So big!

Just wanted to share this cute picture of Jacob. He is so proud of himself that he can pull himself up to stand now. Way to go, little man!

Ethan and Jacob at the Fire Station

 

Last week I had the opportunity to take the boys to the Redlands Fire Station on a tour. It was fun to see all the trucks and gear up close. Ethan had a great time, but cried a bunch because he couldn't take away his buddy's toy fire truck. As you can see in some of the pictures, he did end up playing with the truck by the end of the tour. The firemen allowed the children to climb through the truck to get a photo taken as they came out the other side. I thought that would've been really cute, but Ethan just cried over the toy truck and said he didn't want to climb into the fire truck. After we got home from the tour he decided that he wanted to go back and climb in the fire truck. Too late, little guy! Ethan also cried when the fireman was teaching the children how to stop, drop, and roll. All the other kids had fun rolling on the floor, but when I nudged Ethan to get on the floor, he threw himself down all dramatically and started bawling. I think most moms would've been flustered or embarrassed, but I'm so used to Ethan's drama that I don't even feel embarrassed anymore. Even with the fireman and other moms looking at me wondering what happened to my kid, I just smile and wait for Ethan to get distracted and stop with his bawling.

Ethan's First Camping Trip

 

Josh took Ethan camping for the annual Fathers and Sons overnighter in our ward. They went up Friday night and came home late Saturday morning. Ethan had the time of his life! He's told me several times between yesterday and today that he wants to go camping again. Maybe next year.

This is totally off-topic, but I thought it was really funny: Last night when Josh was helping Ethan get his pajamas on, Josh put Ethan's pajama shirt on his own head. Ethan thought that was really funny and said, "You smell like a goat!" Josh quickly figured out that he meant to say, "You look like a ghost!" We had a good chuckle over that one.

Jacob's 11 Month Mark

Our sweet Jacob is now 11 months old! It's hard to believe he will be one year old in another month. Time has gone so fast since he was born. He's been such a joy to have as a baby. We love him with all our hearts and can't imagine our family without him. It's cute to see how much he loves his big brother, Ethan. He will follow Ethan wherever he goes, crawling as fast as he can to keep up. His whole countenance lightens up whenever he sees his daddy. He will smile and point at Josh to play with him. He also loves to play peekaboo. Jacob is starting to warm up to other people, although he is still a mama's boy.

Magnet

Last Friday morning Ethan accidentally swallowed a small but strong magnet. He panicked after it happened, knowing that he shouldn't be eating nonfood objects. I called Poison Control to find out if we needed to take him in to his doctor, but they assured me there was no potential for poisoning from a magnet. However, they did say that we had to dig through his stools for the next couple of days to make sure the magnet passed. If we couldn't find it, then we'd have to take him in for x-rays, which we really wanted to avoid. After three days and several dry heaves later, I'm proud to announce that we found the magnet this morning. Josh and I had this ingenious idea to save us some of the horror of the task of looking for it. We took another very strong magnet and used it to pull out the other one. Ethan is relieved that the magnet is not in his tummy anymore and we are even more relieved that we no longer have to search for it.

Mother's Day 2009

 

Happy Mother's Day! I'm really excited for Josh's gifts to me. For his first gift, he moved the computer and computer desk out of Jacob's room into our bedroom! Yay! Now I can blog more regularly and add pictures more easily than before. What a great gift! It was so hard to use the computer before because normally I wanted to work on this while Jacob was napping, but since the computer was in his room, I couldn't. Anyway, problem solved, and I'm one happy mommy! I'm also excited to be able to decorate Jacob's room into a baby's room. The other gift was a beautiful red rose bouquet, which is the centerpiece on our brand new breakfast nook kitchen table set (thanks Mom & Dad Long!).

Later today we are having family over and all the married men are providing dinner. Josh is working on the lasagna right now. I'm so proud of him!

In church today, the primary children sang two Mother's Day songs to the congregation. When the children were invited to the front to sing, Ethan started walking up, then he changed his mind and came back and sat down with us. I felt sad because I was really looking forward to seeing him sing. For the second song, all the children received a rose to give to their moms, so I told Ethan, "go up and get a flower." He said ok and headed up to the front for the second song. The only sad part about it was he was in the back since he went up late, so I couldn't see his cute little face.

I love being a Mom and enjoying my special day!

Dedicated to Shelby

I'm embarrassed that this is my first post for the entire year, but maybe if I get it over with, it won't be so hard to continue on from here. We will see. Anyway, the most recent news around here is that Jacob is in the 3rd percentile for his weight and 0 percentile for his height. If anyone has any advice to boost his growth, let me know. I've been feeding him more at each meal, which he doesn't seem to mind, so we will continue on from there.

