Diapers!!!

Jack is so NOT ready for potty training.  He does NOT however like dirty pants and tells us immediately when he stinkies in his diaper.  When he couldn't talk he would point to his diaper as soon as he pooped and when he was a baby would cry insistently to be changed.  We were hoping this would translate into early potty training but this is definitely not the case :(  Anna was our only early potty trainer, at 22 months she was completely potty-trained, she did this all on her own! She decided one day she wanted to wear panties and that was it (we take no credit).  We pushed Emma at age 2 because she was showing a few signs, but she ended up being a few days over 3 years old before she was completely trained, and Lizzy was a little bit later than that!  Anyway...this post is about Diapers ;)

I LOVE saving money and getting the best deal.  I've always bought diapers at Target or WalMart, or wherever they were on sale and I had a coupon!  However a friend peaked my interest when she bought diapers online.  I was reluctant because I wasn't going to pay shipping for diapers and what about my coupons?  But Diapers.com offered FREE 1-2 day shipping on orders over $49 and for new customers they offered a discount.  Plus if you refer someone and they place an order you get $10 off your next order!  I just placed another order, 1 case of diapers, 1 smaller package of diapers and a small package of training pants/pull-ups-I can hope right?-on January 4th around 10:30am, I received them sometime this morning, January 6th (I wasn't home but they were on my front porch when I got home).  I paid NOTHING for shipping, received $10 off my order and the promo they are running now is I get back 30% of my diapers purchased for the next 3 months!  Plus I have found Diapers.com is comparable (on the brand I use) at WalMart or Target (I buy them by the case)!  Plus they do allow coupons and even have ecoupons for you to use!  So if you are in the market for saving money, I strongly encourage you to try diapers.com!  Here is the link.  And if you do decide to purchase diapers from them please use my referral code so I get credit.  My share the savings code is: LIVI6078.

Holy Cow!!!

Here is the before (me at 38 weeks pregnant-December 28, 2008)...

And 6 days later came ...

Jack Tyler Livingston
January 2, 2009 2:37am
6lb 15oz  20 1/2 in

1st Mother/Son picture :)

1st Daddy/Son picture :)

Me & my 4 kiddos :)

Proud big sisters...

We can't imagine our lives without our baby boy!!!  Here are a few of my favorite pictures over the past TWO years!!!

Sweet Baby

January 2009

Jack's First Snow

February 2009

September 2009

October 2009

1st Birthday

January 2010

World of Coke

April 2010

July 4th Celebration

July 2010

All ready for church

October 2010

November 2010

We love you so much and can't wait to see what the years bring for you Jack Tyler :)

Jack -Jack

I wanted to give a quick update on Jack and his non-talking disposition I blogged about a few weeks ago.  Turns out when we started making him talk, he started to (what a surprise and a relief)!  I spoke to his AWANA leaders at church, Sunday School Teachers and Sunday night crew to start making him ask for things by name instead of just signing "please" or "more" that coupled with us doing the same at home has doubled his vocabulary, especially in the past 2 weeks!!!  There are still many words that are un-recognizable to complete strangers, but at least he's trying!!!  I will also talk with his pediatrician when we go in January for his TWO year check-up, wow can't believe he's almost 2 years old!!!

We are so thankful for our little boisterous boy and all of his new vocabulary, new this week: "Mine" (with an extreme southern accent), "dow" (down), "elpew" (help you) and "O00-jew" (hold you)!  His favorite words are still "Emma", "Anna", "Zizzy" and of course "Mama" (which he now says with major attitude) and "Dada"!  I think you'll be surprised if you haven't seen or "talked" with him in a while :)

Car Mechanic Jack

Always willing to help Daddy fix the car :)

Jack the un-talker Livingston

Jack doesn't talk.  He is 21 months and the extent of his vocabulary is single words "mama", "dada", "emma", "anna", "zizzy", "train", "yes", "no", "yay", "bye-bye", "bath", etc.  Majority of the time he makes a series of noises, grunts and sounds then points and one of the sisters (and admittedly me) quickly retrieves it for him.  Or he'll grab ones hand and pull them to what he wants and does the same makes noises, grunts and sounds until you figure out what he wants!  What's funny is my youngest brother Josh had this same "speech" problem, after my parents took him to his pediatrician they figure out the culprit, myself and my brother Matt!  I'm realizing now that Jack is in the same situation.  He can say a lot of words, but chooses not to use them unless we make him.  He does know sign language, picked it up fairly quickly and before any of the girls did.

  

So today I've resolved to teach him more signs to communicate in hopes that me saying over and over the word with the sign language he'll pick it up!  Right now he knows the basics.  As a Mom I am super frustrated!!!  By age 2 Anna was talking in complete sentences and was potty trained, but the girl didn't start walking until she was almost 16 months old, I guess I just figured Jack was on the same track since he didn't start walking until he was 13 months old!  I am now seeing the differences in a boy and definitely in each child!  I know the only way he will get better at "communicating" with us is for me (because I'm home with him all day) and the girls to make him talk!  I'm not worried at all that this is a hearing or learning problem, he seems to pick up everything else very quickly :) it's a matter of wills :/  

Any suggestions from Moms out there whose toddlers won't or don't talk?  Any help on this matter would make this Mama happy to try!!!  

Oldie but Goodie

I found this clip of Jack while cleaning off our video camera and thought it was too cute not to share :)  It was in early March of this year when he was just starting to walk!!!

Oops...

I forgot to add Jack's 18 month stats to my previous post?!

He now weighs 25 pounds, 25th percentile...

