Nursery or bust!

Sunday was Jake's first day in the nursery at our church. Joseph and I have been counting down to this day for the past 6 months. As this has obviously been much anticipated, we naively assumed that things would go absolutely perfect. In my head I envisioned dropping him off, giving him a good-bye hug, and slipping out quietly as he enthusiastically did puzzles with his friends. Well...needless to say it didn't go exactly that way. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

When we dropped Jake off in the nursery, he did see the puzzles and made a beeline for them. He did sit quietly in his chair as he got started on one. I thought to myself, "wow, this is almost too easy!" And then I tried to sneak out. Suddenly, Jake frantically climbed out of his chair and came running for my legs. I took him back to the puzzles, but he was on to me this time. Not even seeing his friend Spencer coming in could fool him for long. When I left the nursery, I left my sobbing child in the hands of the nursery leaders. I felt terrible.

Here's the thing: when I was a preschool teacher I used to always see parents lingering while their child tried to adjust to being left at the school. I would say to myself, "come on, get a backbone, mom, little Frankie here will be just fine as soon as you leave!" Turns out it's much harder to leave when it's your own child that is having the issue.

Joseph and I went to Sunday school and after about ten minutes we decided to go stand outside the door to see if we could still hear Jake crying. Yep. Joseph handed Jake's pacifier to the nursery leaders to give to Jake...more for their sanity than anything else. They later said that it was the only thing that kept him quiet... ugh...we really don't like to use that thing unless it's an emergency...

Fortunately, the nursery leaders said that once all the toys were out and the kids were given snacks, Jake was fine - even without his pacifier. Unfortunately, it took about 45 minutes or so to get to that point. I really don't want Jake to be super clingy and needy, and I POSITIVELY don't want to be outside in the hallway with him ANY MORE!! Any suggestions on how to get past this??

P.S. - We took this picture of Jake right before church started. We got him dressed all handsome for his first day in nursery! Seriously, this kid melts my heart...

That's 100, folks!

Well, my fellow blogging friends, it may be hard to believe, but this is my 100th post here on blogger. It's quite exciting, actually, to think that I've made 100 entries since I started the blog a little less than a year ago. To be honest, I only got into it because a lot of my friends had them and I thought I might as well join the bandwagon and start one too, but I have found that I absolutely love it! Since I am not what you would call a prolific journal keeper, it has been a wonderful way for me to keep a record of events in our lives. Although I may not be incredibly entertaining as a writer, it has proven useful in keeping friends and family informed on our (often boring) lives!

It's also fun for me when people say things like, "Oh, I read in your blog you did such and such and blah blah blah". Actually, more often than not it totally surprises me because I think, "Really? I mean people REALLY read it?" I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, because let's be honest, I totally stalk other people's blogs all day long too!

And so, on this, the celebration of a blogging milestone, you might think that I would have something terribly exciting to write about and commemorate, but you would be wrong. The only thing that I have to say is that lately I have been finding Jake in this position in the bathroom:

Unfortunately for me, he is standing on top of the toilet instead of standing over the toilet (you catching my drift? No, I haven't started potty training yet...that will be the day). This new activity includes him putting the toilet seat down, climbing on top of it, leaning over, and turning on the faucet so that he can play in the water. Fortunately for us, our landlord pays our water bill. So I say, have at it Jake!

Isn't blogging great?!

Baby Picasso?

We've all heard of Baby Einstein videos (I wish I could put a plug for them here, but seeing as Jake will not sit still to watch anything longer than 5 seconds, we've just really never gotten into them). So, although we may not have an Einstein on our hands, we just may have a Picasso!

My sister got Jake these cool bath crayons for his birthday a while ago, and they are his absolute favorite tub toy. I know they're just scribbles, but as his mother I like to think he's finding his inner artist.

The great thing about these crayons is that they wash off the walls easily. The terrible thing about these crayons is that he loves them so much that he screams when I take them away because he's been in the bathtub way too long. At least he's a clean baby!!

He's at it again

Looks like the summer has officially come to a close here in Iowa City. Joseph went back for his first day of his second year this morning. I thought about making him a nice big breakfast this morning to help make the transition going back to school a little bit better, but of course that didn't happen. Nice thought though, right? Instead I'm making him homemade rolls for when he gets home.

Since it's hard to think of Joseph being in school for another 3 whole years, I am trying to take it one day, week, month, year at a time. Most importantly, we're grateful to have this opportunity to be here in Iowa City getting such a wonderful education. We really do love it here (I have to keep saying that to myself as winter starts to roll around). The summer has just gone by too quickly.

