On Monday, I took Jackson to the zoo for the first time with our mom’s group, St. Anne’s Society.  We had a great time walking the zoo and seeing the different animals.  We made it to the chimpanze attraction at the perfect time, during feeding.  We were able to see them up close on the glass.  Jackson had a great time watching them and all of their silliness.  We also saw the giraffes, rhinos, and elephants.  The big animals were his favorite since he could see them.  It was a warm, fun day.  I can’t wait to take him back when he is older!

I love this picture.  I feel like it captures his curosity.

My boy and I

I hope all of the wonderful mothers out there had a fabulous days with their children.

I had a great time with my little man.  What a blessing he is!  Through him I have learned so much about myself.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to spend so much time with my boy.  I never thought one year could change me so much.  Thank you Jackson for showing me a new type of love!

We spent the weekend down in Portland.  We took Jackson for a swim in the big pool on Sunday.  He loved it!!

This is the look I got today when I was watching Jackson tip over one of his hippos!  Silly boy!

Today, I made it offical and told the head of HR at Klein that I would not be returning next year.  For those of you that didn’t know, I have been on regular leave since November.  When Jackson was born, I planned on taking my 12 weeks of maternity leave (FMLA), and then I was going to make the decision to extend it to a year on regular leave, or come back.  With regular leave, you have a year from the date that your baby was born to be guaranteed a job in the district at some school in some position.

Anyways, I wrote the email today announcing my plan to stay at home with our son.  It was a bittersweet moment, as much as I love staying at home with Jackson, I hated giving up my other love, teaching.  As rough as some of my years have been, teaching will always have a special place in my heart.  I know that I can go back to it in the future, but at this time, being with Jackson is the best for our family.  I can’t imagine not being able to experience everything Jackson is learning for the first time.

I felt a lot of added stress today when I wrote the letter of intent.  Hollis does such a wonderful job supporting our family and now I need to make sure that we do a good job of managing our household and our income since it is now smaller.  Coupons have become my best friend along with consignment shops and resale shows.  Pinic lunches and sandwiches have been our way of eating lunch when we are out at playdates!  I have to remember that God will support us in our time of need and I need to let go of stresses and hand them over to God.  So as of now, I will hand over my stresses to my God and realize the decisions that we made as a family will be supported and are the right ones.  I will be Letting Go and letting God!

What a fun weekend our household had!  We were exhausted by the end of it, but enjoyed every minute of it!  On Saturday morning I had a baby shower for my best friend Katie’s sister-in-law Courtney.  Courtney is due with a baby boy, Grayson, on June 19th (Hollis’ Birthday!) .  We had a great time watching her open up gifts and enjoy her day.  Jackson came with me and got to play with another little boy, Katie’s cousin’s son, who is one month younger than Jackson.  Jackson was screaming at him and trying to get him to interact, but he didn’t do well with the screaming.  Jackson had the attention of many (like always), and enjoyed every minute of the attention!  While we were at the shower, Hollis enjoyed watching the golf tournament that was going on in the Woodlands from the backyard of a family friend of the Rupps.  He had a great time experiencing this.  After the shower, we took a little nap and headed to the Passmore’s house to celebrate Christopher and Kenneth’s 26th Birthday.  We had a wonderful time!  There were a lot of people there from church and TONS of children from our mom’s group.  The kids had a great time swinging and swimming in the pool while the adults enjoy visiting and playing washers!

On Sunday, we had planned to eat lunch at Discovery Green and hang out at the water park.  I had been there early this week with a friend and loved watching Jackson explore and wanted Hollis to get a chance to see the same thing.  We were also called that morning and asked if we wanted free tickets to the Astros game, so we decided since they are right next to each other, why not?  We knew the game was right during Jackson’s nap time, but since they were free (and AMAZING seats) we decided to give it a try anyway.  Jackson did great for the first couple of innings and then was getting sleepy, so we walked around and then left.

We had such a great time spending the weekend together with our Houston friends, enjoying things around this city.  Our little boy is growing up way too fast!!