Santa Cruz Day Trip

One thing that I like about living in the South Bay is being close to so many great places where we can take day trips or fun overnight trips. There are many places an hour or less a way (Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, San Francisco, Muir Woods (redwoods), camping sites, and other places if you want to travel a little further (Monterey).

On the 5th of July I had the day off and we went for a day trip to Santa Cruz. We ate at our favorite restaurant, Cafe Brasil. Jackson tried some feijoada for the first time.

Afterwards we went to the beach about 1.3 miles outside of the main Santa Cruz boardwalk. We basically just walked around a bit and played on the beach. Here are some pictures.

Daddy and Jackson at the lighthouse

 He's not a huge fan of the sun in his eyes.

Jackson's first time stepping in the ocean. He wasn't a huge fan. Too cold.

Jackson's Photo Shoot!

Jackson is 8 1/2 months old now, but we wanted to post some really great pictures of him at six months old. Our friend likes to take pictures and offered to do a photo shoot with Jackson for free. The pictures turned out really great. Now we just need some family pictures! I'll post more to Facebook later as well, but I always feel anyone who follows are blog should have a chance to see them first.

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8 Months and on the Move

Well, another month has come and gone and I can't believe we're already here! Jackson continues to be a very happy baby and loves to explore and learn new things...especially now that he crawls!!!  I have quickly discovered how un-baby proof our already baby-proofed house is, haha.  Each day he gets faster and faster and I'm loving every moment of it! I may not have much time to myself these days, but the days sure are becoming more eventful.  As such, this will be a short and sweet post :)

Jackson is definitely a Hochstrasser baby!  He refuses the binky and demands his thumb!

He is very proud of the new tricks he's learning: aka crawl and play with the outlets, crawl and pull books off the shelf, and (as he's doing here) book it for the computer/tv cords before mom catches me!  He was caught red-handed :)

 

Here's a video clip of Jackson crawling the day after he learned how to.  He has become more and more speedy with each passing day!

Thankfully, some of Jackson's naps are going much better.  He's not taking only 30 minute naps - YAY!!!  Here's the sleepy boy during one of his 1 1/2 hour nappers!!!

 

One of our favorite games to play is peek-a-boo...and now Jackson likes to pull the blanket from his face himself, hehe. 

8 months ago I was overjoyed to welcome Jackson into our family.  And now that we've had many days and nights together, some rough others fun, I am still overjoyed for this little blessing in my life! 

7 Months Old!

For some reason, time just doesn't ever seem to slow down once you have a baby. At least that's how I feel.  I can't believe Jackson is already 7 months old!  He is growing so big and strong :)  This month was a big one for him. 

First Easter

On Easter afternoon Jackson discovered that the Easter Bunny had indeed visited our home...and left him many intriguing treasures!  As this was an exciting day, I just had to capture the moment and have another baby Jackson at-home photo shoot!

Here's Jackson with his basket...

...which he promptly dumped out all over, but that worked perfectly for a cute photo set up :)

Of course, once Jackson discovered the plastic eggs (and don't worry they weren't filled with candy) that made lots of noise, getting him to look at the camera was near impossible.  He was just soooo interested in seeing what these round, colorful, noise makers could be!

As for the "BIG" present from the Easter bunny: A BYU sippy cup!  YAY!!!

When Jordan saw this photo, he asked if I put the sippy cup in Jackson's mouth.  I am pleased to report that Jackson did that all on his own!  What a smart baby :P

Other than playing with his eggs and sippy cup, we had a nice, relaxing Easter.  Next year I'm sure the Easter bunny will have to spice up the festivities a bit more, hehe.  

Milestones Reached

Jackson is so excited...he can now sit with no support!  He loves to practice sitting up so much that breastfeeding has a new added step: take a couple drinks of milk and then pull yourself to sitting position; plop back down, take a couple drinks of milk, then sit up again!  Haha.  

Usually during morning showers, Jackson would get quite upset.  He didn't like that if he dropped his toy he couldn't get it again and would have to wait for me.  Well, this month everything changed.  He is now rolling and scooting everywhere!  

