Jax Goes Ranchin

Luckily for Jax, he has a lot of farming/ranching blood in his background (thanks to the Hoods and the Elliotts). Unfortunately for Jax, his mom and dad fashion themselves as suburbanites and city folk, respectively.

On the bright side, the Cushman's Twin Creeks Ranch provides ample opportunity for Jax to... to... well, I guess fishing/shooting/horse riding and 4-wheeling are out when you're only 3 months old? Raw deal, Jax.... someday, my son. Just be very very nice to Sam Cushman. She's not the one you should be kicking in the shins. That is, unless she likes it and kicked you first (we'll talk about technique in this area in a few years).

At least for now, you got to ride on a plane! True, your dad is a marginal husband and your mom had to fly with you alone. At least you share her love of escalators.


It should be said that Jax was completely easy on the entire round trip. His penchant for sleeping in cars clearly translates to airplanes. Plus, if he gets ranching from the Elliotts and Hoods -- he gets some flying prowess from his Grandpa and Uncle Graff.

Here he is taking it in on his own row...


And then falling asleep...


Once at the Ranch, Jax wanted to go for a hike.


Similar to his dad's approach to household chores, Jax finds it more appealing to sleep while mom does all the work.


And here is a potpourri of other good times at the Ranch.

(I know, no Jax -- but what a great shot of the Yak)

A Little More Family Time

Jackson continues his travels from one relative's arms to another's. First, the Grandma and Grandpa Graff headed downtown so that they could get Jax some ice cream (well, at least indirectly).


At first, Jax's hat needed to be backward or his patented headbutt would be uncomfortable. But when you see something that cute, you stick with it.


Man that's comfortable.

Fatherly Advice Alert! Fatherly Advice Alert! Fatherly Advice Alert! Jax - if you're reading this in 21 years as your physical activity is grinding to a halt and you move to a big city where you're going to be eating out most meals and going out at night... remember that Ben & Jerry are two hippies that you don't need as friends...


Jax finally got a chance to meet his Great Aunt Dona.


And yes, I know she looks like "Aunt" instead of "Great Aunt"... but I'm telling the truth here.

As a side note about this time (11 weeks) -- Jax started some intense drooling. He's pretty much has a drool pool from his belly button to his neck at all times. I mention because Jax has a drool bubble in this photo - and if the light was different, you'd notice that he looks like a coed in a Cancun wet t-shirt contest.

In late June, Brooke is getting ready to head back to work. This meant a lot of traveling to Fort Collins and having fun before her evil husband made her go back to work. Grandma Scrivner was often a happy recipient of Brooke's travels.


For those of you that haven't been blessed with two many "when Brooke was young," stories.... When Brooke was young she used to get tired when people were visiting the Scrivner household. However, instead of heading to her bed or a couch to catch some Zzz's, her favored move was to fall asleep on the floor under the kitchen table. This way she could feel like she "didn't miss anything." Yes - a strange concept when you're sleeping, but it was her move all the same.

I believe she's trying to teach Jax the same as she has him sleeping on the restaurant booth seat. Also, be assured that this was before Jax learned to roll over.

A Birthday - but not Jax's

Disclaimer: the information you're about to read/see occurred in the month of June and is just now hitting the blog because Jax's dad is a lazy son of a gun.

Pop quiz.

Question: What do you call your aunt's brother?

Note: (Pete Cushman has a Graff/Scrivner/D'Ambrosia family tree that might help answer any questions on this subject. Please see him for details)

Answer: A lush.

OK. OK. That's just a joke. Chris D'Ambrosia celebrated his 30th birthday with a big group dinner at Maggiano's followed up with his friends trying to buy him shots and avoid having to drink any of their own. Jax's dad was lucky enough to pick this as his driving night and avoid the shots entirely.

All kinds of fun people on the scene for this one (working clockwise). Some guys that I don't know over on the top left, Chris Theiss and his girlfriend Ali under the TV (no idea what Theiss is doing -- but best guess would be a Boulder-erotic townie gang sign). Peter Cushman next to Braden and Rose. Hannah and Dax -- recent Denver implants from Arizona. Josh and Jen Guernsey holding the little guy.... and finally Jill and the birthday boy wearing a ridiculous cowboy shirt complete with dragons and skulls.

As the Guernsey's are about to add a baby to their crew this month, I thought it would be a good idea to get Josh some live fire with a baby that understands how to eat. Josh did great... which is a good sign, let's just say that he started out a little "rigid".


Chris managed to still get in some photos with Jax. I think Chris was just complementing Jax on his Broncos colors.

Finally, Jax decided it was time to go home.
OK, that's not true. He was still rocking out. Jax's parents decided it was time to go home and slipped out of the party using the now wholly acceptable "baby's tired" excuse.


What do you do after an all-night birthday throw down?

Get a zerbert from your uncle, of course!

A Good Weekend

Saturday morning, time to wake up! Looks like this crew was awake all night.

Doesn't take long to get in a good mood.

