to hit things with his bat. He walks up to the dogs and smacks them as hard as he can with the bat. Of course he thinks it's hilarious and laughs every time he does it but I don't want him to be "that" kid who beats up other kids or be a weirdo who abuses animals so I have to grab the bat from him. The poor dogs take a beating before I can grab it though! :(
Jack has also started to string his babbling words together to form sentences. It is so funny because it sounds like he is speaking another language. He is such a vocal kid. Once he figures out how to really talk this kid is never going to shut up!

Chilling in the tent

Looking at them from abover

Roxy giving Jack a kiss inside the tent.

New Word

Jack has started to say a word I dislike more than "da da"...he has learned how to say "no". Why can't he learn yes you might ask??? Well, I'm sure he has learned "no" from the million times we say it to him a day! This kid is into EVERYTHING and has no fear. He falls and laughs and tries it again. His newest activity is climbing and balancing on everything. He loves to stand on Gabe when he is laying on the ground (whether he is on his stomach or back) and he tries to stand on every toy he owns. Yes, even the balls he tries to stand on. We always tell him, "Jack, no-no" so now he is doing that back to us. Awesome... what's even worse is that his "no" isn't in his normal tone of voice. It's a very whiny "no" and he draws the word out. He says it all the time now for no reason. All I do is call his name and he says, "nooo". Awesome... Gabe has found humor in Jack's new word by using it against me. "Hey Jack, do you like mom's shoes"..."noooo". Thanks Gabe!
He has also learned the proper motion for signaling a touchdown. When Gabe yells out "touchdown" Jack holds both hands over his head and smiles. It is so cute. I guess we watch alot of football because if you ask Jack where the football is he immediately looks and points at the TV first. Whoopsie...guess that was bound to happen since I did win my fantasy football league. :)
Jack is also in the process of cutting more teeth. This kid will have a mouthful of teeth in the next couple months. He currently has 4 molars, 6 of his front top teeth, and 5 of his bottom front teeth (he is working on adding the 6th shortly). I will be so happy when he is done with these teeth! Poor guy!

Jack playing with his slide he got from Santa this year. I didn't mention that he prefers to walk up the slide part...

I had to bring this empty box from his room because he was obsessed with standing on it.

He's so proud of himself.

Touchdown!!

Goodbye 2011

Wow, what a year! This year has just flown by! 2011 was a pretty good year...we had many firsts with Jack: first time sleeping through the night, teeth, crawling, swimming, words, going to the beach, walking, running, haircut, Halloween, and of course his first birthday! Jack has developed the best little personality. He loves to talk and ask his version of questions (pointing while saying "that"). He also loves to laugh and give kisses. He is sleeping longer through the night at this point. We put him down around 8 pm and he sleeps in until 7:30 am. It is so nice to wake up, make coffee, and feed the dogs before Jack gets up.  :)
Gabe and I have had a great year as well. Gabe is still working for the Mariners and loves his job. The chaos of spring training will start up before we know it, but it is so nice to have him off work from October-January. I am still teaching and coaching at Centennial. I am getting ready to start another season of boys volleyball in February so my life will become super crazy too.
We are so thankful to have such great friends around us. We went on a great trip to Michigan this year and are looking forward to heading to Vegas with the crew at the end of January. We celebrated new year's eve at the Putz house again this year. Each year this party gets bigger and better! We had a blast...maybe too much fun because Gabe and I were not ourselves today... :(
Thanks for being good to us 2011---it's time to see what 2012 holds for us!!
Some favorite pictures from the year...