The Big Birthday Bash

Well, maybe it wasn't big, but it was certainly a big deal to us :) We had Jake's 1st birthday party this past Sunday at our house....it was scheduled from 11am-naptime, thank goodness the Steelers game didn't come on until 6:30 that night!

We were able to get Jake to take his morning nap late, which I think was a key step in the success of the party....he made it until about 2pm and by then people were starting to filter out anyway so we put him down for a nap.

Before we recap the day, I have to show off the adorable invitation made by Polka Dot Bumblebee....I've ordered stuff from her before & it always turns out great, I highly recommend her if you're looking for invitations, photo cards, favors, etc....

He sat on my lap very nicely and opened his gifts...we have such generous friends and family, we loved all of his gifts! Here he is enjoying a few of them:

After that, we huddled around the TV to watch the photo slideshow I made of his first year (see previous post)

Then, it was time for the main event: the smashing of the cake. Well, the giant cupcake in this case. I ordered his awesome (and delicious!) cake from Creative Cakes by Gwen.

At first, he didn't seem to know what to do with the cupcake (see 2 posts below for video) but once I showed him that he could eat it, he became a bit more interested. But I think overall, he enjoyed the texture of it the most and really derived pleasure from spreading it through his hair & ears.

He's also very much into sharing right now, so he was offering up bites of his cupcake to everyone, which was quite generous of him. (He certainly doesn't get that from me....I would bite someone's finger off if they tried to take a piece of my cake) Here he is sharing with daddy and Aunt Melissa:

He even shared with the dog (and if you read in my previous video post, in the end, he shared the whole cupcake with her....directly on top of her head)

I think he really enjoyed the day and we are always happy to have an excuse to get together with friends and family. Here are some other random pics from the day:

Aunt Melissa and Ben made the trip up from Virginia!! (how adorable is Ben??)

12 month appointment

Jake had his 12 month check up earlier in the week...I could tell he was nervous for the big weigh in. Did he gain a lot from all the icing at his party earlier in the week? Was he maintaining his slim physique from all the running around he's doing?? Here are the results:

Weight: 21.5 lbs (30th percentile)
Height: 30 inches (55th percentile)

He had dropped in the whole percentile thing, which of course concerned me, but the doctor assured me that it's completely normal at this age for that to happen...they stop growing so rapidly and he's working off a bunch of calories from walking all the time. he said as long as he's eating fine (if anyone has ever seen him put away a 3 course meal, you know this isn't a problem) then there's no reason to worry about what the "average" size is. Good to hear!

He got 3 shots, blah. It was terrible because I was by myself this time & he screamed worse than ever before...he ran a fever yesterday & was pretty miserable, but seemed to be back to his happy baby self this morning, so I was grateful for that. I can't stand to see him so uncomfortable!!

Hopefully we won't be returning to the dr's office until his 15 month check up in April....

Jake's 1st Birthday Video Montage

I made a slideshow of Jake's 1st year using One True Media (a great site if you have a need to make a slideshow---very easy to use, super fast delivery!) Here is a link to the show!

http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=78a23b4c77096cf817e201&skin_id=601&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Let Them Eat Cake

I'll have a full post about Jake's first birthday bash, but to give you a sneak peek, here he is going to town on his giant birthday cupcake (what happened eventually that is unfortunately not featured in the video, is that Jake dumped the entire cupcake directly onto Gracie's head...she was patiently waiting under the highchair for something to fall. I think she got more than she bargained for!)

Bust a move.

You can't hear the song very well, but Jake is getting the Led out. Brian had the stereo on and for the first time ever, Jake stopped walking, paused in front of the music & got his groove on.

The Next Bachelorette??

After swearing up and down that he was not going to watch this season of "The Bachelor", Brian cracked and couldn't resist when I turned it on the other night. We agreed on a few things.

This girl had strange teeth that were waaaaaaaay too white (and she was stalker-esque):



Doesn't it kind of remind you of that episode of "Friends" where Ross bleaches his teeth so much they glow in the dark??

We couldn't imagine leaving our 14 month old baby to do a reality TV show, like this girl (from Pittsburgh!) did:





But the highlight of the evening came from the look on the face of one of the girls...a bizarre twist of her lips and opening of her eyes that was just begging for mockery. So like any normal happily married couple might do on a Friday night, we paused the DVR, got out the camera & took pictures of me doing my best "Bachelorette" impression.

Lisa-Isms

You know how some people have those calendars that you rip off a page each day & there's a new motivational quote to read? I've always said that I'm going to make one of these and each day will have a new quote that was said by my mother. One of my favorites is an oldie but goody from years ago:

Me: (circa 1997) So you know how the ship goes down at the end of Titanic?
Mom: (putting hands over ears) la-la-la-la...I'm not listening!
Me: What is wrong with you?
Mom: I haven't seen Titanic yet, don't tell me what happens at the end!!

But that has recently been replaced as my favorite with the conversation that took place when we had Christmas at her house. I got my parents a snapfish calendar with pictures of Jake and it came with all of the holidays filled in. So my mom is flipping through it:


Mom: oh how neat, it puts in the holidays for you. wait, what’s Milk Day?
Me: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Mom: it says right here, Milk Day.
Me: let me see (examining the calendar) Mom, that says M-L-K Day, as in Martin Luther King Day.
Mom: ooooh. Well that makes sense, I had never heard of Milk Day.


She's a very bright woman who is in charge of the physical and mental health of patients every day...but sometimes it just takes a few minutes for the light bulb to go off for her :) (and if you ever wonder where I get my sometimes lack of common sense, just refer back to this post...)

