Fall Fun

Well I guess you can tell I’m back at work by the long time between posts!  We have been busy and I have a lot of pictures to share.  First we met up with Jen, Darren and Grant to pick some pumpkins.  Sean was very excited to see Grant as usual :)

We’ve been busy with Dylan, too.  He is now big enough (this is, of course, debatable) for Daddy to sit him on top of the TV… something we started with Sean when he was a baby.  As I’m writing this I’m realizing how times have changed.  Yes, this is what we now do for fun on a Saturday.  But I digress…

We also pulled the exersaucer up from the basement which thrilled Sean since it’s basically a new toy for him as well.  We also tried Sean’s shoes on Dylan.  Judging from his smile, I think he liked it!

This past weekend was time to decorate pumpkins.  We took a different approach this year - instead of carving them we had more toddler-friendly designs.  Sean loved it for about 5 minutes and then the rest of the time he ran around the table while John and I finished them up.  Oh the attention span of a 2-year-old.

Finally, Emmi has been working with Sean to learn how to peddle his tricycle but he’s had a hard time understanding how his feet move the peddles.  So, we figured out that duct tapping his feet to the peddles works like a charm! Can you see the smile on his face in the picture below?!  Don’t you remember the simple bliss of riding your bike as a kid? Makes me want to dust the cobwebs off of my bike this weekend.

I have some good videos from some of the days above that I’ll try to share soon.  Thanks for stopping by.  Stay classy.

Pssst….

You should now be able to leave comments! A few people have told me that they haven’t been able to leave comments on my posts (bummer!) and I think it was because I had it on a weird setting.  I’ve changed it now so comment until your heart’s content! I’d love to hear from you.  Thanks so much for following!

All Aboard!

This past weekend our family of 4 took our first trip together (minus Polly this time, but it was for the best – trust me) to Chesapeake to see John’s family.  Dylan got to meet his great-grandparents Mamaw and Great-Grandaddy Bryant and Great-Mamaw Ward!  It was really exciting to introduce Dylan to the rest of the family and so nice to spend a relaxing day just hanging out, watching football and catching up. 

It’s times like these that you realize how hard it is to live so far away, not just on us but the rest of our family.  But one of the things John and I realized on this trip is that it does get a little easier to make visits like this as they get older.  We let Sean stay up late in the hotel to watch Shrek and eat pizza with us the first night (TV and pizza… healthy, I know) and he acted like a crazy person the second night when Uncle Marshall and Aunt Megan came back to hang out.  It was nice not having to race around and get him fed, bathed and into bed by 8 (which is exactly what we had to do with Dylan – I think he turns into a pumpkin after 8:15).  Instead, we could hang out together and enjoy the trip and our family time together.  But all in all, the boys did a great job, both slept through the night and took their naps during the day, and we are thankful that everyone took time to spend with us over the weekend.

{Right after we arrived at Mamaw & Great-Grandaddy’s house}

{Boys being boys… riding around in Grandaddy’s collection of chairs and scooters and dressing Sean up like a little football player}

{Hanging out, watching Tech beat Miami (gobble gobble), and eating eating eating!!}

Dylan is 4 Months Old!

I think this month is going to be very busy for Dylan.  As he begins his 5th month, he’s slowly starting to eat some rice cereal, likes sitting in his bumbo chair more and more every day, is getting very good at holding his head up and is rolling over from tummy to back. It all appears to be making more sense to him and he seems ready to keep figuring things out so he can start keeping up with his brother!

Dylan and Sean are getting excited for Halloween.  Here they are wearing their Halloween outfits last week.  For the first time ever, Sean asked to hold Dylan for this picture. It was so cute!

You can tell Dylan wasn’t so sure… he was giving me the weird ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’ face in the first picture.

And you know I can’t resist to compare the two… here are both of their 4 month pictures. I think they have the same smile but most of their other features look a little different.  I guess only time will tell!

Great-Grandma & Grandpa Jacobs Visit

Last week GG and Great Grandma & Grandpa Jacobs came down to visit.  It was the first time my Grandma and Grandpa met Dylan which was really exciting.  We kept busy while they were here… we flew airplanes, took walks, went to the park and saw ducks and geese, went shopping, played on the swing set out back, John setup the TV outside to watch football and made his famous wings on the grill, and of course we fed many bottles and changed quite a few diapers.  Dylan really seemed to get a kick out of Grandpa and smiled at him a lot :) How cool to introduce your Grandparents to their second great-grandchild!

{Flying airplanes in the back yard}

 

{Dylan with Grandpa}

{Looking for ducks… and finding them!}

 

{Getting ready to swing}

{John’s football party!}

{Grandma with Dylan and making the biggest pot of baked beans ever!}

“Mommy go on trip”

Well, that’s how Sean describes it anyway.  I did go on my first trip alone, leaving all of my boys behind for the first time ever!  I suddenly got a little giddy-up in my step since my back to work date was quickly approaching and there were a lot of things I promised myself I’d do while on maternity leave that hadn’t been done.  Two major items were to visit Carolyn and Mats in their new home in Dallas and visit Jeff and Elise so I could meet their adorable baby Jordan. While I was gone, Grandma and Grandaddy came to visit and help with the boys. We started prepping Sean for this a few days before I left and he was so excited that they were coming that we had to teach him the meaning of the word ‘patient’!

Dallas was awesome – we had such a wonderful time! Mom and I were able to plan the trip so our time overlapped which was so nice.  We ate good food, drank great wine, shopped, went to see the play Hair, decorated, and basically solved all of life’s problems in about 4 days.  I’m so happy for Mats and Carolyn and this new chapter in their life ((hugs)).  Christmas 2012 is on!