I'm dedicating this post to Shelby because she inspired me to get back into blogging, reminding me what a great family history this can be... and it's so much more fun than writing in a journal!

Fall Festivities

On Saturday we attended the Hillside Ward Fall Festival with my parents, Mackenzy, and Grandma Taylor. Before heading over to the church building for the party, Ethan, Josh, and I carved a jack-o-lantern. It's fun having a child old enough to really get into the holiday festivities this year. He helped scoop out the seeds from the pumpkin and picked out which facial design he wanted from a few that Josh sketched out. After carving the pumpkin, we got the boys ready in their costumes. Ethan is a safari guide this year, and Jacob went from being a surfer boy to a train conductor to a slumber party baby. My mom dressed up as a slumber party girl and Mackenzy was a gangster.

Today I'm taking the boys to the Live Oak Pumpkin Patch with the mom's group from my ward. I took Ethan last year and he enjoyed seeing all the pumpkins. Plus they have a petting zoo with goats and some other types of animals.

Next Thursday is our ward's primary Halloween party at a retirement home. The kids get to dress up in their costumes, then they will sing for the residents, and at the end, the residents like to hand out candies to the children. Although Ethan isn't officially primary age, I'm going to dress him up and let him trick or treat to the residents since he will be there with me anyway. It's one of the perks he gets for having his mommy serve in primary.

Next Friday we are driving out to Mesa to visit my sister and her family. Since that is Halloween day, we plan on taking the children out trick or treating to some of her friends from her ward. All in all, we are having an enjoyable holiday season and look forward to the upcoming events. I will post more pictures soon!

Family Pictures

Where has the month gone? I can't believe September is almost over and this is my first post for the month... possibly my last. Yesterday we went to the JC Penney photo studio to get new family pictures with Jacob. Doing a photo shoot with Ethan is quite a circus. He can't stay still enough for the poor photographer to take his picture. He kept falling off the little wooden box that she had him stand on because he was wiggling around so much. She made the comment that she's never had a kid fall off the box before. Ethan is such a crack up. The family picture we finally decided on has Ethan with his mouth wide open. He couldn't follow two directions at once: to keep him arms down and his mouth closed, so we just settled for an open mouth. It captures his personality anyway and it's very cute. I can't believe how fast time has flown once we started having kids. Our most recent family picture before getting these done yesterday, was taken August of last year. Ethan isn't even two-years-old in those pictures. Anyway, I'm glad we updated that. There are still some other pictures on our walls that need some updating, like the ones of Ethan when he was five months old that hang next to our Family Proclamation. Life is so busy with two kids. Our poor future number three child will be lucky if he/she has any baby pictures!

Just a side note: Ethan wore big boy underwear to church today for the first time and he stayed dry! Hooray! My little guy is potty trained! Jacob is still such a sweet baby. He's happy, sleeps well, and makes the cutest baby noises. I love my boys!

DCA & Disneyland

Yesterday we went to Disneyland & Disney's California Adventure (DCA) for the first time this year. It was Jacob's first visit ever. He loved people watching with me, and Ethan had a great time going on rides with Josh. It was fun spending the day with Josh's parents and Aunt Sue, who were all super helpful with our kiddos. We took two strollers since Jacob is too little to sit up in our double stroller. We spent most of the day at DCA since it was less crowded. We went on the new Toy Story ride and found it to be quite enjoyable! It is very similar to the Buzz Lightyear ride in Disneyland. The ride moves around to different screens where the rider gets to shoot their cannon at different targets building up his/her score. We then spent a lot of time in the Bug's Life area of DCA. The rides there are appropriate for kids Ethan's age, so he was able to go on all of them. Jacob even went on one ride with us ... the Heimlich caterpillar train ride. We finished off the day at Disneyland, where it was more crowded (but not terrible, considering it was a holiday weekend). Josh and I went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, while Josh's parents and Aunt watched the boys for us. All of us enjoyed some delicious ice cream before heading home. All in all, we had a wonderful day. We are going back in September and October because we have the $99.00 Southern California 3-day hopper passes, which expire in the middle of October. It's fun experiencing the Magic Kingdom through the eyes of a child. What a fun place to create lasting memories with our family!

