Valentines Day with Jacob

It's been a really tough winter health wise in our house. The boys have been going back and forth with illness, but they don't seem to be sharing. Valentines Day fell into the middle of a rough patch with Jacob spiking fevers out of the blue and then being fine. Today we found out he has a double ear infection...again. I had just returned from Paris (the subject of another, much longer post!) and Steve was leaving for TX for a couple of days so we had planned to meet for a late lunch at The Capital Grille before picking up the kiddos. That is until Jacob woke up with a 102 fever. I stayed home with him in the morning and Steve came home at lunch to take the afternoon shift. He was sick but feeling well enough to have some fun!

This is one of my favorite shirts that I've bought for either boy!

Still just 2 teeth on the bottom.  He got 6 teeth between 8 and 10 months and then nothing!  Even the Dr today said we should be expecting more teeth from him.  We're not worried.  After how long we waited for Ethan to grow some choppers he's have to be 3 before we worried!

Stairs, stairs, stairs...that's about all this kid wants to do these days.  We are rarely allowed to carry him up to his room anymore.

He lost interest in his stroller on our walk.  Although he did try to push it home.

Dancing Fools

Jacob got a safari jeep for his birthday and it plays some cool jungle music that both the boys love.  As is quite clear from their bopping in this video...

Adventures in Self Feeding

Jacob has surprised us recently by his determination to use utensils. As you would expect, it comes and goes and is not always "successful" (by our standards anyways), but he does better than you might think for a 15 month old!

A major oops with some blueberry apple sauce.  He was dying to have the bowl back.

A bit more success in the second round.

Ah yes, the ol' hold the spoon, use your hand technique.

chocolate chip pancakes are Ethan's favorite...and soon to be Jacob's from the looks of things!

Another blueberry apple sauce disaster.

Vermont with the Howard Family

We have lots of friends with winter birthdays. Charlie and Will are almost exactly a year apart and just a week after Ethan. The Howards invited us with 2 other families up to South Woodstock, VT to celebrate the boys birthdays with them. We almost didn't make it at all. Ethan was supposed to have basketball but it was snowing pretty well (one of the only times this year) and he'd had 4 shots at the pediatrician the day before so his arms were sore. We skipped that in an attempt to get on the road earlier but it was still pretty late by the time we left. The roads were not good and there was a big accident just over the boarder in NH. Steve and I debated a thousand times but decided to go for it and we made it in about 3 hours. The party was at the volunteer fire station which doubles as a community center in this small town in VT. It was super cool to hang out with the trucks and the kids could climb in, out and around as much as they wanted! I didn't take any pictures there, but the next day we took advantage of the newly fallen snow.

Steve tried to use the snowball gun but it was freezing and the snow was a little too fluffy.

Yeah...he was not too psyched about this.

Will...

and Charlie!

Dave was taking us all for rides on the snowmobile.  The property is huge and gorgeous!

The view of South Woodstock from the top of the hill.  We can't wait to go back in the summer!  And the fall...and any other time we're invited in fact.

Around the house in January

"Happy Ethan"

How much banana can this kid stuff in his mouth at one time??

I totally get why social workers use dolls to help kids talk about their feelings.  It's amazing how much we can learn about Ethan through George.  This was right after one of the times that Ethan was sick and he had to spend a lot of time taking care of George.

In the meantime, Jacob was chewing on a drill (a play one of course!).

On the 23rd we made it over to the Krangle's for a playdate!  It had been a long time since we were all together.  Owen had just turned 1.  These guys did pretty well playing together...

Silly big kids

We kept Ethan's gingerbread masterpiece around until late January.  We were proud of his efforts with Grandma Jan and Chris!

I couldn't tell exactly what Jacob was into while I was doing the dishes but it was occupying him so I let it go.  He had gotten into my diaper bag and taken out every single wipe from an almost new pack!

I retaliated by dressing him up in my apron.

After hearing that Katie K had started doing dishes at her house, we decided to give it a go with Ethan.  He did an impressively good job and seems to actually enjoy it.  It does help that we pay him for his efforts, but he offers to do them a lot these days.  Jacob was quite distraught that he was not allowed to stand on a chair and couldn't see what his big brother was up to.

Don't we all hate getting wet when doing the dishes? 

An extremely rare, extremely short moment of peace.

Jacob is so underfoot these days that I spilled my wine on his face one night!

Just a happy little kid!

In our 'hood

Jacob, like his brother before him, loves to climb up on a stool and watch the world outside.  He hasn't discovered yet how cool it can be to watch our neighbor Bob work in his yard but I'm sure he'll spy on him just like old times!

We were treated to a rainbow right outside our door!  It ended in the pond which was pretty cool.

They tore down the stone house across the street from us Extreme Makeover style with a huge backhoe all in one weekend! It was amazing to watch for all of us. Steve and Ethan had to get a better look but it was freezing so Jacob and I settled for our window view.  We were sad to see it go and even more sad that they will be building a house in the part of the lot that is right across the street from us.  We do love our privacy!