Playing at the mall

Jacob and I needed to hit up a real mall (Katy Mills is an outlet mall) yesterday, so we went to West Oaks Mall. It's terrible and should probably be closed down. However, the kids play area was definitely geared towards Jacob's age, so he loved it!

Here he is climbing in the tree



And then sliding down the slide



And, riding a horse



But then, the funniest thing ever happened. One of the older girls there went to lay down on the ground and put her legs up on one of the climbing structures. Jacob just stared at her and you could tell that he was trying to figure out what she was doing. Since he couldn't quite figure it out, he decided to lay down there with her for a little while.



It was all fun and games until Jacob decided to leave the play area, bare foot, with his sippy cup, looking back at me and laughing. The more serious I got and said "Stop" and "Freeze", the faster he walked. So, I had to chase him which he loved. Then, our playing was over!!

~Nancy

New toys needed

Would someone PLEASE buy this kid some toys? He doesn't have any so he has to play with bags full of dirty diapers. Poor baby...









~Nancy

Happy 23 months!

I know everyone says this, but I truly cannot believe that my BABY is almost 2 years old. Wow is all I can say!

I'll admit, we cheated a little on his 23 month picture. We did an impromptu photo shoot Wednesday night in our backyard for a good picture in his Big Brother t-shirt. After taking nearly 400 photos (no joke) we had about 10 that we really liked. I then realized that the very next day (Thursday), we were going to have to do his 23 month photo shoot (any time we take lots of pictures of him, we call it a photo shoot). Since last month we had to photo shop the sticker on him, why not do it again this month? And we'll probably do it again next month unless he begins to enjoy sitting still, with a sticker on him and smiling (not gonna happen). So, it's not in the usual spot on the couch, but oh well!



At 23 months...

-He is truly saying new words almost every day. I'm amazed, at times, how often he'll repeat the last word of a sentence that we say or that he hears on tv. It also makes you very conscience of what word you end sentences with!!

-He loves books now and can pick out some things in his favorite My First Words book. He calls the ice cream cone a "Yummy", the crib a "Night night", the phone a "Hello" and all dark colored round things a "Yo yo". (The actual yo yo on the toys page is dark and round so he learned it there). There are lots of things that he identifies correctly, but those are boring to list!

-He is still using sign language for more, please and all done. He is learning sign language for colors and can do yellow (sounds a lot like yo yo when he says it out loud) and purple. He can't get either sign exactly right, but you can tell what he's trying to do. The best is that I tried teaching him thank you (hand at your chin and then move your hand out) and he blows kisses instead. I don't have the heart to correct him because it's so. darn. cute.

-I just re-read his 22 month post and there isn't a lot more that has changed. He's getting better every day with a fork and drinking out of a cup. He still dances all day long. He is still in swim lessons and does OK until you try to make him float on his back.

That's all I can think of right now. Hopefully, I hit all of the major things!!

~Nancy

Big brother

Jacob has an announcement...



Jacob will be a big brother in January!

My actual due date is January 28th (Jacob's 2 1/2 birthday) but due to a repeat c section, I would not go past January 21st. Everyone seems to ask how I feel. Of course, I'm very excited and grateful but am experiencing some morning sickness (usually at night). I never had this with Jacob. It has really only stopped me from eating 3 times. It's usually just annoying. And, I'm extremely tired. I'm sure that is from pregnancy and keeping up with a very active 2 year old, but I usually can't wait to nap when Jacob naps. Other than that, I feel great!

Jacob is so excited...see?



He even had to dance about it...





And, of course, Randy and I had a hard time choosing out of the 400 ish pictures we took, so here are a few more.









He's also 23 months old today (Wow) but I'm sleepy and need a nap. So, I'll blog about that later!

~Nancy

Very RANDOM post

Since there really isn't anything exciting going on, I haven't been blogging. However, I noticed today that I have lots of pictures to share, so I'll do that.

First, a lesson on Instagram. I don't use it a lot or really follow people on it, but my mom was asking me about it. Basically, I use it to edit pictures. Here is a random shot of Jacob before Instagram...



And, now, the same shot after some quick editing...



That was exciting, huh?

A few weekends ago, we went to Austin for sweet Molly's 1st birthday party. Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures (exactly ONE) because I was laughing at her too hard. When she was given her smash cake, she took it very seriously and destroyed it like I've never seen any 1 year old do. It was awesome! Here is the only picture I took...before the "smashing".



