New Consonants

From the very beginning, Jacob was not a very verbal baby. We were slightly concerned with him right after birth because he really didn't cry very much. Well, he has finally made some progress towards making words. And I am thrilled because it's "mama".
I think he might be saying "more". He only says it while he's eating. But who knows!

Was That a Pterodactyl?

Yesterday I thought I heard a pterodactyl....

Oh wait, it was just Jacob.

Ignore the fact that he's playing with an alarm clock and is tangled in the cord!

Blessing

The other night we had something happen to us that had never happened before...a good thing. It's a "random acts of kindness" story. It had been a long day, and a lot of the day had not gone as I had planned (which happens a lot with little kids!)I really needed to go to the grocery store and didn't really have anything great to fix for dinner, other than the usual pull-it-together kind of meal (mac and cheese, grilled cheese, etc). So David suggested we all go to the grocery together. We decided to run through McDonald's and just eat at the grocery store. I was kind of bummed that we were going to spend our eating out budget in such a fashion. It wasn't even going to be fun to eat out! Well, as we pulled up to the window to pay, the lady inside said, "Your order was paid for by the car in front of you." Wow!! What an amazing gesture! Little did that lady know what a difference she made for my day! I can't even begin to tell you how that made us feel. I almost teared up. It's something that I am going to do sometime - pay for the car behind me. So, it's kind of a long story, but something that I wanted to share.

We Were Bored...

Sometimes when you're bored, you have to get creative to entertain yourself...so one day we were at my mom's and were totally bored. Jacob was sleeping, so I decided to pull out my old dress up boxes to see what we could get into. Most of the dress ups were "for girls", so Matthew told me. But we did get into some of my old dance costumes. Matthew's favorite was the turtle costume, from when I did a dance to "Under the Sea". He also liked being a rhino from "Lion King", but he needs some time to grow into it! We also made a tent out of bed sheets that day and turned it into a pirate ship with all of my old troll dolls working on the boat. It was fun.

Bath Time Fun

Again, this is a little old, but Jacob has recently started enjoying bathtime sitting up in the bathtub with Matthew. He finally got to the point where his sitting was good enough that he wouldn't fall over very easily. He LOVES it. He does a little scoot on his bottom to move around the tub. It's funny to watch. Here is the first bath together with him sitting up.

Last Day of School

I know this was a couple weeks ago, but I got behind on my blogging, so here it is now :) Matthew finished his first year at Northminster's Children's Co-op. I am amazed at how much he grew throughout the year. At the beginning of the year, he would cry when we'd leave him places, he was wearing diapers, he didn't talk very well, and he wasn't used to being in situations with adults other than close family members. Thanks to Mrs. Shockley, Matthew has come so far!! His speech is amazing (sometimes I wish I could go back to the way it was before he could talk so well...)Within about two weeks of the beginning of the year, he was so excited to go to school and stopped crying when we'd leave him. He just totally admires Mrs. Shockley and can't understand why he's not going back to her class anymore. I didn't realize how sad I would be for the last day of school!! Here are some pictures from his last day.


And just for memories, here he is on the first day of school. I almost put him in the same shirt (which, by the way is an 18 month shirt...), but I thought it might be confusing in 20 years to remember which picture was which!


Now I see how badly he needed a haircut! Poor kid...

Jacob

Yesterday we went on a walk and I made an attempt to take some creative pictures with the kids. Matthew, being the two-year-old that he is, wouldn't look at the camera (except when I bribed him with fruit snacks to take pictures with Jacob). So here is a display of my untrained photography skills.





And here are my very unsuccessful attempts at getting the boys together.



And here is Matthew "watering the garden". Oh boys.....