Picture Collage

Jacob's teachers assigned the kids to make a picture collage of their family so they could laminate and put each child's collage up around the walls of the classroom. It was a lot of fun to make and such a neat idea so that the kids can share their families with their friends. I'm not very creative, but I think it looks okay!

War Wounds from Preschool

Jacob had a few injuries at preschool during the last couple of weeks. He frequently gets bumps and bruises, but these were a bit unique. I had a message on my voicemail at work one mornng literally five minutes after I dropped the kids off asking me to call in. Jacob had fallen against a stack of chairs and pinched his ear between two chairs on the way down. It resulted in a very swollen and bruised ear. Fortunately it was the top part, so no worries about internal ear damage. It was pretty ugly and the picture below doesn't do it justice.

He also came home a few days in a row last week with multiple fingernail scratches on his face and neck. There are a couple of girls in his class who like to scratch. Lovely. Jacob isn't completely blameless, but I'm thankful that he hasn't picked up this trait from these girls who also like to bite him. I literally almost cried when I saw his face on the third night. It looked like a cat got him. I can handle bumps and bruises, but scratches can scar. The teachers felt horrible and worked hard at addressing the situation. So far, so good!

Birthday Celebration

I celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago. My family came to Bloomington last weekend to celebrate both my and my grandma's birthday (same day). We went out to Famous Dave's, which is my favorite and then came back to our house for cake and ice cream. This was Bailey's first time in a highchair at a restaurant and she did great. It was nice to just relax and spend time with my family without worrying about cooking. My dad helped Dan put up a chair rail in Jacob's room and fix his door so it would latch when we shut it. It's so nice to be able to keep Jacob in his room now without him opening and shutting it every time he wakes up or doesn't want to go to sleep.

My sister also gave Jacob a belated Christmas present that got forgotten on Christmas. It is a ride-on mechanical robot that I call the toddler version of the Hoveround! It is hysterical!! It can go backwards and forwards and spin in circles. It also came with a remote control and Dan is getting his fill of fun with it too. Jacob is still trying to figure it out and I'll post a video of it once he gets the hang of it better. He absolutely loves it and rides on it while Dan works out in the basement each night. I have a feeling in a year or so we'll have lots of fights over this thing :)

Grandpa being silly and putting a "napkin hat" on Bailey. It actually stayed on for quite awhile!


Here is a video of Jacob singing "Happy Birthday" to me at bedtime. He did it perfectly all on his own before I told him to wait while I ran to get the camera. This version isn't perfect, but very cute!

Happy New Year!

This last month went by in a blur. The weeks leading up to Christmas were very busy getting ready for Christmas. I don't know if I've ever been so exhausted! Only being able to do things after bedtimes and naptimes took a toll. I was blessed with having the days between Christmas and New Year's off to recuperate and get home projects done. I think that I cleaned out every closet, cabinet, and drawer in the house! I love having a clean and organized house again. We packed away a lot of the baby items into the basement. After Jacob was through with them, we just stuffed them into a spare bedroom since we knew we would need them again soon with Bailey. It is both sad and liberating putting these items away. I love having some of the house back, but at the same time not knowing if we'll need them again is kind of sad to me.

Other than Christmas day, we really didn't have many things to do over break. It was great to spend quiet time with the kids playing with their new toys. I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow, but will miss the extra time with the kids.

I saved uploading pictures and working on the blog to my last day off, so enjoy all of my catch-up below. I have lots of posts for you to read!!!


Jacob with his New Year's crown he made at school

Jacob celebrating at a friend's house New Year's Eve, yes he is wearing jewelery, and no I don't think Dan was thrilled :)

9 Months

Miss Bailey is 9 months. This month she hit a few more milestones:

*She can now pull herself up into a standing position

*She can walk behind push toys, although not very gracefully yet!

*She is very curious about what we're doing and finds her way to whereever we are and pulls herself up to check out what's going on

*She is eating three meals a day and gets very excited as soon as she see her food getting prepared

*She loves to play with Jacob and do whatever he is doing. Sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn't.

*She is 27 inches long (42nd percentile) and 17 pounds 2 ounces (21st percentile)




Standing

Jacob insisted on taking a picture with her


Again, Jacob wanted to pose like Bailey

Lovin' her daddy

December Snow

We got some snow in late December and Jacob got a few opportunities to get out and play before it got too cold to do so. Here are some pictures along with a video of Dan pulling him on his new sled up and down the street for my benefit since I couldn't go with them to the park to sled.
















Video of Dan pulling Jacob down the street

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. My sister came down Christmas Eve morning and we got to hang out some and decorate cookies during the day. We went to a Christmas Eve service at our church and survived with the two kids due in part to it being a family-oriented service. There were LOTS of other talking kids for ours to compete with! The kids had a very rough time going down to sleep that night. Instead of them being excited about Santa coming, it turns out Bailey was beginning to get sick (which didn't surface until Christmas night) and Jacob was starting his phase of not wanting to go to bed at night (more on that another time).

Christmas morning we had a quick breakfast and then opened our own family's presents to each other and got to see what Santa got the kids. The kids got a lot of fun toys and books and mom and dad got what they wanted - a Wii!! We finally joined in with the rest of the world and got one. It's our little treat now after the kids are in bed. I don't know what we're going to do when TV shows start back up!

My side of the family came on Christmas Day and we had a nice lunch and then opened what seemed to be an endless amount of gifts. It was a bit overwhelming seeing all that the kids got and trying to figure out what to do with it all! The kids got a lot of neat toys and clothes. You'll see this in the pictures, but my dad got Jacob a fancy tricycle with all the works. Seriously, this thing is souped-up to the max! It will be fun to see him on it this summer.

We still have to celebrate Christmas with Dan's family, so we're not even done with the gifts for the kids. All-in-all it was a great Christmas and so much more fun to celebrate now that we have kids to live it through!


Enjoy all the Christmas pics in the photo album!

Christmas 2009

Engel Cousins

This post is weeks late. I wanted to post pictures of the Engel cousins from Thanksgiving, but December got too busy and I honestly forgot. Everyone made it home and it was great to not only see Dan's siblings and their kids but also his grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousin Rachel who Jacob LOVES.

Here are some pictures from the day.

Bailey, Audrey, and Rylee

The three baby girls again playing with the musical frog

Aunt Beth and Jacob

Cousins watching Jacob open his birthday present from Aunt Beth


Grandma with the kids

Rachel playing with Bailey