Thursday, July 30, 2009

21 Months


Well our little man is turning into just that at the age of 21 months. He definitely is showing lots of personality. He is still pretty shy when strangers talk to him, but when he is around people he knows well he is such a chatter box. I can't even think of all the new words and phrases he says. It seems that new words pop into his vocabulary daily. This month he did start saying "wow" and usually says it in semi-context when things are really cool or surprising. It is so cute to listen to him and Caleb carry on conversation like they are grown...responding to what each other says. And sometimes words that Jake says and aren't really understandable Caleb will try to translate asking Jake if he said this or this. They are going to be the best of friends(but really they don't have a choice in the matter :)

He still loves to be in the pool or atleast close by. Every time we get to mom & Mike's he says "pool." Not sure what we are going to do once the pool is closed I am sure it will take him a few times to get used to the fact that we can't swim any more until next summer.

I have started trying to introduce the potty to him. Not full potty training, but he tries to go when he wakes up in the morning at night before bed and right before he gets in the bath. However, he does tell me all day long that he has to go pee-pee. This week I have been putting him on the potty almost every time he tells me this. Out of 10 times he usually actually goes once. I am not sure what to do in this regard. I am afraid if I tell him no when he says he has to go that it will confuse him...because what if he actually does have to go and I am telling him no. But most of the time he just thinks it is fun to sit there for a few minutes and then get down. I know there are a lot of you who read the blog and don't comment. I would love for you to comment on any potty training suggestions you might have. Stories of how you did and what worked for your child. I am looking for any and all tips/tricks. We probably won't try full potty training until the beginning of Sept. We have a beach trip planned the end of August and I don't want to be in the middle of wearing underwear at the beach...it just seems much easier to do diapers while we are there. But once we are back we are going to try the whole potty training deal. PLEASE COMMENT or email me about your experience with potty training...I have never done this before and would love all the help.

Jake's food eating has gotten a little better. He at least tries a bite of a vegetable about every other day. And he has started eating salad...of course it has dressing on it, but he used to suck the dressing off and spit the lettuce out, but now he actually eats it...not that ice burg lettuce has any nutritional value it is usually mixed with romaine and spinach leaves so he gets a few nutrients from the whole thing. Oh well it is a start.

I guess that is all for the 21 month update. 3 Months until his big 2nd birthday. I am in the middle of the party planning stage and pretty excited about what we are doing for birthday number 2!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Summertime

During the summer we spend almost every weekend in my parents backyard enjoying their swimming pool. I have posted several times of Jake in the pool(he loves it...most of the time), but this weekend my nephew's were their too and thought I would post some of the fun pictures of them doing their pool tricks. Keep in mind they are only 7 and 4, but this year they have both mastered new things. The 7 year old is now flipping and diving off the board and the 4 year old is now swimming all by himself and jumping off the diving board...including jumping over things while jumping off and trying to make slam dunks from in mid-air. We had a lot of fun and Jake enjoyed doing his own thing sitting on the steps or filling buckets with water and dumping them in the grass.

Jake filling his bucket...couldn't have a post without a pic of Jake
Tyler & Austin
Austin midair flip...he lands feet first in the water
Tyler jumping over the floating basketball hoop
Austin flipping over the basketball hoop
Tyler slam dunk into the hoop off the diving board
Austin's running dive...parallel to the water
Tyler's jump foot kick

Friday, July 24, 2009

Mornings

Mornings are usually when Jason spends a good bit of time with Jake. Because he works so much and usually doesn't get home until way past Jake's 7:30 bed time...mornings are special for them. But of course our favorite days are Sundays and Mondays when daddy is home all day. Jake knows the difference and Tuesdays are usually a little rough if we stay home...you can tell he misses Daddy and ask about him a lot. By the middle of the week he is back to normal and really enjoys seeing Jason in the mornings. The first thing he usually does is say "mon dada play" (come on dada lets) play and pulls him by his hand into the play room to play. Too cute.

