Ice Cream Date with Mimi and Pa

Jake and I spent a day at my parents' house last week, and that night after dinner we were all craving ice-cream SOOO bad... especially me, hehe. I think that's the thing I've craved the most lately with this pregnancy. Dangerous. Anyways, so we headed out to Baskin Robbins, and Jake was being so cute and funny with his ice cream that I just had to steal some pics of him. He couldn't figure out how to lick the ice cream off his cone, so it just kept melting down the sides and out the bottom. He was a mess!! Whoever invented bibs is definitely a hero in my book, that's for sure ;)

He kept wanting to share his cone, but luckily we can still get away with "pretending" to take a lick. I think that thing was half ice cream, half toddler drool.

Funny boy :)

Thanks Mimi and Pa for the fun memories!!! Thanks for turning something so simple into so much fun!! We love you!!

Look Who's Growing Up....

Yes, Jake is finally in his big boy bed, I can't believe it!!!! He is loving it, too, which I'm so relieved about, because he has loved being in his crib for so long, I was kind of dreading "taking it away" from him. But he has warmed up to it REALLY well. The first night when we put him to bed he only tried getting out of it once, but then we put him right back in and told him it was time to sleep, and he did. Then he didn't get out AT ALL during the night, and he even slept until his normal time.... crazy, I know. Then came nap time, which was the thing I was most nervous about, but even then, he only attempted to get out once, and I put him right back in and he stayed. I kept thinking that this was too good to be true, that he would eventually figure out that he could get out and he would take total advantage of it, and that SORT OF happened a few days later, but we would just put him back in his bed and tell him it was time to sleep, and for the past month that he's been in his bed he's been GREAT. We tell him to stay in his bed until we come and get him, because I don't want him to think he can just wander around the house and do as he pleases if he were to wake up multiple times a night, or in the middle of his nap. He wakes up sometimes and mumbles to himself but then goes right back to sleep. It totally works with him, which I wasn't quite sure if it would at first. We'll just cross our fingers that he keeps this up!!! :)

Helping me put his bed together.

He loves his comforter with the "fishees" and the "birdees."
He looks SO SMALL in his bed!! We decided to get a twin instead of a toddler bed because he's going to quickly grow out of his toddler bed anyway, and a big part of our decision was that my sister was getting a new twin mattress for her bed anyway, so they gave us her old one! Can't beat that ;)

We read him a book and sing a couple songs when we put him to bed. It's one of the most precious, sweetest parts of my day because he actually sits still next to me and let's me give him face tickles when we're singing!

He has to have all of his favorite stuffed animals with him to keep away the monsters :)

Sweet dreams, sweet boy..... thanks for being SO GOOD!!!

New Family Member

Nope, sorry, this is not to inform you of the baby yet (I wish it was!), but we actually got a new car!!! It wasn't by choice though, unfortunately Steve got in a car accident with the good ol' Mitsubishi Galant that he's had since he was in high school and it was totalled :( Luckily Steve wasn't hurt too bad, he got a bloody nose and lip when the airbag went off and the elbows of his jacket were burnt off from the airbags as well. I guess those airbags are pretty intense!
So it happened early in the morning when Steve was driving to work, at about 6 am, and it was raining pretty hard and still pitch black outside. He was going over a hill where there had just been a new median curb put in, and with the way the road curves, and with there being just one little tiny reflector beam on the curb part, AND with the rain coming down really hard, he unfortunately ran right into the median curb! :/ This curb is pretty tall though, and when the car ran on top of it, it just ripped out the whole underside of the car, made the airbags go off, which made the passenger console flip up really hard and crack the windshield.... yeah, not good. Especially because it was only worth it to us to have only liability on the car, it would've been WAY more expensive to fix it than it was worth. But fortunately we have been taught to save for a rainy day, and this was definitely a rainy day, literally! And we knew that the Mit wouldn't last us forever, so we were prepared to fork up money for this new little beauty:

A '97 Acura TL

We were able to find a really good deal on it through one of Steve's friends, and we are really happy with it!! Steve is loving it, and we're planning on having it for a while, so it's a good thing he likes it ;) Let's just hope there are no other medians that get in our way!!

I Can't Believe I Have a 2 Year Old!

So even though Jake had his actual b-day while we were in Idaho for Christmas, we had to celebrate with my family and our friends too, of course! So the night that my parents picked us up from the airport when we got home from ID we had a little celebration. And Jake had told Mimi that he wanted an Elmo balloon, and there was one waiting for him when we got inside. That could've been the only thing he got for his b-day and he would've been happy! Hmm, yeah, why do we spend so much money on presents for toddlers when all they want is the box or something that's only $5?? Silly parents.

Jake and Aunt "Sawah" :)

He is the CUTEST thing when we say prayers. He folds his little hands as tight as they'll go and squeezes his eyes shut, but then he peeks during the prayer to make sure that everyone else has their eyes shut, too. Cutest.Thing.Ever.

Choo- Choo cake!!!

The Friend Party!! Luckily we live in SoCal and even in January we can be outside in short-sleeve shirts and have a bunch of toddlers run around wild at the park ;) Gotta love it! And you gotta love Costco cakes, too!!!

Even though I told people no presents (he has waaaay too many toys) he ended up getting a few anyway :) A tickle-me-Elmo and....

