Month 8

The month (December) leading up to his 8 month birthday was a lot of fun and full of more firsts. As I predicted, a few weeks before the end of the year, Dylan started his version of crawling. He starts out on his hands and knees, then flattens himself on the ground and does the army crawl to get where he wants to go, then gets back on his hands and knees to get into a sitting position. His favorite place to crawl is into Jacobs room. Even though he has his toys spread out in his room, our bedroom and the living room, he prefers to play with his brothers toys.

He always has and continues to love his bath, especially when big brother jumps in to “help”!

He has been babbling and making noises for a while, but now his babbling is starting to form with consonants and vowels. Ba, ba, ba and ma, ma, ma are the most common things he says right now. I am really trying to work with him to say Momma first 🙂 so ma, ma, ma has been on repeat. And every time he says it, Jacob looks at me and says “Hey, Dylan’s saying Momma!”

The previous month he started sleeping nice 11 hour stretches at night, however, we all got really sick with a nasty cold for several weeks. So our nighttime sleep was interrupted with stuffy noses, coughs and a lot of late night cuddles. And just when we all recovered from the cold, Dylan kept things interesting by popping out his first tooth on New Years Eve (at 34 wks)! So he started 2016 as an almost 8 month old sporting his lower left front tooth. Then the following week (35 wks) when he turned 8 months old, he popped out the lower right front tooth. It was a rough couple of teething weeks.

Throughout it all he remained our smiley, happy little guy!

Here’s are this month’s weekly photos.

Week 31

Week 32

Week 33

Week 34

Week 35

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, Jacob was up before the sun as usual. And he was excited to see that Santa had come!

First order of business was playing with the train…I love this new tradition! Every year we plan to add to the train, track and even start building a village around it. I have a feeling it will be a favorite among both our boys for many, many years. Thanks Papa J for getting us started!

Then he tested out his new tricycle…

Then the party got rockin’ when Tante Heidi, Uncle Andy and Cousin Matt showed up with Oma and a drum set!

Jacob was so excited! He helped Matt unpack the box and anxiously waited (while counting off with the drumsticks) while Matt put the drums together.

Thanks Matt!!

Then we had brunch and just visited for a while.

Then we opened presents, Jacob liked playing Santa as I told him who to give the presents to. No one took any pictures while we were opening presents, but Papa J and Nonnie got a selfie stick, so that called for a (blurry) group photo!

And there was one last present for Jacob and Dylan. Although Dylan is a bit too young to ride it, Jacob hopped right on and started riding in circles around the house. This is seriously the best gift for a toddler, we love it and I wish I had the adult sized one for myself!

I have this great picture of Jacob with his two great grandmothers at Christmas last year and was hoping to recreate the picture with both boys this year. However Jacob is not all that cooperative when taking a picture these days, so we got one with Dylan.

That afternoon we took a nice walk to the resort down the street from our house to look at the decorations and warmed up with a cup of coffee before heading home to make dinner. This was such a fun Christmas since Jacob really got into it this year and understood what was going on. I know the next couple of years will be even better with Dylan getting older. It all happened so fast and we did so much, but truly loved having everyone over to celebrate the season!

I leave my decorations up until after New Years, so the boys had a few more days to play with the train before putting it away.

And to wrap up all the Christmas stuff, here is our silly family photo. I love this for a couple of reasons, I got Jacob involved and had him help me set up the camera on the tripod and talked to him about what we were going to do so he was excited (and cooperative) to look at the pictures on the camera after we took them, so he actually stayed still and smiled! Secondly, I love how Dylan is looking at Jacob, he truly is Dylan’s favorite person, I hope that feeling lasts forever!

Merry Christmas!

The Season

We are still alive (barely) over here. I am slowly but surely trying to get a little more caught up on the blog, so lets go back in time and rediscover Christmastime 🙂

Christmas is my favorite time of year. Yes, it gets crazy and chaotic, but it is a good kind of crazy. It’s not only the actual day of Christmas that I love, it is the entire season. We did all kinds of fun things to celebrate the season and to prepare for Christmas at our house. I wish I could say that I had my camera out at the ready and was taking all these wonderful photos to document the season…however, with two small children, time is not my friend. And the time and effort that goes into taking those beautiful, creative photos with the perfect lighting and setting just didn’t happen for me this year. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t whip out my iPhone to snap away, so I do have pictures to share.

