8 months!

I can't believe Jacob is 8 months already! He is officially crawling on his knees now, and has been doing that for about 2 weeks now, pretty much days after we moved into our house. So it's nice he has more room, but we got to be really careful with our stairs and everything he wants to get into. He's really moving now!

And I don't have any good videos of him crawling yet, I'll put one up soon though. But I do have a video of his newest trick- clapping! He's not very good at it yet but he knows to clap whenever I say yay! I love it!

And I always like to document when Jacob does something new for the first time. So here are a couple other firsts...

first time sitting at a highchair at a restaurant

first ride sitting in a grocery cart- I love not having to tug him around in his carseat all the time! as long as he's not sleeping- shopping always seems to make him tired :)

first time playing drums- loves to make noise

first time going bowling

And the last one is not really a "first" but more like a 3rd and 4th- Jacob is getting 2 more teeth on the top! So he has been teething for a bit lately, but it will be cute once they fully come in!

Anyway, he's getting big and getting more and more fun to play with everyday! We're glad Luke is back from all his business trips now and has the week off for Thanksgiving so we can have fun!

Baby's 1st Halloween!

Jacob was a turtle for halloween this year! Ever since he was a baby I thought he kind of had a "turtle head", he's kind of grown out of that look now, but I still thought it would be cute to have a turtle baby! So I found the sleeper at Babies R Us and then found an old helmet at a yard sale and then painted it to match! It was a big hit!


We went to a Trunk-or-Treat party at church on Friday night which is always a lot of fun. I dressed as a bunny so Jacob and I were like a tortoise and the hare kind of thing together. Jacob thought my ears were hilarious.

this is the cake I made for the cake walk

more of Jacob sporting his turtle costume

And here is Jacob with all his little friends...

Jacob and Gwen have been friends since they were little, only a month apart

Jacob and ballerina Angela

Jacob with Carolyn and Angela- he loves these girls!

And they love him too! We're going to miss them so much!

Halloween afternoon we went to a Halloween/Birthday party for my friend's daughter Natalie. She turned one and her and Jacob are little buddies- we're going to miss them when we move too!

Then on Halloween night, Jacob and I went over to the house to pass out Halloween candy in our new neighborhood. We met one neighbor that lives two houses down, but it was fun to just be able to hang out in the house and get the feel of the neighborhood and get lots of funny comments from the trick-or-treaters. My favorite was a little girl that said "I like your clean house" but of course it's still just empty- haha but clean works for me! Here's Jacob hanging out in our clean house.

he looks a little bored, haha

So it was a fun Halloween, but now all the fun and parties are over, so we have a busy week ahead of packing, Luke finishing up busy season at work and then we'll be all moved into our house by Friday!

7 month update

A lot of you have been asking if Jacob is crawling yet, and I guess he is? It started kind of slow with the army crawling. But he definetly is moving around now. I took this video a couple weeks ago, and he's moving even faster now and he can get up on his knees but just can't quite crawl on his knees longer for than a second. But you can watch him "crawl" on this video and make all his silly noises...



So now that Jacob is 7 1/2 months, his becoming more mobile is the only real new and exciting thing going on. He is still just so adorable and cute, and growing and changing so quickly! I just love watching him and playing with him all day! He makes lots of really funny sounds and expressions, and is still a very happy baby! Sometimes I joke that he likes to be wicked though, because he'll start slapping my face or something and I'll tell him to stop it and then he laughs and keeps doing it! Haha he does silly stuff like that all the time.

He has started taking much longer naps in the day which means I can get more done (like packing!), but for some reason he has also stopped sleeping as long through the night. That's been a little frustrating because he used to be great at sleeping through the night, so hopefully he'll get back on track soon!

And he's been eating his baby food for awhile, but I'm not very good about always remembering to feed it to him- (haha, whoops). I want to be feeding him food for lunch and dinner though, so that way maybe he'll stay a little more full- he always seems so hungry! But I promise, I do feed my baby- milk is just so much easier!

Funny thing happened last night actually. For some reason when I was picking out babyfoods at the store, I figured I try this chicken babyfood. It actually looked discusting and the doctor said he only needed fruits and veggies, so I don't know what I was thinking when I got chicken, I just figured we'd try it. Haha- well, bad idea! I guess I'll just show you his reaction...



And as soon as I stopped taping- Jacob threw it all up, and then again an hour later. Sorrrryyy Jacob! (And I decided not to post the after picture- too gross!) So... no more chicken, back to the fruits and vegetables!