Random, I know, but Jake is having a hard time sleeping right now. He's in his crib just playing/yelling. We're right back in the swing of things!!

Weeride all day long!

You may know this already, but for those of you who don't, let me officially inform you that I am a Craigslist addict (hey, the first step is admitting you have a problem, right?). I check it at least 4 times a day - first thing when I wake up, at least twice throughout the day, then once at night. Thanks to my problem, we have found some fabulous deals on some various things, including our car, bikes, and our newest craigslist purchase: a weeride! For those of you who don't know what a weeride is (I didn't know either until just recently) it is a seat that attaches to your bike that allows your baby to be sitting in front of you rather than the traditional rear seat. I have been looking FOREVER for a child seat for the bikes since we bought them, and finally we found one that not only was a good deal, but super-cool as well! So, this is how we are going to spend the rest of our lazy summer days, which, sadly, are quickly coming to an end. We took our first bike trip today and it was wonderful! Isn't Jake handsome all decked out in his gear?!
I think my husband is very handsome as well!

Summer Training Camp

You always hear about summer training camps for baseball, and this afternoon we held our own training camp in our living room. Jake LOVES his bat and ball, which was a gift given to him right after he was born, and he's finally getting some good use out of it! Joseph got right in there and helped him swing the bat. So...if you can't tell...it looks like Jake is probably going to be growing up a sports fan, especially if his dad has any say in it! I love watching these two together!

We're back!

Every time other people go on vacation I always think to myself, "Look, I know you have access to the internet, just blog during the trip it so I don't have to wait to hear about it until you get back!" Turns out people just get so busy during the vacation that they don't have time to write a blog about it. Ok, you're forgiven, as long as you forgive me for the two week blogging hiatus.

We had a FABULOUS time in Michigan! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were able to see some good friends and be together with everyone on my side of the family minus my brother Matt who is on a church mission in Argentina. Jake had the time of his life while he got to play with all his aunts and uncles and his cousin Issac. For the most part we just enjoyed each other's company, played some guitar hero world tour on the wii, watched movies, went shopping, ate at some nice restaurants, and played some crazy games, but there were also some fun mini-trips as well!

My brother Jonathan and his wife, Abby, and their son Isaac just moved back to Ann Arbor from a summer internship in Omaha. We helped them move into their new home, and after we were done we sent the babies back with Grandma and Grandpa while Jonathan, Abby, Joseph, and I all spent the night there then woke up early to go to Cedar Point the next morning! For those of you who don't know, Cedar Point is the "i-chi" of roller-coaster parks! You seriously have not ridden roller coasters until you have been to this park...it's insane. Anyway, we were so excited to go to Cedar Point, but we happened to choose the busiest day of the year to go! The weather was absolutely perfect, which of course made it so that everyone and their dog was at the park. Each ride had at least an hour wait, sometimes two, so we spent a lot of our time standing in lines. But it was still fun, and we plan on going back sometime this fall when school is in session for the high schoolers and we can avoid huge lines!

This is our "get me out of this line" picture...

We rode some fun water rides also...I don't think I've ever been more soaked in my life!

After we came back from Cedar Point, everyone drove up to the UP (Upper Peninsula) and we went to Pictured Rocks. It's a national park on Lake Superior that is absolutely breathtaking. We rented a pontoon and went all over the shore of pictures rocks looking at the beautiful scenery.

This rock is called "Indian Chief" because it kind of looks like the profile of a person at the end...and I guess that person must have been an Indian chief... What do you think?

While we were there we saw a bald eagle on one of the trees! It looked like it was sitting on a nest. This is one of the few times that I have seen one in the wild.

When we got to this arch, my brother and sister thought it would be awesome to go swimming to that sand bar. Let me tell you a little something about Lake Superior. It doesn't matter what time of the year it is, it is always FREEZING!! It took them about ten minutes to get up the courage to do it, but finally they jumped in!! My brother and sister are CRAZY!! Here is a little video for your enjoyment:

They made it!!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time being with my family and making all these fun memories. On a random sidenote, Jake is now obsessed with driving...anything! Anytime he can get the chance he wants to "drive." Watch out, world, Jake is coming!!

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the wonderful vacation! I'm sorry to those of you who I didn't get a chance to see, I'll be up again in a few months and we'll get together then. It's amazing how fast two weeks fly by!