Good Morning and Good Night

A typical day at our house includes all kinds of activities including: kicking and throwing balls in the yard, blowing bubbles, lots of tickling and chasing, singing songs and "dancing," playing in the sandbox, making lunches, naptime (for Jacob), rest time (for Katie), etc.... By the end of the day, I am usually exhausted! But we have so much fun, I wouldn't trade these days for anything. I am so happy to be able to spend every day with Jacob right now and I know there are moms out there who would give anything to stay at home with their children. I feel incredibly blessed.

Even when I am exhausted at the day's end, Jacob's bathtime is always entertaining. He loves the water -- always has. I think for a little while when he was tiny, he didn't really like the water in his face, but that phase passed quickly and now he can't get enough of it. He used to squirt water in his face with his squirt toys, but now he's graduated to pouring it over his head from a big cup -- much more effective. At the end of this video, I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get him to say alligator. His pronunciation of alligator is "eye-yi-oh." This was taken last week when he still called a phone an "Mmm-bah," which he said when he heard the phone ringing. Now, he calls a phone a "dom." We're getting closer!

Some of the sweetest moments are when I am rocking him just before bed at night. We say a little prayer and at the end he says "Aaa-min." He used to say "Amy." Then I sing 4 songs ending with the Winnie the Pooh song. At the end of that one, he always points to his Pooh Bear and says, "Pooh." Then he sits up and says, "Bet...bet.....bet," which means he is ready to get in his bed. He loves his bed and I rarely have any problems with him at naptime either. As long as he has his Mr. Monkey, little red bear and blanket to cover up with, he's happy -- oh, and his musical rainforest helps too.

Jacob always wakes up in a good mood (unless he's sick.) He never yells or cries to get out of his crib. He talks and sings to himself until Heath or I go get him and just in the past few days, he's started saying "Munning" whenever you tell him "Good Morning." It's adorable! And yes, he is wearing Christmas pajamas in this video. Hey, they still fit him and does it really matter if they have snowmen and snowflakes on them? Jacob likes them!

To me, the good morning and good night times are some of the most precious moments -- moments I will treasure forever...and moments, so I'm told, will pass by all too quickly.

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I took this last video this morning -- another "good morning" video. I thought I would post it so you could hear Jacob's latest phrase / question: "What's this?" He learned this one from Katie and says it all the time now.

Down on the Farm

We took a trip to a local petting zoo this afteroon and Jacob loved the animals! We saw cows, goats, sheep, chickens, donkeys, a monkey, a camel, bison, snakes, iguanas, llamas, South American raccoons, horses, rabbits, and several other animals -- not your average petting zoo! Jacob's favorite part of the trip was feeding the goats and sheep. He had a cup of food for them and he liked to feed them one little piece at a time, and sometimes just tease them. He would walk up to one with a piece of corn, hold his hand out, then pull it back and say, "No, no, no." The animals were getting a little impatient with him as you can imagine. He wasn't afraid of them at all. I think he even stuck some food in their noses a few times, but they didn't seem to mind. By the way, doesn't Jacob look extra cute in is new hat? I've been making him wear it around the house all week so he'll get used to wearing a hat again. He used to wear them all the time when he was teeny tiny, but not recently. He kept this one on all day!

In this video, you can hear Jacob saying, "Baaaa" in response to the sheep and goats talking to him and begging for more food.

Long Time, No Post......

Sorry for the delay in new posts, but since our computer was out of commission last week, there wasn't a whole lot I could do. :(

However, it IS working now (obviously) so here are a few pictures and videos from the past several days.

Last weekend, we had a great opportunity to clear out some of the clutter in our garage since we had a neighborhood yard sale. We didn't make much money, but the goal was to get rid of our "junk" no matter how low we had to go on the price. It was a success. Yay for yard sales! Now we can at least walk through the garage without bumping into things. Jacob enjoyed the price stickers, as you can see. He kept taking them off the items for sale and putting them on himself, on the driveway, etc... I'm still finding those stickers everywhere, inside the house and out.

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Jacob and I still go to StrollerFit classes three times a week and I'm amazed at how much he imitates the exercises we do. He never does them during class, but he's always doing lunges, shoulder stretches, and the crab walk (among other things) around the house. It seems I never have the camera ready when he decides to exercise, but I finally caught him in the act the other day, along with Katie. I guess she was doing stationary lunges, while Jacob was doing walking lunges. Check out that form!

One day last week while Jacob and Katie were playing in the sandbox, Jacob started his usual routine of throwing sand out into the grass. Katie didn't like that he was throwing the sand out and looked at him and said, "Jacob, don't do dat!!!" Jacob looked at her for a couple seconds then said, "Doo-da, doo-da, doo-da, doo-da!" (sounds like doo-dad without the "d" on the end) Now, that is his response anytime she says "don't do dat."

More beans please!

We discovered another food that Jacob will eat -- baked beans! He loves them! He also loves to make a giant mess with them. After this meal, he went straight to the tub. He also likes three bean salad. I guess beans are one of his favorite vegetables. Yay for beans! He's a big fan of ham too. He's been eating ham everyday lately and since we had ham for dinner at church last night, Jacob was very happy. He ate three fairly large pieces. Is this healthy????