First off, baking! For as long as I can remember, my grandma has always made an old family recipe for pecan sweet rolls that we would have on Christmas morning. When my grandparents moved out of their house into their retirement community, they didn’t have the kitchen capacity to make them any more and it really was too much work for her to do at that point anyway. That first Christmas after they moved, it dawned on me that she wouldn’t be making the sweet rolls and I couldn’t let that tradition stop! So I called her and told her to email me the recipe and I went to Costco to buy a mixer with a dough hook and ever since then I’ve been making the rolls for our Christmas morning. The past few years, my mom has come to help (especially once the kids started showing up!) It is an all day process and they are so worth the work. This year my grandma (Oma) came over to visit with us while we made the rolls. It was a bit of a chaotic day juggling, making the rolls, taking care of the kids and Oma and making lunch, keeping the kids entertained, etc… but we got it done and Oma really enjoyed the day with us and it made for some fun memories!

A few days later, the boys helped me make cookies. I love how Dylan is just plain happy to be a part of anything we are doing, especially if his favorite person (Jake) is involved. Jake is really good at using the cookie cutters, and he is even better at eating the cookie dough!

This year we experienced another parenting “first” when watching Jacob in his preschool Christmas Program. His class is the youngest, so they were only onstage for about 7 minutes and they sang “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, then they came back onstage for the grand finale. Even though Jacob knows the words to the songs he pretty much just waved his star around and searched the audience for us. I could tell when he found Grandma since his face lit up and he started waving back to her.

It was pretty cute, he had a lot of fun and we are proud of him for going up on the stage in front of all those people!

We had my family Christmas party at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Jacob loved playing with the new trains he got.

And Dylan was a real life doll for his girl cousins. They were completely enamored with him and he loved the attention!

That night we drove to my parents cabin with plans of staying a few nights and going to Wildlights at the Living Desert in Palm Desert like we did the year before. However, we all got sick…miserably sick. So we took it easy for a day before heading home. It was too cold and windy to work outside with a cold, so Jake and grandpa watched the National Finals Rodeo on TV

and we gave Dylan a warm bath, hoping it would help with his congestion. Even when he’s sick, he’s my smiley happy boy!

We were all so congested and plugged up, we could not hear anything. The pressure from driving over the mountain really bothered the boys and they cried the entire way home. It was a long drive. And the cold lasted a long time, but we finally got better. And we kept celebrating the season…

Growing up my mom sang in the choir and they would always sing at the community Christmas tree lighting ceremonies, or Christmas programs or some other kind of Christmas event. I remember going to many of those events with my dad to watch my mom. There was something magical about the music, lights, hot chocolate and bundling up on a cold night. Now we are still enjoying these community events, but with the added bonus of seeing it all through our kids eyes. The first one we went to was at the Bernardo Winery. They had a great train village set up and Jacob could have spent the entire night there! Every time we would go do something else, he kept saying he wanted to go back to the trains, so we made several trips there. We had some amazing food from the food trucks they had, but the wait was ridiculous, thankfully we had the train village to entertain Jake while we waited for the food! This year Jacob really started understanding the concept of Santa Claus. So while we were waiting in line to see Santa (he hadn’t arrived yet), we were talking to Jacob about Santa being on his way and how we were going to sit on his lap and tell him what we wanted for Christmas, etc… Jacob was excited! He kept watching the sky and waiting to see Santa in his sleigh with his reindeer.

And when Santa did arrive Jacob was starstruck to see him in real life! While we got closer and closer in line, he watched all the other kids sit on his lap and take their picture with Santa, however, when it came his turn…he wanted nothing to do with it! But Dylan didn’t mind at all.

So then we thought if we did the family photo, Jake would be more comfortable, but he wouldn’t leave his daddy’s arms.

