18 Months

It's so hard to believe Jacob is 18 months!! I had planned on writing more about him right now, but I keep feeling like I don't have time...so for now, here are the pictures. I took Jacob's picture next to snoopy (I have a picture next to the same snoopy from when I was a kid) for the first 11 months. I never did take 12 months. Oops...

Here he is reading one of his favorites...a Sesame Street book from the 70's that's held together by tape.

"Get out of my picture, Snoopy!"


"Reading" what the paper says.


I never did get him looking at the camera.

And for fun, here's an old picture. Here is one year ago, six months.

Picture Update

Here are some recent pictures of life:
Jacob eating a strawberry - the only way he will eat them (it has to be whole, not cut up)

Painting for Daddy - a picture for his birthday. I have this vision in my mind of an awesome picture with little hands and feet on it...we'll see if it ever looks like that. Here's phase one.


Some mommy time. I like the outfit he is wearing and I knew it was the last time because it was getting small. So we took pictures to remember it :)


A rare moment...both boys sitting still!

Funny Quotes

I'm not very good about remember to write down funny quotes the kids say, but here are a couple recent ones.

Matthew, to me, while I was paying bills. "Mommy, maybe one day we can buy you some money."

Matthew to me while we're walking out into the garage, "Mommy, you must care about me.Daddy doesn't care about me." Me: "Yes, I do. But why do you say that?" "You held the door open for me. Daddy didn't."

Jacob: Jacob doesn't have many words, but today I found him searching the house for me (I had disappeared to do a load of laundry). I could hear him in the monitor, wandering from room to room, "Mama? Mama? Mama?" He was very obviously looking for me and not just repeating himself. When he found me, he just grinned. He also says "mama" with a different emphasis to mean "Matthew", "Daddy", "Nama" and "Mawmaw".

This isn't a quote, but Matthew has now started requesting a baby sister and a baby brother.

Matthew

Sorry I haven't posted in almost a month...just feel like I haven't had anything to post, other than the daily routine of life! So here's a little update on the kids, since that's what most people are curious about :) Here are some ramblings about Matthew: Matthew is 3 - that says a lot! He is EXTREMELY extroverted, to the point that it totally exhausts both David and I. I am an extrovert too, but not as much as Matthew. He talks non-stop - really. We think he talks just to hear noise. He can be extremely sweet - and sometimes not so sweet. He loves to read, absolutely loves it. He gets up around 6:30 am (not my choice of awakening time...). He comes out of his room very loud and ready to start the day. There's no easing into the morning. He's ready to go! He often wakes everyone else in the house! He's very eager to learn. He knows his alphabet well and is now really trying to learn letter sounds. We're not doing anything official in the way of homeschooling - just trying to take learning opportunities as we get them. So it's fun to see him try new things. He's often asking how to spell words and tries to sound them out. He loves rhyming words. He's not a big eater, never has been. Bedtime is NOT his favorite part of the day. He enjoys laying down to read with us, often asking us for more books. But once we're done, we have had a hard time keeping him in his room. We're trying to get to the bottom of the issue with this. Maybe it's his extreme need to be with others - he can't handle being alone?? Maybe?? He wants someone to stay with him, he hears a noise, he has a booger, has to go potty - and he has a potty in his room: you name it, he's used it as an excuse. He often comes out at night as well, after we're sleeping. We are working on breaking his habit of screaming for us in the middle of the night. It's just a rough way to be awoken! We have a paper chain, and for each night he makes it without needing us, he gets to take a link off. Every time that happens, he gets something from his treasure box (sticker, etc), and when he gets to the 5th chain, he gets a bigger prize (first time is a basement camp out, second is a car movie car, and third we're still deciding between a few things...stay tuned, maybe we'll eventually get to it!). We've been doing this for about two weeks and we're almost to the first big prize. Slow progress, but at least we're moving in the right direction :) We're open to advice :)

Matthew is loving preschool. We think it has been so great for him. He's making friends and talk about them all the time. I'll post more about that another time :)

Little Helper

Jacob is turning into quite the little helper lately, and it so proud of it! He takes pride in throwing away his diapers (and it always has to be the same trash can in the basement - he will take a diaper that has been changed upstairs, carry it down the stairs, just to throw it away in the bathroom can), feeding the dog, swiffering the floor, filling up sippy cups (he takes them to a sink and stands there until someone comes to fill it up. Tonight at bedtime, he went into Matthew's room, found Matthew's cup, brought it to the kitchen sink to be filled, and took it back to Matthew, all without being asked to!). Here are some pictures of his helpfulness!




Other Jacob updates: He is really enjoying reading books. We have read to Matthew at bedtime ever since he was a little baby. Well, being the second child, we didn't really do that with Jacob - probably just out of exhaustion. We'd get to bedtime and just get him in bed as quickly as we could. Eventually, Jacob figured out that he was missing out - Matthew got to read and he didn't. He, very clearly, let us know his thoughts about it. He would point at his books and squeal, showing us he wanted to read. Eventually we'd ask, "Do you want to read some books?" and we get this little Jacob giggle and grin that he does to show us that we figured out what he was "saying". He is a little bit of a book snob. He strongly prefers Eric Carle books over anything else (author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar). He often pushes other books away until he gets the one he wants.
Jacob is also a very talented eater. He has recently mastered putting food on a fork and eating it, getting soup to his mouth on a spoon, and would like to think he's working on using a big boy cup.
Jacob is definitely not the talker that Matthew is (thank goodness, to be honest :) But he definitely can get his point across, at least to those of us that speak his language. The other day, though, he gave me a big hug and, very clearly, said, "I ya you."
He's a climbing machine - climbs on everything, and, really, does very well. He rarely falls, and when he does, usually doesn't care. He flipped off of Matthew's bed the other day and thought it was funny!
Think that's what he's up to for now...not much exciting to others, but to us, he makes us laugh everyday!

Matthew Wants a Sister

During Christmas, Matthew kept saying he wanted a sister for Christmas. We just kind of chuckled and never addressed the issue that he wouldn't be getting one from Santa. Well, the day before Christmas, David casually said, "I know one thing you won't be getting for Christmas, and that's a baby sister." Little did we know how traumatic it would be for him. It led to 30 minutes of all out screaming - snot, tears and the whole ordeal! Here's a clip of him, after 20 minutes. I still think I should submit it to America's Funniest Home videos...I think it could win us some money :) I should have taped longer, though. But I felt bad holding the camera in his face while he was so upset!

PartyLite

I'm getting rid of some of my old PartyLite stuff. I posted it on Craigs List. If I like ya, I might give you a better deal :)