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Monday morning after StrollerFit, Jacob and I did a little shopping and I found a pair of sunglasses that actually fit him. To say he loves these glasses would be a gross understatement. He put them on in the store and I think he's had them on ever since -- except during naptime and bedtime. He wore them to church last night and quickly took on the nickname "Mr. Hollywood"; although, I think Jacob prefers "Mr. Cool." When I picked him up after choir practice, he had a visor to go along with his glasses which I was told he'd been wearing all evening. He's so funny!

It's been a busy week...

...and I've been meaning to update the site for few days now, but I just haven't had the time.


Last Sunday was Mother's Day and what started out as a "not so good day," turned into a great one. I woke up really sick and felt terrible all morning. (I guess that was a special "Happy Mother's Day" present from the new baby) The weather was stormy and there was a possibility of a tornado coming into our area. What a day for Mother's Day! BUT...the weather cleared up after church and I started feeling a little better, so the day turned out to be not so bad after all.


We decided to drive to Summerville to have lunch with our parents, so it was nice to be able to see both our moms on that special day. Of course, I forgot the camera, so sorry...no pictures from that outing.

As usual, Jacob's been busy playing and learning new things. He's had Katie to play with again this week since she finally got over her cold. He had a bad a cold a couple weeks ago too, so I hope we're all done with sickness for a while.

Jacob has had lots of fun with the carnation we got from Logan's on Mother's Day. He loves to smell flowers, thanks to Pat the Bunny. He also likes to eat the stems. Rocks, flower stems...he'll eat pretty much anything...except food when we want him too!

I may have mentioned this in a previous entry, but Jacob absolutely loves Winnie the Pooh. I took this video when he was watching Pooh the other day and thought it was really cute. He likes to blow kisses and give kisses now and when he does, he always says, "Mmmmm-aaah."

Rocks...my new favorite snack

While he was playing in the sandbox yesterday, Jacob found, ate, and swallowed a little rock. After he swallowed it, he looked at me and said, "Mmmmmm." Who knew rocks could be so tasty? I worry about this kid sometimes! Luckily, I was able to get the second rock out of Jacob's mouth before it joined its friend in Jacob's stomach. Right after the rock incident, he put a handful of sand in his mouth, which he didn't seem to enjoy quite as much. Wonder why???

When we went outside to play, I didn't think we would ever make it off the porch. Now that Jacob can open doors by himself (yes, that's scary) he loves to do it every chance he gets. He must have opened and closed the screen door for at least five minutes before he decided to move on to the real toys.

Here he is being "Mr. Cool," and yes, he was saying, "pool...pool." He's always been obsessed with sunglasses, even when he was really tiny.

And the word of the day is.....

Actually, it's more like the word of the last few weeks! Jacob must say "uh-oh" at least a hundred times a day -- sometimes in the correct context, sometimes not, but he knows what it means. At least he says "uh-oh" now instead of "uh-huh" like he used to! :)

His vocabulary is very rapidly expanding and he's beginning to repeat words we use in conversation. He said, "shoot," the other day after he heard me say it when I tripped over the vacuum cord. Also, Heath called him Mr. Cool when he was wearing his sunglasses, so now Jacob puts on his sunglasses and walks around the house saying, "pool" -- his version of "cool." Anyway, people are always asking me what new words he is saying now, so I thought I'd make a list of a few along with Jacob's pronunciation.

chair............shoor

shoe............ shoo

football.......poo-bah

ball..............bah

rock............dot

block..........dot

chex...........dex

sand...........at

water........wah-wah (he's said that for a long time)

juice..........shoosh

cup...........up

yummy....nummy (he knows this one thanks to our friends, The Wiggles)

fruit.........oot

couch.......owsh

bed..........ett

bunny.....munn-ee (this is his latest accomplishment. He used to call a bunny a "nana," but all of a sudden, he walked up to me with his Pat the Bunny book and said, "munn-ee.")

dog..........dot

Daddy....dad-ee (Heath is now officially Daddy -- not Da-da or Ma-ma like he once was! He's very excited about this.)

Pooh.....pooh (He loves Winnie the Pooh)

diaper...da-da

door......doh

push.....ush

step.....tep

Jacob.....dah-tub

Jacob says many, many more words -- too many to list here -- but this gives you an idea.

Playtime!

The weather has been absolutely perfect this week and we've been taking full advantage by spending most of our days outside. Jacob loves the outdoors, as most kids do, I imagine. He and Katie decided to roll a ball back and forth yesterday, which I thought was really cute. Every time Jacob rolled the ball, he threw his hands up and said, "Yaaaaaaaay!", then clapped. He was so proud of himself. I was excited because he was sharing!

After playing for a while, we went inside to wash hands before lunch. Jacob gets frustrated because he's not quite tall enough to reach the faucet like Katie can. He certainly tries his best though!

Go Tigers!

This year the Clemson Club spring meeting was in Bluffton, just down the street from our house. So of course, we went. Jacob wasn't in the best of moods since he only had a 35 minute nap that afternoon (as opposed to the usual two 2 hour naps he needs), but we managed to get a couple pictures with Tommy Bowden and Oliver Purnell. Tommy Bowden was concerned that Jacob's monkey blanket would be covering his face and asked if we wanted to take it away from him for a moment just to take the picture. Obviously, he wasn't aware of Jacob's attachment with his blanket. I can assure you that photo would have turned out much differently without Mr. Monkey.