22 months

Last Monday, Jacob turned 22 months old. His monthly pictures are DEFINITELY getting harder and harder to take. This time, not only did he not want to sit still, he acted like the sticker was hurting him if attached to his shirt for even a second. So, although he is not looking at the camera OR smiling, here is the best of the pictures we took...



(By the way, Randy had to photoshop the 22 month sticker on this picture...it was THAT bad!)

At 22 months, here is what he is doing...

~ His vocabulary has really picked up this month. He can say so many things, somewhat knows the meaning behind a few things, and mimics something new almost every day. He is now saying or can say ball, block, night night, M (Randy's mom), Pa (Randy's dad), bye bye, cookie, bubble, oops, stop, eat, baby, no way (his current favorite), i don't know, me and puppy plus all of the stuff he has said in the past. I have a feeling this is the last month I'll be listing his new words because, hopefully, by next month there will be too many to list! And for all of those words I listed, he says them pretty well. You don't have to have a vivid imagination to understand what he is saying. However, he also says open (he likes toys that open/close but sometimes needs me to open them) but it sounds NOTHING like open. For some reason, he says "ah ma".

~ He can sort of use a fork by himself. We have been giving him the chance and when he does stab some food and pick it up with his fork, he gets the happiest look on his face! He loves using it so much, that when he thinks he is finished with a meal, but we don't think he has eaten enough, we can trick him into eating at least 10 more bites by letting him use a fork.

~ He is also learning to drink out of a cup by himself. I'm not brave enough to even let him try, but Randy has been letting him and he can do it all by himself! If the level is too low, he has a hard time judging how much he should tilt it, but otherwise does really well. And, of course, when he is successful, he gets a huge smile.









~ As many of you have seen from recent videos, the boy likes to dance. He will dance to almost any song on a cartoon on tv, or really, just about any song at all. He will even dance (at least do the arm moves) when you ask him to dance now.

~ He will freeze. It something that we do in Little Gym, and one random Thursday at gym, he really picked up on it. It's very cute to see because he has to spread his legs and bend down (like Ms. Pat does at the gym) but he doesn't stay in that position very long.

~ He weighs 34 pounds, 14.5 ounces. On second thought, maybe we should quit doing the fork trick!

~ We are back in swim lessons and he is doing well. We did not have them this week because of Memorial Day on Monday, so next week will probably be a little bit of a struggle again. But really, by the 3rd time we went in 3 weeks, he was really doing great.

~ He loves to brush his teeth and does it multiple times a day. However, I am NOT allowed to brush them for him any more. That's why I let him do it multiple times. I'm sure he doesn't do a very good job so we are going for quantity over quality.

~ He has his first major boo boo this past month. We were outside playing with sidewalk chalk and he was holding one in his right hand. He tripped and did not let go of the chalk and somehow managed to rip almost his whole fingernail off of one nail. Although he barely cried when it happened, the worst part (for me at least) was the next day. It looked terrible, but the main thing was that he forgot it was hurt and would go on playing and climbing like normal. Then he would hurt it on something and would cry. It was really sad! By the second day, it was as if he forgot what happened. Every once in a while, he would look at it and make a sad face, but you could tell that it didn't really hurt him anymore. Right now (2 weeks later) it's growing back nicely and just looks like a real short nail. Here is a picture from the night it happened, he will not sit still long enough for me to get a picture now!



~ He got a shape sorter for Christmas last year and played with it a lot when he first got it. However, we had to basically show him where to put the shapes, and when it didn't go in the first time, he would get frustrated and throw the piece. Well, that toy went to the bottom of his toy box and we have not touched it in months. The other day, he got it out and brought it to me as I was going through a week's worth of mail. So, I took the six shapes out and put them with the sorter on the ground next to me. Next thing I knew, all six were back in the toy. So, I did it again and watched him. He knew how to do it perfectly! You can even watch him study the color and look for the matching color on the sorter. And he's ever so patient about getting it in the hole the right way as opposed to getting frustrated!

That about all I can think of for his new "tricks". :o)

Here is some other random stuff...

Although he didn't like a splash pad when we went with some friends, he loved playing with the hose, naked, in our back yard. Mostly, he liked drinking the water from the hose.