A lot of mornings Jake wakes up before Jason does and he and I go down stairs and eat breakfast. Jake is usually finished eating when Jason comes down stairs, but you would never know that Jake had already eaten breakfast. When Jason pours his bowl of cereal or whatever he is having for breakfast. Jake is right there with him asking for a bite. So most of Jason's morning breakfast time looks like these pictures. Jake on Jason lap eating his 2nd breakfast of the morning...but most importantly spending a few quality minutes with his favorite person "dada."

During these mornings I usually stay in the living room and read (peacefully), but mostly so that Jason & Jake can have some time together without Jake coming to me. I am with him all day and I love the little conversations I over hear between the 2 of them from the play room, the giggles from Jake and Jason too. I think these moments I peak at are some of my favorite (even if they don't really involve me). These are some of the moments that I can see Jason as the great Dad he is and the moments that make my heart smile even with I think about them later in the day.


Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Build A Bear....or Dog

Heather & I took the boys to Build A Bear. We both have been waiting until the day they were old enough to go and enjoy it. As we think it is one of the most fun things you can. We got there and Jake & Caleb both picked out a dog to "build" and Jake was as happy as could be. We waited in line to fill the dog full of stuffing and we watched Heather do it with Caleb. But then came our turn...the lady talked to Jake...of course he instantly freaks out and cries the whole time the dog is being filled with stuffing. But then it was on to the next station bath and brushing. Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but Jake loves to brush hair so he was a big fan of this and from then on loved it. He and Caleb did have a lot of interest in the computers, but after getting them back on track we were able to pick out some jammies for Jake's dog and get him dressed. But then Jake found the hats...another close to obsession for him. But the hats were $6 and the jammies were $7 wasn't about to just get a hat for his bear. Maybe another day...plus Jake kept trying to put the tiny hats on his head.

Side note...since we bought a baby doll for a birthday party recently Jake has really be into baby dolls and real babies too. The day we bought the one for our neighbor he was in the baby isle at target and kept saying "I want Baby." But thinking Daddy wouldn't be too happy if I bought Jake his own baby we quickly got out of the baby isle and try to avoid it now while at Target.

Because of Jake's said love for babies and being to young to actually pick out a name for his build a dog I chose Baby. We now refer to his dog as baby and he is perfectly happy with that and Daddy isn't upset that he is playing with "girl" toys. Jake will even hold his dog up to his shoulder and pat it's back. Too funny...and super cute.

And of course here are pictures of our fun day at Build a "Dog." The color on the pictures is funny...not sure why. And I am not sure why some of the captions are blue...every time I tried to fix it the whole picture would be deleted.

Picking out his dog
Caleb & Jake so excited to have their dogs
Caleb didn't like the stuffing so both boys watched Heather do it
Putting the stuffing in the dog...I was pushing it with my hand

Giving the dog a hug to see how it feels
Kissing the heart before it goes into the dog
Brushing him
Giving him an air bath
Playing at the computers
Trying different hats on the dog
Getting him dressed
Dog is in his house...time to go

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Blueberry Pickin'

What a fun thing to do...pick your own blueberries. I visited the site www.pickyourown.org and got a list of all the places in Georgia and what you could pick. Right now is blueberry picking season. So we packed a picnic lunch and took off with Jason, Heather, Caleb, Shannon, Jake, & Me to Berry Patch Farms for some fun in the blueberry fields. Jake had the best time. As long as we let him carry his own bucket he loved every minute of it. Of course we went pretty early in the season so there were a lot of not ripe blueberries and the girl there said they had been really busy over the weekend so a lot of what was ripe was already picked. Jake didn't care, of course he doesn't know the difference between blue & green so he just picked any blueberry he could reach and some off the ground as well. We were also told when we got there that since they don't use pesticides on their plants that they did have some spots where poison ivy was growing. None of us knew what poison ivy looked like (they did have a few spots marked with tape), but every time we saw anything we would ask "is this it." We did all leave with a small fear(some of us had really big fears) that we would wake up the next morning with poison ivy. Thankfully none of us got it and we were able to keep our really good memories of berry picking. I was a little disappointed...I had visions of coming home with so many blueberries we would be eating anything we could think of to use up the blueberries. Like I mentioned earlier early in the season and a lot of pickers meant we only came home with 3/4 of a pound. Everything that Jake had in his bucket we dumped...it was just for fun for him. I think Shannon left with 1/2 a pound and Heather had a whopping .45 cents worth. But none the less I was still able to make some yummy blueberry waffles and delicious blueberry muffins. Which both Jason & Jake have really enjoyed :) And a post wouldn't be complete with pictures of us out picking our berries. Oh and for those of you who see my facebook post and twitter...I would really like to live on a farm. But mostly to have a huge vegetable garden and lots of fruit too! But not for the upkeep...like grass mowing and stuff!

