Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. My family visited on Christmas Eve, but couldn't stay as long as planned due to the weather. I was just glad they could come at all despite the rain and ice we had that day. My sister was able to spend part of the weekend before in Bloomington and helped me make the cut-out cookies and then was nice enough to babysit Jacob Saturday night while we went out on our 2nd date to dinner and an ISU basketball game. She was also able to stay over until Christmas morning and have breakfast with us before going back home and into work that day. Joys of working in the medical field. Jacob has really taken to Sharla and loved having a playmate with lots of energy. She definitely brings out the best in him! Dan, Jacob, and I spent Christmas day by ourselves and were able to relax and just enjoy the day. We spent Saturday after Christmas with Dan's family and had a great time. Jacob did really well with the other grandkids. Watching five children under five rip open gifts at one time was absolute craziness. Wait until next year when there are eight!! We were blessed that the younger children all napped at one time so we got to have some adult time and play games for a couple of hours uninterrupted.

I took 221 pictures over Christmas and have selected my favorites to share. Enjoy the photo album!!

Christmas 2008

Learning to Communicate

This past month, Jacob has really developed communication skills with us. He points to everything and makes some verbal noise like he is trying to say what things are. I really think that he is understanding more and more of what we say to him, which is really fun. I ask him to bring me a book and he says "buh" and than goes over and grabs a book and then sits in my lap without me asking him to, which is so great! He also understands when we tell him it's time to eat or if he is ready for something to drink. When it is bath time, we tell him "it's time to take a bath" or "let's go upstairs" and he goes straight to the stairs and waits for us to let him through the gate. One night he even was ready before we were and walked over to the gate, shook it, walked back to us, and pointed back to the stairs like "c'mon mom and dad it's time for bath and bed!" His teacher at daycare told me today that when he is ready for his nap, he goes over to where his cubby is that holds his blanket and pacifier and points to it letting her know it's time to go down for a nap.

I know that he has a ways to go, but it is so exciting that we can now start explaining things to him in hopes that he understands what we're saying!

Christmas Preparations

The past couple of weeks have been filled with preparing for Christmas. Amazingly, we are in great shape, despite Christmas still being two weeks away. Christmas decorations are up, lights hung outside, shopping near done, wrapping near done, Christmas cards addressed and mailed. Although so much is done, I still feel stressed. I am so lucky that Dan is a great, efficient shopper and he saves me so much time in this area. He has an eye for deals and can shop very quickly. I am slow as a turtle when I shop because I over-analyze everything and can't make up my mind. I have a few things to shop for tomorrow, but thanks to Dan, we're almost finished up.

What is left to do is baking, cooking, and cleaning. I LOVE to bake at Christmas time and this is the only time you will find me making anything from scratch. I usually make TONS of chex mix and cookies and end up with lots left over after sending plates to family and work. I didn't bake last year because I was trying to lose the baby fat, but it is ON this year!! I think that I am going to stay off of the scale from this point forward because it won't be pretty :)

We are hosting my side of the family on Christmas Eve so I need to get the house cleaned and a menu set for that day. Thank goodness my sister will be there to help me get the food ready because she is a whiz in the kitchen. As of now, our Christmas Day will just be the three of us, but I'm looking forward to spending a quiet day with Dan and Jacob. We'll probably celebrate with Dan's family that weekend.

Post-Christmas, I have that whole week off and plan on tackling projects around the house and visiting with some friends I don't get to see much during the year. I am hoping for a day or two of quiet time and maybe even read a book (I started one in August and haven't had time to touch it since). Jacob is going to daycare because we're paying for it anyways and if he was home it would defeat the purpose of getting anything done OR relaxing :)

Anyways, I meant for this post to be about how crazy Christmas time is and how our society has placed so much emphasis on everything except about what Christmas is truly about. I admit, I am completely caught up in all this ridiculous insanity, but I think it is important to take a step back and remember the reason for the season. As Jacob gets older, I hope that we can instill in him that Christmas is not about receiving, but giving back and celebrating the greatest GIFT we have ever received.

22 weeks down, 17 to go

I hit the 22-week mark today and have 17 left (at most) before meeting our little girl! I finally remembered to have Dan take my picture today so you can see how big I am getting! I am starting to feel the pregnancy more-and-more. My belly is starting to get in the way of things. Bending down has become harder and I think that she is already pushing into my lungs. Two nights ago I felt her kick on the outside of my belly for the first time. She's been kicking for weeks but now they are getting strong enough to feel with my hand and are becoming more frequent. She is already 11 inches long and over a pound!