He is 30.5 inches long, 5th percentile...

Head circumference is 19 inches, 50th percentile...

Attitude in the 1 millionth percentile :)

A year and a half

Jack is exactly ONE year and One half old today!  He's getting so big!  

I always heard boys are climbers, so true because he climbs on everything...

Climbing on the kitchen table...

But I was hungry?

Just about got it...



He loves to sit in the chairs at either our dining room or kitchen table and "color"!!!

We love this sweet boy, but boy is he a handful!!!

A New gadget for Jack

As I was slicking Jack's hair back at the pool last week I knew it was time for another haircut!  His hair grows so much faster and is so much thicker than the girls!  I've always cut my kiddos hair, I just can't see spending so much money on haircuts for little ones, especially since we have FOUR!  Jody had a beard/hair trimmer that we have been using but really wasn't cutting it (literally), it was super loud and I was always afraid of cutting Jack :( The other day we were at Target and Jody found a kids hair clipper, perfect for our little man, so we snatched it up!

It is the Norelco Kids Clipper, here are some of it's stats:

• Ultra Quiet. Reassures and calms kids (and moms) during the haircut . No loud motors here.
• Kid friendly designed hair clipper comb tips. Rounded tips protect skin and ensure a comfortable cutting experience.
• More compact and lighter than average clippers. Made for women's hands and easier maneuvering around your child's head.
• How-to DVD includes tips and tricks on cutting different kinds of styles (buzzcut, long sports cut, the fade and curly hair)
• Easy maintenance to save you time. Self sharpening blades need no oil or other care.

I have to say this was definitely a great find from Jody and definitely worth the money to buy a clipper especially made for our little man :)


I couldn't get him to sit still to take his picture, these were the best of the bunch, he's sportin' a much shorter, "cooler" new 'do!!!  The top picture by the way was at the pool and the "before" picture :)

Jack-Jack

Jack is 17 months old today?!

  

I can't believe our baby boy is 17 months already!  I haven't said much about our little man lately, so here's what's been up with our Jack-Jack...

*He weighs just under 24 lbs at his pediatrician visit last week and is 29.5 inches long, he's almost as big as his sisters were at 12 months!

*He still wears size 12 months in clothes, 18 months clothes swim on him :)

*He wears a size 4 1/2 wide in shoes which is bigger than his sisters who all have small feet (Lizzy wears a size 6 right now and she's three).  

*His favorite things to say are "Oh wow", "bye-bye", "mama", "mmma" (Emma), "nnna" (Anna), "lala" (Lizzy) and "da-da" (Daddy).  

*He is ALL boy, loves anything that looks like a car or truck and "vrooms" them on your arms or legs, floor, tables, anything that has a flatter surface.  

*He absolutely loves balls, anything that resembles a ball and throws them (including foods, cereal, blueberries, peas, etc.), he throws with his left hand, so we'll see if he continues with that trend as he gets older and begins to write!

*He can wave hi and bye, blow kisses, he knows sign language for all done, more, thank-you and please but his favorite form of communication is yelling and pointing at what he wants to which his sisters immediately react and get him whatever he is "requesting"!

*He loves sweets or any foods that are sweet.  His favorite foods are bananas, raisins and vanilla wafers.  

*He does not like meat of any kind, we have the no thank-you bite at our house and he fights us every single meal!  He has a peanut allergy, so he can't have peanut butter for protein, but luckily he loves fruit!!!  

*He recently learned how to "jump" and thinks it hillarious to jump. 

*He is a Mama's boy.  None of the girls were as attached to me as he is, but I do have to say I love it :)

*He is still an awesome sleeper, goes to bed at 7:30 up at 7:30.  Still takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap.

*He recently has decided he despises his car seat and screams and does stiff as a board when you try to get him in his seat.

*He, just like his sisters, loves to dance.  He loves Brit Nicole, Superchick, Barlow Girl and tobyMac!!!  I can often look back in the back seat and see him dancing away :)

The girls love their baby brother, they say all the time he's so cute and adorable, we think he's a keeper too ;)

Older & Younger

This past weekend we took our youth leader's on a retreat to Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters in Andrews, NC (only about 2 hours from here). More to come later about the retreat...

We took Emma & Jack while the middles stayed with Mr. Eric & Mrs. Erin! Here are some pictures we captured of our oldest and youngest while we were there :)

The kiddos had so much fun!!!

Jack's NEW shoes :)

A few weeks ago Jack took his first steps. He really wasn't "walking", but in the past week he's been all over the place walking! We decided he needed to be fit for his first pair of shoes, we did it with all the girls too :) We found a Stride Rite here near us and they were running a buy one get one half off sale too, even better!

Here is Jack getting ready to try on shoes, it took a couple of times to get him to stand up and hold still so they could measure his feet (4.5 wide)! He freaked out every time the guy came over to measure his feet!

Here is a picture of his new tennis shoes! He wouldn't stand up with them on, wouldn't even hold still for me to get a great picture, this was the best of the bunch. After that first day he loves them and is all over the place walking :)

After some convincing (me to Jody) we bought him a pair of sandals too!

He looks like such a big boy in his new shoes!!!

Jack Attack!

Here is a cute Jack moment...

Schmellow Creamwich

One of my kiddos new favorite things is a marshmellow cream sandwich aka "schmellow creamwich". I don't exactly remember where they got the idea or when we tried it out but they love them, could it be all the sugar?! Jack was fussing the other day about his lunch so much that I eventually gave in and gave him his own schmellow creamwich and to say he enjoyed it was an understatement! Look at that face :)