Jacob 11&1/2 months

More little updates from an overly busy life lately! Jacob started crawling the week he turned 8 months. It was great because before he could crawl, he was getting really frustrated with not being able to move anywhere on his own. He had too much to go see! It only took him a day or two to get going pretty fast. And it only took him a week or so to start pulling up! After that, he was into everything and is definitely more into stuff than Elliot was so we always have to pay extra close attention. He is a little adventurer and is constantly trying to see what he can get into and how he can get into the things he knows he’s not supposed to touch. He’ll stop and think about doing something, turn and smile at me, then speed crawl to get whatever he’s not supposed to!

Jacob started walking the day he turned 11 months and is walking all over the house! He thinks he is just as big as us and is barely even crawling at this point! The first couple weeks he had to take a lot of naps since he was working out his legs so much. He tries to climb on everything. This last week I’ve caught him in Elliot’s dresser drawer ( the bottom one), he climbed on top of the dishwasher door when it was open and neither feet were one on the ground. He also figured out how to climb down from things on his own, bounce in the bouncer chair while standing on his knees, backwards in the chair. And anytime he is on the couch he is trying to climb as high as possible.

His personality is shining through at this age and it is so fun! He loves to cuddle with mom and dad, and is the sweetest, sweetest boy. He also loves to play jokes and be silly and is already smiling ear to ear just from thinking of a joke he can play. Another interesting personality development that I wouldn’t expect to see so early, especially this month, is that he is a self-starter and go getter. Getting him to start walking took little encouragement from us after he figured out what to do. He would just stand up and start practicing by himself because he wanted to!

Elliot is getting so big! She’ll be 3 already next month. She loves to talk, talk, talk! She also loves to play  and imagine. She is also a big sweetie too and loves to pretend things were people are sad or hurt and then she gets to fix them or take care of them. We went to the doctor today because she has a sty and Jacob has been sick all weekend. When I told Ellie we were going, she squealed in excitement. She loves going to the doctor! What kid does that? She got the doctor to listen to her heart twice (even though the checkup was mainly for Jacob) and then she got the doctor to let her listen to the doctor’s heart with her stethoscope. She also had to pretend to wash her hands and look at my eyes for a check up.

She loves to talk about school (even though she doesn’t go yet). She loves airplanes, trains, helicopters, and tools so she can pretend to “fix the house”. She is our little helper and almost every day helps Daddy cook supper and knows a lot about different types of food. Ever since she started helping Aaron cook, she eats so much more in quantity and variety.

Jacob and Elliot are finally starting to be able to play with each other. Jacob bugs Elliot just as much and she does him already. They are learning to share and take turns. The other day they were playing together by themselves in Elliot’s’ room and Aaron caught them just sitting in the floor “singing” together with their play microphones. They both love to dance and we usually end up having a family dance party about once  a week!

I can’t wait to see what this year brings! Tons of fun to be had!!

Jacob’s Birth!

Jacob was born January 11, 2012 at 9:52 in the morning. I was only in labor for 5 hours total this time! With Elliot, I was in labor for 15 hours. I had to be induced again. I had been dilated to a 2 the last two weeks of pregnancy, and nothing had changed so my doctor scheduled me to be induced. We got there at 5 in the morning, and by 10 you were here!! You were so cute and I just had to hug you! It was harder than with Elliot, I think because you came so fast! The pain was hight this time! I only had to push about the same amount of time as Elliot about 10 minutes or less, 3 actual pushes or so. You were healthy and everything went great and by the book! We only stayed in the hospital for a day since I was able to get a lot more rest the night before. One interesting thing is that he was born with his two bottom teeth just like me! I had never thought about that happening and even the nurses and the doctor didn’t even know what they were at first. I knew he had teeth just because I did too! We had to take him to his first dentist appointment when he was only 2 weeks old to make sure they were going to be stable enough to keep in. We brought him home and all our family was there to welcome us! Which was good and bad! 🙂 Elliot was so intrigued the first couple of days and just peeked and stared at him all day. She was so sweet and gentle with Jacob and always gently placed her hand on him and just smiled.

