The Poor Second Child

Poor Jacob....the second child. I've noticed that most of my posts continue to be about Matthew. So here's one for Jacob! It's hard to know what to post when all he does is eat, sleep, fill diapers, and occasionally be awake to check things out. Here are his newborn pictures. I'm not crazy about them, but it's good to have them.

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Here are some other recent pictures of Jacob:

Jacob reuiniting this week with the doctor that delivered him.

This one is a couple weeks old, but it just too cute not to post.

And in doing this...I realized that in the last week I've taken only one picture of Jacob, but lots of Matthew....wow, a wake up call that I really need to be better!!! I'll make that a goal this week!!

Halloween Party

Yesterday I was the parent helper in Matthew's preschool class. Wow....what a day. It was definitely nothing less than exhausting!! It's amazing how the excitement can even affect little two-year-olds. They were all very energetic. But we had lots of fun. Most of the morning was spent doing the usual - playing with Mrs. Shockley's toys, snack time, messy time (craft), and normally we go outside to play, but since it was cold, we played with the inside toys. After lunch, all the kids got to dress up in their costumes! We had two princesses (what else would a 2-year-old girl choose to be???), Mickey Mouse, a construction worker (of whom Matthew was a little jealous...), and Matthew was dressed as a mouse (or as he would say "three blind mice"). We got to parade around the church so everyone could see their costumes. It was very fun!! Here are some pictures of him and his class.

Precious Moments

There are two cute moments I want to remember about this morning. One was when I went upstairs to put Jacob in his bed. I came back downstairs to be with Matthew and it's silent and I don't see him. After a moment of panic, I ask "Matthew?". I hear him say something like "Here Mommy. Baby Jacob." And I see this picture....hilarious. He climbed in the pack'n'play and covered himself with the blanket.

Then later this morning, after putting Jacob in the pack'n'play, I hear Matthew singing "Jesus Love Me" to Jacob (but he puts "baby Jacob" in where you normally say "me"). Here is him singing. He's such a good big brother!

I got creative!

Tomorrow is Matthew's Halloween party at school, and I'm the parent helper. I was excited to be the helper on that day - I can be there for dressing up in costumes, their parade, and I have the excuse to make a fun snack. So I did some research and found these fun cupcake ball things. It's a cake, crumbled up, combined with a can of icing. You freeze them and put them on sticks. Then you dip them in melted chocolate and decorate them with a candy writer. The recipe made a lot, so I also used them for something I needed to make a dessert for last Friday. Here is how they turned out!

People thought they were neat, but when I left the event, barely anyone had eaten them. I don't know if it was one of those things where they were too pretty to eat. Or maybe since the event had all women, maybe people were trying not to eat desserts. Maybe it's more of a kids snack. Matthew likes them a lot. I'm sure they will go over well tomorrow with the other kids!

Carving Pumpkins

Last night, David and Matthew carved a pumpkin. Matthew was funny while doing it. At first he was excited and ready to go. He was involved for about 5 minutes, and then took off to play with his toys (he did it just as I turned on the video camera...figures, huh?) But then after awhile he came back and wanted to "help" carve. We gave him a plastic knife so he could help on the other side of the pumpkin. He also had fun playing with the gunk and seeds from inside. He liked using some of my kitchen utensils to play. We picked out all the seeds and are going to make roasted pumpkin seeds. I've never done that, so it should be fun to see how they turn out. Here are some pictures from the carving.

Pulling the lid off to see what's inside.

Helping Daddy carve.

The final product...didn't David do an awesome job!!!!

Bubba and His Big Brother

We went to the doctor for Jacob's 1 month appointment today. He weighed in at exactly 11 lbs. (80th percentile), 21 1/2 inches (45 percentile), and his head was in the 40th percentile (again I forget the measurement). The doctor said he's very healthy. He got a shot, and cried for a very long time, which is not normal for him. He's not normally a fussy baby. I made a comment to the doctor about how easy of a baby he has been, very calm and relaxed. He then warned me about second children and how they usually are the ones to introduce you to emergency rooms. He said it was true for his kids and for he and his siblings (he's the second child and his mom says that he became a doctor because of all the time he spent in ER's). Matthew has had his share of trips to the emergency room, so we'll have to see if Jacob can top him. Maybe we got our second child first...