White Surprise after a LONG Week

This week started out with Jacob getting a cold last Sunday quickly followed by tonsillitis on Monday. He was sent home from daycare on Monday and stayed home both Tuesday and Wednesday. He dealt with the infected tonsils like a champ, but he had a fever for three days that really knocked him down. He was doing much better by Wednesday afternoon so we went ahead and made the trip down to Decatur early so we could visit with my family that was in town for Thanksgiving. Most of my family (minus my cousins) on my dad's side were here so it was a great Thanksgiving. Friday was spent with Dan shopping (starting a 4 am!) and getting Christmas decorations set up inside and outside. I wanted Jacob to have a quiet and regular day so he could catch up on some rest, so we stayed home all day which was nice. On Saturday we went to Dan's mom's house for the Engel Thanksgiving. There was a lot of family there and Jacob got to play with his cousins. It will be interesting next year because Dan's older sister is due with her third six days after ours is due and his brother is expecting his first a month later!

After a long week, today has been fairly quiet. As a surprise, we woke up to several inches of snow!! This was one of those snows that cakes everything in its path so all of the trees were full of snow and it was so pretty outside! It snowed a couple more inches in the morning and we stopped at Target on the way home from church to pick up Jacob some snow boots. After a quick nap, Jacob had his first snow adventure. He got all bundled up and we played in the snow in the backyard. The five inches of snow turned out to be impossible for him to walk in so we let him go down our slide over and over!! He had a blast and didn't want to quit. Here are some pictures and a video of Jacob playing in the snow.



After Jacob's first attempt of standing in the snow

Sitting on a mound of snow that Dan made after shovelling an area for Rascal

Jacob and Daddy

Jacob and Mommy

Excited to go down the slide

Again!

And again!!


Video of Jacob going down the slide

Month-by-Month Pictures

I made a point to take Jacob's picture each month during his first year. I thought it would be fun to lay them all out here to see how he has changed since being born!

Newborn

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months


5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

One-year old

What's New with Jacob

Jacob had his one-year check-up last Tuesday and all is well. He is still tall for his age (31 inches - 83rd percentile) and just below average in weight (22 lbs 6 oz - 46th percentile). They always measure his head, but never tell me what percentile he is in, but finally told me it was in 86th percentile. So he has a big noggin!

Although Jacob has been walking for almost three months now, he is still clumsy at times. I have gotten used to checking the front office at daycare each night to see if there is an accident report waiting for me (usually about once a week). The other day he tripped over his friend he was chasing and hit his forehead on the door, which left a very swollen and nasty bruise on his right side. That night at home (stupidly) we were playing chase with each other and as I got close to him he turned around and hit a wall corner on his left forehead and literally bounced off so hard he fell straight back. That left a line bruise all the way down to his cheek. I think that his problem is that he wants to go faster than his feet are coordinated to do so. He is a tough kid and usually bounces right back after a hard hit! He is venturing into climbing now too, so I'm sure he is just asking for more trouble :)

Jacob is a dancing machine. He loves, loves music and always gets his groove on whenever he hears music. He got several musical toys for his birthday and has a good time with his dance tower and his fridge dj. He loves to add new moves to his dances and has lately started head banging which usually results in falling down from all the momentum he creates! I'll have to post a video sometime.

He is really picking up talking and has started to repeat certain words or sounds that we make. It usually is nothing like what we said to him, but he is trying. He loves to pretend talk on his telephone and say "hewwo" when putting it up to his ear. I think that he is also trying to say "book" when he has a book in his hand. Speaking of books, they are all of sudden fascinating to him, so we need to really make a point to read more to him. He also recently started pointing to pictures of objects in books that teach words trying to get us to tell him what they are. He also likes to tell us what he thinks they are, which is cute.

He is FINALLY getting more teeth! He is getting the top front four and the two other bottom ones on the front to accompany his other two teeth. I can't believe he is getting six at once, but so far he is doing well with it.

We are in the process of transitioning him to whole milk. It is quite a switch to go from warm formula to cold milk. I am still warming his milk and will gradually start cooling it down until he is used to it. Hopefully he takes to it because I don't want to warm it forever!

