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