Then it was off to Denver for the second leg of my trip (I sound so well traveled, I know).  I was so excited that everyone came to the airport to pick me up and even more excited that they drove their Jeep with the top off.  Ah, a little slice of heaven… even if it was only for a few days.  The weather was beautiful, Elise of course made scrumptious food and we even took a really fun trip to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  Boy, it was beautiful - pictures don’t do it justice. 

But I must admit, although the Jeep and good weather were great, little Jordan stole the show (and a little piece of my heart). Come on, how stinking cute is this girl? I can’t wait to braid her hair one day.

What? I can’t count on the Bieber haircut being in style by the time my boys are able to grow their hair long enough to braid. So, my fall back plan is to count on Jordan growing some long flowing locks for me to mess with ;) Elise and I decided this kind of stuff way back in college… Elise can teach my kids how to cook and perform basic accounting and I can teach hers how to do hair and makeup. This would have been a little weird if she had all boys but a deal is a deal, I say.  It’s amazing we ever got any work done with all the plans we were making all the time…

As usual, it took me way too long to choose what pictures I’d use for this post because I always take way too may pictures.  So wouldn’t you know I go to pull in the pictures John took of all the fun Sean and Dylan had with Grandma and Grandaddy and this was the only picture on the card. hahahaha

I will say that I know they had a great time even if there aren’t pictures to document every minute of every day. When did we become a culture so obsessed with taking pictures of everything we do?? But I digress…  I came home to lots of handmade Halloween decorations and boys that appeared taller, heavier and had more hair!

A successful journey all the way around.  Love to everyone.

Right Paci, Wrong Kid

Confession

Dylan is 3 Months Old!

What a happy baby! Dylan seems to smile more each day.  He’s a funny little guy… he likes warm wipes, hot bottles, his lamb swing, going to bed at 9 (and waking up at 7!!!), getting a bath, watching Polly, sucking his hands, going for walks in the stroller and being held as much as possible. 

He’s learning how to hold his head up and is starting to spend some time in the bumbo chair to practice sitting.  He usually has 4-5 bottles a day, about 26-29 ounces total.  His eyes are still a very strange color – kind of a combination of dark blue/grey with some hints of brown.  They are definitely not brown yet (I thought by 3 months they would have changed) so I’m really interested to see how they turn out.  He’s starting to fight naps, I think because he just likes being around everyone so much.  So long as he keeps sleeping through the night I think we can handle that!

Dylan seems to have Sean’s forehead and nose but different lips, eyes and eyebrows.  John and I have a unique ability to produce offspring that look nothing like us.  It’s only in the smallest details that you can see some hints of us in our boys.  For example, I think Dylan might have my eyebrows and ears, and Sean has John’s eyebrows and ears.  Oh and Sean seems to have my hair.  But that’s it.  Seriously.  Find anything else on either one of them that looks like me or John and I’ll send you a prize.  For real.  But I digress…

Happy 3 months Dylan!! We love you very much.

Sean’s 1st Haircut

There has certainly been a debate amongst our families as to when we should cut Sean’s hair.  Some think we should have cut it months ago, other think we should let it grow long for a while because he won’t always be able to do that as he gets older (clearly these people don’t know much about the Justin Bieber ‘do  and his strong following of tween boys).  As for me, I’ve been on the fence about it.  It’s taken two years - TWO LONG YEARS – to even get this much hair on Sean’s head. I wasn’t about to cut it at the first signs of a little shag.  But over the past few weeks the hair he does have has starting getting in his eyes when he wears his hat & bike helmet so I figured it’s time to bite the bullet (read: mommy better race to the salon before she changes her mind).

So, Sean and I went to a really cool kids salon (yes, they have kids salons now. crazy right?) called Pigtails & Crewcuts where Sean got to sit in a red airplane and watch cartoons while Ms. Megan trimmed his hair.  Of course I was the crazy mom that took way too many pictures but I guess they’re used to that.  Sean was a real trooper – he let her spray his hair, cut it and then blow dry without any fussing.  He was just happy he was in an airplane and his cape had penguins on it!  I got the ‘First Haircut Package’ which included a picture and a lock of his hair to keep in his baby book.  I seriously had to hold back the tears halfway through – it’s just absolutely amazing how fast the time goes and how quickly you realize they are growing up.  Oftentimes I get so caught up in the day to day that it’s easy to lose sight of how precious this time is and how fleeting these years are.

So, after all of these sentimental thoughts and me almost doing an ‘ugly cry’ in the kids salon, it was time to go.  Well, that’s what I thought.  My little handsome, wonderful and perfect toddler had found the train set and was absolutely not going to leave.  So I finally had to pick him up which made him scream bloody murder while everyone was looking at me with that sad I’m-glad-it’s-not-me face as I drug him out kicking and screaming.  Not to stop there, Sean then decided to throw himself down in the middle of the parking lot and move into full scale temper tantrum madness.  I had to peel him off the concrete, get him in the car and try bribing him with lunch, which of course didn’t work and sent him into hyperventilation mode.  Awesome.  Finally, a tantalizing offer of getting gas and a car wash seemed to cure the temper tantrum.  Ah, the little things.  Afterwards we went and got lunch (grilled cheese, applesauce, teddy grahams and milk) and were on our way home for a loooong nap.  I think mommy might follow suit ;)

{what a handsome little guy}

Surprise Visit

Grandaddy was working close to Charlotte earlier this week and stopped by Wednesday night for a quick surprise visit (sporting a very chic goatee, I might add!).

{do you see Polly in the 1st picture above? if that isn’t a love stare I don’t know what is….}

And of course Grandaddy brought Sean some donuts (fresh from Krispy Kreme… does it get any better?).  Life is good.

Uh-oh