Small-Fry Basketball

Here are a couple of pics from Jacob's first basketball practice last Friday. He is on a little 3 & 4 year old "team" at the YMCA. It's really cute to watch. Their team name is the Young Guns. Jacob is taking it really seriously and he loves it so far :)

The Young Guns

Jacob's 3rd Birthday

Jacob turned 3 on Sept. 9. I can't believe how fast he is growing up. He has definitely rocked my world! I was such a know-it-all when I was pregnant with him. I read tons of books and articles on parenting and sleep training and I had everything figured out. HA! Since we were in the middle of a move and a lot of our friends and neighbors had already moved away in the summer, we decided to forgo a big birthday party this year. I might have overdone it a bit last year! We went out to lunch with a couple of Jacob's girlfriends ;) which was a lot of fun. His friends (and mine!) were so sweet, they brought cupcakes, balloons and gifts and made Jacob feel very special on his big day. When I asked Jacob what he wanted for his birthday, he said balloons and cupcakes. That was easy to handle but we also got him a helicopter from the toy store that he has been wanting for awhile now. Confession: I'm guilty of spoiling Jacob. I usually don't say no when we are out and he asks me for something at a store. For example, if he spots some little crappy toy hanging in the aisle of the grocery store, I will let him have it. This helicopter is not a crappy toy, but the point is that he has asked for the helicopter several times but it's not an item that I would buy on a whim. So he was SUPER excited when he opened up his gift from us. He played with it all weekend. He loves that thing.

Happy birthday Jacob!

Cottonwood Art Festival

Last weekend we went to the Cottonwood Art Festival with some friends. It was hot but we had a lot of fun, especially Jacob. Here are some pictures from the afternoon. (Not pictured...$5 corn dog...$4 cotton candy...)
Jacob really enjoyed running through these.

Cullen and Mary Jo
Princess! If you look closely, you can see her 2 bottom teeth that had just broken through.
Jacob doing some excavating while Sis watches

Wordless Wednesday

Stamps

Jacob is really into stamps right now. His favorite part of Kindermusik is getting his hand stamped at the end. Now he has stamps of his own and he will sit at the table for at least 30 minutes stamping a piece of paper. At first I tried to keep him from mixing up the ink (he has 3 ink pads) but I've given up. So far, he just likes to stamp the same thing over and over so I'm waiting to see if he will figure out that he can make a whole scene with the different stamps.

Made by Nana

I would like to start out by saying that taking pictures of children is HARD. I have to give major credit to baby photographers. I literally took 30 + pictures trying to get the shot I was envisioning and I NEVER got it. I gave up. These pictures are like the "eh...that's the best I could do" version of my vision :) What I was trying to do was get a good picture of Mary Jo wearing this sweet dress that her Nana made for her. She's growing fast and I know she won't be able to wear it for long so this picture was meant to preserve it's memory. The pictures still turned out cute.


This is definitely an outtake but I love how Mary Jo is looking at Jacob. This picture is a great representation of their relationship. MJ adores Jacob and loves watching him play.


Another outtake of Jacob "just rubbin' his foot on sissy." He also told me he "not hurtin' her." Um, ok. Stop that anyway, thank you.

We have a few more outfits that need to be photographed but I think we are going to take a breather after this episode :)

MJ Birth Photos

These are obviously REALLY late but it's taken me awhile to get over my appearance in these photos. I know it's not what this is about so I have decided to finally post them. Mary Jo was born April 6, 2011 at 11:32 pm. She weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 inches long. I had a fabulous epidural and the whole thing lasted about 4 hours.

She didn't cry at all when she was born. Jacob was the same way. She was bright eyed and looking around but very quiet.
Mommy meeting MJ for the first time. I'm getting all teary looking at these now!
Our family minus Jacob. He spent the night at our neighbor's house. It was my first time to be away from him overnight and it was harder for me than him.
I posted this picture on facebook and got a lot of comments about how "big" she is. I do realize she looks like a ginormous baby in this picture but she really wasn't.
At the hospital. Jacob wore a big brother shirt the first time he came up to meet her but we forgot to take a picture then. He was pretty disinterested in the baby while I was in the hospital. He mostly just wanted to sit on the bed with me and cried every time he had to leave because he wanted me to come home with him. It was sad. He also freaked out the first time he saw me nursing MJ.

I will say that things are great now. The transition from 1 to 2 has been so much better than I had hoped or expected. Jacob is a very sweet big brother and it melts my heart to see my babies interacting and loving each other. Babies are very demanding and time consuming and adding MJ into the mix has definitely turned my world upside down again but I wouldn't have it any other way!

He's a talker!

Sheriff's Animal Farm

Oh Key West. You really are one of a kind. I took Jacob to the animal farm at the jail again on Sunday. We have been there many times but Jacob still enjoys it and now that we are probably/hopefully/maybe leaving soonish I feel compelled to get some pictures of the unique places we have frequented during our time here. This picture just cracks me up. Jacob is growing up so fast and he is finally willing to stand still and let me take his picture.
I took this on our way out and he was hot and tired but I still think it's cute :) We saw the same animals we always see (Bucky the llama) Jacob held the baby alligator this time and he really seemed to enjoy that. We went back to check it out a few times. But he refused to pet a bunny because it was scary. Alligator vs bunny?!? I was really baffled by that. I guess he is just a reptile guy. This was probably our last trip to the animal farm. It's been good to us!

2 months old!

The time sure is flying with this sweet angel. I can't believe she is already 2 months old. These last several weeks have just been a blur of learning how to take care of two children--changing diapers, reading books, trying (and failing) to get MJ to sleep in the pack n play. My days are full of those repetitive mommy duties that aren't all that interesting :) Mary Jo has been smiling since she turned 1 month old and she is very responsive and smiley. She has started cooing and babbling a little bit. Jordan has even gotten a couple of little laughs out of her. She is a peanut compared to Jacob at this age. She is still in 0-3 month clothes but she is starting to get rolls on her arms and legs. Her cheeks are also getting chubby. She doesn't like to lay on her tummy but we're working on it. She usually sleeps in a bouncy seat or in my arms.

Jacob loves her most of the time. He will tell anyone she is his sissy and he is always trying to get in a hug or a kiss. We are still working on being gentle. She doesn't take a pacifier which has been a great disappointment for Jacob. A couple of his friends have baby siblings and he always takes it upon himself to give the baby the pacifier, remove it from their mouth and put it back in. He has tried many times to get Mary Jo to use a pacifier but she just isn't interested. Jacob never took one either so I can't say I am surprised. He has asked me to put Mary Jo back in my tummy or to take her back to the hospital a few times. But overall, he has not been too jealous and he is really a sweet big brother.