Blake at 7 months

So I totally missed blogging about Blake turning 6 months and now he's just turned 7 months old! It's going so fast and little Blakey is really growing up quick!
At 6 months we took him to the doctor and on 12/23 his stats were: Weight- 16 lbs 5.5 oz (28%); Height- 26 1/2 inches (52%) and head circumference is 53%. To be honest though, I'm not sure pediatricians are all on the same scale because at this age Jacob weighed a pound less than Blake but was in the 45% for weight and was only a half inch taller but was way up in the 75% for height. Maybe I'm just not good about math, but I'm starting to think these percentages are all nonsense numbers!
Somewhere in the 5th month he learned to sit up on his own and my life is suddenly easier, seriously. Now that he can sit up I don't feel I need to carry his carseat into the stores when we're running errands and Blake loves sitting in the shopping carts. And now that he can sit up he can see his toys and will sit and play for extended periods of time completely satisfied. He also likes being around Jacob and watching him play or just sitting on the floor sucking on all his toys.
The boys still play really well together and I love how they make each other laugh. I love when Jacob tells Blake that he is his best friend, and both these boys love getting time together with their dad too!

And this poor little guy has been teething for some time, but other than losing a little sleep he's handled it pretty well. So at 6 months, in the first week of January he got teeth number 3 and 4! He loves to suck on his fingers or bite down on anything, and we all think it's funny when he bites into a sweater or blanket and gets his teeth stuck! He's kind of crazy when it comes to biting...Blake also makes lots of funny high pitched squeals and low growls, and a couple times he's even babbled ma-ma-ma. He's been eating babyfood for awhile but I just need to remember to be more consistent in feeding him every night- (I don't know why this is so hard for me to remember!)
He doesn't take very long naps at all, especially when sometimes it feels it takes me more time just to put him down then he'll actually sleep, but he will usually go down 2 times a day if he sleeps in a little. Now that his teeth have cut through, his sleeping at night has gotten better again (for awhile there he reverted back to waking up every 2 hours), but he usually still wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat, and then again when Luke's leaving for work around 6:30 and then he'll sleep in for a couple more hours.
A weird fact about Blake- he loves to scratch things? Even in this picture he's turning around to scratch the wall, but all while smiling. I guess all babies like to scratch or rake with their fingers, I just think it's funny how he scratches everything, all the time. I'm not sure if he just likes the sound it makes or the way it feels, but his nails are very sharp and the sound of him scratching the walls or our leather couches makes me cringe!

And although Blake learned to roll over both ways months ago, now that he sits up so much it seems he's forgotten how to roll off his belly, which is weird because he learned to roll that way first. But if he's ever on his belly now he'll just keep kicking and wiggling in circles but seems to forget that he can roll over. And he's not crawling yet (thank goodness) but he's pushing himself up more and just wiggles a lot. Even when people hold him he is so jumpy it's exhausting.
Blake does have a great smile though and seems to have mastered fluttering his eyelashes to make a perfect flirty smile to everyone he sees. He still loves to be held by anyone, and I am glad that stranger anxiety hasn't seem to set yet. He has a cute little laugh, even though we sometimes can't tell the difference between his laughs and cries. I would like to say that he's typically pretty happy, but he does like to get his way so he's given us some good whines lately too.

And almost everyone I talk to says that Blake looks just like me, and yea, it's true. I came across this picture of me when I was one years old, and I was amazed how much Blake really does get from me!

I couldn't get a very good side by side picture of Blake with my picture, but I think it's still pretty funny. But I just adore my blue eyed, chubby cheeked, swirly dark haired baby boy!

A New Start

So not only is it a new year but we are starting fresh this year as Luke starts a new job! I know some of you are thinking he just got a new job at Quiznos, and yes he was only there for just over a year, and so he was not planning on looking for a new job for a couple more years. However, this opportunity practically fell in Luke's lap as they came to him and asked him to apply. We even were friend's with the guy who previously held the position, but it became available when he got promoted and they moved to New York this summer. The company did not realize that he and Luke were even friends from church, but had his resume from over a year ago and were referred to Luke through a random recruiter.
So despite the fact that Luke was not interested in leaving his job, let alone thinking he'd even receive an offer, he went through several interview processes around Thanksgiving and after almost a month of waiting, he received the offer days before his birthday!
So even though he felt awful leaving his position where they desperately needed him at Quiznos, he knew it was best for him to leave now, not to mention they gave him a great offer that he just couldn't turn down.
So he will now be a senior internal auditor at Ball Corp. and he is really looking forward to the opportunities that this will present for him. We know that this is a stable company that he will be able to stay with for a long time and be able to move up and within the company. And today is his first day, so hopefully he likes it because this is it now- no more job hopping!
We are so proud of Luke and how hard he works for us, and we can't believe how blessed we are that Luke was able to be offered such a great job, especially when there are so many others around who struggle to find jobs for such a long time. We realize that our family is definitely being watched over and we hope this job becomes a good fit for him.
I got to admit though that are some perks from Luke working at Quiznos that we will miss- the free drinks and Quiznos gift cards for one. Luke will also miss getting to ride the bus downtown and meeting with all his other downtown friends for lunches. His new job is in Broomfield and so it will be a 25-30 minute drive west so that won't be as fun for him. One better thing about his new job though is that there will be no more "month-end" and so he won't be as busy and have to work late as often- which is what started happening much more frequently at his last job.
Luke working at Quiznos also marked when his interest in running and eating healthy began- ironically because Quiznos is a fast food company. But thanks to their gym downstairs Luke lost over 40 pounds while he was with them, but luckily Ball will have a nice gym there too so Luke plans to continue running after work. Now if only I could find myself a little set-up so that I could get in some work-out time...
Either way, we're a little sad to say goodbye to Quiznos since it was a good job for Luke at the time, but we are both excited about the possibilies that this new job will provide for our family, and looking forward to a new and even better year!