We got the okay to switch his car seats to forward-facing, which will be exciting for him. I think that he hit the height/weight limit awhile ago, but we were just waiting until he was one before making the switch. It will be a whole new world for him!!

One last tidbit, Jacob now likes his privacy when pooping. We now know when he goes because he leaves the room and hides under something or squats in a corner to go. It is strange to me, but Dan joked that if he is this aware of needing to go, then maybe we should start sticking him on the potty. I think that we're a ways from that!!

Well that was a long post, but it's been awhile since I shared what he is up to and he is changing so much!

"Pink" with Excitement!!

This is for all of you faithful blog readers.... We had our 20-week ultrasound today and found out we're having a GIRL!! This has been my feeling the whole time, but it is nice to have confirmation. Everything is looking great and she is measuring just a few days ahead. She was pretty active during the exam and was waving her arms, which we got a great picture of. She must have worn herself out because at the end she kept yawning, which we also got a picture of. If I can get my scanner to cooperate at home, I'll post some pictures later on.

As a precautionary measure, I am going to get progesterone shots once a week until the ninth month to help prevent preterm labor, which is what put me on bed rest last pregnancy. This is a huge relief to me as my main worry is being on bed rest with a toddler this time. Dan gets to give them to me at home and got a lesson from the nurse today.

It's hard to believe I'm at the half-way point already!!

One-Year Pictures

Here are Jacob's one-year pictures.

Jacob's One-Year Pictures

Jacob's First Birthday Party

Jacob celebrated his birthday with family and friends on Saturday and all went well! He got lots of nice gifts and LOVED his cake. I decided to strip him down to his diaper for his cake in order to make it easier to clean up. He did need a quick sponge bath afterwards, but the mess wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I took lots of pictures, so I created a photo album below. Enjoy!

Jacob's First Birthday Party

Busy Weekend

We usually have fairly uneventful weekends, but it seems like every weekend in November is jam-packed with things going on. On Saturday we had Jacob's one-year pictures taken. The pictures turned out fairly well, given the fact that Jacob barely smiled for the camera. He seemed completely shell-shocked at the flash going off in his face and strange people trying to get him to smile. We had a long wait afterwards to get to a computer station to pick out pictures and Dan was great in keeping him entertained. It took awhile to pick out the poses that we wanted and when it was time to submit our order, the person running our order somehow locked up the computer so we had to start from scratch again. UGH!! At this point, Jacob was losing it, so Dan took him home for a nap and my sister came by on her way into town to drive me home.

Now to the fun part, Sharla decided to surprise us by coming down to babysit Jacob for the night so Dan and I could go out for our anniversary. How nice is that?!! We haven't been out on a date since the week before Jacob was born, exactly one year ago. We went to see a movie and then out to dinner. It was so nice to have a night out like we used to have! Sharla did awesome with Jacob and he was so wound up when we got home at 8:00. Mind you, he is usually crashing by 7:00 or 7:30. It was a great surprise by Sharla!

Sunday was busy with church and then Dan's mom came by for the afternoon to visit. She hadn't seen Jacob in awhile and the two of them had a good time playing. She doesn't get one-on-one time with him because usually when she sees him there are other grandchildren running around and she is usually cooking for everyone. That night our small group from church met, which is a lot of fun. Our church picks books to study a few times a year and then breaks into small groups to discuss. We got off-track a bit at times, but had a lot of fun talking with adults without children around.

All-in-all it was a busy, but great weekend. Here are a few picturs of Jacob playing in our pile of leaves in the backyard. If you look at his face, you can see how cold he is and his coat is so big he can't move in it. He was literally outside for about two minutes, just long enough for me to get some pictures before the leaves disappeared.

Dino-Jacob

I'm fairly late getting this post up, but here are some pictures of Jacob on Halloween. We found a dinosaur costume and couldn't pass it up after trying Jacob in it at the store. He looked so cute in it, we couldn't say no! The day started out with a parade at his daycare. I was hoping that they would let Jacob walk in the parade, but instead one of the teachers pushed a group of the older ones in a six-person buggy. It was hysterical! Poor Jacob - his hood was falling in his eyes, so he couldn't see and looked so helpless. All of the babies were absolutely adorable.