Jacob had his first trip to church this past Sunday. It's so funny to hear people's reactions to a new baby. Most people greeted us with "wow he's huge", or something of the sort, which I agree with. The kid is already growing out of some of his 0-3 month clothing (so much for re-using Matthew's 0-3 month Christmas outfit...) Some people said he looks like Matthew, and then two minutes later someone would say that he looks nothing like him. At first they looked nothing alike, but they're starting to show some resemblance. Here are two pictures...can you tell who is who?

I'll tell you who's who at the bottom of the post. I think they sometimes look more alike than these picture...I'll work on finding better ones!

Matthew continues to be very, very good with Jacob. He's always wanting to share his toys and food with Jacob. He likes to help put the pacifier in Jacob's mouth to calm him when he's fussy. Today when Jacob got his shot, he wanted to kiss his "boo-boo". He's dying to have a playmate. Today he accidentally hit Jacob with a cardboard block. When I asked him what he needed to say to Jacob, he said "wake up, Jacob". Another cute story, a friend of ours gave us "8 Silly Monkeys" and told Matthew that it was for him to read to Jacob. He has taken this charge very seriously and can "read" most of the book. Any time he sees the book, or we read it, he has to make sure that baby Jacob is there. Here's a clip of him saying "no more monkeys jumping on the bed", which he likes to recite as he's jumping on the bed.

One day at school recently Matthew's class talked about emotions. Matthew is very good at imitating various emotions, especially "scared". He now will make his scared face (which I will work on posting. Our camera still does not work most of the time!! Poor Jacob doesn't have very many pictures yet!!) and say that he's scared. When I ask him what he's scared of, he'll say "um...um....this" and find the closest thing he can. This afternoon it was his music, and then the carpet.

Speaking of school....I have to tell you the wonders that pre-school has done for Matthew. His teacher is amazing! Six weeks ago, Matthew cried and screamed throughout almost every church service while he was in the nursery. I haven't sat through an entire church service in a very long time. This past Sunday (and he's been like this for a couple weeks) I asked him if he wanted to go to the nursery. He said "yes". On our way, several people stopped me to see the baby. Matthew wanted no part of waiting to go. He took himself. He walked down the hall, opened the door, walked in, and closed the door behind him. When I went in the sign him in, he hugged my leg and said "Bye, mommy" and went on his way. I'm sure that it's from his very positive experiences at school. He only cried one or two weeks when I left him at school. Now he walks in and says "Hi Mrs. Shockley. Hi Jess. Hi Aaron. (and so on through all his friends...) Amazing....oh how he's growing up (and a small part of me is kind of sad that he is no longer sad I'm leaving!)


1. Cute quotes: The song "flight of the bee" (or whatever it's called...) was on and I asked Matthew if it sounded like a bee. He said "No, horse".

2. Other cute quotes he says all the time to lots of things are "No, not yet" (for example I can ask if he pooped, which I obviously know he did, and he'll answer "no, not yet".)

3. He also likes to say "two boys" at random times about Daddy and Mommy's two boys.

4. "Time out, two minutes" - he says this when he's doing something he knows he shouldn't be. Sometimes he even negotiates and says "time out, three minutes"...who knows why he's aiming to get more time!

I'm not good at posting frequently...my goal is to get better. I think of things all the time to post, and then I sit down to do it and I forget....I'm still claiming pregnancy brain (which, by the way, they say doesn't go away until the baby is 6 months old!)

By the way, the first picture is Jacob and the second is Matthew...did you get it right?

