Very belated SC pics

I didn't post any pics from our trip down to SC in July, so here's a few very belated ones.

My three guys:

"helping":

Caught in the act:








This one requires some set up. It was time for Jake's nap, but he was being stubborn and wouldn't sleep. He was in bed, screaming and crying, and all of a sudden he got really quiet. We heard some noises from the room, but since he wasn't screaming, we just ignored him. I went in after about 15 minutes, and found that he had pulled himself up and swept everything off of the nearby table and dresser. Everything. Including the box of tissues, which he had swept into the crib with him. Then he sat down, and meticulously pulled out every single tissue, one by one, crumpled them up and shoved them in the corners of his mattress. So cute!

Ozark pics

We have so many photos from the recent trip out to MO, but here's just a few of us having fun.

Here we are out at the Lake of the Ozarks, for the Smith Family Reunion (Andrew's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary!!), and we're having a blast! Our little guy was quite the trooper, remaining in fairly good spirits through all of the celebrating. Of course, having any number of loving relatives on hand to hold, comfort and FEED HIM CHEERIOS probably helped too!!!

Jake crawls a lot more on his hands and knees now, using his army-crawl for when he has to get someplace fast. He loves scooching off quickly, and then throwing a "come hither" look over one shoulder, in the hopes that Daddy will come "chasing" after him. If Andrew obliges, Jake squeals and slithers off. Cutest thing ever.

He's pulling himself up like a champ now, and occasionally even letting go to clap for himself, or grab for something- he can stand unsupported now for a few seconds at a time. This evening he let go of the coffee table and slammed his face into it on the way down, splitting open his lip. He cried a lot, but was quickly distracted with ice to suck on and some cheerios. Notice a pattern? This little boy loves to eat!

He'll also get up on his hands and feet, and push his bum straight up in the air. I think it's only a short time before he's standing on his own. When he does things like this, I get a little weepy. Some days it's hard to believe that he's only been with us 9.5 months... other days it seems like yesterday that I was pregnant with him. I CAN NOT believe how much he's grown and matured in the last few months. Just to see him playing with a cup and a ball, and knowing that the ball can go into the cup, is so amazing. It's so hard to remember that 2 months ago he didn't understand "inside" and scale and whatnot, and now he's putting those two things together.

Still no real words yet, although there's been a few amusing possibilities (he pointed to a water gun this week and said "gun" but since "gun", "dah", "dun" and "ma" are his favorite 'words', I'm not making too much of it). I'm determined to teach him "duck", and yesterday when I showed him a green rubber ducky, he said "duuuh", so I think that's a positive sign. This morning Andrew carried him into the bedroom and said "Show mommy the fan" and he pointed right to the ceiling. Not surprising considering he seems to be obsessed with fans (two weeks ago at home he had a hard time napping, and Andrew told me it was because he was scared of the little fan we'd just turned on. I asked him how he knew and he said to Jake, "Show Mommy what you're scared of" and he pointed right to the fan.).

He constantly amazes me. I sure do love the little dude.

Here's some cute recent videos of Jake

Here's our little guy "helping" Nana Muz pack down in SC.


Probably my all-time favorite video of Jake. He's SOOO intent on what he's doing, and so serious: "Hmmm... does this underwear belong on the floor? Maybe? Yep!" and down it goes!

And here's him dancing (unprompted) to James' music (he does this a lot now):


He's started pointing at things a lot now, and I don't know if it's intentional, but I've noticed him saying "gat" when he points. I've chosen to believe that he's asking "that?" and I tell him "That's a tree" or "That's a book" or "Dat's Mammy's nose, pleath moob your finga".

He's pulling himself up all over the place, and we've realized that no table is safe now. The house is wrecked, because he happily stands there and pulls everything down he can find (as witnessed by that first movie). The other day we heard a few loud bumps from his room while he was supposed to be napping, and snuck in to find that he had swiped EVERYTHING off of his changing table into his crib with him, and was happily sitting there with a box of tissues, methodically pulling them out one by one and shoving them into the corners of his crib. Pretty cute. :)

update from Andrew

Tonight Jake fell off our bed headfirst. Then after he stopped crying he followed Rachel into the bathroom. He then proceeded to dive headfirst into the tub. Right now he is plotting a way to dive headfirst out of his crib. Updates to come as news breaks.