The other day, I set Jackson in the living room to play while I took a shower, and thought, "Oh Jackson, we're in such a great place.  You can move around and play with your toys, but not too much that you get into trouble." When I came out of the shower I quickly realized that was not quite accurate.  Let's just say I put the cord out of reach now :)

Jackson also loves to take an active roll in dinner time!  He grabs the spoon and tries feeding himself, which is quite funny.  Then, when I decide it's time for mommy to do the feeding, he simply tries using his hands.  Result: very messy face, but awfully cute baby!

Motion Pictures

Jackson has been scooting backwards, haha.  This is as close as I could get to capturing it on video.

Jackson is so proud to be sitting all by himself!

His new favorite toy is his bouncy-door chair.  He could play in this for hours!!! (Please excuse the length and my silly baby chatter with Jackson :P)

Just Because He's Cute


Jackson is a very cuddly baby, and I LOVE IT!!! I am so blessed to have Jordan by my side as we raise our little angel baby.  Being his mother is such fun!!!

Monterey CA

After having worked an average of 55 hour weeks for almost three months, it was time to take a vacation. Even if just a short one. The great thing about the Bay Area is the cool places there are to visit within such a short distance. So we decided to take an overnight trip to Monterey, CA, which is about 1.5 hours away. We were very disappointed from our Utah trip that the pool wasn't working at the hotel. Most places in Monterey had seasonal outdoor pools that were closed, but we were able to find one that was around the same price as the others and had an indoor pool! So we got to take Jackson swimming for the first time!

Usually he splashes all over the place in the bathtub. But I think he was a little bit overwhelmed by all the noise (lots of kids in an indoor pool) because he was really chill. He had fun though, and so did we.

That evening we went to Pier 49 to try and find a good place to eat and check it out. It was very windy and thus, pretty chilly.

I use Yelp a lot and found a place that had really good ratings. It was called Old Fisherman's Grotto. Unfortunately, when we got there it said no strollers allowed and we had brought Jackson's stroller. So we walked around a bit more. All the restaurants offer a taste of clam chowder to try and get you to come in. The person at Old Fisherman's Grotto said they only don't allow strollers because waiters were tripping over some, but he'd keep an eye on it if we left it outside. So we decided to eat there. Yelp said this place was $$ (out of a total of $$$$). So usually I would expect meals to be between $13-20ish each. Well, we were definitely surprised to see the menu. Much more than we had expected. I went with one of the cheapest items, a clam chowder bread bowl, and it was super tasty. Christina was going to do the same, but I told her to get whatever she wanted. So she got a macadamia encrusted halibut with sweet potatoes. They were both really good! Jackson was pretty good the whole time in his car seat.

Here's Jackson and me at the hotel the next day.

We went for on the scenic 17-mile drive. There were a lot of places to get out. At Spanish Bay we got out to walk around. Jackson got to use his sunglasses.

 We also borrowed a baby carrier from friends.

The last place we visited was Cannery Row in downtown Monterey. No pictures from there, but it was fun to walk around. Overall, a fun and relaxing get-a-way.

Trip to Utah

So I (Jordan) haven't written a blog posts in months! Christina's written a few to keep people updated on Jackson. But tonight's the time to catch up!

Last month Christina and I went on a trip to Utah for some Ernst & Young recruiting events. It was a very busy few days, but a lot of fun! The recruiting event on Saturday was called "The Ernst & Younger Games." It was pretty much an enhanced game of capture the flag up at Aspen Grove. The weather turned out to be ideal for it. Then Christina came up for the lunch afterwards.

Bwood and Sarah watched Jackson while we were at the lunch. They said they needed some practice before their baby came. Jackson had a fun time with them. Afterwards, we went to Sammy's for some pie shakes. Yumm!

We also visited my brother Ryan and his wife Karin that evening. They were on their way to a ball at BYU. They took the pictures for that one and haven't sent any too us yet! So no pics there.

We also tried to go swimming with Jackson but were very disappointed to find the pool was closed for maintenance. Jackson was so sad.

On Sunday we visited my Grandma and she got to meet her great-grandson for the first time. 

We also stopped by Christina's brother and sister-in-law's place. Jackson had fun and got to see his younger cousin.

While I was back at recruiting for most of the day on Monday Christina met up with some friends, including Tiffy. They went for some Kneader's french toast, but didn't even take full advantage by getting seconds.