Five Months Old

Jacob is five months old today!  We love this little boy so much.  

This was the best picture we could get - Jacob was very disinterested in his little photo shoot today.  But it was fun taking pictures of him in his church clothes since that doesn't happen very often!

He is FINALLY leveling on his growth a little bit and has even lost a little weight too - which trust me, he could afford to lose a little!  He is still just as cute as can be and he makes us laugh every day.  Jacob loves sitting up, but he loves standing up even more!  He loves just holding onto our hands and standing there.  There are little things he does on his tummy that makes me a little worried/excited that he may figure out crawling here pretty soon!  WHAT?!  Anyway, hopefully we have a little while for that.  

He has also changed from sticking his whole hand into his mouth constantly to just sticking his pointer finger - not his thumb - his pointer finger.  What a funny little guy.  He is such a good little boy and we love him as a member of our little family.  

It has been a wonderful five months and we can't wait for more!  We love our little sweet boy!

Thanksgiving

We hope all of you had a FABULOUS Thanksgiving!  Our Thanksgiving was so great!  We spent some time thinking about our last Thanksgiving - which I think I could positively say was the worst Thanksgiving of my life.  It was right smack-dab in the middle of the worst part of my pregnancy sickness and I was just so sad that I couldn't do more.  Our menu last year was canned peas, instant potatoes and store-bought rolls so we definitely needed an upgrade.  And we did!

We ended up having some friends come over and they ended up inviting some of their friends as well.  I will say, I was SO nervous to make a turkey!  In fact, EVERYTHING that I was making I was using recipes I had never tried before and I couldn't even call my mom because she and the rest of my family were spending Thanksgiving in New York so they were busy doing their own thing.  But the anticipation of making everything turned out to be far worse then actually making everything.

It was a great day though.  And I definitely could not have done it without that gem of a husband of mine!  He seriously is the greatest and helped with everything.  We had dinner and played games and then once we got Jacob to bed we pretty much just crashed on the couch and chatted with some of our family over the phone.

Our little family has so much to be thankful for this year.  Last night, I had a hard time falling asleep and my mind just kept going over the many many blessings that I have.

First of all, I have the best husband and best friend in the world for me.  Mark is truly the best man I could ever ask to spend every single day with.  I feel so blessed in the strength of both our marriage and friendship.  I love how patient and kind he is.  I love how hard he works for our family.  I love the kind of Dad that he is.  I love that man more than I could say. 

I love love love my little Jacob.  He is the perfect little baby and we just can't get enough of him.  You would think after all day with him I would just want a break at night - and yes, that is nice - but Mark and I find ourselves going in to his room, just to watch him sleep.  We love our little boy, we love all the joy that he has brought into our lives, and we love all that we have already learned from him.

We are also so grateful for the rest of our wonderful family.  We have never really lived close to family since we have been married, but especially since we have moved out here to Denver, we have obviously been especially far from family.  We are so grateful for technology that enables us to talk with one another often (sometimes even SEE each other!).  Our families are so supportive and we truly love them and miss them.  Thank you all for everything.

We are grateful for our testimonies.  We are grateful that we have a relationship with our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  We are grateful for scriptures and the source of comfort and strength that they are.  We are grateful for a living Prophet.  And we are grateful that our little family can be a forever family.  

We are grateful that Mark has the opportunity right now to receive the education that he is getting.  And I am grateful that we see and notice that every day.  I am grateful also that I can continue to learn new things through my own personal study.

We have so many other blessings I could just go on and on.  I am just so grateful that we have this time of year to especially dwell on those things that we do have.  I am truly a very blessed woman.  

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Don't you just LOVE how happy Jacob is - what a turkey!

The Molly Brown House

For November's Family Fun Activity we decided to go to The Molly Brown House.  I always recognized who Molly Brown was (because I had watched "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" movie as a kid) but I really didn't remember much about her.  And it turns out that what I did remember from the movie was actually not true - so today was definitely a learning experience for all of us. 

For those of you who don't know, Molly Brown was a woman most commonly known for being a survivor of The Titanic.  But the short story of her life is: she was from humble beginnings but was determined to marry rich, married a poor miner in Colorado who ended up in charge of the largest gold discovery in Colorado history, Molly ended up with LOTS of money, had two children, separated from her husband, traveled the world, ran for Colorado State Senator three times, and traveled in first class on the Titanic. 

She had a home in downtown Denver that is now owned by a historical society.  It is pretty extravagant (bummer - they wouldn't let us take pictures inside) but definitely fun to see.  We ended up being the only people to show up for our tour group so our little family essentially had a private tour.  It was fun to learn more about her life and the time period.  History is always fun to learn about for us!

They did have a little Titanic exhibit in the back of the house (and we could take pictures here!) since it is the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic this year - this was Mark's favorite part!

A pretty low-key family fun but was just the little bit that we needed!

Yummy Yummy In My Tummy

Today was Jacob's first experience with solid foods!  EXCITING!  It was actually pretty funny this morning.  We put him in his "special chair" which he has become very accustomed to over the last week and a half.  We put on his bib, which he has also gotten very used to because he needs it to control his constant drool.  But then when we brought over his little bowl filled with pears, I am not sure he knew what was going on. 

This is how our first try went...

(We had a video, but for some reason I can't get it to upload)

 
He actually got the hang of things pretty fast once we got going.  However, I don't think he was getting what he wanted fast enough!  This was the result. 

He was pretty happy once we were done to get a little bottle to wash it all down. 

For dinner, we learned our lesson a little bit.  We gave him his bottle first and then he was more then happy to eat his pears. 

MMM...yummy yummy in my tummy!