.....waiting patiently.....

Thomas bath toys!! He's totally obsessed with both right now, so he was pretty much in heaven.

Happy Birthday, little buddy, we sure do love you SOOOOO much!!!! Thanks for making our hearts smile :)

He got a pair of light-up shoes from Mimi. He has to wear them ALL the time. Thanks Mom ;)

And let's see.... some things about Jake right now are:

• He's about 28 pounds according to our scale at home. I don't know exactly how tall he is, but comparing him to other kids his age, he's on the tall side. He has his 2 year check up in a few weeks so then we'll know for sure!
• He loves anything that has wheels or goes. Planes, cars, trucks, trains, bikes, motorcycles. You name it. Every morning he has to see the bus, and when he hears the sound of the brakes he runs to the door to watch it. He also loves the garbage truck. He's fascinated that it takes away all the trash, haha.
• He is saying new words every day, I can't keep track of how many words he can say! It's just crazy that he's saying all these new things, and he's saying some short sentences like, "Help me, please," and "Watch this" and "I got it." My favorite thing that he says right now is, "Wow-eeee!!!" when he's excited about something. And it's funny how he says Thank you: "Take ooo" and paper towel: "Pee pee towoh" and heffalumps from Winnie the Pooh: "Heppups" haha.
• He's about to be sleeping in his big boy bed in the next few days.... scary!!!
• He pretty much has the cutest little laugh ever!! Especially when you tickle him.
• His favorite characters/movies are: Cars, Elmo, Mickey, Winnie the Pooh, and Thomas.
• He's a REALLY fast runner. I can't wait until he's 3 so I can sign him up for soccer, I think he'll love it and be really good.
• He repeats words over and over again until you repeat back what he's saying. It's hard when you don't know what he's saying because he just doesn't stop!
• He knows his colors, can count to ten, and sings along to the ABC's but still has trouble with the "LMNOP" part, haha.
• His favorite songs are Popcorn Popping, Twinkle Twinkle, ABC's, I Love to See the Temple, I am a Child of God, The Wise Man/Foolish Man, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Do as I'm Doing.
• He's pretty much the coolest little 2 year old EVER and we LOVE HIM to pieces!!!

Christmas and a Birthday

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

We started the holiday season off right by going to our ward Christmas party and scaring Jake with Santa Clause again, hehe. He didn't scream like he did last year though. Improvement!

No Christmas is complete without gingerbread houses.

Mine:

Steve's..... BAHAHA, hmm I wonder where Jake gets his OCD-ness from? ;)

I think this is the cheesiest smile from Jake that I've captured on camera, I love it!!

We did Christmas presents from my parents before we left for Idaho.

Before:

After :)

At the Knowles'!!! We hadn't been to their house for Christmas since 2006. That's 4 long years people! 2008 was the next on-year for rotation, but on Christmas day I was 5 days overdue with Jake, so needless to say, we didn't go anywhere that year. It was so nice to be there for the holidays this time, especially for Steve since he hadn't spent Christmas with his family in forever! We were there for 10 days but it FLEW by. I guess that means we were having fun ;)

Boompa's train board was pretty much Jake's favorite thing at their house.

Pin the tail on Rudolph!I am so pathetic... these next 2 pictures are the only ones I took on Christmas day :( BAD!!

Right now Jake is really liking Pooh, and one of his favorite characters is Roo. He also loves the movie Cars, so we had to get him a Roo and Lightning McQueen!

SNOW!!! We hadn't seen snow in sooo long, it was beautiful! Jake didn't quite know what to do with it at first, but it didn't take long to figure it out.

We went to a self-serve yogurt place, and they had these cool chairs that Jake liked to climb through.And as you can tell it's good yogurt!

Basketball with Boompa and Daddy

Happy 2nd B-day, Jakers!!!! His birthday is on the 30th, and we didn't leave until Jan. 3rd so J got to celebrate his b-day with lots of family! I made this Mickey cake all by myself, and with some help from my expert mother-in-law, of course. I'm so proud, haha :)

The Birthday Boy!! I'll give his stats in a later post.

He's showing everyone he's 2

Crazy cousins

One of the birthday games was rolling ping pong balls across the room with just their noses. It was so cute watching the younger kids try to do this!

We got him trick candles! J loves helping me blow out candles at home, so I thought he would have fun blowing out candle after candle. And yep! He loved it :)

He got an electric screw driver/drill from Grandma and Boompa so he can help Daddy at home.

Steve has a best friend from elementary school, Jesse Havens, that lives in Idaho Falls, and his son, Luke, was having his 1st b-day when we were there, so of COURSE we had to go to his little party :) He is the cutest thing, so smiley and happy! We're so glad we got to meet him!

Jesse's wife, Emily, is AWESOME!!! I just love her, she's such a sweet heart, and a GREAT mom.

And the boys, as rowdy as ever, haha. We love and miss you, Havens!!!

An afghan from Steve's sister, Gina. She's really talented at crocheting.

On the plane ride home. I TOTALLY understand now why kids need their own seat when they turn 2. On the way there, Jake wasn't 2 yet so he sat on our laps, and it was pretty insane. On the way home he needed his own seat and it was HEAVEN!!!

We hope everyone had a GREAT Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!