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went out to Irons Fruit Farm for our third annual trip to pick out pumpkins. It was a fun blast from the past because the first time we went Matthew was Jacob's age. We took a relaxed pace in the morning, so we didn't get there until after lunch - which proved to not be the greatest timing for a toddler who takes an afternoon nap! The afternoon also got a little more interesting when Matthew got stung by a bee while waiting to get on the hayride to pick out our pumpkins. By the time we got to the field, Matthew really wanted nothing to do with picking out a pumpkin. So we pretended to be having a blast and attempted to get pictures that didn't reflect Matthew's mood :) We did okay! Fortunately by the time we took our hayride back, Matthew had cheered up and had stopped whining about his bee sting. We were able to finish our trip by buying some yummy fresh picked apples (which you can pick yourself from the tree, but we decided that was a little much for our day), fresh apple cider and, of course, some yummy cider donuts (and if you ask Matthew what he saw or did at the fruit farm, he'll likely first tell you about the donuts!)

This picture was obviously taken at the beginning...while Matthew was still in a good mood! He wanted his picture taken on the "bumpy pumpkin".

Matthew insisted that the pumpkin kiss his boo-boo, and not mommy.

Jacob pretty much never knew we were even there.

Family photo on the hayride to the field.

A picture pretending Matthew was happy to be there...

...and a more accurate scene...

Truthfully, we did have a nice time as a family. We were very glad we went. Once we got over the bad mood, it turned out to be a nice afternoon and we wouldn't have changed anything. If you have never been to Irons Fruit Farm, you should go sometime. You can go year round, which I've always wanted to do but haven't. The website is http://www.ironsfruitfarm.com/.

Kid Quotes

I'm going to post kid quotes because if I put them in the side, I erase them to add new ones. This way I can keep them.

Matthew (at dinner): Love you Daddy. Love you Mommy.
Me: Love you too Matthew.
Matthew: More cookie?


Tonight we were outside doing yardwork. I was raking leaves. Matthew ran into the garage saying "me help". He came back out with an old plastic pitchfork that was a prop from a dance routine about 10 years ago. I thought that was rather creative! When his friend came over, he offered him a pitchfork too!

Time is still flying...

Time is still flying because we're still not sleeping! But, that's obviously part of having a newborn. Jacob is starting to have an uncanny sense for when I'm resting - at least it seemed like that today. After having an extended period of awake time in the middle of the night, I tried to rest a little during the day. Both times I climbed in bed, he woke right up (which is kind of ironic being that we spend most of the time trying to wake him up!)

There's really not much to report on the week. We did very well overall. We got up and dressed and out of the house almost every day, and I'm quite proud of myself! Jacob makes it easy because he just sleeps the whole time we are out. I'm sure it will get more challenging as he "wakes up". I have felt pretty good all week and started kind of taking life normally again. Today I think my body decided I was doing too much and I'm learning why the normal recovery time for having a baby is six weeks! I'm going to try and take it easier this weekend.

I've had a wonderful week with Matthew this week. I feel like my brain might be starting to come out of the sleepless fog it's been in and I've been able to enjoy some time with my little guy. I've been trying to spend some intentional time with him, and I'm really having a blast with the neat little person he is becoming. He's picking up more and more little phrases that seem more grown up. I'm amazed at how his vocabulary is growing daily. He's becoming very independent saying "me do" to almost anything you try to help him with (including handing me gallons of milk from the shopping cart). One milestone he had this week was finally learning how to say his own name. Until now if you asked what his name was he'd say "me". Now he can finally say "Matthew", and he's quite cute in doing it. Here's a little clip of him doing it.

Just as I'm typing this post, I heard Matthew say "spit up". I turned around and he's very gently wiping Jacob's face with a blanket because he had spit up. What brotherly love to wipe up his little brother's bodily functions :)

We don't have too many pictures of our week because our camera is broken. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't...we still have to solve the mystery of why it's being goofy. Yesterday we had Jacob's newborn pictures taken. Overall they weren't the greatest. I'm going to take what I learned from the photographer and try and take some of my own. When the pictures get sent to my email, I'll post them. They said it would take 3-5 days for that to happen.

Here are a couple pictures I attempted to be creative on. You can see that Jacob does actually have eyeballs! I'm going to try some more different ones eventually.