He's trying to get prepared to go fishing with Grandma and Grandpa, so we play our magnetic fishing game at home.




I still need to blog about our quick trip to Kemah for Memorial Day...hopefully I'll do that tomorrow!

~ Nancy

4 wheeling fun and, of course, other stuff

Lots of pictures and very little to say this time (grandparents will be happy).

First, we finally broke down and bought Jacob his own 4 wheeler so he doesn't have to ride the pink one at M and Pa's house. Of course, we get home to find out it needs to charge for at least 18 hours, so we didn't get to ride it that day. The next day, when Randy got home from work, we took him out front to ride it. Unfortunately, when Jacob is in the front yard, he really only wants to run in the street. So, although it looks like he is having fun here, he really wanted to run! And, by the way, it was not really THAT dark outside, these pictures just look that way!
























He also did a few of his usual tricks for us, like dancing in the street.



Riding with his feet up...



And walking on the side while pushing the button to make it go!



The next day, I tried it in the back yard but it doesn't work as well on grass!









He has no concept of steering and ran into his water table.



And loved to get in the middle of the yard and scream for me.



He was thrilled when he found the storage compartment on the front. He still loves to open and close things.






And, as promised, I finally got the pictures from Jennifer of our playdate last week. Here we are in the pool...



One attempt at getting a picture of all 3 toddlers.



Eating at the kids table.



And, my favorite, the 3 of them in the hammock.



Since I blogged last, we have been playing with out blocks A LOT. He is finally building with them (with my help) as opposed to just dumping them or throwing them around the room.



Randy bought me some beautiful flowers for Mother's Day.



And we went to our first arena football game. Randy and I have never been to one, and the Houston (or Katy...can't remember) Stallions play about 10 minutes from our house in the Merrell Center. Jacob was pretty well behaved and loved the clapping, Skittles and Diet Coke.












And, although we only stayed for the first half, Jacob got very tired and almost fell asleep like this...




~ Nancy

PlayDATES and other randomness

We have had a few playdates in the past week, and Jacob is taking the DATE part seriously. Last Friday, we met Jennifer and Jacqueline at the park and then headed to McDonalds for a nutritious lunch (HA!). The funny part of this whole story is that morning, Jennifer's husband told Jacqueline to have fun at her playdate but to remember that it was NOT a kissing date. You can only guess what Jacob did. :o)

It all started with Jacqueline wanting me to pick her up. And she is SO light compared to Jacob (she is also 3 months younger). So, I told Jennifer she needed to pick up Jacob to see the difference. She did, and Jacob grabbed the sides of her face and planted one on her. That was kiss #1.

Before the next kissing session, Jacqueline decided that she didn't want to eat her nuggets but would feed them to Jacob. Jennifer snapped a few pics so I'm using hers (I wasn't quick enough with the camera)...



Right before we left, Jacob and Jacqueline were standing there looking at each other. I was saying to Jacob to tell Jacqueline bye bye, when he leaned over towards her. I thought he was going to hug her so I told him to. Well, he had other plans and planted one on her too. Jennifer and I thought it was so funny that we made them do it a number of times, and even put them in a booth to snap a picture before we left. I love Jacqueline's face in the second one...






So much for a playdate NOT a kissing date with my kiddo around!

This past weekend, we headed to the lake/river with some friends and M and Pa kept Jacob at Laura and Scott's house. Apparently Jacob thought it was funny to kiss Makinley when we left. Makinley didn't think it was as funny! Unfortunately, none of us got pictures of that one.

But, on the ride home, he was exhausted and passed out. Keeping up with Makinley (who is 4) is hard work!




Monday morning, we stared back into our swim lessons at the Houston Swim Club. We have a new teacher and they always give high fives and hugs at the end of class. Jacob planted one on her too!! (That's 4 in 4 days if you are counting...and those don't include me, Randy, M and Pa).

Today, we had another playdate at Jennifer and Jacqueline's house with Robyn (another mom) and her daughter Dallas. Jacob was in heaven and got to kiss both of them! I didn't get the cute pictures of them kissing but, I think, Jennifer did. I'll share them when she sends them to me.

