To my Love Bug, my Buggie, my Snugs

Jack,

I have loved you since the day I learned we were going to have you, maybe even before that. Every day you amaze me with the things you learn from us or teach yourself, with the way you make me happy no matter how bad of a day I’m having, with the way you make your dad’s face light up every time he sees you. Everyone warned me that the first year of your life would fly by, and somehow I thought we would be exempt from that. And yet, here we are, exactly one year from the day you came into this world, and I feel like it was just yesterday that I held you for the very first time.

You are strong-willed and stubborn like me, and smart, handsome, and curious, just like your dad. Your favorite thing to do right now is test your limits (and ours!). You like to start going toward something you know you’re not supposed to (like the stairs), and then you look back at us with this huge grin on your face and a look that says, “I dare you to try and stop me!”

When you first started to roll over and move around on your own, you would roll everywhere – everyone, including your dad and I, thought it was the cutest thing! But then, before we knew it, you figured out how to commando crawl, and left the adorable rolling in the past. You finally stopped commando crawling several weeks ago and have become very good at “real” crawling, but I think that soon you will leave the crawling behind, too, as you are very quickly learning to walk.

You have mastered the word “Dada” and love to say it over and over, especially when I try to get you to say “Mama”. You love to wave to everyone and everything, especially the cats, but you wave backwards, and we love it! You love to play hide-and-seek, to chase the cats, and to follow us around, especially me when I’m cooking. You have eight teeth right now, and you absolutely love to show them off by making goofy faces or just grinning so big we can’t help but grin back. You love to laugh, and you love to make us laugh (and you do so often!)

You are the light of our life, the apple of our eye, the center of our universe, and we couldn’t love anyone or anything more! This year has definitely flown by, but we have enjoyed each and every moment of it! You are our little baby, our little boy, our little man…we love you, John Franklin Thompson, V!!

Love,
Mom


I love every picture we have ever taken of you, but here are just a "few"...

Woogie and the bookworm

How amazing it is to watch Jack grow and learn and teach himself new things! I love watching him every day becoming the little man that he is! His personality is becoming more apparent -- he is stubborn just like me and so smart, just like Bo! He loves being the center of attention (wonder where he gets that from!) and is such a smiley, happy baby :)

With my awesome camera skills, I was able to get a few more video clips last night, so I thought I would share. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!!

Jack's got quite an obsession with shoes (probably because we don't let him play with them), and this obsession inspired Jack to manuever himself up a step to get to a pile of shoes we thought we'd cleverly "hidden".

(Great) Uncle Matt & Aunt Meridith got Jack this book for Chirstmas. He loves, loves, loves to gnaw on the pieces that you pop out, although he hasn't learned how to get them out himself yet! It's pretty much his favorite book now, and last night, he was perfectly happy reading to himself...

Jack goes mobile!

Jack's been able to roll himself where he wants to go for a while now, but he has recently figured out that he can do the commando crawl! The cats aren't too crazy about it because he can move quite a bit faster than before -- too bad they don't realize he's just going to keep getting faster! I was able to get some video of him this morning, and since I couldn't decide which one I liked better, I'll just put them both on here! (I apologize for my poor camera skills!)

Everything in the wonderful world of DE has been going well -- Bo is still traveling more than we'd like, but we can't complain since we both still have jobs! Jack has been teething like crazy (he's working on his seventh tooth right now!) It seems like his teeth grew overnight...only a few months ago he was all gums, and now when he smiles, it almost looks like he has all his teeth! Solid food, here we come!!

Granny

For those of you who don't already know, one of Bo's grandmothers, Granny, passed away earlier this month. While her passing was not sudden, this makes the loss we feel no less. Over the last few years Granny's health had gotten worse, so it makes it a tad easier for us to be happy for her, now reunited with Bo's Pa Pa, who passed away when Bo was a toddler.
Granny was an avid Gator fan, and Bo would often call her on game days to discuss the upcoming game. Bo told me once that Granny was the one who got him to sleep through the night when he was a baby, something I'm sure Bo's parents fondly rememeber as well! We were fortunate enough to be able to take Jack to see her back in February...other than our moms, Granny was the only person who didn't immeidately hand Jack back when he started to get fussy. Just like his dad, Jack found Granny's shoulder a comfy place for an afternoon nap (see pictures below).
Granny was one of the sweetest and most generous people I've had the pleasure of knowing. We are sad for our loss, but as I mentioned before, we cannot help but smile when we think of Granny & Pa Pa together again at last!
Here are some pictures we wanted to share...

