Outing at the park

Let it be known that Jake LOVES the park! Also, Jake loves his Aunt Bethany. So, naturally, being with Aunt Bethany at the park was pure joy for this crazy little guy. They were so fun to watch together. I just had to take some quick shots of these two in action.

Jake also loved his sunglasses! Against all odds, he actually kept them on for most of the time we were at the park. This is him coming down the slide. Check out that hair!

"I've got sunglasses like you, mom!"

Alright, seriously, can you get much cuter?

The first of many skinned knees

I am officially the mother of a toddler. No, it wasn't that the number of dirty diapers I have changed has gone from hundreds to thousands. Nor was it the constant stream of "Jake, don't touch that!" coming from my mouth. I officially feel like the mother of a toddler now that I have treated one of these:
Jake's first skinned knee... We were bbq-ing outside the other night and Jake of course was running around as fast as he could go. As fast as he is (and believe me, he's fast!) he isn't quite fast enough to keep up with that rather large head of his, and down to on the cement he tumbled. This was by no means his first fall, but as it was so nice outside he was wearing shorts, and thus it was his first fall on the rough sidewalk with shorts on. I think it is the first of many skinned knees to come from this very active little boy. He was a trooper though. Once I picked him up, dusted him off, and kissed him better, he wanted to get right back into the action, bloody knee and all. He wasn't too happy about me taking him inside to put a band-aid on him. I think his knees will probably be all torn up by the summer's end. The joys of being a mom!!!

He always had a knack for kicking

When Jake was in the womb I felt more like a goal for my child to practice his soccer skills than a safe haven wear he could develop unencumbered. I didn't know that such a little thing (although you couldn't tell he was little by the size of my stomach!) could kick so dang hard. And then he was born. I used to pick him up by holding him underneath his arms while he was upright, and he would kick the open air like crazy. I thought this was normal until everyone who saw it started laughing. That's when I realized that this baby really likes to make full use of his legs. And here is further evidence:

Looks like I have a future as a soccer mom ahead of me!!!

What a vacation!!

It was too short...I miss Florida already...*sigh...* Well, we're back in Iowa! We had a great trip, and now we're back to the grindstone. Joseph left early this morning for classes, and I'm at home enjoying some quiet time while Jake is sleeping (it's 9 o'clock in the morning and he's STILL asleep! He's obviously exhausted).

Our trip started out with Jake's first plane trip ever, which he LOVED, and Joseph's worst plane trip ever, where he threw up twice in the air and once in the car ride after, and yes, he took Dramamine before we took off.

Ben picked us up from the Orlando airport late at night and we woke up early the next morning to go to Disney World!!

We met up with our friends the Whiteheads and had a blast together on the rides. This picture was taken on "Pirates of the Carribean" and it would have been great if Jake was looking!!

The evil Emperor Zurg!

Joseph killed me on the Buzz Lightyear laser game, my high score was 25,000, Joseph's was 220,000.

Jake was terrified of the characters. This was the first and only attempt we made to have his picture taken with them.

We didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked at Disney World because the kids were absolutely exhausted. We took them back to the hotel to take a nap and go swimming. Later that night, Joseph and I went back to Magic Kingdom to watch the fireworks show and catch some of the rides that we didn't get to earlier.

The next day we went to Daytona Beach!!! It was SOO much fun, but Jake was terrified of the sand! He wouldn't get out of his stroller unless we were holding him, but he did seem to like just hanging out there.
Yes, we all got sunburned (except for Jake of course, who was in the shade of his stroller the whole time).

On Sunday we went to church that was across the street from the Orlando Temple. We had never seen the Orlando temple in person, and it is absolutely gorgeous.
This is a random building that we saw in Orlando. It is called "Wonderworks" and it's an upside-down building! Crazy!!

We all had an awesome but exhausting time. Here is Jake on the plane coming home.
Alright, I know what you guys are all thinking. So did we use the leash or not??? Well, folks, it seems as though I need to swallow my pride and hand it to my husband. No, we didn't use a leash! Our friends had them on hand in case we needed them, and I'm not gonna lie, there were times that I really wanted to use one. If I had been there without my husband I would have taken it out, but Joseph was determined and it ended up that Jake was good enough without it that we didn't have to use it. We all ended up having a great and safe time. We decided that we're going to make it an annual trip. Now what do we have to look forward to? Summer break!!!

P.S. We have a lot of video from the vacation where Ben and Ursula are in it, but for some reason we don't have any pictures! I need to get a little better about taking pictures. But I promise they were there and they showed us a great time in Florida with their family. Thanks again Ben and Ursula for everything!!!

Orlando here we come!!!

And we're off! It's finally here, we'll be in Orlando for the weekend and next Monday I'll let you know how the trip went...I know you're all just sitting on the edge of your computer chair waiting to hear whether or not we broke out the child safety harness. I'm anxious to find out how it goes myself. Have a great weekend!!!

Frosty the Snowman

I know it's a little out of season...ok, a lot out of season...but the other day Jake and Joseph were just so cute together that I had to blog about it. One of Jake's favorite books is Frosty the Snowman. My dad got it for him for Christmas and he asks us to read it to him at least once a day. Of course, when you read the book to him you really just end up singing the song and he just laughs and laughs (partly because he likes the song and partly because he usually ends up getting tickled during it). So the other day, Joseph was reading the story to Jake and they were just laying there singing and laughing together.

I just love these boys!!!

You'd think I would learn...

Jake is a great little boy. Energetic, yes, but really a good kid. One of the things that I love about him is that he is very curious. As a mother, I try to foster this love of learning and exploring by not telling him "no" all the time, so I guess you could say I'm a little more lenient when it comes to the things he can play with around here. For example, I don't stress out too much about him getting into my cupboards and pulling out all the pots and pans. I know that he enjoys banging on them, no one gets hurt, and it keeps him happy. I don't mind if he takes all the books off the bookshelf because, again, no one is getting hurt and he seems to enjoy it. However, I, like every other mother I'm sure, have a breaking point. Pots and pans I can handle. Vaseline, I cannot.

"Vaseline?" you may be asking yourself. Yes, a whole canister in fact. Let me explain... I was sitting here at the computer checking my blog, ironically enough, when this all went down. I knew that Jake was in his room, and he had been in there for quite some time. It was quiet, and I could hear him taking all the books off his bookshelf (why do they find this so amusing?). He does this often enough that I wasn't worried about him, and I continued checking my blog. Then it got extremely quiet. I thought to myself "awww...he's reading in there!" and I, again, went right on checking my blog. I know what you're thinking..."Jake is 14 months old, he can't read!" Alright, true, he can't actually read the words, but he does sit in there with all of his books around him and flip through the pages looking at his pictures.

As I was sitting at the computer desk listening to the quiet I thought to myself, "Maybe I should go in there just to make sure that he's actually reading his books," however, that thought was quickly trumped by, "No, his bedroom is totally baby-proofed...there's nothing that he could possibly get into." You see, if Jake is completely content reading his books then hears me come in, all of the sudden he's not so content anymore and would rather hang on me then sit quietly reading. And so, I continued my blogging and let him hang out in his room. Finally, after much more silence and many more thoughts to check on him, I finally gave in and went into his room. This is what I found:

Oh...you'd think I'd have learned by now!!!!!!!!!! Apparently there was a canister of Vaseline sitting on top of his shelf that somehow he reached up to get (he must have stepped on top of his books that were toppled on the floor).

Right after this incident I threw him in the tub. It's amazing how hard petroleum jelly is to scrub off. We can chalk this one up to "I should have known..."