Also, Jacob has had a couple visitors recently too. Luke's dad was in town for a day two weeks ago. He got in on a Sunday morning, checked out our house, came to church with us, came home and had dinner, then went and walked around Sloan's Lake downtown, and then he left early the next morning.



Grandpa got Jacob this cool glowstick to play with

Then the following weekend Luke's uncle Mike, Aunt Cindy, and cousin Abbey were in town so we got to spend an evening with them- had dinner, played games, visited and had a great time!

Jacob loves playing with Abbey!

We also went to my friend Shandra's baby shower, she's having a baby boy in December!

So that's it for now, there will be Halloween pics soon!

Fall photos!

Here are some of my favorite Fall pictures of Jacob. He was 6 1/2 months when these pictures were taken in the beginning of October, so I've been a little slow at getting them up. But at least I took the pictures before it started getting cold- winter has seemed to come early this year! And Jacob has been doing great, I'll post more on him soon, but for now just enjoy these cute pictures! The ones towards the bottom are a little more silly, but still cute and funny to me. I can't wait to get some framed for his new room!

Our New Home!

Luke and I bought a house today! Our offer was accepted at the end of August, so we've kind of "had it" for over a month now! I'll admit, when we first realized our offer beat the others for the house, we were really surprised we got it and were doubting our decision. We kept feeling like maybe there was something better out there for us. But I've continued to look over the past month and still have not seen anything else that would fit us better- so that's good!

I think we kind of got the house at the perfect time because it's coming to the end of our contract with our apartment, so we won't have any early termination fees or anything. And it's towards the end of the year but before the deadline- so we qualify for the $8000 stimulus! Actually that was our real motivation to really buy a home, but now I'm really excited to have a real house!

So this morning, we did one more walk through of the house. We had thought it would be empty and we wanted to make sure it was all still in good condition, but they hadn't moved out yet. But it was ok, they are actually a very nice couple with a 2 year old and 3 month old. It was a nice opportunity for them to answer all our questions and they gave us all kinds of info on the house which was helpful.

We found out though that the house they were planning on buying didn't go through, and they found something else last minute but wouldn't be able to close for another 2 weeks and were planning on staying in a hotel. And I felt so bad because we weren't planning on moving into the house for another month! So we agreed to have them pay us a portion of our mortgage for the 15 extra days, so that worked out well for both of us actually. Oh, and they were so grateful they said we will get us a free meal at their moraccan restuarant he owns! It sounds really interesting, and I love free food!

The only downside was that I was somewhat looking forward to having a month to make the move in. I figured the transition would be a little easier, I could move a few boxes and things over every few days, and I could paint the bedrooms and get things ready! And I still will have about 2 weeks to do that now, so it will be fine, just a little more condensed time. It's probably better that way anyway so we don't have to leave the house alone for so long. The main reason we are waiting is because Luke also started busy season today and will be through October. And our apartment contract ends in November, so it just made sense to wait to move until the first weekend in November. It just makes everything simpler, as long as I can handle the wait!

So anyway, here's what everyone really cares about- pictures of the house! (Just note this is how the house has looked before we move in)

close up of house

right side of front yard, very private with bushes

left side of front yard

stairs to front door- check out all the plants!

front entrance and closet

front living room- i love the big windows

wall diving living room and kitchen

view of kitchen from stairs

kitchen

comes with all kitchen appliances!

dining area in kitchen- excited about the tile and not carpet!

stairs

stairs from kitchen to family room

family room

family room

family room, has door to backyard

family room view of kitchen

master bedroom

master bedroom and closet

love the closet organizers in our room

master bathroom... not exactly everything I hoped for, but it will do :)

two bedrooms across from our room

this one on the left will be Jacob's room

closet organizers in Jacob's room

3rd bedroom upstairs- we'll use as a guest room for awhile

hall bathroom upstairs

stairs leading to basement

finished basement, will be used for office, play room, or a 4th bedroom later on

basement bathroom

laundry room in basement, the 10% of unfinished basement

crawlspace in basement closet- narrow but long

garage, lots of shelving

back of house

shed

cement patio in backyard

spacious backyard

backyard

cherry and peach trees in the backyard!

backs up to open space, including walking trails and a stream! we love the privacy and that we won't have neighbors behind us!

lots of garden areas and plants already! We're most excited about the rhubarb plant!

fenced side of house- supposed to be for a boat or something. I don't know what we'll do with it yet- but I have to think of something before Luke buys a pig pit to put there!

So that's our house! I also realized that we are planning on moving in on Nov 7 and on that day last year we had our ultrasound and found out we were having a boy! It's crazy to think how much can happen in just one year, and so far 2009 has turned out to be an amazing year! :)