The next 2 are Bo & Granny back when Bo was a little roly poly

Sweet dreams for baby Jack in Granny's arms...

And on her shoulder

Mom T & Granny at our wedding

It's summer!

It's finally consistently warm here (although I don't know if we'll ever get used to being able to open our windows in JUNE!), and with the summer comes a bittersweet goodbye. We hired two sitters to care for Jack when I went back to work, and unfortunately for us, they were both seniors in their last semester at the University of Delaware. Their names are Laura and Kailly, and we couldn't have asked for better sitters to help us learn how to leave Jack with someone other than family!

So Laura and Kailly, if you're reading this, thank you SO much - you will be greatly missed!! Good luck in all you do!

Both girls were in sororities, so we were lucky enough to easily find a new sitter; she's one of Kailly's sorority sisters, and her name is Chrissy. Jack's been testing her limits, but I think he is finally realizing that she's here to stay! Before taking care of Jack, she babysat for twin 3-year-old boys, so I'm pretty sure that Jack is a walk in the park for her!

On a different note, Bret & Katie came to visit us on their way to Hampton Beach for the summer. Jade is getting so big and growing up so quickly - it's so much fun to see her interact with both Jack & Tristan! We're hoping that they'll stay with us again on their way home -- luckily for us, we're about halfway between Hampton Beach and Radford :)

Laura & Jack (we didn't get a pic of him with Kailly :( )

Quiet, content (not to mention adorable!) Tristan

"Large" and in charge Jade

The Johnson family

Good times at Graduation

Bo's brother, Drew, graduated from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary this past weekend in South Hamilton, MA, so the three of us, along with Kato & Gee Paw and Grandpa & Nannie went to help celebrate :) We rented a house in Gloucester, MA (that was amazing) and spent the weekend enjoying some good ol' Thompson family fun. As Grandpa pointed out on more than one occasion, Jack was definitely not lacking for attention over the weekend! He did really well in the car both ways and definitely, definitely enjoyed all of the attention, people to play with, and goofy faces (you should have heard everyone trying to get Jack to smile in the pictures...it's too bad I didn't have our video camera out then ;))!

Four generations of John F Thompsons

Jack loves Nannie & Grandpa
Beach time!

Unfortunately, we missed when the announcer called Drew's name (technical difficulties), here's what we did get...

Gee Paw's so funny!!

Kato comes to town!

Bo's mom came to town last week, and Jack had such a blast with her! By about mid-week, he knew who she was and would smile as soon as he saw her. She taught him things that only grandparents are allowed to teach, like how to stick out his tongue, and they bonded in the 8 hour car ride to MA. Unfortunately, I wasn't very diligent about taking pictures while she was in town, but I do have a few to post.
We started brushing Jack's teeth (all two of them). While he doesn't seem to mind, he is about as helpful as Gus & Cassie were when we tried to brush their teeth! His personailty is starting to show more and more, and he definitely lets Bo & I know that HE is in charge! He loves being the center of attention and loves to laugh. I think I've even gotten him to gaffaw (I think I would gaffaw, too, if I saw me doing the hokey pokey)!!

Kato, we miss you bunches!!

Brusha, brusha, brusha!

So helpful!

Just an update...

Here are some pictures of Jack and Bo over the last few weeks. Jack is not only getting bigger, but his face is even looking more mature! While we're excited to watch him grow and learn, it is so sad that pretty soon he won't be our little baby anymore!
Jack's started to teethe -- his bottom two teeth are coming in! I don't mean to brag or anything (oh yes, I do -- who am I kidding?!), but he hasn't been fussy due to his new teeth, at least not yet anyway! He does like to drool a lot, though :) He hasn't started to crawl/scoot or to sit up on his own yet, although I'm sure those milestones aren't far behind his little teeth...which means that we better start baby-proofing!

First solid food

This is his "Who, me??" look -- I have a feeling we'll be seeing that a lot as he gets older...

Getting ready to help Bo grill