Jackson and I have been a little under the weather this week, so we've been taking it easy the past few days. It's hard to sleep when you can't breath through your nose and there isn't much that can be done about that for us considering that Jackson is so young and I'm pregnant. Hopefully our heads are on their way to clearing out so that we can catch up on some rest. Here's how tired little man was during his dinner last night:

This is something that almost NEVER happens. He has never fallen asleep in his highchair before and he very rarely falls asleep some place other than his bed (besides the stroller or the carseat). The only other unusual place he has taken a nap is under the coffee table. He won't even sleep in our bed with us.

Last night I washed and sanitized all of Jackson's bottles for storage. Yes, we have finally, at almost 15 months, made the transition from the bottle. It probably could have been done sooner but I really was not looking forward to giving up my evenings of rocking him while he drank his bottle before bed. He's just not as serious about the milk when it's not in a bottle so he has no interest in being rocked while drinking from a sippy cup. I also had to give up those few minutes in the morning where he would return to bed with his bottle and snooze for a little longer so that I could grab a glass of milk and check my emails or even a few more z's myself. Here's what our mornings look like these days:

A sippy cup-o-milk on the couch with Dora on the TV. I am enjoying this time in the mornings with him as well though. I still get my milk (chocolate) and I buzz through my emails so that I can plop down next to him and just enjoy his calm and still time of the day.

San Francisco with Granny and Grandpa Mariner

Well, I uploaded the photos from my fancy camera, only to realize that I didn't do a very good job at capturing a week of Granny, Grandpa and Jackson together. I'm going to have to work on that in the future. Most of the photos seem to be of Daddy and Jackson. Mommy still doesn't like to be photographed so it's a rare opportunity to see me in any of them...

We started the week off with a bang by visiting San Francisco on Sunday, the day after my parents arrived here in California. The weather was sunny but a little breezy and chilly. Unfortunately we didn't do a very good job of planning our day so we spent most of it blowing through the sights in an attempt to make it from point A to point B. We walked for MILES up and down some serious hills. Our 1st mission was Chinatown. By the time we made it there we were a hungry bunch. Dusty is an adventurous foodie and chose a nice little hole-in-the-wall place right in the center of the action. I think it was a little too authentic for most of our tastes but steak and potato-loving Grandpa was a good sport although I was a little nervous when it took a few tries for the waiter to understand what Coca-Cola was. The rest of us just settled for water...

This is after the meal... still alive and with big smiles on their faces!


Nap time on the looooong walk from Chinatown to Pier 39.


We FINALLY made it!


Look who's awake!


Chasing a pigeon...


Granny and Grandpa with Alcatraz in the background. Doesn't everyone who visits San Fran have this shot?

Jackson and Grandpa


Stay tuned to see what we were up to the rest of the week!

Coming very soon...

All of the fun and exciting pictures from an entire week of fun with Granny and Grandpa!

I've Been Tagged

Emily, I just now saw that you tagged me... sorry about the delay!

Here are the rules: Go to your 6th photo file, select your 6th photo, blog about it, then tag 6 friends. Kara's rules: The friends you tag have to have a blog, and you can’t tag someone who has already been tagged. I'm also going to change them a bit because I don't like the triple-6 reference and 7 is my favorite number anyway, so I'm going with the 7th photo file and 7th photo even though I don't have 7 friends to tag who haven't already done this, but then again, I didn't have 6 either :0)

Mom's gonna love me for this one:


Okay! Ha! So this was back in May '05. Bay City, TX. Bellamy Brother's Concert at Michael's. Who better to go to a BB concert with than those who introduced you to country music all together: moms and aunts! From left to right: Renetta (cousin), Aunt Patsy (Renetta's mom), that's my mom smack in the middle and then me on the right... taking a shot. Renetta and I each have a drink waiting in the other hand too! How funny. Good times! Here are a few more photos from that evening:

Mom and I. Wow, look at your hair mom! It's definitely better longer!

Renetta and I and Renetta's cleavage. I've always been jealous of it.

So, I'm tagging Shannon (oops, I just remembered you tagged me back in Dec for another one!), Kate K, and Amy H.

Yeah, I don't have many blogging friends just yet!

Happy 30th Anniversary...

To my mom and dad. I'm so proud!

That Toddler Gym and Growth Spurts...

It has been a strange Monday. It's still raining here in No Cal, which isn't really strange. When it rains here, it's never just a quick shower... it rains for days. This morning I was surprised to wake up and see that it was 10am and I hadn't heard from Jackson! I ran to check on him and he was still sound asleep. He finally got up around 10:30. We were both incredibly lazy today. I assumed since he slept in so late, we would get little to no nap this afternoon but all morning he would lay in front of the TV and watch, so finally I put him down for a nap and crashed myself. We slept until 4 when Dusty's return home from work woke us both. You would think after all that rest, I would be ready to go, but I am just pooped. I think I am reverting back to my 1st trimester days! All weekend I felt incredibly tired and even the nausea returned to an extent. So I've decided that Jackson and I (or I should say the Strickland growing inside of me) are going through a growth spurt. Luckily we're doing this together!

I also wanted to let everyone know that the toddler gym that Dusty turned our living room into yesterday was not found to be as exciting as we had hoped. Jackson's favorite part was using the wooden spoon to bang on the coffee table, hence the beach towel table cloth. The boxes provided some entertainment, but in the end it was just a lot of mess to clean up. It was a fun idea though and we'd hoped he would find the newly arranged living room fun and interesting. Oh well, live and learn right?

Rainy Sunday

We're having a pretty uneventful Sunday, nothing to really blog about but I'm trying to get in the habit of regular posts. It's really rainy today, which is nice. I love rainy weather. So we haven't gotten out of the house. Jackson is napping, I'm blogging and Dusty is playing Wii tennis at the moment. Dusty has had this weekend off. This is only the 2nd time since we moved here in Nov that he's had an entire weekend off. It's driving him crazy! He gets so bored. I'm happy bumming around in PJs all day playing with Jackson but he's itching to get out of here...


UPDATE: About 20 minutes after I wrote what you read above, I walked out into our living room to find that it had been turned into a toddler gym of sorts. I told you Dusty was bored!

This is where the couch is supposed to be. Now it's our coffee table covered in a beach towel, Tupperware, plastic pitchers and wooden spoons; some of Jackson's favorite kitchen things.

I'll have to post again later about Jackson's reaction to waking up and finding this on a rainy Sunday...