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas this year! We just spent it together at home with the four of us and it was really nice. It was especially fun now that Jacob had a better idea of what was going on and was very excited to get his presents. He probably got a little spoiled this year, we even decided to hold back a few gifts until his birthday in March. But the whole Christmas break with Luke being off work was a lot of fun! A few days before Christmas I continued one of my family's traditions of making gingerbread houses. So Jacob and I worked on one together and Jacob did such a good job helping!

Our roof kept falling flat so our little gingerbread house ended up like this, and it had clumps of marshmallow snow covering it, just like our house still had tons of snow outside. Not the prettiest little gingerbread house but Jacob enjoyed eating it :)
So it snowed on Thursday, a few days before Christmas and we still had snow in our yard from the beginning of December, so even though it didn't snow on Christmas day we had a white Christmas!
Jacob loves the snow so much on Christmas Eve morning we decided to take him sledding! It was so fun I'm sure this will become a new tradition for us. Jacob took a few rides down the hill with Luke, and then me, but then just wanted to walk around and explore for a little while.

Finally when we were about ready to go, Jacob decided he wanted to go sledding again, but wanted to do it himself! So we sent him down on the little sled, and as he got to the bottom of the hill he went flying off a little snow ramp, and then almost hit another guy! But he held on tight to his sled and managed to stay on- it was so cute! He loved it and then just wanted to go over and over again! I can't wait to take him sledding again!

Later that night for Christmas Eve dinner, we had some smoked beef brisket along with many other yummy things, and then we let the boys open one present early...
new Christmas pajamas! This is one of Luke's traditions and I think it's kind of fun. And look how excited Jacob was for his new Christmas pj's!
We then read some Christmas stories, had our Christmas Eve pudding (and Jacob won since he found the almond in his pudding), and then put the kids to bed so Santa could make his visit!
This is probably the only year we'll ever be able to get away with favoring one child- practically every present was for Jacob! And if it wasn't for their grandparents providing gifts, Blake might not have gotten any, but luckily he's too young to notice the difference. Either way, we had lots of gifts to go around and it was a really great Christmas!
Here is Blake on his first Christmas morning! And Jacob's eyes got real wide when he came downstairs Christmas morning and saw all the gifts- he ran towards the tree and said "Santa gave me all my presents!" It was fun to see him so excited, he wanted to open everything right away! But I steered him towards his stocking first and he went to town on all the chocolate and candy- he ate nearly all his candy that day!
We had a real nice brunch that morning, opened more presents, went to church at 1, put the kids down for naps, I got to talk with my family to my brother out on his mission, and then when the kids woke up we were finally able to open the last of the presents!
Jacob's two most favorite gifts were his Buzz Lightyear toy and his Thomas the Tank Engine lego set, and we were pretty excited to give them to him. It was fun to see how his eyes would light up when he opened every present and we're glad that he can enjoy and appreciate all his new toys!
We all got some nice gifts this year and thanks to our family who sent gifts to us too! It was a very nice Christmas and I loved spending so much fun time with my three boys! :)

Luke's Birthday= It's Almost Christmas

December is such a busy month, as soon as Thanksgiving was over we suddenly had tons to do. We've been getting ready for Christmas with lots of decorating, shopping, and activities. And this is our first year using an artificial tree and I have to say, I'm pretty happy with it!
So not only have we been building up for Christmas, but Luke's birthday is also 8 days before Christmas, so we celebrated this past weekend with his parents who flew into town. On the morning of Luke's birthday we had our Ward Christmas breakfast and Santa came to visit. Jacob was initially excited but once we finally got through the line to sit in his lap he wasn't too happy anymore. Blake loved checking out his cool beard though.

