Happy (belated) Birthday, Gracie Lou!!

Can you believe my furbaby is 4 years old?? She's been a member of our family since January 2005 (much to Brian's dismay!) Brian grew up with big dogs (think golden retrievers and labs) while I grew up with a small dog (rest in peace, Otis) :( so when we moved in together & started to talk about dogs, obviously we had conflicting interests. Fortunately for me, we were in an apartment at the time with not much room for a big dog, so for my 24th birthday, Brian said we could get a small dog!

We started to research small dogs and Brian immediately ruled out anything so tiny that it resembled a hamster, so that eliminated some of my early picks, such as Yorkies or Malteses. I'm not even sure how I came across Lhasa Apsos, but the pictures that I saw of them online were adorable & they got a little "bigger" (average is 12-18 lbs) so it seemed like a good compromise. I met Gracie by myself one day....she was the only female left in the litter, so she was kind of our choice by default. I had told Brian I was just going to go look at her, but of course it was love at first sight! (even though she resembled a fluffy guinea pig)

We brought her home in early January and she's made herself right at home with us ever since!!

Here are some of Gracie's baby pictures....enjoy!

TOUCHDOWN!!

Though the Steelers lost yesterday, we still have reason to celebrate....Jake has started doing our sign for "Touchdown!" that we have been teaching him for the past 2 weeks or so and we were finally able to get it on camera:

My weekend as a 12 year old girl.

The day was finally here....I had been counting down for months...the anticipation had built up & I was hoping to not be disappointed....it was SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE day!!!!

*insert girly squeal here*

Saturday night, my BFF Melissa, my coworker Lisa and I met up in Oakland to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour at the Petersen Events Center. If you don't watch this show, you MUST START. It is reality TV at its finest (I'm not kidding either, these dancers are amazing)

After seeing other groups of adolescent girls, we realized that we should have made our own shirts using sharpie markers and writing the names of our favorite dancers...we then tried to become friends with this group of girls, but I think that we (as old ladies) scared them away. So, we moved on and found our seats.

The rest of the night was spent with more screaming and cheering for the dancers, crying and just being awed in general.

If you would like to see my favorite 3 dances of this season, follow these youtube links....I promise you won't be disappointed.

"The Door Dance" (Mercy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnMmON6vrfw

"Bleeding Love"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4OtJgNdrY

"The Garden Dance"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45AtlQEz8pU

The Perfect Fall Day

I love fall, it's by far my favorite season. Summer is too hot for me and I get whiny when I'm uncomfortable (no one wants to be around that)....and if you've ever seen my skin, you know that I don't appreciate the sun much!! So fall is always a welcome change and this past weekend was PERFECT. We took advantage of it by playing in the leaves at GG & Pappy's house!

Jake & Gracie both received Halloween gifts from GG & Pappy (while Brian & I received the traditional bag of candy plus toothbrushes to brush away the candy cavities!)

Both enjoyed trying to eat the tissue paper.

Later that night, we went out to eat to celebrate Nate's 23rd birthday. Nothing says a night of fun like tortilla chips, burritos and itty bitty baby sombreros.

Hola chicas...want to come to my fiesta??

All tricks, no treats.

Jake's first Halloween was....interesting, to say the least.

Trick or treat started at 6pm on Friday....around 5:50, we had Jake all ready to go in his costume & we were going to take him over to our next door neighbors before the kids showed up to show him off. So we're in front of our house and Brian has 2 chairs set up....I have our digital camera in my hand (which I meant to put in my back pocket to take pics of the little girl next door in her costume) but I'm trying to get Gracie clipped to her leash, so I set the camera on a chair to free up a hand....and totally forget the camera. We go next door for maybe 3 minutes and a big group (probably 12 or so) teenage boys come to the neighbors house & they're being all rowdy & pretty rude. They leave & Brian says "I bet they took all our candy" (we had left a small bowl on the front porch since trick or treat hadn't started yet, we didn't even think about it) so we back to our house and realize they had taken the candy. So, I'm annoyed, but I get over it & refill the bowl quickly because there are other kids coming toward the house.

