Halloween

Although a little later, here's some adorable pics our our Little Stinker's second Halloween. Jake LOVED trick-or-treating! We went with our neighbors, and little Chloe (2 years old) showed him what to do... and by the end of the night, Jake was toddling up the stairs, banging on the doors, and sticking his plastic punkin out to receive candy. He would even reach in to pick out a piece for himself. He also loves sorting through his candy, although he doesn't seem to understand why it keeps disappearing and Mommy and Daddy have chocolate on their fingers....
Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Our Pumpkin in the pumpkin patch:


Our Little Stinker:

Happy (very belated) First Birthday, Jacob!

On October 24th, 2009, our baby boy turned a year old. Andrew loves this stage with Jake, although he can't wait for soccer practice and playing catch in a few years. I, for my part, can't believe that my teeny little miracle is walking, babbling and a YEAR OLD ALREADY. I'll admit that I cried to see him growing up so fast. But it was wonderful to celebrate with family and friends that afternoon. Here are a few photos.

Jake's first birthday was teddy bear-themed:


Some photos of the cakes:





And the birthday boy:


Jake reeeeally enjoyed his first taste of sugar (esp. since it was chocolate):



Opening presents:





A few weeks later we had a big birthday party at the neighborhood playground for the three little boys (Tyson, Beau and Jake) who turned one at the same time (Tyson's 2 weeks younger than Jake, and Beau is 3 weeks younger). It's been wonderful having other little boys (and other moms!) around to play with over the last year, and it was so nice to celebrate with the little ones.

updates

Well, I cannot believe that it's been over a month that we've posted here. For those of you who aren't aware, Andrew and I have signed on to run a new business here in Fairfax, the Fun Bus (www.funbuses.com). It's a mobile kids' gym in a refurbished school bus that attends daycares and preschools for weekly sessions (and we do parties, too!). ANYHOW, that's why things have been slacking on the "look how cute Jake is!" end of things.

Not that he's not adorable. He walks everywhere now, although not always where we want him to go (and always with his hands held at shoulder height, for some reason). He's really fast, and LOVES to walk around outside, exploring things. I'll admit that it's nice to be able to put him down without worrying about him dropping to all fours and crawling through the dirt... of course, now we have to start finding some "good" shoes for him...

With his new-found mobility comes a lot of mischief. He loves to open and close the dishwasher and play with the knobs, and on more than one occasion he's set it to "timed wash" and we've woken up to hear the dishwasher going downstairs. Unfortunately the stove looks a lot like the dishwasher from his level, so we have to be extra-vigilant about that. He LOVES sticks or stick-like things, and he loves to hit things with them. Spoons, chopsticks, straws, brooms, mops, even toilet plungers (when our backs are turned) aren't safe from him... Luckily (or unluckily?) he's also discovered that you can sweep with a broom, so now he tries to help with that.

Still no real words yet, although "uh-oh" is a little out of practice. He definitely has a version of "hello" that he uses: "Eh-woo". He picks up anything that looks like a phone (and since our cell phones are small rectangles, that is almost everything) and tucks in under his chin against his shoulder and says "eh-woo" into it. If there's actually a person on the other end of the line though, he gets freaked out why his toy is making noises. He's also started using a version of "Thank you". It doesn't sound like thank you (more of a "dee-tah") but he says it whenever we hand him something.

I'm going to try to dig up some pictures from his birthday, so you can all share in that. We've been having a lot of fun over the last month, and our little boy is growing so much!