A note to moms of babies: Going to Disneyland with a new baby can be somewhat of a challenge. It wasn't terribly hot yesterday, but it was humid and Jacob kept sweating around the back of his head whenever he was in his stroller. I took him out as much as possible so he could stretch and air out his neck and head. Nursing is also a huge factor when taking a new baby. When we took Ethan to Disneyland for the first time, Josh's mom informed me of the Gerber Baby Station located on Main Street. Inside they have a private area with rocking chairs for nursing, another area with changing tables, and a nice little kitchen with a microwave and high chairs. It makes it so convenient being at the park with a baby. This time around, we discovered that there is a similar baby station at DCA, just next to the Mission Tortilla Factory. It has the same conveniences, except there are only two nursing areas which are completely curtained off for privacy. The nursing area at Disneyland is a private room, but it has about 8 chairs in it for nursing, which means you are in there with other moms.

2 Month Checkup

Jacob is healthy and right on target for weight, height, and head size. During his checkup, he was happily cooing and babbling with the doctor and me, until he got the dreaded three pokes in his legs. I know it's for his own good, but as every mother knows, it's hard to see your baby in pain. So far he hasn't had any side effects from the immunizations. If I recall correctly, Ethan didn't have any side effects from the first round either. It was the second round at 4 months old that he became fevered with.

The nurse gave me some information on two month old babies, and one part that I read said that breastfed babies should take vitamin D supplements. That seemed strange to me, since I had never heard anything about it when I was nursing Ethan, so I asked the doctor about it. Apparently, about 7 years ago, there was a case of a Nigerian mother who was living in Massachusetts when her baby was born. I've never been to Massachusetts (I'm surprised I can even spell it right), but apparently it is very cloudy and dark there for a lot of the year. The baby didn't get enough sunlight because of his dark skin and the persistent cloud cover, and so his body couldn't metabolize vitamin D. He ended up developing a bone disease. The doctor said that after this case occurred, pediatricians began recommending vitamin D supplements for breastfed babies. Since we are in sunny Southern California, and Jacob is very fair skinned, the doctor said we need not worry about the supplement.

I also asked if I needed to awaken Jacob at all during the night to nurse, or if I should allow him to awaken on his own when he is hungry. The doctor said not to worry about awakening him. I think he is such a good sleeper because it fits with his personality. He is calm and relaxed, and it helps him settle in for the night. My older son, Ethan, did not sleep through the night until he was a little over one year old. I think Jacob will accomplish this much more quickly. We will see!

Potty Training and Swaddling

Josh and I decided to pull up our blog last night and discovered that our previous and only post so far is dated December of 2007! I decided that I'd like to actually attempt to keep up on our family blog.

Right now our almost three-year-old son is sitting on the toilet, trying to earn a lollipop. Using the toilet is somewhat of an inconsistent game for him. He knows how to do it, but doesn't seem to care if he makes it to the toilet or not. For now, I'm not worried about it. I'm going to try putting him in underwear after he turns three in October. Other moms of boys have advised me that three is a good age for potty training boys. We will see if that is the case for Ethan.

Another note about Ethan. Yesterday he got a deep gash in his forehead by hitting it on the edge of his table. Josh and I thought for sure he would need a stitch or two, but it turned out that the doctor thought otherwise. After cleaning out the wound with iodine (poor little guy!) they closed it up with a couple of Steri-Strips. Those are basically little sticky bandages that hold the wound together for a couple of days and then fall off. We are supposed to keep the wound dry for two days. As of last night, it hadn't stopped bleeding, so the bandage covering the steristrips slid around a bit on his head. Josh has a similar scar on his forehead from when he was about the same age and he ran into the corner of a wall. He had to get two or three stitches in his head. I'm glad Ethan didn't have to go through that! I find it extremely coincidental that Ethan, who takes after his father's looks and personality, will now have a matching scar.

Jacob is two and a half months old and absolutely precious! He is the most content baby I've ever known and I'm having so much fun mothering a cuddly baby. Last night he slept in one of those SwaddleMe blankets and slept all the way from 7:00pm until 6:00am, awakening only once at 2:30am for a feeding and diaper change. I'm already a big fan of the SwaddleMe blanket and would highly recommend it to other moms with new babies. They come in either flannel or cotton, depending on the time of year and the weather, and they keep the baby swaddled with little velcro tabs so he can't wiggle out. Since it is August in California, and nice and hot outside, last night I put Jacob in just his diaper and then used the cotton SwaddleMe. He slept the best he's ever slept up to this point in his life... which means, I did as well!

Purpose

We hope to use this as a blog about Ethan and our other future kids someday. Maybe. If we ever get around to it.