Fast forward about 20 minutes and I go to reach in my back pocket to take a pic of Jake & Gracie....and my heart just stops as I realize my camera isn't there & I remember leaving it on the chair. So we frantically search everywhere, thinking it might have fallen in the grass or something....nope, it's GONE. We are 99.9% positive it was those boys since they are the only ones who came through. Brian calls the cops & they say they'll send someone out...in the meantime, he gets in his car to find them & make sure they haven't left our development. he comes back about 10 minutes later & said he found them, but there are about 15 of them by now (and it's dark, so he doesn't want to say anything to them by himself). He also didn't want them to get away, so he decides to "pursue them on foot" by locating them again & walking a little ways behind them. The cops show up, take my statement and Brian tells them where they're at, but the cop basically said since we didn't actually SEE them take the camera, there's not much he can do if they don't turn it over.

So I've pretty much convinced that the camera is gone (and I'm so mad at myself for leaving it), I'm in tears...the cop shows back up about 10 minutes later with the camera in hand!! He said told them that we saw them take the camera and if someone didn't turn it over, he was hauling them all to jail!! I guess that scared them enough that they quickly gave it back :)

they did delete all of my pictures which was upsetting, but I had most of them uploaded already....and they did take some lovely shots of themselves flipping the camera off & other classy things (I thought about posting the pictures on here & telling everyone that if you see any of these punks lurking around the streets, give them a quick kick to the shin, but then I thought better of it....)

At least this gives Brian a good story to tell...he enjoys using the phrases "I tailed them in the car" and "Then I pursued them on foot to stake out their location". We were one wife beater shirt away from a real episode of cops. (Sing it with me now...."Bad boys, bad boys....whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?")

9 month appointment

Jake had his 9 month appointment last night...lucky dog got out of shots this time! (He was supposed to get the flu shot, but they ran out that morning....boo to that, now I have to haul him back in there again next week....) Here is the run down on the big weigh in:

20 lbs (45th percentile)
29 inches long!!!!!! (75th percentile)

He got another good report from the doctor, he's right on track with everything, which is always good to hear, especially after the random runny noses, fevers, etc....that we've been dealing with in the past few weeks, I was relieved to hear that everything looked fine (and I guess we can just chalk all that crappy stuff up to teething)

I also think I need to buy an examination table for my house...why, you ask? Because the kid was ecstatic to be playing with the paper that they spread out on the table. By the time the doctor came in, Jake had shredded most of the paper that had covered the table, thrown it around the table and the floor and was using the table as his own personal jumperoo, using Brian's hands to brace himself as he jumped up and down and up and down and up and down.....

When we told the dr he was being a monkey for Halloween, he said that seemed to be a very fitting costume :)

Halloween 2008: Special Sneak Peek

It took us awhile to get some good pictures of Jake in his Halloween costume because he spent most of the time trying to pull the head piece off:

But he finally gave in & gave us what we wanted.

62

The countdown is ON....62 days until Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

Don't worry, I'm not one of those crazy people who start decorating their house or playing Christmas music in October....but I'm not ashamed to say that I cannot WAIT until it is socially acceptable to do those activities!!

Congratulations Ed & Sarah!

Brian's best friend Ed got married over the weekend & we had a great time at their wedding! Sarah was a beautiful bride (and Ed looked handsome, of course); they had a perfect day!

Mommy is going to have a heart attack.

As if crawling weren't enough, Jake had to go & take 2 little baby steps over the weekend....I nearly fell over. I was so proud of those first little steps, but after the immediate "awww" moment, I also had a "Holy crap" moment of terror!

The video quality isn't great, it was really dark and Brian was holding the camera sideways :) but if you look carefully, you can make out the two adorable steps!

(again, please note that you have to press "play" to make the video work) :)

Weekend Update

We had a loooong weekend, which was nice. We had a wedding to go to in Brian's hometown (details of that to follow in another post!) so we took off Thursday & Friday to be able to spend some time with Brian's family.

The weather was very fall-ish, so we got some great pictures in PopPop's garden!

We also went to visit Nana at work on Friday, Jake loved crawling all around her classroom & playing outside with the big kids!

And Jake made a big discovery over the weekend....there are other dogs aside from Gracie. BIG dogs. Big dogs with BIG paws. Needless to say, he was pretty amused by her all weekend long :)

He also FINALLY said "Dada" for the first time on Thursday, so of course Brian was thrilled about that! He has also been babbling "nanananana" which made the real Nana very happy! In other firsts, he waved intentionally at me when I walked into the room on Saturday, it was so cute! And we had one other milestone that gets a post all to itself.........

