Diet Pepsi

When I was upstairs, I heard Jacob playing downstairs by himself. I was thankful for the time I got to spend playing on the computer...Suddenly, I remembered the Diet Pepsi can within his reach. "Oh, well," I thought, "He'll probably make a big mess." When I went downstairs, I saw he was outside, sitting in his car, drinking the rest of the Diet Pepsi!

Cute Cousins!

The other night, we told Jacob and his cousin Tijs to hold hands as we walked out of the restaurant. They did! And they kept holding hands outside. Thankfully, I had my camera to capture their cuteness!

Mommy's Little Helper

Jacob is quickly becoming my little helper--I guess that's good considering the fact that I'll need some help four months from now. He does also make quite big messes, says "No" all the time to me, and won't stop when running away...so I've still got my work cut out for me. However, here are some of his good skills:

18 months!

Yesterday Jacob turned 18 months--I don't have a lot to report, but I thought I'd at least post a few things about him at this stage.

Weight: 34 pounds? she measured him standing on the scale fully clothed AND wearing shoes...

Height: 34 1/2 inches ( I thought he had grown since last time!)

Teeth: 16--his two upper eye teeth are still just barely poking through, but I'm glad to say we are done with teething until his two-year-old molars come in! He can eat pretty much anything!

Favorites: climbing, yelling, laughing, smiling, Baby McDonald video, dogs, cats, other kids, church nursery, playing in the bath, balls, any fruit or meat...eating lotion...playing in the sink or anywhere he's not supposed to...

Dislikes: diaper rash, not being able to reach things, being told "no," many vegetables except peas...

Words said most often: momma, dada, go-go-go (Cat and the Hat Style), "ba" (ball), moo, "nana" (banana), baby, uh-oh, nigh-night

Cute things he does: He gives himself a hug when he hears the Barney song and dances...it's pretty cute. Then near the end of the song he says, "ba-bye" because they all say bye to Barney after the song; plays a "nigh-night" game where we pretend to sleep, then he yells and "scares" me; loves to crawl up on the bed to wake up his daddy; runs to the door and gets really excited when daddy comes home from work; gives my belly kisses when I tell him to kiss the baby...so many, but I just wanted to list a few...obviously, I think my son is pretty cool!

We haven't taken the formal portraits yet, but I think we will.

Overall, he's a pretty good kid despite a few minor catastrophes when he gets into things he shouldn't (markers, lotions, emptying all the wipes, etc.) We are really enjoying him. It's been a great first 18 months of parenthood!

Extended Weekend Getaway

This past Saturday our little family of three headed down south for an extended weekend getaway.

Jacob did very well during the almost five-hour trip. He only slept 30 minutes, so sometimes I had to give him cookies or snacks. Here he is eating a Valentine's cookie (on sale for 99 cents for a batch of 24!) and looking out the window. Mid afternoon, we stopped in Ontario to see Carolyn Cooper and then Larry's aunt and uncle and their family. Jacob had fun playing with his cousin Caden who is 11 months older than him but didn't mind sharing his trains with Jacob.

That night we slept at Larry's cousin's house in Murrieta; it was nice of them to offer seeing that they weren't even home!

The next day we drove to Escondido to see (Auntie) Rhonda. We went to church with her then out to the new In N Out in Escondido. Sarah and Oliver joined us. Jacob enjoyed Oliver's company--they are about three months apart!


Next we drove down to La Jolla but Jacob fell asleep, so we had to waste some time watching people parasail off a cliff. They took off and landed right in front of us!

Here I am a little bit away with a nice beach view and a view of my expanding tummy. I'm halfway now! (If you expand the picture, you can see someone parasailing/hanggliding!)


After Jacob woke up, we went to Children's Pool Beach, where children used to be able to swim, but now it is a place seals hang out and people are encouraged to stay away!

Here is the beach. You can see how nice it would be for kids to play here, but I wouldn't want to invoke the wrath of the people who watch out for the seals!


Here is the whole family out on that walkway you can see in the picture above.


Jacob and (Auntie) Rhonda--he really bonded with her right away. He went right to her and wanted her to hold him!

We spent the night in Escondido and were thankfully upgraded from a regular room with a king bed to a king suite! It was great to have a separate room to put Jacob in--thank you, Lord!

The next day we went to Oceanside to walk on the pier. Right below the pier they have a children's play ground. Since Jacob loves swinging so much, we stopped to let him run around and then swing.


Jacob was a good kid and fell asleep in his stroller, so we got to sit on the beach for about 45 minutes talking and enjoying the sunshine. It wasn't very warm, but at least it wasn't raining!
When I determined he had slept enough we walked back to the car and drove to Carlsbad to eat at Pizza Port! It was delicious! Too bad I couldn't order one of their beers!

Monday night we stayed again at Larry's cousin's house--they were home this time! And Tuesday we left to drive home! It was a great trip, and Jacob did VERY well (except his middle of the night freak out the first night we were gone!). Now Larry still has two more days off after today!

Splish Splash! (or Bathtime Fun #3)

It's hard to imagine that 8 months ago Jacob was scared of the bathtub. Now he loves it! His favorite thing is to pour water on his head as you'll see in the video. I tried to get some action shots of it, too! It's never a dull (or dry) moment when Jacob is in the tub!

First, some cute pictures:



Now for the action shots:



All dry!



This video shows what Jacob was doing in the action shots:

some of you have already seen this on facebook, but it went with the rest of the post!

Fun at the Park!

I feel mean writing this when so much of the country is in the middle of a HUGE blizzard, but in the valley of Northern California, today was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous! It's still pretty cold--low 60's? and it was 30 this morning, but the sun was actually out. So, around 3:00 Jacob and I headed to the park. Today was our most successful park day. There were about 10 other kids there, so Jacob had some people to look at besides his mommy. As always he LOVED the swings, but today he went down the slide by himself without me making him. Here are some pictures of Jacob--some are a bit light; sorry, it was TOO sunny for my cheap-o camera!

Here are a few pictures on the swings: (you can click on the pictures to see them bigger!)




I love his dimples! And look how high he is!


And on the slide play structure:

the first shows his great smile, the second shows how expressive he is when he is "talking" to him mommy!


If we don't play outside, Jacob finds strange things to play with. He can't stop carrying the plunger around! In the second picture it looks like he is playing it like a flute! Now you know why I take him to the park to play!


We're hoping to be able to do this tomorrow, too! It's a good walk for me, and Jacob clearly LOVES it. And, I LOVE that I don't have to clean up after him. You should see the mess he's making of Larry's office while I post this blog...