The next day we went to Fan Fest at U of H. We met Jackie Sherrill. He signed a football and his book for Jacob. However, Jacob was not excited about it and refused to act normal for a picture.
Proof:










As you know, Jacob loves to play outside with his water table. His newest obsession is drinking from the water hose and attempting to sweep the porch. I got (more) pictures of him playing the other night, but this time, we left his clothes on.






He always claps for himself...for, pretty much, doing nothing.








He feels the need to fill the over flowing water table.








There is a really cute baby that he always sees in the glass door. He LOVES looking at him.


The child normally hates taking pictures, but decided to ham it up. So, I took advantage.





When we came inside after this, I immediately gave him a bath (he was already soaked). However, Dad came home with the absolute yummiest chocolate chunk cookies from Chic fil A (seriously, have you tried them?) and Jacob made a mess.






That's all I've got for now. Hopefully, I'll blog again sooner than I did this time!

~Nancy

Monkey Joe's

Before I even start this post, let me just say that Jacob has more than one shirt. He has a ton of clothes actually. But for some reason, he seems to be wearing this same polo shirt in a lot of his pictures lately. I guess I really like it. :o)

Anyway, last Saturday we took Jacob to Monkey Joe's. There are 3 different inflatable places to go jump at in Katy, but we have never taken him to any of them. Until recently, he didn't even LOVE the inflatable air track at Little Gym. But, he has figured out how to jump on it (and the couch and the bed, etc). So, we figured he would like this place (and it was air conditioned on a hot Saturday afternoon). We were right!

Here is where we started. It's the toddler zone and everything is a much smaller scale than the rest of the place. This allowed him to get comfortable with the inflatables.


Yep, he's figuring out the jumping!


This is the slide in the toddler zone. He loved it!


Just trying to figure out where to go next!


He decided on the medium size slide. Unfortunately, he needed Dad's help to get inside. But he was good to go after that...


I know this picture is blurry, but he was going really fast on this slide, and I thought it was cute!


He kept getting braver and braver and here he is entering one of the big kid zones!


And, finally, he needed a break from jumping and went to drive the Flintstones car.


I think we really wore him out on Saturday at Monkey Joe's because Sunday he woke up with a horrible fever and has been sick as can be ever since. We went to the doctor yesterday and heard my least favorite words, "It's a virus...could take 5-7 days". Ugh... The upside is that he wants to cuddle a lot!


~ Nancy

Memorial Day weekend...a little late

We made the decision to make a quick trip (just one night of the long weekend) to the Kemah Boardwalk. We got a room right on the Boardwalk at The Boardwalk Inn. This is a very cute hotel where every room has a balcony. We ended up in a suite and actually had 3 balconies. Here are some views of the boardwalk from one of our balconies.









Once we got checked in on Saturday, we headed down to find some rides that Jacob would enjoy. It didn't take long for us to realize that it was too hot out there, so we headed back to our room to change into our swimsuits. We swam for a while to cool off and then went back for rides. We didn't do a lot, but Jacob had a great time running around and watching us chase him! We did ride the tall, sightseeing thing (I call it the space needle because that is what it was called at Astroworld) and, of course, rode the train. Jacob really liked both of those. Here are some train pictures.

Waiting to get going...


We took 10 pictures like this to try and get one with his mouth closed. But, I had flipped the camera on my iphone so he could see himself. And, apparently, that means open your mouth. He looked exactly the same in all 10 of them!



Once the train got going, he loved looking around.



Then, the train movement got him really tired (plus his nap was short that day).



Back in the room, Jacob's absolute favorite thing to do was talk on the phone. He loves doing this at home too (with play cell phones, remotes, blocks, you name it), but he's never really been around a corded phone before. Randy and I were surprised he even realized that was a phone too!



Later that night, there was a live band playing on the Boardwalk. It was so crowded down there that we didn't really feel like going down to listen. But, our hotel had a private outdoor pavilion on the 4th floor that overlooked the area where the band was playing. We went out there and were the only people out there. Jacob LOVED hearing the loud music and danced like crazy (you may have seen the videos that Randy put on Facebook). It really didn't matter that it was an hour past Jacob's bedtime, he was having a blast!

Sunday morning, we got up and went to play in the fountains. Jacob is still unsure about splash parks and fountains, but he did get soaked. We just couldn't tell if he liked it or not!




We headed home after that so Randy could get some relaxation time before heading back to work on Tuesday.

~ Nancy