Elliot- 2 Years, 7 Months

Loves Cartoons: Looney Tunes (self- proclaimed favorite), Super Why, Dora the Explorer, anything else fun and bright!

Favorite color this week- white – has been at the top of the favorite color charts the longest.

She knows all her colors, can count to 10 in spanish, can count to 20 in English and also understands how to add 1,2,3,4,etc. after 20, 30, 40, etc. She is so smart! She also made a picture of herself from the magnets on the fridge without me ever showing her. I showed her how to make a smilie face, but on her own playing by herself she added a letter for her neck, a body, two arms coming from the body, and then a letter for the feet. So then I asked if she could draw a person, to draw Daddy and she did so good! She drew a dot for his head, a horizontal line for the body, two lines for arms from the body, two lines by the “head” for his cheeks, and two legs. She drew me and baby too pretty similar to the one of Daddy. Then she drew Stephen the same way, but added two dots in the middle of the legs for his knees- which she thought of herself. 

Elliot loves playing pretend and her favorite thing lately is to act out conversations that we have already had through out the day. And we have to do and say exactly what we did before. She also likes to pretend she is a puppy or other kinds of animals. 

She also started using different voices for animals to make them talk. 

Elliot thinks one of the funniest games is to call everyone by the wrong name. All you do is say “Hi, pillow” and she busts out laughing.. other “names” we say are table, window, floor, grass, leaf, tree, eye, knee, etc. you get the idea!

Elliot loves to play with puzzles and can figure them out pretty quick. She always is cautious of what she reveals that she knows (in everything). She likes to act like the doesn’t know certain things or how to do things even when she does. Some of it is her silly and mischievous personality and I also think some of it has to do with missing being “babied” since now there is another baby around. 

She also likes to go to church so she can play with “the kids”. 

A Post Long Overdue- Jacob

Sorry Jacob, I haven’t been writing about you! Life has been extremely busy but that is still not an excuse!! You are already 7 1/2 months which = way too old!! You are so cute and cuddly all the time! You now have figured out how to reach for things and most recently people. Even when you sit directly in front of me in between my legs on the floor, you still turn around and reach to me because I’m not holding you enough! You are the cuddliest little baby ever! You also started holding your bottle on your own these last couple weeks all by yourself, and don’t like anyone to do it for you! You speak your mind (mostly in screams, and cries and grunts right now) but if you like something you don’t like something you say so and make sure we hear you! You have been starting to crawl, but are in no hurry at all! Right now you just get into the crawling position and rock and ultimately end up scooting backwards or rotating. A couple times you have moved your arms forward, but mainly you just would rather walk or run. You love to stand up and walk and jump (with help) and chase Elliot around the house although she is not the biggest fan. You also love to move around in the walker. You scoot and coast all over the kitchen and roll up to new things to investigate. And you push off with both feet and then glide all the way across the room with your feet hanging like you are flying. You are so cute!! You are now getting old enough to start to play with Elliot. She’s still not the biggest fan of that either since she is still learning the whole “sharing” thing. But she loves holding hands with you and giving you hugs and you always think it is the best thing in the world and smile and giggle every time! You love trying to grab everyone’s food when we hold you at the table during dinner. And recently started communicated other than screams (happy ones) or crying. This week you started fake sneezing because you think sneezing is hilarious. Ever since you were born you have thought sneezing was the funniest thing and now you are doing it on purpose to join in on the fun. You also made a “gasping” sounds this week that we always make when we play peek-a-boo and when we did it back, you just smiled so big! You are also just making little sounds like you are talking to us. You always want to do the same things as Elliot already, I’m telling you, your favorite person in the world is Ellie. I can’t wait to see what else you do in the next couple weeks!! You have a check up next week so we will see how much you weigh then! 