That's all for now. It's a boring post...when I think of something exciting to add, I will!

A Week of Firsts

It's hard to believe it's been a week since we last posted....time flies when you're not sleeping! Life tends to feel like one long day, even though it's been a week :) We've had lots of "firsts" this week with Jacob, although that's pretty much the theme of the first year of life! We are all still doing very well, but I think some of the initial excitement is starting to wear off and exhaustion is setting in.

We had a fabulous two weeks with David at home. I really don't know how I would have survived the time without him. We spent most of the two weeks with David taking care of Matthew and me taking care of Jacob. We also made sure to make the most of our time by spending good family time together. Many of our "firsts" were from things we made a point to do during this special time. Here is our list of "firsts" over the last week or so.

1. Jacob's first bath

Don't most babies hate being naked and cry when they are? Jacob just laid on the towel, no noise, and looked around. When he got wet, he shivered, but still no protest. I was so surprised! He loved having his hair washed. Here is a picture of the bath (and to be honest, we had to stage a picture. We had one on the camera and I accidently deleted it. So we attempted to recreate the event!)

2. First trip to the zoo

On Tuesday we all went to the zoo as a family. Matthew was so excited to show Jacob the elephants. It seems like elephants might be becoming Matthew's favorite animal. Matthew was a great big brother, walking around the zoo himself for the most part. We were all disappointed when the train wasn't working, but fortunately the carousel was! Matthew also wanted Jacob to see the giraffes. We made our way around most of the zoo and had a fabulous time.

3. First time to Chuck E. Cheese

Matthew and I have been to Chuck E. Cheese a couple times recently with Melissa and Natalie (David's cousin), but we had never gone as a family. I always thought of Chuck E. Cheese as a place you go for special occasions or birthdays, but really, it's a very reasonable place to go to just have some fun.

Something that has become important to both David and me is to make sure we spend alone time with each kid. So, while we were all there together as a family, we also tried to make sure to focus in on Matthew. Here is a clip of Matthew and Daddy havimg a blast.

4. First cousin (on one side of the family)

Growing up, my mom's side of the family was always mostly women. Family gatherings were Grammy, my aunt, my mom, my cousin Laurie, me, and the one and only guy, Ricky. Dynamics started to change a little when Laurie and I both got married and brought David and Brent into the mix. Well, suddenly, the men out number the women! With the addition of Matthew and Jacob, and now as of 10/2/2008, little Oliver Leon, there are now more boys than girls!! Oh how the holidays will change over the next couple years as these little ones grow older!!

5. First Parade

While he slept through the whole thing, Jacob went to his first parade. It was a special parade because his big brother Matthew and his Daddy were in it. Thursday night was Finneytown's Homecoming Parade. David got to walk in it because he is a staff member. Matthew went with him (and went most of the way on David's shoulders...what a trooper David was!!) Matthew has been talking non stop about the parade, throwing candy, and seeing all the people. It's a great memory for all of us!

6. First day back to work/First day on my own with both kids

All good things must come to an end....David had to go back to work today after two weeks at home. It's nice that it's a Friday - only one day and then the weekend. No one in our family was looking forward to today. We've all really enjoyed our time together. While it's been hard work adjusting to life as a family of four, it's been a special time. David was so awesome the whole time. He worked so hard to make sure I could rest and so that I wouldn't feel like I needed to be doing housework. But now it's back to the grind. David was a champ last night and stayed up with Jacob from 12-3 (sleeping with him on his chest) so that I could finally get some sleep. Then he had to get up at 5 for FATHERS. I'm sure he's beat today.

We've done pretty well at home today. Jacob was the most tended to, being bathed and dressed. Matthew is dressed (not matching, but dressed!). And I'm still in my pajamas at 1:30 in the afternoon. At least I got my teeth brushed! I know each day will get better - I'm setting small goals each day. Monday is to get dressed and Tuesday might be to shower and get dressed before David gets home!! :)

It's now nap time and two out of three of us are quiet and sleeping. I'm going to go join the crowd! :) That's it for now!