Picture

Some of you may have noticed that we changed our blog title picture. We decided that we needed an updated family picture since Jake is growing so fast and he doesn't look at all like the bald little baby in the picture we took 6 months ago. We've really been wanting to go to JCPenney or something and take some family pictures, but we just haven't gotten around to it yet, so our photo shoot took place in our family room. To get Jake to look we had a singing and dancing Santa (thanks Nana and Papa!) playing and hence the "give me that, I want to eat it" look on his face. Crazy kid!

Messes

I swear that Jake thinks that I clean things up just so he can mess it up again. One of his favorite things to do is take everything out of the desk drawer. He sits on my lap while I'm at the computer and one by one takes everything out of the drawer. He looks at it for a second, sometimes puts it in his mouth, then throws it on the floor. Within a couple of minutes, the entire contents of the right drawer are emptied out onto the floor beneath him. When he sees that there is nothing left in the drawer, he looks at me with those "what am I going to do now?" eyes, and I have no choice but to lean over and pick it all up. So he can do it again. And again. And yet again. Is this how it is going to be until he leaves the house for college? I'm in for it.

Do those taste good?

I was making our bed the other day (which is really quite a process between the sheets, two blankets and 9 pillows) and Jake was hanging out in our half bathroom attached to the bedroom. I was engrossed in fluffing all the pillows when I realized it had been quiet in our bathroom for a little while. When I checked on Jake, this is what I found:

He was eating one of my feminine products like it was a lollipop. I really don't know what else to say about that, but I think his smile says it all.

Carousel

I forgot to post this picture from Christmas when my family was here. We all took Jake on the carousel at the mall...well, all but Joseph (he get's really sick, even on a carousel!). It reminded me of Mary Poppins. We put Jake on this particular "horse" because it was actually a reindeer and it was Christmas! Jake didn't know quite what to think of it all. The picture below is taken before the carousel started. Hence, the very happy face. He wasn't crying or anything, but he kept looking at my mom and dad to reassure him that everything was ok. He did much better at the carousel in Wichita. It was smaller and he held on all by himself! Our little baby is growing up so fast!!

Misunderstandings

So I had an interesting conversation with my sister-in-law Abby today. It went something like this:
Abby - "Isaac had a hard day today."

Me - "So did Jacob, he had a fever."

"He did!? Was it bad?"

"Not that bad, just about 101.6 or something"

"Oh man, how do they even measure something like that?" (Before I got a chance to respond to this seemingly obvious question) "...Did you take him into the hospital?"

"No, I looked in my family medical book and it says that you don't need to unless they're under 3 months old"

"Really? That's so strange! I would have thought that you would take them into the hospital for something like that."

"Well, it wasn't really that bad and he didn't have any other symptoms so I just kept him home."

"Does he get them a lot?"

"Not really, he's had maybe 3 or 4 so far, just mostly when he gets a cold or something."

"And you've never taken him to the hospital?"

"Well, they've never been bad enough to take him to the doctor, much less the hospital."

"Wait...did you say Jake has a FEVER?!"

"Yeah..."

"I thought you said SEIZURE!!"

No wonder she was so concerned!! I'm glad we got that cleared up.

It runs in my veins...sort of

Some of you know that I come from a long line of bakers on my Dad's side of the family. My great-great grandma made one heck of a loaf of whole wheat bread, so she started the Dunford Bakery in Salt Lake City. It's now one of the biggest bakeries out west and they sell all kinds of good stuff (I'm dying for a chocolate-chocolate doughnut right about now). Needless to say, the baking gene runs in my veins...I just don't know how dominant it is.

While my parents were here over the holidays we made homemade bread. Yes, homemade. As in, start from scratch. As in, not even a mixer was used. As in, I kneaded that hunk of dough like my life depended on it. However, I must be honest and tell you that although I was really going at that dough and kneading it the best I could, my mom still took over and "helped" me. She really just couldn't stand to watch the hideous job I was doing and decided that she better cut in. We did have a really good time though, and if there is one person in my family that will continue the baking tradition, it will be my sister. She was a natural! She definitely got the baking gene, and it's dominant too. :)

I haven't fallen off the earth, just been to Kansas

Joseph, Jake and I went to Grinnell to ring in the New Year with his parents. We each enjoyed our own bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider, which is a Dougherty tradition that will live on in our own household. The day that we were going to be leaving for Grinnell, we got a phone call from Joseph's mom saying that they were all going to go to Kansas the next day to meet Elizabeth and Jason and their family (Elizabeth is Joseph's sister), and she wanted to know if we wanted to go too. We hadn't seen them for a while and we thought it would be a good opportunity to get together, so last minute, off we went to Wichita, KS (the halfway point between Grinnell and Texas where Elizabeth's family lives). We met at a hotel there in Wichita and had a great weekend together! It was spent swimming, playing ping-pong, air hockey, going to the movie theater, and celebrating Jason's birthday. We really had a good time together, and got to love all over their little girls.

Jake swam in the indoor pool with Joseph and me. He was very cautious at first, but eventually warmed up to the water and had the time of his life. We had a floaty thingy for him to sit in, but he preferred to have either Joseph or me just hold him.

Jake really loved being with his Nana and Papa, and also seeing all of his Zepp cousins. They had all kinds of toys that they had brought with them, such as My Little Ponies and Cabbage Patch Kids that they said he could play with, but he wouldn't touch them. He's a man, you see, and that's sissy stuff.

The whole gang. By the way, I decided that I really like Wichita. The weather was very mild while we were there (about 45-50 degrees!) and it just seemed like a really nice place. We can put it on our list of places that we wouldn't mind setting up shop in a few years.