Unfortunately for the little man, he's still cutting teeth (the 2nd one on the bottom is just starting to pop through) so he's been struggling sometimes, I feel so bad! Hopefully we'll get through this one and get a break before the top ones make their appearance!

Me & My Puppy

Jake & Gracie had a great weekend bonding a bit more (by bonding, I mean Jake squealing with delight every time she walks by, then trying to grab at her, chasing after her, etc...and Gracie being on her best behavior and very tolerant of it all!)

Here they are, having a good time checking out the view from the window:

Everything was going fine, until someone decided to try to make her great escape!

Once we talked Gracie down from the ledge, we were able to get a nice fall photo session in:

Hey, no tooth fairy when you GET teeth??

After months and months of teething, drooling, putting everything into his mouth...Jake has finally cut his first tooth! (He'll be 9 months old tomorrow) I'm thinking that was what was probably causing at least some of the runny nose and recent night wakings in the past 2 weeks or so...the little man was uncomfortable!

The tooth isn't much to look at right now, just some ridges, but I'll be sure to snap some pictures once it's more visible.

On the move.

My world has been turned upside down with the start of crawling...but it's so cute to see him speed his way around the house! The box below is a video...that means you have to press the "play" button to make it work, for those of you who didn't know (I'm looking at you, Mom!) Oh and I apologize for the shaky camera work!

BCU-the next big thing in baby products

I present to you the latest in Baby Containment Units:

Now that Jake is mobile (video of him crawling will be posted soon, I promise!) I have found that everyday household chores have become a challenge. While attemping to fold laundry on the floor, Jake started trying to chew a rawhide (much to Gracie's dismay) so I gave him some clean socks to play with:

That fun lasted about 45 seconds, until he caught sight of Gracie's slobbery tennis ball...as he took off on a speedy mission to taste said tennis ball, I quickly dumped some of the clothes out of the basket onto the floor & deposited my little speedy gonzales into the basket. Problem solved!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Jacob Charles!

It was the perfect fall-weather weekend to hit up the pumpkin patch! While Jake couldn't participate in too many of the older kid activities, he loved pounding on the pumpkins and attempting to eat the stems. And of course, Mommy and Daddy loved enjoying all of the yummy food! (mmm...apple pie....)

They had a lot of cute stuff for kids, so if you're looking for somewhere to go on a weekend, check out Schramms...and I highly recommend the chocolate chip gobs!

The baby is a dud.

Since "most" babies say "dada" first, Brian assumed that he had that one in the bag...of course, Jake pulled a fast one on us & said "Mama" a little over a month ago. Here is Brian trying to teach him his 2nd word...Jake rebelled.

Top 5 Things I Love About Fall

In no particular order...

1. Pumpkin Spice Lattes; seriously, could there be a better treat on a chilly morning? (make sure you splurge & get the "real" ones from Starbucks...I got one from Crazy Mocha earlier this year & it was a huge letdown) I'll lump it in this same category, but I pretty much love pumpkin anything at this time of year...pie, rolls, cookies, doughnuts, etc...

2. Mums; I'm not sure what it is about a nice, big pot of mums, but they scream fall to me and make me very happy. I'm a big fan of the deep red variety.

3. Sweaters; I have a minor sweater obesession. When we moved into our house, we had to buy an armoir for the sole purpose of having a house for my sweaters, we didn't have room for them anywhere else. I am especially looking forward to this sweater season because last year I was pregnant & felt like I was in an inferno ALL the time, so sweaters were pretty much out of the question last season...but bring them on this year!! :)

4. Cooler Weather; sure, summer is great & all....but what's better than a lazy Sunday afternoon when it's chilly outside, curled up under some blankets?

5. Halloween; I don't know why, but I love Halloween, I always have! (maybe it has to due in part with my candy obsession? not sure...) I went trick or treating up until I was a senior in high school and enjoyed every year of marching around the neighborhood, costume on, hauling my stash of candy. I'm especially looking forward to it this year, when Jake gets to dress up for the first time! Pictures of him in his costume to follow, but in the meantime, here are some of Gracie in previous years.