Awareness week

I just found out that this week (more precisely April 24th - May 1st) is National Infertility Awareness Week. It looks like it isn't the same time every year, but isn't it interesting that exactly 2 years ago we were starting injections for in vitro?

Being infertile is the hardest thing that we have ever gone through (and continue to go through). And while most people are understanding, so many people say the dumbest things to you when you are infertile. I'll give people the benefit of the doubt though and say that I'm pretty sure they don't intend to be as mean as they seem.

If you don't know much about infertility, Infertility 101 is a great place to start.

Finally some new posts

The last month has been busy around here and mostly because everyone at our house has spent a bit of time under the weather.

I had planned to get a lot of stuff done over my spring break (including starting on those stupid curtains), but I started feeling lots of congestion on Monday of spring break week. At first it seemed like it was just some allergy problems and a couple days later I started feeling a little better. Then the next day I started feeling way worse. I then proceeded to have one of the worst colds I have ever had. Why do I always, always get sick over spring break?

This year, I decided to share my cold with Jacob. Justin didn't need my cold, because this year he has been suffering with the worst allergies he has ever had.

I have a very strong belief that no one on earth has worse allergies in the spring time than Justin has. His eyes have been so irritated and scratchy that he hasn't been able to wear his contacts for a month. That may not sound like a big deal to most, but since Justin has keratoconus it means Justin has been practically blind for the last month. And if Justin spends any time outside lately, his eyes turn all red and get all goopy. Yuck. Plus his eyes feel like they are burning.

Once spring break was over I was still sick, but the semester gets busier and busier the closer we are to the end. I feel like I am caught up for the moment, but in the next 5 weeks I will give 3 exams (2 of which I haven't even written yet) so I will have lots of work to get done before the semester ends.

After 2 weeks of being sick and another week and a half of feeling fine but coughing all the time, I think I am finally better. Now if we can just get Justin through the worst allergy season that Houston has ever seen...

Not a milestone to really celebrate, but...

On Sunday as we were driving back from Texas City we hit a milestone in our youngest car.

We really aren't liking the fact that both of our cars now have over a hundred thousand miles each on them, but we aren't willing to invest in a newer vehicle yet.

15 months old

We did take a few pictures of Jacob with his elephant a few weeks ago when he turned 15 months old (I have just been too busy to post them).

The last update that I did about Jacob was when he was a year old, so I thought I would tell a little bit about Jacob now and how he has changed.

At 1 year old Jacob had 2 teeth. At 15 months he had 7 teeth and he now has 8 (and has some molars trying to come in that are making all of us miserable).

At 1 year old Jacob wouldn't really eat solid food and many times when we tried to feed him he would gag and throw up everywhere. Over the last few weeks Jacob has gotten a lot better about being able to eat solids, but he is super picky about what he will eat. He still doesn't like things like apple sauce or mashed potatoes (I guess because of their textures) but he loves bread items so he eats french toast and grilled cheese a lot. He really doesn't seem to care for any fruits and he doesn't like most vegetables but I can get him to eat some of my homemade chicken noodle soup that has pieces of carrot and celery in it as well as cauliflower and sweet potato puree.

Even though he is eating solids now, he doesn't really get that these are his meals and wants to drink lots of milk. Because we know he doesn't eat enough to get all the nourishment that he needs we are mixing his sippy cups and night-time bottles with half toddler formula and half whole milk. In the last couple of weeks he has decreased his milk intake from about 40 ounces a day to more in between 25 and 30 ounces a day since he eats more.

At 1 year old Jacob was crawling everywhere. At 15 months old Jacob is pretty good at walking and usually prefers to walk, but when we want him to walk, he crawls instead. Stubborn kid.

Jacob loves playing with balls and taking them over to the tile floor so he can make them bounce (or depending on what type of ball it is, so it makes a loud noise when he throws it down). He also loves things with wheels. He loves to take toy cars, trucks and things with wheels and turn them over on their sides or upside down and spin the wheels.

At 1 year old, it was hit or miss if Jacob would sleep through the night or not. Now he usually sleeps until between 6:30 and 7 every morning as long as he isn't sick or something like that.

We love seeing Jacob grow and his personality develop!

Easter weekend

We spent our Easter weekend with friends on Saturday and family on Sunday making it a great weekend.

On Saturday we had some friends over for a cookout. We grilled, ate and visited while the kids ran around like crazy. Well, Jacob didn't do much running around. He was super fussy the entire time and made it difficult for both Justin and I to take turns eating. We kept trying to get him to try the food, but he didn't want any of it.

I made a bunny cake to celebrate Easter and it was delicious (and not at all good for you). I think the bunny may have turned out looking better the last time I made it, but oh well.

On Sunday morning the Easter bunny had visited and brought Jacob a few things.

Patiently waiting for his basket.

The Easter bunny knew that Jacob would like the Fridge Farm he is holding above because he really liked playing with it at Grant's house a few weeks ago.
A little boy can never have too many trucks, right?

After I spent the morning making rolls, we headed down to Texas City to Justin's cousin's house to celebrate Easter with Justin's dad's family. We got there just in time for them to start the egg hunt and the kids lined up outside for pictures.

We couldn't get Jacob to stand up with his cousins and then he decided that checking out the pretty pink flowers behind everyone was neater than having pictures taken.

A picture of the kids with great-grandma and grandpa before the egg hunting could begin.

Just as we thought, Jacob didn't hunt any eggs. He was too busy playing with leaves and grass, but he did enjoy the egg that we gave him.

We hope everyone else had a great Easter weekend!

