Halloween and the Christmas Season

Jacob had so much fun this Halloween and was very talkative and thankful to all the neighbors when he was collecting his goodies. He dressed as a policeman and looked as adorable as ever. As fun as that holiday is we are glad it is over due to all the candy that Jacob was begging to have. Not soon after Halloween we had a great visit with Nana and Grandpa Wayne for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful feast. All the food was delicious and the weather was fantastic as well. We now are enjoying celebrating the Christmas season and have decorated the house on the inside and outside and made a visit to Santa. Jacob enjoyed decorating the tree and absolutely LOVED sitting on Santa's lap and telling him that he wanted a truck for Christmas.

He's 3!!

Well although Jacob has looked like he was three for sometime now we just celebrated his 3rd birthday. We decided that we would have a nice family celebration for his birthday and that I would make his cake from scratch!! I found a really cool cake idea from a web search for a construction cake and I thought it would be really great for Jacob since he loves construction vehicles. It took some time but it was fun and it definitely challenged me. I have never made frosting from scratch but it was super easy and was yummy and I know now that I never want to use store bought frosting again. The last few weeks we have been spending a good amount of our time outside since fall is in full swing and also since Jacob got his power wheels Jeep for his birthday. We also have been playing at the nearby park, pumpkin patch and playing with his new T-ball set. In the spring we have plans to get Jake involved in a youth soccer team.

This is the inside of the cake which I think turned out great, I made 2 separate cakes, a yellow and chocolate cake and cut them so that they resembled caution tape!

I took a picture of the monogram letter wreath that I made for our front door, I really like the way it turned out thanks to Pinterest for the idea!

Halloween is just around the corner and Jake will be dressing up as a police officer and he is super excited. Tonight we carved our pumpkin, the shapes on his face were at the request of Jacob and I think he made excellent choices.

Summertime

We are enjoying the early summer so far as a family and spending a lot of time outside with Jacob since he LOVES being outside. We have made several trips to the beach in the last month and plan to go the the water-park sometime soon. It keeps him busy and entertained. Jacob is so much fun and constantly keeps us laughing. He mimics almost everything we do and say which is at times hilarious. He loves any type of truck or construction equipment and is always asking "What's that" to unfamiliar things/objects, so he is very curious. He is very interested in helping out, we often are asked "Whatcha doing, do you need help?" He loves to be in the kitchen when I am cooking and wants to help me prepare meals. He also enjoys putting the groceries away from the store each week. I clearly will accept the help now since I know that it won't last forever. He also loves anything to do with a fireman/firetruck. Each and every morning he looks to see if the firetrucks are out at the 2 different stations that we pass. He is doing great at school and I have not had any complaints from his teachers, often he is sent into the 3 year old class if his class gets to busy since he is already fully potty trained and he plays nicely in there as well. We really feel so blessed to have such a loving, sweet, smart and happy child. Up until 3 weeks ago he was not at all interested in taking a shower he only wanted a bath but now he is the complete opposite and would rather take a shower (and if he could do it multiple times a day he would be happy with that). I must say that his eating has gotten MUCH better. He is now eating things that he wouldn't dare touch just a few months ago!! He is now eating tomatoes, salad, broccoli, and spinach, proof that if you keep serving it kids will eventually eat it. Jacob recently was weighed and measured and (38.25 inches and is 36 lbs) he can easily fit into 3T clothes and he speaking so much clearer and in full sentences. We are all looking forward to our vacation next month to Michigan and know it will be a blast. As for Don and myself we are doing well, keeping busy, Don just passed another certification, congrats to him, I am so proud of his accomplishments over the past 4 years.

A photo of the beautiful live oak trees at Charlestown landing and Jacob pulling his wagon.

This is our house, we love it and look forward to having so many memories here!

This is 1 half of our garden the week after we planted it early last month, I will make sure to take an updated photo and post it here soon.

