A House Divided

I have chosen a side.

Go Cougars!!!!!

Of course Justin has chosen a side - he says "Go Noles!"

And Jacob's side is determined by being more Seminole than Cougar.

If you can't tell - his shirt says "Product of Florida State Alumni"

9 months old!

Yesterday, Jacob turned 9 months old. And as he gets older, this little boy gets more squirmy and into everything he can. We were able to get one good picture of him next to his elephant. I am really hoping he cooperates so I can continue with these pictures for the next 3 months until he is a year old.

"Ah - must try to escape!"

Showing off what a big boy he is getting to be.

Jacob really loves to get into anything he can. Here are a couple pictures that I took to show Justin (since he was out of town) what his son was up to one afternoon.

Jacob crawled behind the loveseat and got stuck.

Playing under his playmat rather than on it.

Jacob weighed in yesterday at 17 pounds even (5th percentile), had a height of 27 inches (10th percentile), and his head circumference was 43.5 cm (10th percentile). It looks like Jacob is still our little guy! He is still wearing 3-6 month sized clothes which means we are getting lots of good use out of his clothes since he stays in the same size longer than most.

Jacob is still a great sleeper at night - he typically sleeps for at least 10 hours before waking up. He goes to bed in between 7 and 7:30 (usually) and then wakes up anytime between 5 and 6:30 to eat again. Since I am not a morning person it is really hard for me to get up with him that early, but I am so happy that waking up in the middle of the night is not a normal occurence. He usually gets up for the day between 6:30 and 7:30.

Jacob has really gotten skilled at doing his army crawl to get where he wants to go. So far he has made his way into the breakfast room and kitchen (where he is intrigued by Colby's food dish) as well as into the dining room. He can get up on all fours, but can only move forward one or two steps worth when he drops back down into the army crawl position. He is trying really hard to crawl the normal way though.

Jaocb still loves to stick out his tongue a lot.

Jacob does not like food. He likes his formula. Yesterday the doctor reassured us that this is pretty common and that we should think of him as a 7 and 1/2 month old when it comes to eating instead of a 9 month old. We are going to try feeding him some really soupy mashed potatoes over the next few days.

Overall, our cute little baby is just growing up too fast!

Confession

Jacob does not own any BYU paraphernalia.

I spent 4 years at BYU and 2 years at FSU. Justin spent 6 years at FSU.

That makes Jacob two-thirds Seminole and only one-third Cougar.

We took a trip out to Florida in November and were able to buy various things for Jacob in a variety of sizes. We haven't been to Utah since 2007 and haven't wanted to buy things online and pay for shipping. Because we are cheap.

I have been super bummed all year though. I am bummed that plane tickets and football tickets don't just fall down from the skies for us for free.

I REALLY wanted to go to the BYU v FSU game on September 19th in Provo. I wanted to make shirts for both me and Jacob. Mine would have read:
BYU class of 1999
FSU class of 2004
I don't care who wins.

Jacob's would have read:
I'm part Cougar,
part Seminole.

Cheesy, but it would have been so cute.

Are you ready for some football?

Jacob is.


GO NOLES!!!

Happy Birthday Grant!

Yesterday we headed to Austin for the day to celebrate my nephew's first birthday.
He was a little confused by the cake at first, but he finally started tearing it apart.
Jacob enjoyed getting to see his cousin again and meeting all of his cousin's cousins.He was a very sleepy boy the whole time we were there - we thought he would sleep almost the whole drive there. He slept 45 minutes of the way there. He did sleep the whole way home.

Determined

Jacob is determined to prove me wrong.

Last week I said that although he was good at moving around I didn't see him crawling anytime soon. He isn't up on hands and knees crawling, but he has been working super hard all week at his army crawl.

That kid is motivated.

Jacob's room

We got Jacob's room all set up months ago. And I kept meaning to take pictures of his room, but never did (things like that happen a lot around here). So today I finally took the video camera in there and took a little footage of his room. But to really appreciate it, I think you have to see what his room looked like before Jacob ever was. It really was quite sad.
We have to give BIG HUGE thanks to Justin's aunt and uncle who did the labor and painted Jacob's room for us. They did such a great job! They also came back a few weeks later and put the wall border up for us. Justin's uncle also helped to get the wall shelf up and level. We really owe them for all their help.



We had planned to get the room all ready over Christmas and a month before Jacob was born, but Jacob was too eager. The painting was done the weekend before my water broke and the wall border put up the weekend after Jacob was born. The wall shelf didn't make it up until Jacob was a couple months old (and we didn't know what we were naming him for sure until he made his appearance, so I didn't get the name painted and ready until about then anyways).

We couldn't possibly list everyone that gave us stuff that is in his room, but his room wouldn't be what it is without the generosity of others. Thanks so much - we love his room and we know that he does too!