Jacob did actually wear some sunglasses for more than a second. We have bought him a pair, but he won't keep them on for longer than 2 seconds. However, he loved Jennifer's glasses...



I know it's a dark picture, but we were under their patio. Still cute!

I also got a picture of Jacqueline, who loves hats...



And, Dallas, who is just being silly...



So, all in all, I think that is 5 different girls in 5 different days. Maybe we need to find some little boys to hang out with. Then again, maybe not!

~ Nancy

How I blog

Disclaimer: This blog is not going to be interesting to my family. There are no cute pictures of Jacob...sorry.

When I took over blogging duties, back in December or so, I did about 2 blogs before I wanted to give up. If you remember, I even complained about it on one of my posts. Blogging through blogspot on internet explorer with lots of pictures is NOT fun. I began to realize why Randy complained about blogging when we nagged him. See, if you have never done it, when you insert a picture, it always puts it at the top. And randomly adds spaces to the text you have typed. Then, pulling the picture down where you want it is not as easy as you would think. And, adding more than one picture becomes a huge hassle and sometimes does not let you put the second picture after the first...argh! So, I wanted to give up and complained.

However, some of my friends have noticed that my blogs do have lots of pictures and have asked me how I do it. No, I don't spend hours doing it...I don't have that kind of patience! So, here are some of the things I have found to make blogging MUCH easier. Granted, we are a gadget family (or, I should say, my husband loves gadgets and I benefit from it) so that makes it easier.

First, I ALWAYS blog from my iPad. But I found a wonderful app that makes it easy to blog. When you input a picture, it puts it right where you want it...no random spaces either. I'm sure there are more out there, but this is the one I use. I think it was $4.99 but am not sure.



And before you say it or think it, yes, typing on an iPad is hard. So, I also bought a wireless keyboard. This also makes it easier to answer emails from the iPad. I bought the "official" one to go with an iPad from Apple, but I have since seen that there are much cheaper ones on the market. Some attach to the iPad and some (like mine) connect through bluetooth. Here is my set up.



And here is the keyboard by itself.



Next, I pretty much take most of my pictures with my phone. When I'm ready to blog, I email them to myself, check it on the iPad and save them to the iPad. This is so easy because you can mail yourself 5 (I think) pictures at a time and save all 5 at once.

For the rare times that I use our "big" camera (any other digital camera besides a phone), you can also save to a computer and email them to yourself. However, Randy bought a handy dandy gadget that does it instantly. You just take the memory card out of the camera, plug it in to this thing and then plug both of those in to the iPad. Pick the ones you want and you import them. Easy peasy. I have no idea how much this costs but I think it was around $20.



And, with this BlogPress app, you can also blog from an iPhone. It is harder to type, but you get to skip the step of emailing yourself pictures. I'm pretty sure the keyboard would work with the phone too, but I've never tried it. If I'm going to do a quick blog, I'll do it from my phone. But, I think I've only done that once or twice.

Last, just like on blogspot, you can start a post and save it but not post it. So, sometimes I blog one day, proof read/try to make it funny the next day and post the 2nd day. Or, I can start the blog on my phone while getting a pedicure, and finish up later. :o)

That's it...those are my blogging secrets. And, if you're wondering, this blog took me exactly 7 minutes to write and post. For those of you that blog, am I missing anything? Do you have a blogging secret?

~ Nancy

Water table fun

I finally broke down and bought Jacob a water table. I wanted to get him one last year (when he still loved water) but never did. After the swimming drama, I decided to go cheap this year to see if he likes it. He'll probably get an upgrade next year since he loves it! He has been out to play with it every day since we bought it, and usually makes a huge mess. So, the other day, he went diaper only to go play.



I'm pretty sure that smile means he likes it! Here are a few other pictures of the fun...










Daddy even taught him how to scoop up water and pour it in the tower thingy...he tries real hard.












However, he really likes to scoop up water and pour it on the patio. And, every time, say Uh Oh.






And, sometimes, he likes to try and drink the water.



Here he is posing...you know the move...trying to suck in your belly so you don't look fat. If you can't suck it in, just push it in...



And, for laughs, I almost deleted this picture (since I already had 10 or 20 that looked just like it) but something caught my eye. See anything funny?


~ Nancy