Finally an update...Visiting with Nana and more

We have been SUPER busy lately and just had a wonderful fun filled visit with Nana!! Jacob is so much fun right now and is really developing a great personality. He is SUPER talkative, ask Nana she saw it for herself, has a TON of energy and is so lovable. He loves to go to Home Depot, go figure as that is Don's favorite store, Jacob makes sure he points out Home Depot each time we drive by. He also will grab my purse and start to act as if he is going to walk out the back door and he will say "Buh-Bye, I'm going to Home Depot to get paint." He also loves pointing out each and every Jeep Wrangler on the road it all started after Don brought home a loaner Wrangler when they ended up forgetting to put oil in my car and the engine seized up. He's doing great at school and learning so much, he's been potty trained throughout the day since January and in March we decided to stop the diapers at night too and we have been accident free, whohoo! I think he may have been the easiest child to potty train which we are so thankful for. Recently, we got him a twin size bed and furniture and have turned his bedroom into a surfer's room it's really cute and he will hopefully love his room for awhile. We all have been enjoying our new home and have built a garden filled with blueberry, raspberry, tomato, and pepper plants. I am happy to report that we have been getting raspberries for the last 2 weeks and we have a ton of green tomatoes! Nana visited us last week and I had few days off from work to spend with her and we all enjoyed ourselves. Jacob still is telling me how Nana went back in an airplane to Michigan to see Bapa, so sweet. He loved every minute of having her here, the day she left I picked him up from daycare and the first thing he said was "Where did Nana go?, I want to see Nana". We stayed busy with going to Charlestown landing, a local play park, Folly Beach, and Riverbanks Zoo. The weather was beautiful in the high 70s-80 with little humidity. Jacob had a great time at the beach building "houses" in the sand and playing in the water, he didn't want to leave and is still talking about going back to the beach. We decided to get him a big boy bike with training wheels, he still is unsure as to how to peddle and asks us to push him but I look forward to him figuring out how to peddle. He is getting so big as you can see from the pictures and saying y'all! Funny that he says y'all because we don't say that but I know he hears it often at school and when we are out so it was only a matter of time before it was going to happen.

Ripley's Aquarium (Myrtle Beach, SC)

Wow its been 3 months

Most, if not all of you, may have thought that I have decided to no longer blog about our family but that is not the case. With all of the holidays, moving and our busy schedule I have neglected to keep up with blogging, so I will try to get you all up to speed with what has been going on since Halloween...yikes!
This year was the first time we got him dressed for Halloween (he was a dinosaur) and he loved going from house to house and instead of saying "trick or treat" he would say "i need more"...he didn't want us to hold his hand or his treat bag he wanted to do it all himself. Just a few short weeks later was Thanksgiving which we celebrated as a family I made the whole deal from appetizers to dessert and Don and myself enjoyed the yummy food while Jacob wanted to only eat cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. As for Christmas we opted out a tree because of the move and being so busy but we still all enjoyed ourselves. Jacob had such great fun opening the gifts this year since he was a little older and we look forward to this next year to create more Xmas memories. Currently, we are settling in the new house...which is so great...we have so much more space for ourselves and visitors (hint to all of you reading). Isabella is also enjoying the bigger living area. For the first time I had Jacob help me make brownies in our new kitchen and he had so much fun I can't wait for us to cook together again.
Jacob is talking in sentences now so it is much easier to communicate with him he is also in big boy underwear!!!! Woohoo :) He is using a diaper/pull up only at nap and nighttime. He also is in a big boy bed..no more crib! He has fallen out only once but luckily it is only a few inches off of the floor so he remained asleep when this happened. I feel like in the last few weeks he really has grown up and he adjusts to change so well and we are so thankful for that. I almost forgot to mention...NO MORE PACIFIER for him as well. Christmas night we decided to take it away. I kept saying by the end of 2011 we need to let the pacifier go and we stuck to that agreement so I cut the tip of the pacifier with scissors and handed to Jacob he put it in his mouth and quickly took it out, looked at it, and we told him "it's broken". I thought it would be traumatic but he cried a little bit but didn't want the broken one and we were determined to stick to the agreement and not give it and IT WORKED. Since it was now broken I told him it needed to go in the trash and asked if he would like to throw it away and he said yes so he threw it in there and the rest is history! If you ask him now what happened to his pacifier he will tell you " it's in the trash". We are so proud of him and we are having so much fun with him at this age. At times it can be a little challenging but very rewarding seeing how he is thriving. We love him and are so thankful for our healthy boy.

More pumpkin patch photos

He's 2!!

Well can't believe I am writing this but Jacob is now 2! It's crazy how quickly the past 2 year have gone by. We have enjoyed every moment of being parents and feel so thankful and lucky to have such a happy and healthy family. This past Friday I took Jacob for his 2 year old well check and he is officially 30 lbs and 36 inches. He is now putting 2-3 words together and doing so well using the potty. He has transitioned to the young 2's classroom at school and has adjusted well but can be a little rough with his peer's at times (the only downside of daycare, I think, is seeing the way other children act and then reciprocating the same actions) but they use timeouts as do we so hopefully this behavior is short lived. He really is for the most part a sweet boy who loves reading, outside play, puzzles, drawing and playing with Lego's.
This past weekend we went to the pumpkin patch and picked out a pumpkin to carve and Jacob also enjoyed the hay ride, feeding the goats and the jump house. We are looking forward to going Trick or Treating next week for the first time with him.
Don just got back from a 2 week long training course at a welding institute in Ohio in which he was being prepared to become a Certified Welding Instructor and he passed his certification with flying colors. This is such an accomplishment since he has been only in this field for a little over 3 years and they normally do not encourage individuals to attempt this until they have worked in this line of work for at least a minimum of 5 years.
For myself I am just getting over having Strep throat and I am feeling much better than the previous 2 days and I also am taking a cake decorating class with a friend from work. We are having so much fun and I am looking forward to taking the next 2 courses sometime early next year.