A Ride with Thomas

Jacob is now three and a half! To celebrate, we had a big surprise for him! Thomas the Tank Engine came to town and they had lots of fun things for the kids, so we went as a family.

We got to ride a bus in to the event, and here Jacob still had no idea what was going on. Once we pulled in and he saw all the trains though he got really excited!

Jacob first got to check out a lot of the old trains, and pull the bell.

He listened to storytime where they read Thomas books.

Finally we got to board Thomas for a train ride. (And all my pictures turned out blurry due to a fingerprint!)

After the 20 minute ride Jacob got a picture with Thomas. I think he was bummed because he wanted to actually touch his face, haha. He said he enjoyed the ride at least.

The boys liked watching the little trains on the tracks and Jacob's favorite part was playing with the toy Thomas trains.

We even got to meet Sir Toppam Hat! haha

Jacob also got to pet all the animals at the petting zoo and sit in a firetruck!

They really knew how to pack in a lot of fun stuff for kids at one event. Jacob had a fun time and didn't want to leave! At this age he gets excited about everything, so it's been fun!

 Blake is also now 15 months old. He seems to get new words in every day, like fishie,  milk, "a da" (all done) and signals by putting his hands up, and it even seems like he says "ba pa" for backpack when we get Jacob ready for preschool. He's still teething like crazy, I think all of his teeth have cut through at this point. And still no walking- a little behind here. We know he's strong enough, but he gets around so well he doesn't seem interested. He can crawl up and down the stairs with no problem at all and even gets himself up and off the couches by himself, and quickly. At least he's almost 20 pounds now, haha. He's growing, but it's nice to feel like I still have my cuddly baby.

That's it for now. Here's a fun picture of the boys trying out a motorcycle. As much as Luke would love to have a bike, don't worry, it's just his friend's. But they sure do look cute together!

My Big Boys

My big boy has already started preschool! He just finished his first week- which is really only two days a week, for two hours each. He's in the 3 year old class at the Northglenn Rec Center, and I mainly put him in there since the teacher is my friend Beth. And it's also cheap, had the morning times that I like, and I can pay per month so it's easy to sign up and get in.

Jacob has been so excited for preschool and he really feels like a big boy!

Here was him running in on the first day because he was so excited to get there. He jumped right in and started playing while they gave the parents a quick orientation.

When it was time for Blake and I to leave Jacob said he wanted to come home with me, but I talked with him and told him I'd be back to pick him up soon and then he was fine. Beth said he and all the kids did really well, and Jacob was much calmer than she's seen him before and he'd even raise his hand and was very polite.

I'm so glad he's had a good first week, he loves going to school! And I enjoy having a two hour break to take care of errands and just spend time with Blake.

It's been awhile since I've updated on these two. Blake is 14.5 months, still not walking, but starting to talk in his own way. As soon as we got back from our vacation, he started saying "car", "ball", "bye bye" while waving, and will pick up a phone and say "ha" like hi. So these words, along with saying all our names, shaking his head no,  and squealing and whining- we understand him pretty well.  

He likes to eat big boy foods, especially whatever we're eating, and he likes to try feeding himself with a spoon or fork. He's still a really picky eater, but when all else fails: cereal. Just like his brother.

Jacob has been a real big boy lately! We have been working forever on getting him to go #2 in the toilet (he prefers to just go in his diaper first thing in the morning or at night when he has a diaper on for bed). But on our anniversary, his gift to us was going #2 in the toilet all on his own. So since then we've been working hard on breaking this habit since he now seems ready, and so it seemed a good time to introduce him to his new big boy bike.

A friend actually gave this to me in the beginning of summer and we stuck it in Luke's trunk and forgot about it since it needed new tires. But since he was trying to be a big boy we got the bike fixed and gave it to him- he was very excited! He loves to practice riding and is still trying to master pedaling while watching where he's going.

 He's also been practicing a lot of baseball with us in the backyard and has gotten really good at hitting the ball!It's been fun watching him learn lots of new big boy things.

And the gap is getting closer between these two as Blake is able to do more and more with Jacob. We just need to get Blake up on his feet and walking, but these two are so fun when they play and laugh together. Here they were resting with each other outside and Jacob stroked Blake's hair and told Blake how much he loved him and that Blake was his best friend. It was so sweet!

My two crazy boys are getting so big!

6 Year Anniversary

Luke and I have now been married for 6 years! It's funny how I still remember our wedding day perfectly but it feels like its been longer than 6 years at the same time. Our anniversary was back on Sunday, August 26, and leading up to that day Luke was working in Philadelphia for the week. So one of my gifts to him (and myself) was getting the house in better shape while he was gone. I did tons of little projects- like painting frames and stuff, bought some new small decorative things for the house and spent the whole week making the house look more organized and pretty.

The biggest makeover was our bedroom, and it was nice to be able to have a whole week to work on it before Luke saw it. I still want to paint our dresser and nightstands, but at least after almost 3 years in our house, our room actually has things on the wall! I think Luke was actually pleased with all the work I did, yay!

So after Luke got home from his trip and had time to watch his Redskins game, we got a babysitter to spend the night and we headed to downtown Denver. Our friend hooked us up at the Sheraton so we dropped our things off their first and then walked down to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, luckily it was early enough there was no wait. And I got some awesome Key Lime Cheesecake to go.

Then we went to the movies to see Bourne Legacy. Luke and I have always liked those movies, so we really enjoyed this movie as well. Before getting to the movie though, we tried dropping off our food at the hotel room but we were having a problem with our room keys. We were going to be late for our movie so I asked the front desk to switch our room, move our bag that was locked in our old room and move it to the new room, get us a fridge, and take our Cheesecake Factory bags and put them in our new room for us. Yea, lot of demands. But they did it, and upgraded us to a corner executive suite!

It had a front room with a couch, desk, and TV. Below you can see the bedroom through the next door.

Nice big room with corner windows, right off the 16th Street Mall, so we had a nice enough view too. Probably didn't need all the extra space, but it was cool to be able to have a suite for once.

The next morning we went for breakfast across the street. You could see our hotel room from there- we were one of those corner rooms on the tall building in the background.

It was a beautiful morning so we took our time walking around the mall, did a little shopping, and then finally checked out at noon and went home. The boys were at church with their babysitter though, so we rented the first Bourne movie and watched it over again until they got back. The boys did amazingly well with us out, so I was so proud of them for handling it well. It was a simple anniversary but it was so nice to have a night away from the boys and get to spend time alone with just Luke. Looking forward to another good year!

And here's a cute video of Jacob singing us "Happy In-A-Nursery To You"!