Happy Birthday, Jacob!

J-Dub killed a ginormous cupcake, then downed 98% of his bottle right afterwards.  That's how he rolls.

I can't believe it has been a year already.  Seems like just yesterday I was watching Jacob get sliced right out of Nancy's bloody uterus.  Ahhh, memories.

Saturday is the big Par-Tay, so I will throw down a little more blog action afterwards. Until then, enjoy some pictures of Jacob eating cake. Nancy won't let me post his official one year portraits yet, because she wants everyone to see them at the party.  So here is his official-but-not-professional one year picture.

Can you believe it has been a year?

This year has flown by.  A year ago, J-Dub was still a fetus, and now he is walking around wreaking havoc on anything that is within reach (he walks 90% of the time now...only crawling when he needs to get somewhere fast...like Shelby's water bowl to splash in it before Mom picks it up).  At some point he stopped being a baby and became a little boy.  A blonde little boy.  Seriously, what is up with this kid's hair?  Never in the history of mankind has hair gone from that dark to that light that quickly, without the aid of some serious bleach action.  We look at his early pictures and it doesn't even look like the same kid.

EXHIBIT A

Jacob's Pa has kind of a tradition in our family of getting all the grandkids a wagon for their first birthday. So when they were in town last weekend, he brought Jacob's. It is no ordinary wagon. It is a covered wagon, and in a pinch you could actually use it to migrate west across the prairie. Seriously. It is pretty large and we need a bigger garage to house it, but Jacob absolutely freakin' loves it. We've made the loop around the neighborhood a couple of times, and he kicks back with his sippy cup and enjoys the ride. When we push him in the stroller, he does nothing but play with the seat belt the whole time, paying no attention to the scenery. We joke that we could just strap him in and put him the back yard and he would have just as much fun. But with the wagon, there are no seatbelts, straps, or other distractions. So he just sits on his little blanket and grins ear to ear. If we stop, even briefly, he starts rocking back and forth trying to get it moving again. But while we are moving, he sits perfectly still...which, if you have been around him more than 5 minutes, you know that he NEVER does. On today's walk, we decided to remove the cover so he could see more and so we could get some good pictures. Here are a few.

 

 

Pa pulling him on his first ride

This kid has so many toys it's not even funny.  And he even plays with them every once in a while.  But on his list of favorite toys, there are very few actual toys on it.  The favorites, in no particular order, are:  Shelby's water bowl, belts, plastic containers and the cabinet they are kept in, a bottle of Italian dressing that is on the bottom shelf of the fridge that he grabs every time the door is open, iPhones, remote controls, cords, a tube of Boudreaux's Butt Paste, any door, the power button on the DVR, and, oh yeah, a turtle bath toy.  So if you are looking for that perfect birthday gift, the housewares department or the condiments aisle are your best bets.

With his favorite bottle of dressing

Pa and Logan at the Astros game

Nancy and Jacob at the fish tank in Bass Pro Shop.

Walking?

Jacob is VERY close to being a full-time biped.  He can take 10 or so steps and then gives up and crawls, but he rarely falls anymore...which is good since he likes to walk on hard floors more than carpet.  We have been trying for a week to get a video of him walking.  He will practically jog around the house likes he's been doing it for years...then as soon as we turn on the camera, he can somehow manage only one step without falling down.  But we finally got a semi-decent video today, although it is still not nearly as impressive as what he does when there is no camera.

M and Pa and Logan came down today so we could take Logan to his first major league baseball game.  A specialty clinic that I refer a lot of patients to gave me four tickets right behind the dugout, so Nancy and I took Jacob, Logan, and Pa to the game.  Jacob was pretty good, although he has the attention span of an 11-month-old, so there was a lot of passing him back and forth, stuffing his face, and other distraction techniques.  Logan had lots of fun, and got to stuff his face with junk food since his mom is 200 miles away.  He ate 1 and 1/2 Jumbo pretzels, a large soda, popcorn, a sno-cone, and cotton candy.  he had a stomach ache when we got home.  I'm not sure why.

Before the game, I got him a baseball and we went autograph hunting.  We managed to get Michael Bourn's signature, and Logan is very proud of it.  He says he is going to sell it and make some money.  He also got another baseball, a hat, and some baseball cards.  Man, that kid is rotten.  It's a LOT easier to do when his mom is not keeping tabs on us.  Especially when she is not even in the same city.

Photo Shoot

One day this week, Nancy decided to do a 4th of July photo shoot and she got some really good pictures.  She is a master with our DSLR camera, while I can barely use my iphone camera.  Here ya go: