Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas! What a difference a year makes. This Christmas Jacob has enjoyed taking
ornaments off the Christmas tree, putting his toys ON the Christmas tree, tearing open presents and boxes, eating chocolate from his Advent calendar, pointing to the tree every morning all month saying words that we've determined mean "tree" and "light," and wearing his Santa/candy cane pajamas and hat. Well, not so much the hat.

The hits this Christmas included a backpack that he either loved wearing or couldn't figure out how to take off(?) and a toy kitchen. Looks like someone'll be helping us make dinner in the new year.Mewaw traveled from MD for Christmas morning and Stacey, Jared and Lyle came over for Christmas dinner.

Then Aunt Nancy, Uncle Steve, and the boys finally arrived back in town and we celebrated with them too.

Memaw and her boys. What a fun Christmas weekend.

Jacob just turned 16 months this weekend and is really starting to talk and copy things that we do. It's fun to watch him process words and actions and do his best to repeat. Just in the last few days he's said things that might mean "belly button, truck, Elmo, banana, book, A-B-C, hot, and block." He also shakes his finger and copies me saying "uh uh uh."
UH OH!!

Christmakuh

This weekend it snowed. A lot.

But reports of a record-breaking storm heading up the mid-Atlantic didn't deter the Shermans and Wulfows from coming together to celebrate Christmakuh in Maryland. We trimmed the tree, opened Hanukkah presents, ate too much, and shoveled snow. It was great! Jacob and Heath LOVED playing in the snow together (sorta), and just being with Grandpa and Nana (and their aunts and uncles too of course).

Outtakes

Back by popular demand, more pics of Jacob and the strawberry.

Hanukkah & an Early Christmas

Not to worry, it's just a flesh wound... keeding, only keeding. Jacob has taken to smushing his breakfast, lunch and dinner deep into the layers of his full head of hair. When I put him to bed it still smelled of strawberries after this particularly successful squish (and three tries at washing it out).

Jacob likes to "get daddy"

He enjoyed his second night of Hanukkah and received a priceless gift -- a pop up walky thingy that Mike actually used when he was a baby. He LOVES it (Thanks Nana!).

Then it was an early Christmas celebration with Dad, Beverly, Liz, Ernesto, Nancy, Steve and the boys. Sam was very pleased with his gift.

Jacob was particularly expressive during these 40 seconds, so I thought I'd shared. This was in the midst of the aforementioned breakfast strawberry squish, just after the piece above his eyebrow finally fell off, and just before he had a meltdown to let us know that he was all done.

It's winter

This weekend we celebrated Anderson's 6th birthday, and saw Aunt Nancy's house transformed into the set of the movie Star Wars. The weekend also produced our first snow of the season so Jacob got all decked out in his new winter hat.

Thanksgiving 2009

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday in NY at Lois and Mark's and got to visit
with a lot of Mike's family (I think they had 25+ people at the table)!
It was such a nice time and great to catch up with everyone.
Jacob loved hanging out with everyone and showed off his new walking skills.
He also spent a lot of quality time with his cousin Heath, eating breakfast together, chasing one another in circles (keeping Mark very busy!), and "sharing" toys.

Up Down Walk

Busy weekend

Pepaw had surgery on his foot this week,
so Jacob stopped by to check on him and Beverly.

Then Lyle came over and he and Jacob had a great time playing
together and learning about compromise (see video).

On Sunday Leslie and Becky came by with their
boys Austin, Gavin and baby Graham and wore Jacob out --
he took a three hour nap after they left.

What a fun weekend, but now I could use a three hour nap!

Might not look like much...

... but Jacob started walking this weekend!
These were his first few steps caught on video.

Halloween 2009

Anyone remember our little dinosaur last Halloween?

This Halloween was WAY more fun.
Even though Jacob would only keep his elephant hat on for about
10 seconds at a time, and that was only because it was velcroed. Fortunately,
he seemed unfazed by the extra padding around his middle.

We started the evening at Rachel and Nate's.
Here's Milo as a "baby chick" and the elephant.

Playin' Hookie

Jacob stayed home from daycare with Mike on Friday, so to make up for missing the costume party planned that day they came to visit me at work. Jacob showed off his crawling skills for some colleagues, got to sit at my desk, and hung out with Brian. As hard as he tried, Jacob's energy was no match for Mike's -- he gave a good fight, never even took a nap, but was in bed by 7pm. Lightweight.

Catching up & 14 months

We've had a busy couple of weeks but I haven't been as vigilant about capturing things on film. Jacob and I visited Richmond a couple weekends ago and it was also Nancy's 20th high school reunion weekend. Hard to believe. So she and Steve spent the evening out on the town.

Then Rae came to visit us from Austin (it took a little work to get Jacob to focus on smiling for the camera as you can see by our pose.)

And, finally, today Jacob is 14 months. He is one busy busy body; he babbles with purpose, especially in the morning when it's only in the early half of the 6am hour and we just want to sleep; he says a distinct "bye bye" and waves; he points and likes to give you things as long as you give them back. He has perfected his clap (see above video), can raise one eyebrow higher than the other (not necessarily on purpose), and he's developed a very sly smile which he knows how to use. Aunt Nancy claims he took four steps over the weekend while she was babysitting, but as no one else was there and he hasn't done it again, we're skeptical. That's just a glimpse into little Jacob's big personality at 14 montharoos.