A few nights later we got together with some of our neighbors and went to the Christmas festivities at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. They had carolers that Jacob loved listening to, they had a giant gingerbread house, beautiful decorations, a fun lighting show/display complete with fake snow and again Santa Claus. This time we were able to convince Jacob to at least stand by Santa, I told him that Dylan needed him to hold his hand.

Poor Dylan has these crazy cowlicks at the front of his hairline, no matter what I do, it won’t go one way or the other and it’s going to be a battle for him the rest of his life. But with the twinkle in his blue eyes and that big smile I still think he is pretty darn cute regardless of what his hair does 🙂

On Christmas Eve we had family and friends over for a German food feast! And we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. It was a special service singing Christmas songs, watching the adorable kids program and hearing the heartwarming message, which is always a nice reminder of what Christmas is truly about. Celebrating the birth of our savior is the reason for the season! And even though I didn’t get photos I wanted to with my camera, we were sick most of the time and Jacob didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap, it really doesn’t matter, we still had an amazing time with family and friends and created memories to last a lifetime.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. – Luke 2:11

The Tree

Picking out our Christmas Tree was the easiest experience this year. When we got to the lot, Justin took Jake in to start looking around while I got Dylan out of the car and bundled up. On my way in I saw a neighbor and stopped to say hi and chat for a few minutes and when I turned around I saw Justin and Jake standing by our tree. When I walked up to them, Justin said “This is it.” I briefly looked around and agreed that he had picked out the best one. We hadn’t even been there for 10 minutes and we were done. After paying for the tree and getting it loaded up ontop of the car, we decided to stick around for a bit and let Jacob play.

I came really close to getting a Charlie Brown tree after Jake kept carrying this one around with him.

Dylan getting his first grasp of a Christmas tree branch

They had Santa’s sleigh there to use for photo ops, but Jake is not really cooperative in that department these days, so this is the best we got.

Back out on the lot Jake was heading for the BIG trees

One of the men working there restocking the trees heard me calling Jake’s name (as Jake was ignoring me as usual), so when he walked by he said “Hey Jake!” that stopped him in his tracks. Then he asked Jake if he wanted to help him with the tree he was carrying.

Of course Jake jumped at the chance to get his hands dirty! The man talked to him the entire way to where he was setting up the tree, and thanked him with a high five when they were done.

We practically had to carry Jake out of there to keep him from running after the man to help him over and over and over again. Maybe we should have asked if they were hiring.

I never thought our family would really get into the Elf on the Shelf. But this year, this little guy, who Jake named Red, joined our family.

After the boys went to bed, Justin and I put lights on the tree and wrapped a bunch of Christmas books and put them under the tree. The next morning with Red perched on top of the tree, Jacob was excited to see that Red had put lights on the tree and brought books from Santa. So now every night before bed Jacob gets to choose a book from under the tree to unwrap and read.

I put our fragile/glass/breakable ornaments at the top of the tree and bought a big box of shatterproof ornaments that we could put everywhere else. So Jacob “helped” me decorate the tree.

Which resulted in a low patch of the tree that was beautifully crammed with ornaments.

The next day, my mom was in town, so the two of us spread out the crammed ornaments and finished decorating the tree.

One night I sat Dylan down in front of the tree and told Jake to show him the ornaments. Jake took his job seriously.

Then Dylan decided to liven things up a bit and pick on his brother by pulling his shirt, over and over and over again.

He he he…good one, huh mom!

Okay now, back to the ornaments.

It’s going to be a FUN Christmas this year!

Month 7

What a fun month this has been! This kid is on the move! When you sit him down on the floor, he launches himself forward and rolls across the room, does the backward scoot and gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth on his hands and knees. He is desperately trying to keep up with his brother. When holding him if he sees something he wants he will leap towards it with his arms reaching out, if you are not prepared for it or holding on tight enough he is usually successful in getting what he was going for.

Due to all this moving around he is doing, I noticed this month that my chunky baby is starting to slim down a bit. You can see a difference between the first and last picture in the weekly photos.

He is finally sleeping SO much better! A 11 hour stretch of sleep at night is becoming more the norm now.

He enjoys his foods (and the messes he makes with it!) I think his hair in this picture makes him look like Alfalfa from Spanky and the Gang (yes, I do know who that is)