18 months old

A couple of weeks ago Jacob turned 18 months old!

Jacob was a little tired and grouchy in this picture. Sundays are rough and leave this little guy without his nap so sometimes this happens on the way home from church:

It took 3 months, but we finally had molar #4 break through about 2 - 3 weeks ago! Now he has started working on getting those canines or eye teeth in. Does anyone else's kids take forever to cut teeth? I hear people say they had a miserable weekend while their kid cut teeth. If Jacob only had a miserable weekend that would be fantastic - instead he has a miserable couple months. Then we only get a couple week break before the next round start coming through. Teething is definitely the pits!

I took Jacob in this morning for his 18-month well check and he weighed in at 22 pounds (7th%-tile), and was 31 inches tall (12th %-tile). There is a little concern over the fact that he doesn't say any words, but he has always been a little more behind on his language development. I'm going to guess that this means he will start talking in the next month or so. And when I say talking I mean say a word or two that we understand because that kid loves to talk his baby babble.

The best thing about Jacob being 18 months old is that he is now old enough to go to nursery at church! The last 6 months have been difficult trying to keep Jacob entertained during Sunday School and Justin used to take Jacob into Primary with him at the end of church so he could be there for their singing time. But he has been a handful because he doesn't usually like to sit still!

I think something alerted Jacob to the fact that he was almost 18 months old and had never had an ear infection. So at the beginning of the month after getting over a cold he started running a high fever and feeling pretty crummy. A trip to the urgent care (because it was a Saturday) let us know he had his first ear infection ever and he started taking antibiotics that night. The next day he still acted like he was feeling horrible, but by Monday his fever was gone. We assumed his ear was getting better but he started having the worst congestion ever - he was snoring so loud because he couldn't breathe well. Finally that Wednesday I took him in to his regular doctor to find out that his antibiotics must not have been doing anything for him at all. The poor kid had to get a shot of antibiotics at the doctor's office and start on a much stronger prescription the next day. Jacob figured if he was going to have an ear infection, he was going to make it a memorable one.

Jacob likes:

• playing outside
• books
• grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt, french toast, pancakes and taco soup
  
• balls
• cars and trucks
• being in his stroller and going for walks (too bad it is so dang hot here!)
• playing the piano
• looking out the windows
• seeing dogs or playing with dogs
• Wheel of Fortune
• his bath
  

Jacob doesn't like:

• any type of fruit
• any type of vegetable
• juice
• being put in his car seat when we leave the gym
  
• having to come back inside
• for Mommy to leave him anywhere
  

An upgrade

Lately I haven't liked trying to take pictures. Our little camera used to be great, but over the past several months it has been so difficult to get pictures that turn out decently - they are either not totally clear or they look like it was super dark and the flash is just illuminating the subject of the picture. And anyone who was here for bunco in May can tell you how annoying it was when it took 5 minutes to find a setting for the camera where the pictures would turn out at all.

On Saturday when we were at Costco we saw a great deal on a really nice point and shoot camera. Check out the difference!

Picture taken this morning with our old camera (this is actually a really good picture):

Picture taken this morning with our new camera:

Wow - you can tell that we don't live in a cave!

Jacob's new pool

Jacob loves to play outside. I do not love the hot Houston summers though. So I decided to get Jacob a little pool he could play in and I could stick my feet in. I think he likes it.

Justin and Julie trivia

In honor of our 6th anniversary, I decided to write up some Justin and Julie trivia. Some may read this and say - yeah I knew all that, but hey - this is all for posterity, right?

• Justin and I are the same age and graduated from high school the same year. Technically though I am 3 months and 13 days older than him. I guess he goes for older women.
• I finished my bachelor's degree 3 years before Justin finished his (thanks to his 2 year LDS mission in Samao). Justin finished his master's degree 1 semester before I finished mine.
• Justin and I went on our first date August 28, 2002. Our second date was 6 months later on February 28, 2003. (Why 6 months between first and second date? Another blog post. Maybe.)
• We decided we were definitely dating just after Spring Break in March 2003. Within a week I had accepted a summer internship in Kansas City and he had accepted a full-time job starting January 2004 in Tampa.
• Everyone told me I was crazy for going to KC for the summer and that I would miss Justin too much. I told them all they were crazy because we had just started dating.
  
• Justin drove out to Kansas City with me in May 2003 and we discussed the possibility of getting married.
• Within a few days of being alone in KC I bought a plane ticket to fly back to see Justin in Tallahassee for the first weekend in June (because I missed him too much).
• Justin came to Kansas City for the 4th of July weekend.
• We were engaged in the Nauvoo Grove in front of the Nauvoo LDS temple on the 4th of July in 2003.
• Our engagement lasted 49 weeks (forever for Mormons!!!) because we wanted to make sure I finished my degree but we didn't want to get married and live in different cities.
• For the first 8 or 9 weeks that we were married Justin was out of town for work and we only saw each other on the weekends. We were basically living in different cities just like we did that last semester I was in school.
  
• I grew up in Texas (from the age of 6 until leaving for BYU when I was 18, then I was back in Texas for 3 years before going to FSU), but Justin had never lived in Texas before August of 2006. Even though that makes it seem like Justin had no ties to Texas his dad and step-mom live about 20 minutes from my parents in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, and most of his dad's family live in Texas (especially around the Houston area).
• We were married in Houston on Friday, June 11th and had a reception in Houston that night. The next day we had an open house in the Dallas area and 2 weeks later we had an open house in Tallahassee - I got a lot of use out of my wedding dress.
• On our first date, we sang Guster songs together in the car. (Don't know who Guster is? That's not surprising since they aren't well-known, which is why it was interesting that we were both familiar with them.)
• For our first anniversary we decided to go to Destin, Florida and enjoy the beautiful beaches there. The first tropical storm of the season also decided to go to Destin and we didn't get to go to the beach at all.
• For our second anniversary we decided to go to Orlando and visit theme parks before we moved out of state. The first tropical storm of the season also decided to go to Orlando the same weekend so we only got to go to 1 park and it rained half the time we were there.