They had this fun tractor for the kids to play on near their playground
Us...after a hot day of blueberry picking


Caleb and Jake throwing their blueberries or whatever they picked up into the bucket


Oh...there were a few raspberry and blackberry bushes too

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Famous

Our little boy is famous. I used a company called It's all about the cards for our photo birth announcements & his 1st birthday photo invites. I was looking through them today to see if I wanted to do photo 2 year invites as well and saw Jake on their 1st birthday page so I continued to look through. One of the 1st birthday invites was really ours, but all the rest of the birth announcements and the other birthday one they just used Jake's picture. How fun is it that they think he is so cute they use his newborn picture on birth announcements...even for little girl samples to precious. Of course I never had any question that our little boy was the cutest thing ever. Just thought I would share. Although it would be nice if they gave you a discount on future orders if they use your picture, but it is still fun that he is famous! Here are the samples they have on their website that use Jake. I do have to say that It's All About The Cards is a great company to get your photo cards from. They do a great job and each one they do is personal. If you like a design on their page you can change the colors to match your photo or if you have an idea of what you want it send it to them and they will work it up for you and then send you a proof. They are super quick with the turn around time too. Plus they make these really cute address labels to match your photo card. I have really enjoyed getting my stuff from them the last 2 years! Enjoy the samples of our famous boy!!!

Here is the one with him on a girl invite
It is kind of funny to me that they use his newborn picture, but then other baby parts


This was the actual invitation we used for Jake's 1st birthday!!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Happy Birthday America

We had a great 4th of July even though Jason had to work ALL weekend. We started the day at Nana & PawPaw's pool, hanging out with Aunt "Woawoa"(Heather), Caleb, Perry, & his son Gary (nana & pawpaw were out of town). Then we cooked hamburgers & hotdogs on the grill and played some more in the pool. The boys enjoyed their red, white, & blue popsicles. At least Caleb did. I think Jake might have licked his once or twice and then he was done with it. I don't know where that boy came from he seriously doesn't like ice cream or popsicles. After a good nap for both boys we headed to Powder Springs to hang out in the Wachovia parking lot to watch fire works. We got there really early to get a good seat, but the boys loved it and played around with bubbles and big trucks. When it started to get a little bit dark we played with sparklers and gave the boys glow in the dark necklaces. Jason got there about 8:30 so he could play with Jake & was there in time to watch the fire works. Jake was some what interested in the fireworks for a little while, but then didn't really care. We didn't have the best seats there was a big tree in the way to see, but we still enjoyed them. Of course here are some pictures from the day. I forgot that the blog puts the pictures in most recent upload so the pictures go from the end of the day to the beginning.



Can you see the terror in Caleb's face? He was so afraid of the sparkler
Jake & Jason with the sparkler

Caleb thought it was a good idea too...but then they all were just rolling around on the blanket
At one point Jake got his blankie and paci said "night, night Mommy" and layed down
Blowing bubbles

Trying to get a picture of the boys in their matching outfits...this is the best I could get
Aunt "Woawoa" and Caleb making his "cheese" face
You can tell Caleb really liked his popsicle and what a mess
One of the few times Jake put the popsicle in his mouth


Jake wearing his red, white, & blue swim trunks. He loved playing in the pool with the cup