Things Elliot Loves: 22 months

– Rain
– Balloons
– Letters (The Alphabet)
– Running Outside
– Owls
– Being girly- painting nails, wearing jewelry, bows, belts, etc..
– Hide and Seek
– Dancing
– Playing in closets (mine with all the crafts or hers with her toys)
– Pretending to make tea and cooking with bowls and paintbrushes or any kind of stick
– Helping Mommy and Daddy cook
– Checking the mail

Doctor Appt.

I had a check up today, everything is looking normal! The baby probably weighs 3-4 lbs. and is around 16-18 long already. He still is moving constantly. This week I’ve felt a little better than the last two weeks. Last week was really tough because I think he was hitting a growth spurt and I just wasn’t feeling good at all. I just can’t push myself too hard, which stinks because after like doing the dishes I’m tired enough to like take a 2 hour nap if Elliot would let me! Usually I’m tired enough at any time of the day to where I can just fall asleep if I sit down more than a couple minutes. I can’t count how many times I’ve also fallen asleep in the middle of the floor in Elliot’s room while we were playing. Definitely can’t wait to not be tired all the time, but once the baby is here it will be a while until I can get some rest! I can tell by the way he moves ALL the time and especially when there is techno music playing (just like Ellie) or when I’m being active he thinks it’s time for him to party as well. When I was pregnant with Elliot, she was like me and tried to make sleeping a hobby. Hopefully we’ll come up with a name soon, still haven’t decided.

Kids Don’t Care, They Just Have Fun

Today, after reading one of her books about puppies, Elliot decided she was going to eat her cheerios off the floor. The puppies were eating out of a bowl, so she thought it was her turn to get down on all fours and eat food like the dogs. Except she couldn’t figure out how to take bites off the floor, so she just licked her lips and picked up the cheerios by getting them to stick on her lips and then using her hands to put them in her mouth. Hilarious. I love that she is thinking out side of the box and using her sense of humor in the way she thinks!

Also, have I told you of her reverse-planking? We’ll go in stores or anywhere and she thinks it is hilarious to just lay down on her back with her arms straight by her side in the middle of the floor somewhere just for the heck of it. This is also something she has thought of on her own!

Another thing she does just for “jokes” is to put her baby doll or other stuffed animals in random places around the house that they usually wouldn’t go. Then, she’ll come and get me or Aaron to go look at how funny it is. The whole way walking to see her joke she’ll be pointing and sort of fake laughing to make sure we get it. She is so silly!

She also loves to practice jumping all the time. Right now it’s sort of a gallop jump since she can’t bring both feet off the ground at the same time but she’s getting close! She did pick up both feet once and she’s been trying so hard ever since to do it again.

By the way only 12 weeks to my due date and only 9 weeks until I’m full term. Crazy!

Baby Bear

Baby #2 Still doesn’t have a name so for now he’s known as either Baby Bear or Peanut. He only has about 2 1/2 short months before he’s here! This has gone by soo fast. It definitely is harder to write like I did for Ellie because now I’m spending all my time taking care of her I’ve barely had time to think about being pregnant. This pregnancy has definitely been a lot harder than the first. Not really due to taking care of Elliot because Elliot is pretty easy but she just is BUSY all of the time which keeps me busy. But this little boy moves all day long, making me short of breath alot and making my back hurt. Definitely more aches and pains than when I was pregnant with Elliot. Definitely way more tired too! I’m already at the beginning of the third trimester… at Christmas I’ll be 36/37 weeks..how insane is that? I have a feeling he’s going to come early. Maybe not that early but I wouldn’t be surprised! I had a dream last night he came early (which is probably just a result of me thinking about it). I just hope we have everything ready to go by the time he is here! I’m excited to see the “need for baby” list is about 1/4 as long as it was with Elliot. Pretty much all we need is bedding, clothes, and a couple other things. We can’t have Baby Bear in all pink!

Anyway, more later! Time for bed!

New Words

yesterday: nose

today: gecko