Jacob's First Birthday Party!

Although his birthday was on Sunday, the 22nd, we decided to have his party on the 21st at my parents' house in Manteca. We had just moved the weekend before and having it in Manteca just seemed to make so much sense. August in the valley is usually incredibly hot, but the 21st we woke up to cool temperatures, so we even got to have the party outside in the backyard. (I'm sure it's a lot easier to be able to hose down a first birthday party mess than to have to scrub the tile floors...luckily, I really didn't do much clean up.)

Jacob did very well despite only sleeping about 45 minutes that morning. The party started at noon and we had hamburgers, watermelon, and grapes. Then we opened presents. Jacob didn't really get into the presents, but he did like the little soft Tonka cars from Uncle Mike and Auntie Karena. Tijs also liked playing with Jacob's toys.


Here Tijs is actually playing with the gift that he gave Jacob. I guess that's an advantage of being 8 months older...


Anyway, then we had cupcakes. I made them different colors so they might look like balloons.



Jacob was not sure what to do with the cupcake at first. I don't think he realized he could eat it. Once I broke it up and fed him some of the cake part, he got right into it.


Jacob's Uncle Mike Z thought it was funny to add frosting to Jacob's face so he'd have more colors. Jacob seemed to like the frosting a lot!

After a quick bath and a diaper change, the party was over, and I think it went very well!

Moving!

About a week ago we rented out our house in Patterson and are now going to rent a townhouse in Los Banos. The main reason we are doing this is because Larry will be teaching in Hollister now (70 miles from Patterson), and Los Banos will be closer. (He'll still have to drive 45 minutes to school every day). At least we'll be only an hour from Manteca and Modesto. I'm pretty excited about the move mostly because I really enjoy packing and unpacking; I don't, however, enjoy all the cleaning so our house looks good for the renters!

Here is Jacob playing his grandma-great's piano for the last time. My dad came and picked it up to take back to his house. We are really going to miss it.

Jacob has also deciding to help me pack. He just climbed right in when I was packing all our games.

All this packing has really started to agitate Jacob. Sometimes we all just need a few sips of wine!

Cause and Effect

Jacob has begun to climb EVERYTHING, especially the couch and his stroller. The other day he learned a valuable lesson. He was playing in his stroller...

I WAS watching him, and it didn't look like he was going to fall forward...However, when I was out of the rooom, I heard a crash, followed by crying. I think he tried to reach for the keys in the cup holder and the whole stroller tipped backwards. I think he would have been okay except I'm pretty sure he somehow cut his forehead with the keys. Here was the result:

Jacob's first trip to the lake

This week Wednesday, Larry and I drove up to Lake Combie in Meadow Vista, CA to go on the boat with my sister Cindy and her family. Jacob was so good the whole time. I think he really liked the boat; for a little while I thought he was going to fall asleep. You can tell from the pictures that he was just so relaxed. I think he may have fallen asleep, but his life jacket kept getting in the way.

It was fun to get to wakeboard again, but I got tired so quickly. I'm definitely not used to waterskiing anymore. Larry tried to wakeboard, and I think he would've had it if he had been able to try again later. He got up for a few seconds, which is pretty good for never wakeboarding or skiing before.

After wakeboarding, we got out of the tube and Larry, William, and Michael tubed. It was fun to watch the boys fly in the air really high, and when Bill decided to "dump them" they skipped across the water.

Michael on the tube and William in the boat.

Larry tubing

We had such a good time, and we can't wait to go waterskiing again!

Swimming at Pake and Beppe's!

About a month ago, Larry's parents finished their pool. It has been a great place to go to cool off now that the weather has gotten hot. Jacob has swum (yes, that's correct) probably 5 or 6 times already, and he LOVES it! They have a little spot in the pool where he can sit under an umbrella, too! It's a huge shallow spot about 4 feet wide and 5 inches deep. He loves to sit there and splash water everywhere. Here are a couple of pictures of the first time I saw him in the pool.

We have to be careful with this boat. It is NOT very safe, but it looks pretty cute, though. Jacob's Uncle Bill makes fun of this hat...he says he looks like a girl. It's the only one I could find. Oh, well!

Jacob wasn't scared at all to go all over the pool with his daddy.

10 months!

After my last massive post, I promise this one will be shorter...