The first haircut

We broke down and took Jacob in for his first haircut on Saturday. His hair was always in eyes and at times it was looking like it was out of control, at other times it didn't seem too long at all.
Here is his before shot:

We took him to Cool Cuts for Kids because we knew that they would cater to a little one, but I really think that $18 is too much to spend to get his hair cut. I guess we'll figure out what to do next time when the time comes.

He loved the little car they had him sit in.

In fact, he didn't pay any attention to the little TV that was playing right in front of him, he just kept steering the little firetruck and trying to reach forward to ring the bell. I think that Jacob may be a little smaller than most of the kids that come in because they brought over an extra cushion to put in the bottom of the car so his feet wouldn't be dangling. That may have been a mistake though because he kept trying to stand up and crawl over the top to get to the bell.

We were definitely the cheesy parents there with both a video camera and a still shot camera. After a little while Jacob started to get super frustrated that we weren't just letting him play with the car so I put the camera away and had to hold him back so he could get his hair cut. Justin got all the fun and commotion on video, but I can't remember how to transfer the video images to the computer.

And some after shots (sorry about his runny nose - yuck!).

Like Brothers

We love the fact that in a lot of ways, Jacob and Colby are like brothers. Colby seems to like Jacob and is often times jealous that he gets to go with us anytime we leave the house. Jacob just loves Colby and laughs at him, plays with him, etc.

Yesterday Colby was laying on the floor and Jacob decided to join him. Amazingly I was able to get a couple pictures before either of them got up.

Cousins

Jacob, Colby and I headed over to Austin on Tuesday to see my mom who is watching my nephew Grant while my sister and her husband spend a week in Hawaii (rough life for my sister, right?). I wanted to get some cute pictures of the two cousins playing together, but that ended up being easier said than done.

Here is the best I got of Jacob and Grant together:

"Grant - look at Aunt Julie!" seems to be synonymous with "Grant - run away from Aunt Julie!"

Check out Jacob's hair in the picture above. We know we need to get it cut. It is starting to curl up in the back. But I love it right now and I know that once we cut it, he will look more like a little boy than a baby.I'm not ready for him to not be a baby!

Record snowfall

Last week Justin had 3 days worth of training in Dallas. Luckily, it just so happened that I was scheduled to give a test on Wednesday night, so I got a sub and we all headed up to my parents' Monday night when I was done with class. I hate getting subs when I actually have material to teach - they never teach what I ask them to so I try really hard to only miss class if there is an exam.

We knew it was going to be cold while we were up there, but on Tuesday we learned that it might snow on Wednesday night or on Thursday. Wednesday night the weather people said that we should expect about 1 inch of snow during the night and maybe another 1 - 3 inches on Thursday.

When Jacob woke up sometime around 5am everything outside was covered in maybe an inch of two of snow. It was kind of exciting because now that we are in the Houston area we never get to see snow on the ground. In fact, even though it snowed at our house a little the beginning of December, none of it stuck.

When Jacob woke up again around 7:30, this is what it looked like just outside of the house:

A couple hours later, as it approached naptime for Jacob, I decided that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take him out to play in the snow. I dressed him in layers but sadly didn't have any gloves for him (why would I? We live in Houston!!!).

As soon as I tried to stand him up outside, he went down on all fours and started crying, probably because the snow was so cold on his hands.

My dad made a snowman and kept trying to get Jacob to stand up next to it, but he refused to stand up on his own.

FYI - if your yard is covered in leaves when it snows, then your snowman ends of covered in leaves.

Jacob was outside "playing" for no more than 5 minutes, but he made it very clear to us that he was done.

Colby couldn't make his mind about the snow, he went back and forth between loving to run around in it and then not wanting to be outside.

It continued to snow ALL DAY LONG. The next day they said that a new record had been set at DFW for the most snowfall in a 24 hour period - 12.5 inches. I attended BYU for 4 years. I'm pretty sure I never saw it snow so much in one day until last Thursday.

Work in progress

Lately when I look around my house I think of all the things I want to change. For instance - when we first moved into our house we had no desire to paint any of the rooms, but now I am getting sick of the cream-colored walls that I see in every room. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I spend so much time at home these days.

We painted our half-bath a year after we moved into the house and didn't do a spectacular job on it and we kind of left the idea of painting behind us. Then we were very happy that Justin's aunt and uncle offered to do the work and paint Jacob's room for us. But after I made very frequent comments about wanting to paint other rooms and even went and got some color swatches we decided that it was time.

We started with the living room and dining room, but I have already picked out colors for the family room as well. The color we chose is called Tangy and is a dark yellow color. Here is the view from our front door:

Once we get around to it, we will have pictures hanging up in the dining room.

The view from the other corner of the living room:

One view from our dining room:

And the other angle into our living room from the dining room:

Not only do we have plans to paint the family room but I have a list of things I still want to do in the living room and dining room. In no set order:

• Get a bookshelf to go on the left side of the piano. Oh yeah - I have a piano!!! We got it used from someone at church (we got it just a week ago). It needs to be tuned and the keys are pretty yellow, but it is beautiful and and has a good sound to it. (Which means - something to add to my list of things to do is to learn to play the piano.)
  

• Get curtain rods and get my curtains made. Yeah - you can see the bolts of fabric standing up in the corner of the living room in a couple of the pictures. Fabric to make curtains for the living room, family room and our master bedroom. And ideally to make a valence for the dining room. Yes, this is the same fabric I bought 3 years ago. Maybe if I knew how to sew I would be more on top of getting my curtains done.

• In a dream world, we would get a new couch and chair for the living room. But we don't so as of right now I want to get a slipcover for that gross looking plaid love seat that I bought almost 11 years ago.

• Recover the chairs for the dining room table to match the unmade curtains.

• As stated already in this post, put pictures up in the dining room.
  

Maybe in another 3 years my living room and dining room will be finished.