That night for Luke's birthday dinner we went to Hacienda Colorado, a nice mexican restaurant and we all really liked it.
After dinner, we had a quick little party for Luke with a few presents and an ice cream cake.
The next day at church was another busy one since I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting and Luke and I both had lessons to teach in our classes. I am going to miss the girls in my class that are moving on to young womens next year, but love teaching my primary class and looking forward to a new year. And my boys were dressed so cute in their Christmas clothes, I wanted to share a week early.



It's hard getting these boys to sit still but even the ones that didn't turn out so well are still so cute to me, haha


Later Sunday night, we drove and walked around downtown to see some of the lights and then finished up at Luke's office to grab some hot chocolate. Here is Jacob checking out the lights and saying, "Merry Christmas!" We are very excited for Christmas in a few days, looking forward to Luke having a week off, and spending the time together with just our family!

Our Big Boy

We have been slowly progressing towards potty training Jacob ever since we bought him a little potty on his 2nd birthday. We mostly let him just sit on it when he wanted, usually right after we changed his diaper, but nothing ever happened. Around September we bought him some underwear and he loved it so much we let him start wearing it over his diapers for a few months. Towards the beginning of November we started using a sticker chart and giving him a sticker every time he sat on the potty, even though to this point he had never been successful. A week and half later he started doing underwear "sessions" and just practiced wearing underwear for a few hours at a time, usually only about once, maybe twice a day. Naturally he'd have accidents, but would always jump right up and announce he was wet. After doing this for about a week, and then taking a break when we had family in for Thanksgiving, a few days after my family left, Jacob finally went to the potty all by himself! We gave him a ton of praise and special stickers and treats, and ever since then he's gone several times a day!
After getting two special stickers on his chart, Jacob got a special Christmas tree cake for using the potty all by himself for the first time. He was very proud of himself!
By now, Jacob's sticker chart is all filled out, it didn't take him that long at all since he loves to go potty now! He still got smaller stickers for trying, and would get special shape stickers when he actually went. In the beginning, he would literally want to go potty every 10-30 minutes, so it took up a lot of time! But now that he goes so well and we've finished our sticker chart, he suddenly doesn't need to go so often, but he still goes, just doesn't need all the motivation. We still let him know that we are very proud of him though!

And after using his little potty for a week, we moved the little seat to fit on the big toilet and he uses a stool to get up by himself. And though he could go #2 in his little potty, he has yet to go in the big toilet, he seems a little too scared to do it yet, but I know he'll get there soon enough. Jacob has also exceeded my expectations with nap and nighttime as about half the time when he wakes up from a nap or in the morning he's dry! So he's great at holding it for awhile and is good about getting up out of bed to go potty, even when he's in a diaper. So we are really proud of him and how quickly he picked it all up once we finally got going.

So we've also let him wear underwear when we go out if it's not for very long or we're running easy errands, but diapers still on longer trips. But he has used public restrooms and has done great, no public accidents yet. So he's not fully trained, but very close! We're just about ready to let him wear underwear out all the time, and have trusted him with underwear about half the time for naps, and he's done great!

As a special treat for Jacob learning to use the potty, last weekend we surprised him and took him to see Toy Story on Ice! He loved it and it was a really fun show! Unfortunately I lost my camera right before the show but I took some on Luke's phone, maybe I'll add some later. Either way, we are super proud of Jacob and how quickly he's growing up!

Thanksgiving

So I'm a little behind on blogging, but let me back up to Thanksgiving!

My sister Julia and my brother James and his wife Tammy drove from Rexburg to come visit us on their Thanksgiving break. It was great to see family and hopefully it was worth the long drive for them! It was fun for them to see the kids and meet Blake for the first time!
Both of my boys loved all the attention! We had such beautiful weather on Thanksgiving and the day before that Julia went with me to take the boys to the park. And I can not get over my little blue eyed baby!
We had just got him this new hat and it just looks so cute I had to share a few pics of him too!


And after several tries I was also able to get a few cute pictures of Jacob in our backyard. These are basically the only ones where he was looking and not running away!

The boys together on Thanksgiving

Our family on Thanksgiving

and Julia with the boys

Oh and we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner and all too. Luke smoked our turkey this year and we all helped to make everything else for dinner. At dinner we went around to say what we were thankful for and had Jacob go first. I didn't think he would really understand what we were talking about but I just wanted to see what he would say and he was so cute. First he said church and since he got a big reaction out of that, he went on and said he was grateful for nursery, friends, trains, cars, Blake, Daddy, and Mom. It was really sweet. Later that night we continued our tradition of playing Rook for several hours, it was fun! The next day we checked out Boulder Falls, and it was freezing so we didn't stay too long but it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

James and Tammy at the falls

me and Julia

cute boysSo we also got a little Black Friday shopping that day, found a couple good deals for the kids, and then Julia, James, and Tammy took off the next day. We had a nice visit with them and were happy they made the trip to come visit with us!