Done!

I have finally completely finished the scrapbook of Jake's first year. I have been working on it since he was a few months old and at some point just got so far behind that it was hard to catch up. A few weeks ago my mom came over and we got a big chunk finished so I just had a few more pages to do. Yesterday I got the last few pictures I needed to do the last page, so now it is done! It turned out great and I'm sure in 25 or 30 years Jake will really appreciate having the story of his first year.

Visit with Santa

We took Jake to see Santa this afternoon. We planned on going today to hopefully avoid lines. We also have been talking a lot about Santa hoping he would be excited and not freak out. So Josh took the afternoon off of work and we headed to the mall. Of course, there was a line, and not a short one. So we stood in line for an hour and a half, trying to entertain Jake. Fortunately Jake was in a great mood so it was fairly easy, and a few elevator rides and a couple of walks around the Santa area and we were in the cool part of the line where there were things for Jake to see and snow! Jake loved playing in the "snow" and got into throwing it up so it would fall on him.

Once we got to Santa, Jake was super excited and went right to him. He had no problem sitting with him, but it took some Daddy peek a boo to get a great smile. And we got a great picture and lots of compliments on our cute and polite little boy!

Painting and asking "What happened?!" when looking at the pain on his hands

Cute picture from our little Christmas photo shoot

Thanksgiving

We headed to the Morrow's in the afternoon on Thanksgiving for some football watching, picture taking, and dinner. It is great to spend holidays with a full house of people (and dogs).

We spent the morning at home hanging out in our pj's and watching the parade. Well trying to watch the parade, Jake had other plans for most of it.

Jake fortunately took a good nap because he didn't go to bed until after 9 that night. We headed home late and then Josh headed back out for some shopping. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart was a mad house and they only stocked four (!) of the toy he went there for.

Friday we headed to Grammy's house for some Christmas decorating, yard work, and more (much more calm and organized) shopping. Jake still refuses to nap when we aren't home, so he was exhausted. But we got Grammy's house done and she headed to our house Saturday morning to help us decorate and entertain Jake.

I think we finally got our final outdoor decoration figured out this year. It is our third Christmas and third different way of decorating outside. And we got to decorate a real mantel this year! I am pretty sure I never thought a mantel would make me so excited!

Jake refusing to smile

Uh, what I am supposed to do with this?

Jake plus 4 out of the 5 dogs waiting for Pam to drop something

Thanksgiving Crafts

I have been trying to do more crafty/art stuff with Jake during the week. So this week we made some turkeys. It wasn't originally supposed to take as long as it did, but it worked out so that we did something with them every day. That was also nice since we spent most of the week at home because Jake was sick. Apparently Jake does not like to get too messy and doesn't love painting. I think it has more to do with him not wanting to stay in one spot for more than a minute!

Taking a break from painting for bubbles

Why we like to paint outside. He doesn't like getting messy on purpose, but he usually ends up painting part of himself

But sometimes it is too cold to paint outside, so we improvise

Jake's turkey family

Birthday Parties

We've had a couple of birthday parties in the last few weeks. Jake gets what is going on a lot more now and has fun being around other kids so they are more fun for all of us now.
The first party we had was for Madison and Mallory, who turned 2. We have been hanging out with them since before they were all born! Their party was at a dance studio where they had activities for the kids for the first 30 minutes and real, lifesize fairies (who of course loved Jake so he flirted with them). His time with the fairies was short lived though because he found a girlfriend in one of the other kid guests. They sat next to each other to eat and Jake was trying to feed her and hugging her. It was cute and they even had the same energy level so while all the other kids sat and watched the girls open their presents, these two ran around the room. And when it was time to leave, they hugged and said bye. I didn't get a picture but wish I had.

Before he found his girlfriend

The twins with their fairies

Here, eat this!

Last weekend we went to Dax's first birthday party. Jake wore himself (and us) out running around the gym playing basketball. He also loved playing with all of Dax's cool new toys. And we loved getting a chance to catch up with the Parkers!

Check out Dax's tattoo!

Twinkle, Twinkle and some bedtime exercise

Halloween Festivities

We had a whole weekend of festivities, mostly Halloween related. We carved our pumpkin Saturday morning, inside because it was a little chilly. Now, last year, Jake had a blast with the pumpkin and loved getting slimy. This year, complete opposite reaction. Didn't want to get close to the pumpkin (once it was open, no problems with it before it was open), and he certainly wasn't going to stick a hand in to pull out pumpkin guts.

Hmmm...

Thinking about trying with the scoop

Cosmo on the other hand, LOVED the pumpkin and tried to eat it the whole time we were carving

EWWW...no more pumpkin

So he fed Lightning McQueen to the skull

Sunday we headed to Grammy's to trick or treat there and at the Morrow's. And I forgot to take pictures with my camera there. But Jake had a blast running around with 4 dogs at the Morrow's and got to practice knocking and saying Trick or Treat. On the way to Grammy's he decided to show off some and about a block away informed us that we were going to Grammy's house. Impressive, kid.

On Halloween, we had plans with our neighbors who have a little girl a few months younger than Jake. Jake and I have hung out with Carrie and Savanah a few times over the past month or so. It is nice having kids so close in age. Our original plans fell through, but we still went to their house and had dinner then took the kids trick or treating together.



Happy Halloween!

Arg! Our little pirate getting ready to trick or treat

Daddy and baby pirate!

Pirate Family

TRICK OR TREAT!

Trick or treating with daddy

We were really impressed with Jake's Trick or Treating skills. He did great with saying Trick or Treat and knocking on doors and made it much longer than we planned! We originally planned on hitting just a few houses right around ours, but instead Jake and Savanah made it a good block down the street. By the end Jake was asking me to pick him up once we got to the end of each driveway, but always walked to the doors to get his candy.

It was so fun to have him really "get" a holiday and made me so much more anxious for Thanksgiving and Christmas!