Weekends are a good time for your Aunt to give you a bath (especially if your dad and uncle are at the golf course all day).

Now that Jax can read, we're starting to spend a bit more time hitting the books.

It wasn't too easy for father or son to get out of bed on Sunday. Must have been the late night partying with the animal noises book.

He may look like Brooke, but he sleeps like me. Apologies for the excess skin. This blog may have just gone from G to PG -- but anytime you can put that type of farmer's tan on the internet -- you do it.

Let's zoom in on that one without the distracting oaf in the background...

Much better.

On Sunday, Jackson went to church for the first time. We've been excited about getting him in this sportscoat for some time. He was markedly less excited.

Church can wear out even the most pious.

That's a wrap (or is it "rap" these days?) on a solid weekend!

Trivia answer from last week: Jax had some yeast in his armpits. Apparently you have to 1) lift the arm, 2) then spread the additional skin in the armpit 3) and then clean. We didn't know about step #2. Yeah, pretty gross. No worries, the situation has been resolved.

Trivia question for this post... what did Jax do yesterday for the first time?

"Aunts" & "Uncles" Meet Mr. Jackson

Jax meets his socialist Uncle Bill. I'm not sure propoganda he's whispering to Jax here - but Jax can't believe what he's hearing.

Uncle Risom got some drool on his shirt and the opportunity to swap hairstyling techniques.

Jackson took off his clothes so that Aunt Signe couldn't make fun of his boring American style.

The fact that Luke managed to hold onto Jax with Brooke, Braden and Rose in the room is a minor miracle.

I love this photo because Jax is the only one who knows which camera is the important camera. Plus, he has some sort of Matrix-speed hand waving in action.

Jax's first dinner in Cherry Creek North. He's hoping that mom will put him back in the crib with Campbell so that he can throw some of the game that Jubbe was teaching him before dinner.

Uncle Mike has no hair on his forehead and if things progress, Jax will only have a tuft of hair on his forehead and the nape of his neck. Are the two Brooke's hot mama's or what? The other restaurant folks probably couldn't figure out who the moms were of these two infants.

As the Irishman says in Braveheart: "The Almighty says this must be a fashionable fight. It's drawn all the finest people." What a good looking crew. Right? Right?

Uncle Risom and Jax competing in Danish feats of strength.

Uncle Luke getting in some practice before his daughter arrives next month. Not sure what Luke did, but Jax seems to think it was something.

Sean also fed Jax. Come to think of it... after this night Jax had a hard time taking a bottle for a couple days. It's all starting to make sense.

Actually - a pretty strong performance by the aunts and uncles all the way around!

"The Sun Never Sets on the Cool"

These are shorts and glasses from Uncle Braden and Aunt Rose. We call them the "Iverson Shorts."

2 Months! Doctor time...

Jax turned 2 yesterday and is really living the dream. Yeah, we're the annoying parents that plan to celebrate every monthly birthday until he hits one year. If you find this wildly annoying, please move on.

First things first, the little guy had his two month health check. Let's run through the stats again.

He's growing fast. And, unlike his pops, he is growing more vertically than horizontally. Height checks in at 24 inches. That's 3 inches of growth in 6 weeks, good stuff. This puts him in the 86th percentile (up from 62nd).


Next up was the head check. He stayed at the 13th percentile measuring in at 15 inches (up from 13.7 inches). That triggered this exchange:

Brooke: Is 13th percentile concerning?

Doctor: Not at all. Head size is genetic. (Doc looks at me briefly and then at Brooke) I'm thinking that he got his head size from his mom.

Me: Touche.


Weight gain is going great. He tips the scales at 12 pounds 2.5 oz. That's 62nd percentile, up from 27th. Crazy to think that the little chub is taller than he is heavy -- but I guess the numbers don't lie.


And yeah, we don't really know protocol on when you stop posting naked photos of your kids to public websites. We'll error on the safe side so that Jax's high school nemesis in 2026 can't type "Jax" and "penis" into Google and find anything compromising.

In summary:


Doctor reports that Jax is healthy and let us know that all of our nervous parent concerns are no problem (shoulder pops, vein in nose, sleep schedule, traveling, loud environments, etc). Jax also might hate shots (got three of them) more than his dad.

Here's a quick video... he showcases the lungs a bit here if you haven't been lucky enough to hear him cry.

What do you do after a tough doctor's visit? DAIRY QUEEN! Plus, the little guy wanted to celebrate his two month birthday by watching his parents eat ice cream. Really, he loves it!



On second thought, ice cream comes from milk. Maybe Jackson can have just one bite?


Celebrating the two month birthday...


Hanging out with his bear (from Grandpa Scrivner) in the crib.


Wondering what the heck his mom is doing.


Finally, for any serious Jax Groupies out there - he's a 90 second video of him playing with a rattle and basically being a rock star. And no, I'm not biased.

New section for the blog. Jax Trivia! Feel free to post answers to the Comment section.

Brooke and I were shocked today when the doctor found a little bit of yeast growing in this body crevice. Where was it? (no, it's nothing lewd)