We opted to not take Jacob trick-or-treating, but instead put him in his costume and let him walk around our front yard and took him to see our neighbors. Dan took him for a walk down the sidewalk and Jacob didn't want to stop, so they walked all the way to the end of the road and came back. I think that he takes advantage of freedom when he can! I don't think that we could have asked for more perfect weather on Halloween. It was sunny and warm enough not to need a jacket.

Here are other snapshots of Jacob the Dinosaur :)

Side view

Hood in his face during parade

With mom

With dad

Pumpkin Fun!!

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch today. Although it was a little cold, the weather was actually pretty nice. We didn't get to venture into the actual pumpkin patch itself, but we got to pick out pumpkins from various areas and had lots of photo opportunities. I'm so glad that Jacob is walking now because it was fun to let him walk around. There were a few animals that caught Jacob's attention and he even got close to the resident turkey, although I wasn't quick enough to get a picture.

Memory

(Hopefully) all you mothers out there can relate to this! When I was pregnant with Jacob, I found that my once great memory wasn't so great anymore. Now, I have never been one to retain history facts from school or do well in trivia games, but I have always had pride in remembering things about life events and keeping track of our daily lives. I found myself not remembering the simple things like what we needed from the grocery store or whose family's turn it was to celebrate a holiday with. Everything that I read about pregnancy reinforced to me that losing memory was normal and it would come back. Well.... it didn't! After Jacob was born it turned into "new mommy syndrome" where I felt like not only did I have memory loss but like I was losing my mind. Seriously, there have been times when I feel like my head is going to explode! I think that it got better after the initial chaos of the first few months, but now that I'm pregnant it has gotten lots worse. I'm forgetting things to do at work, I almost missed a class for Jacob the other night, I am forgetting to send birthday wishes to family and friends, and I'm now starting to lose things in the house which I have always prided in myself of never doing.

One of my friends told me awhile ago that the more kids you have the worse your memory gets. It is a big change to go from only taking care of things for Dan, myself, and Rascal to now managing a little person completely dependent on my care. I find myself writing notes everywhere just so I can keep better track of things. I like to watch 'Jon and Kate Plus Eight' and '17 Kids and Counting' on TLC and those shows always bring me back down because if those mothers can manage all of those kids with success, then just one doesn't seem so bad!

Well, I guess the point of this post is really for me to vent and make any apologies to those of you who I may have forgotten to wish happy birthday to or forgotten to do something that I had promised!

11 Months

Wow, in one month we'll be celebrating Jacob's first birthday. I still can't wrap my head around it! Over this past month, he has really started to change from a baby to a little boy. He is still such a sweet boy, but he is also developing his personality. Here are this month's highlights:

*Cruises around everywhere and loves to chase Rascal

*Can't sit still and is constantly exploring his environment

*Is learning how to get off the couch on his own

*Seems to be trying to talk to us although we have no idea what he is saying. We swear that we've heard him say "okay" at the appropriate times and "here" when he hands us things.

*Loves to test his voice - he usually has a sound of the week that is constant from him before he moves onto the next one

*Is starting to exhibit some stubborn behavior. Example - taking something away from him and him pouting and crying.

*Has been fully on real-people food for a few weeks now and eats like a champ

*Loves to bring us things on command and by his own free will (especially shoes and socks)

*Has developed a love for the tub faucet and puts his head underneath it to get a soaking along with trying to drink water from it

Lil' Man Walking (and Screaming)

My sister calls Jacob "lil' man" and I thought that this title is appropriate for his debut video post of him walking because it is so funny to see such a little person walking! We bought Jacob shoes a week ago and he finally has the hang of it all I think. The first night he wore his shoes, he fell repeatedly and hurt himself numerous times. I was caught in the "let him work it out and learn for himself" and the "mommy protective mode" mentalities, but the latter won and the shoes came off. His poor body was a rainbow of bruises :( We later decided that he was just off-balance due to his ear infection and put the shoes to rest for a few days. I tried him in his shoes again last weekend and he did so well!! I even took him outside to walk in the yard and he did better than I expected. I know he has a ways to go, but I'm still proud of him for figuring it out so quickly.

One funny thing about him wearing shoes is that he laughs hysterically when you put them on. His feet are ticklish, but must be very sensitive!!! At least he isn't a crier :)

Jacob has also developed an interest in screaming. I'm sure this is part of normal development, but it is only cute for so long! I shot a video of it today.



Here is a video of him walking along with some snapshots of him in the yard.