Getting in a Groove

I wish I had more exciting things to blog about but things really have been very low-key as of late.  We were going to have our family fun activity today but then Mark got a call from his best friend, Chris last night (who was working in Cheyenne this week) and so we decided to meet him and his wife in Fort Collins today. 

So that is what we did today.  If was fun to finally meet Chris and Laurin and we were able to have lunch and then decided to go bowling.  Completely forgot to take any pictures but it was a fun afternoon!

This week I feel like we have finally gotten into a groove as a family.  I know, it took us long enough! But I feel like we are finally getting into a routine that works for ALL of us!  Who knows how long that will last, but it is definitely wonderful for the moment!


Here was my inspiration:

"We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives.  We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us.  We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something.  We have to learn to be content with what we are."

-Marjorie Pay Hinckley-

We continue to just be a happy little crew around here.  Jacob gets cuter and cuter every day.  I am loving this stage he is entering in.  He loves to just sit in "his special chair" and look around, suck on his hands, and play with his toys.  Our doctor told us to go ahead and start giving Jacob solid food and so we bought some and am planning on starting him next week.  

EXCITING!

Just Plugging Along

This week has been an array of emotions.  There were definitely times when I just felt like this was a really cruddy week - but at the same time, I know our little emotions and troubles are so little that I don't really feel like I can complain either.  

As far as activities or fun things go, it was a pretty blah kind of week, nothing really exciting going on.  Mark had a big test that he was studying for all week that he took on Friday.  I am sure he nailed it!  But he has two papers, two quizzes, and a test next week (ew!).   

I admire and look up to that hubby of mine so much.  He works so hard for our little family and seriously never complains.  He gets next to no sleep most every night and still just powers through it all.  I am so glad that he sees an education as a blessing and always remembers the end result of all of this.  I am also grateful for how he loves Jacob and me.  He is so good about taking time every day to spend time with each of us, and I know that that is probably hard to remember with the zillion other things going on in his mind, but I am very grateful.  Love you. 

Life this week for me - well, I have definitely learned some things.  I have learned that if you put rice (that you ruined, who knew you could mess up rice?!) down the garbage disposal that it will clog, leaving you with a WONDERFUL smell for three days until maintenance comes to fix it.  But the biggest lesson I have learned is that everything is not going to get done every day.  I've been feeling frustrated that I seem to never get everything done in the day that I want to: exercise, scripture study, laundry, cleaning of the house in general, etc.  But that it is okay.  I just need to remember what is most important and just work from there.  Elder Oak's talk about "good, better, best" has definitely been running through me mind.  And I am just trusting that if I do those "best" things that the rest will all just fall into place. 

As for little Jacob, he just continues to GROW and GROW!  He had his four month checkup on Thursday.  The highlight of these is to see how much Jacob now weighs.  Mark's guess was 18 lbs, mine was 19 lbs, we were both hoping to be overshooting.  Oh boy, Jacob came in at 20 lbs, 4 oz - WHAT?!  Seriously, the boy is off the charts, no longer in a percentile.  Wow.  I keep thinking he is going to level off but he just keeps on going.  For some perspective, technically, you are supposed to be in 12 month size clothers at 20 1/2 pounds.  Hmmm...that's like right now.  We just started putting him in nine months last week.  Wow.

I will admit though, Jacob's appointment was kind of discouraging for me.  They have you fill out these questionnaires about different things and whether or not your child is doing them/how frequently and such.  There were only two or three things that we felt like Jacob wasn't really doing yet and were feeling pretty good about things.  But when our doctor was going through it she made the comment (and then made it again two more times after that) that I needed to be working with Jacob more to achieve these things so he doesn't get behind.  I am SURE she didn't mean to make me feel bad or anything, but it really made me feel bad.  I don't feel like Jacob is behind at all.  And it was a little frustrating to me that at the top of the questionnaire is says that this only shows what our child has the potential to do at this age and that every child will meet milestones at different times.  So it made me confused to then feel like I was somehow a bad mom because Jacob hadn't achieved everything yet.  I am sure I was just having an over-sensitive moment, but it made me feel bad.  I don't want my focus to be on Jacob completing some sort of checklist by some deadline.

Uggg...sorry for my little rant. It was just hard for me.  Trying to not think about it too much (as you can tell I am doing a really good job at that!).  

Let's move on to much happier things!    

Jacob continues to just be the greatest little thing in our lives.  We love that little munchkin so much.  

This week he finally started to take an interest in his toys.  Granted, he only has three, but he finally seems to want to play with them a little.  EXCITING!   

He is also a chatterbox!  Seriously, this little guy never stops making noise.  Here are some of the ways he likes to vocalize his opinions :)  

Mark took this video last weekend while I was running some errands.  Cracks me up!   

This is what Jacob sounds like when he is supposed to be taking his nap.  This is also what we hear all night long and wake up to in the morning.  I don't know WHEN that little guy sleeps!  But if I have to hear an alarm in the morning, this is a pretty good one to hear :)

Halloween Party

Last night we had a family Halloween Party.  Since we don't plan on taking Jacob trick-or-treating (obviously!) and we aren't able to go to the ward Trunk-or-Treat that is tonight (we have our game tickets from Mark's birthday), we had to create an opportunity to dress Jacob up in his Halloween costume.  So we decided to have a family Halloween Party! 

Putting this costume together was nothing short of a miracle!  There were honestly times I thought it would never happen - but it did, and he looked pretty much adorable!  

We love our little elephant!

 

After playing dress up with Jacob, we did our regular night-time routine.  We put Jacob down for bed and Mark and I snuggled up on the couch, had donuts and apple cider, and watched Hocus Pocus.  Grateful for my family and these simple, yet wonderful moments we get to have with one another.  

Happy Halloween!