I can't believe that Jacob is already 10 months old! That sounds so old. And he definitely no longer looks like the helpless, quiet baby we took home from the hospital. Here are just a few highlights of Jacob this month.

Likes: doors (opening and shutting them), chairs (pushing them back and forth and pulling up to a stand), yogurt, juice, biting people, french fries, saltines, giving hugs, when people clap for him, going for walks in the stroller, and, of course, SMILING!

Dislikes: green beans (I think--it's been a while since I tried them), diaper rash, sitting on my lap, baths, lying still while getting his diaper changed, having his nails cut.

New Skills: crawling the regular way on hands and knees, pulling up to a stand, walking when I hold his arms up, giving kisses (I think that's what he's doing--today I got licked on the lips), giving hugs, dancing

Teeth: 6 (three on top, still missing his left front tooth---3 on the bottom)

The highlight of this month was his first out-of-state trip to Idaho about a week ago. I think he did pretty well, but I'm not about to do it again for a while.

This is what I walk into just about everytime Jacob wakes up. This was the first day he did this.

Unfortunately, he also woke up with a big scratch of the side of his nose. (Maybe he should let me cut his nails...)

I have to be VERY careful not to leave the dishwasher down. He likes to roll the bottom drawer out and take out the silverware...he is going to grab a knife someday.

Apparently Jacob likes baby spaghetti!

After spending so much time with his cousins in Idaho, Jacob could not figure out why Tijs wouldn't play with him...Tijs couldn't figure out why Jacob wouldn't leave him alone...(notice how Tijs is keeping Jacob away from his sippy cup!)

Idaho!

On Saturday, June 11, Jacob and I left our house at 4:45 in the morning to drive to my sister Cindy's house in Ripon. It was just the beginning of a LONG day. Two days before Jacob had come down with a fever, so we were all praying that he'd do okay on the drive. We had to pull over twice to deal with a meltdown, but he did better than we thought. At one of the stops a black and white cat came right up to the boys and let them pet her. I put some of Jacob's unused formula in the cap of his bottle, and the cat drank it up! This cat was SO cute! William tried to sneak the cat in the car, but Cindy told him we couldn't take it. We still had a couple of hours left to drive...


On Sunday we all went to church. I got to hear Ryan Kron (an old softball teammate from Escondido) preach the sermon. I don't know how Jacob was in the nursery because when I got there after church, he was sleeping on one of the girls. I guess he was tired out from the trip even though he slept 11 hours the night before. On Sunday, we also got to watch Joshua give the calf a bottle--it's momma wouldn't let him nurse and kept kicking him. It was pretty fun to watch. Even Jacob thought it was interesting!

Michael even got the calf to suck on his finger for a while!

Here is a picture of all 8 cousins in one room!

The de Jong kids were pretty obsessed with William and Michael's I-Pod Touches, so they did that pretty much whenever the could. Jacob just thought it was fun to have people to crawl over, hair to pull, and arms to help him stand.

On Monday, Cindy and Deb took the 5 older kids to the waterslides while Jacob, Johanna, and Simon, and I went to McDonald's and rented two movies. I had so much fun with the three of them.


Since Jacob has recently begun being scared of the bathtub, Johanna volunteered to take a bath with him. He was still pretty scared, but at least he calmed down a little to take this cute picture!


Jacob cut about two teeth while we were there (he now has 3 on top and 3 on the bottom). They must have been bothering him because he did this face A LOT!



On Tuesday morning the kids all played croquet!


There were only 6 mallets, so Johanna didn't play. She and I played Uno Attack instead. Then all the kids came in and wanted to play....Luckily, my sisters and I had plans to leave the older 7 at home and go shopping at the mall in Boise! We all got something, and it was fun to go to the mall for once.


We did lots of other things, too--went out for ice cream, made a fire and roasted marshmallows to make s'mores, watched a bunch of movies...Jacob slept very good the whole trip. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who got tired out from all the excitement...


The last day we packed a picnic lunch and went to the park.


On Friday, June 18, we packed everything up again and headed home. Jacob was much better on this trip and William did such a good job of entertaining him. I was ready to be home although it was such a nice trip. I am so grateful that Cindy offered to take me, and Deb and her family were such generous hosts! It went way better than I imagined to take an almost 10-month old on an 11-hour drive to Idaho!

Now it's Monday morning, and I still haven't unpacked although Jacob tried to do it for me!