8 months old

Today Jacob is 8 months old!


I took a few different pictures and these are the ones that turned out the best. Above he is smiling (I think sometimes he looks like he inherited slight dimples from me - I definitely see a dimple in the picture above).

Above he is staring at the camera, seeming confused.

Here he is playing with his elephant.

And now he seems ready to make his escape.

Jacob is getting lots more mobile these days, but he is still not crawling. We knew when Jacob was born 6 weeks early that he probably wouldn't hit any developmental milestones early; and since they say that most babies start crawling around 8 or 9 months, we had no expectation that he would start crawling any time before that. I wouldn't be surprised at all if next month we are still reporting that he is not crawling, and that's perfectly fine.

Jacob has really started picking up a schedule, which is nice for me - much better than when I had no idea when he would be tired, or hungry, etc. We go to the gym every morning Monday through Friday pretty much as soon as we can get there after the Kids Klub opens. When we get home (usually around 10am) Jacob eats and goes down for nap #1 of the day. Sometimes he naps for only an hour, but a few times he has napped 2.5 to 3 hours for this first nap. He wakes up, eats, plays (or we run errands), eats again and goes down for nap #2. Nap #2 is typically shorter than nap #1, but it is long enough to get him through until bedtime which is usually between 7 and 7:30.

Jacob loves to blow spit bubbles. Sometimes he wakes up in the morning and just starts spitting. Which is much better than waking up crying. He also loves to stick out his tongue, not that we have been able to get a picture of it.

Jacob loves Colby. He loves to watch Colby and reach for him. He loves it when Colby gives him kisses, although I don't love it all that much. He also loves Colby's toys. Colby has hardly any toys (because he chews them to pieces and we throw them away) and Jacob has plenty of toys, but when Jacob sees one of Colby's toys he makes great effort to get it. It wouldn't be that big of deal if it didn't automatically go into Jacob's mouth once he gets it.

Jacob has really found his voice this past month and it turns out that he can be quite the talker. He especially likes to make high pitched sounds when he is happy and talking to himself.

Most of all, Jacob loves it when Daddy comes home and plays with him. Justin is able to get the best laughs out him.

2 months later than I planned

This post should have been done back in June. Better late than never.

On June 11th, Justin and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.

In some ways it is hard to believe it has already been 5 years, but when you look at all we have been through you would think we had been married quite a bit longer.

Since we have been married we have:

• Dealt with being unemployed and unable to find a job (luckily only for me and not both of us)
• Lived in an apartment that we were busting out of the seams in
• Bought a car together
• Taken some nice little vacations while childless with 2 incomes
• Were greeted with the first 2 tropical storms of the season for both our first (in Destin, FL) and our second (in Orlando, FL) anniversary
• Moved half-way across the country
• Bought our first house
• Suffered through infertility
• Justin was diagnosed with an incurable chronic illness
• Went through in vitro
• Gone through 4 hurricanes together
• Lived without electricity for 2 days (which was 2 days too long)
• Justin has had 3 major surgeries
• I had to be hospitalized and put on bedrest the last 10 days of pregnancy
• Had a 6 week premature baby

We have gone from right out of school, completely broke and in overwhelming debt; to two nice incomes and living comfortably as we paid off debt and saved money; to one nice income and one small income from a part-time job back down to one income again (and feeling broke due to the cost of diapers and formula).

We are glad that some of the things that drive some couples apart have only brought us closer to one another. It has been an amazing 5 years and we know that things will only get better.

Justin and the case of the Disappearing Punch Bowl

No, it is not the first book in the next series by J.K. Rowling (if there ever will be a next series). It's just a funny situation that I encountered today. In an effort to clear up some more counter space, Julie asked me to put the punch bowl somewhere. I immediately thought of the place I like to put all of the not-often-used kitchen items (since we don't have enough cabinet/closet space for it all)...on top of the cabinets. There are already a couple cake pans up there, so I got a chair, climbed on it to get on the counter, and placed the punch bowl and ladle in the next available space...the corner.

Little did I know that, unlike the bottom of the cabinets, the top of the cabinets are NOT boarded over in the corners. This means the punch bowl and ladle took a quick and noisy journey out of sight, and into the hole. Luckily, the punch bowl was big enough that it did not go all the way down to the bottom of the 48" tall cabinet chasm. I was able to extricate it, but there was no hope for the ladle. Even through the use of some extra-long cooking tongs, I was not able to retrieve the still-stranded ladle.

Julie said that it is probably a good thing, because we don't know what all might be down there besides the dust accumulation of a 6-year-old house's cabinet chasm. It is a good thing the ladle is not too expensive. At least I know now, and here is warning to all of you, that it is NOT a good idea to store things in the corner above your cabinets.