Ben + Jake = BFF

This is a bit overdue, but I'm still trying to catch up on my pictures! We celebrated Chrismakah with my BFF Melissa and her family the Sunday after Christmas with presents for the kids and some Steelers football...Ben got soooo big, I couldn't believe it! It's hard to remember Jake ever being that little.

Jake still didn't seem to know what to make of Ben, but he did want to coach him on how to properly use his legs while in the rainforest.

"No, no, no kid...you have to move your legs while you're in here, get some type of workout! You think I got these bulging muscles by just hanging out? Get moving!"

When those attempts failed, he moved on to providing Ben with natural disaster training by simulating an earthquake in the rainforest. Hey, at least he didn't try to eat his head this time.

"Quick kid, what do you do when an earthquake strikes? You need to have a plan in case of a disaster! First thing first, grab your binky, locate the nearest bottle so that you have a source of nourishment...you never know how long these things are going to last. Ok, here comes the simulation...are you ready kid???"

Walk this way....

We officially have a walker. Back in October, Jake took his first few wobbly steps and has continued to work on his walking skills ever since then. But this past Monday (around 11.5 months old) after months of practicing, he pulled himself up on a chair, turned around & started walking around the room as if he had been doing it all along....and he hasn't stopped since!!!

We captured his new talent on camera last night...as you can see in the video, he LOVES to be chased...if he's walking around & you tell him "I'm gonna get you...you'd better run!" he giggles so much and takes off in a panic.

please note that his shirt says "Lady Killer"-awesome gift from Brian's friend Kate!

At the end of the video, we try to get him to show off his other new talent, waving & saying "bye bye" but he doesn't cooperate this time around :)

Merry (late) Christmas!

Where to begin? I have always loved Christmas and it was even more special this year with Jake. Even though he didn't "get" it, it was still amazing to experience our first holiday season with him.

Christmas Eve was nice and relaxing during the day and we did some traditional activities (see previous post for 2 of these activities), such as setting out cookies and milk, writing a letter to Santa and having daddy read "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Please note how Gracie snuck her own request onto the note for Santa. After all of that, it was time to get to work on bringing out the presents. Here is the end result...Jake must have been a VERY good boy!

After FINALLY falling asleep that night (yes, I'm still like a little kid who can't sleep on Christmas Eve!), it was morning!! Brian's family eats breakfast before opening gifts, which is quite different from my family, whose idea of breakfast on Christmas is shoving some cookies in our mouths partway through opening gifts. I found the idea of having to eat first to be some type of terrible torture and seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. But the good news was, we got to do stockings while eating, so that made it a bit better.

Then, it was finally time for the main event!!! While he wasn't quite sure what to do with all of the gifts and wrapping paper (aside from eating it), Jake LOVED the bows on the gifts. In fact, he spent a lot of time that morning carefully taking the bow off of one gift and very gently placing it on another gift. Super cute. He got a great assortment of gifts....toys, a sled, puzzles, books, PJ's, clothes, etc...

Here he is opening his first gift of the day, then showing off some of the other stuff that he got (no, the Miller Lite was not one of his gifts...that was one of daddy's gifts)

I had been curious all week as to what the present under the tree for me labeled "to cookie monster" could possibly be....I got my answer that morning.

Oh yes, my friends...it was The Cookie Bible. Everything in it looks delicious...now who wants to bake the stuff in it for me?? I'm happy to do all of the sampling of your work. Ironically, I also received "The Biggest Loser Families Cookbook" from Brian....any gift that is prefaced with "This isn't meant to be offensive" before opening is always interesting. But it was a good gift, he bought it because the recipes are supposed to be both healthy (duh) and easy (a necessity for me).

And don't worry, Gracie got spoiled too. Treats, bones, toys....the works. she has this thing that she seems to think ALL presents are for her...therefore, she was running around that morning from person to person, assuming that gift was for her. At one point, she actually tunneled her way through a stack of gifts, turned around under the tree, then sat amongst the unopened presents, probably hoping they were all for her.

After morning nap time, we headed over to Brian's aunt & uncle's house, where we stuffed ourselves with delicious food AND got to meet the new baby of the family, Gwen! Here are all of the ladies (plus Jake):

We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas & a safe and happy new year!! :)

Silent Night

I promise to blog fully about Christmas soon, but I had to make a quick note first about one of the festivities of Christmas Eve...due to Jake's bedtime, we were unable to attend church that night. Not wanting us to feel deprived on Christmas Eve, Nana Sally decided that we should start 2 new traditions....the first was that we would all state some of our favorite memories of Christmases past (which was very nice and no one got injured...unlike the 2nd new tradition)

The next activity was that we would have our own candlelight service to "Silent Night"...so Nana Sally busted out some candlesticks and put the classic Mariah Carey Christmas CD in. We dim the lights, light our candles and press play on the CD player....a nice thought right? All was fine (aside from the sarcastic remarks and eye rolls from Brian & his sister) until the wax from the candles started dripping down onto bare hands (so that's why they always have those paper things on them at church!). These injuries caused people to say things that were not very Christmas-y while they yelped in pain.

Lessons learned from this experience:
1. Always provide some type of protective covering to candlesticks
2. Try to find a short version of "Silent Night" (Mariah Carey's version might be the longest silent night EVER)

 A painted hindsight gloves a chocolate past the hungry plastic.

You better watch out, you better not cry....

Jake is not familiar with the instructions in the "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" lyrics just yet....there were many tears when Santa came to town (well, when he came to the local mall) I didn't have high hopes for the Santa visit, since it seems to be a rite of passage to look terrified on the lap of the big guy....that combined with the fact that Jake has recently entered the "I want mommy" stage in a big way, my expectations were pretty low. Here we are in line, giving Jake a pep talk and letting him know that Santa doesn't bite:

Unfortunately, they didn't let you take your own pictures unless you purchased a package from them (the cheapest picture being $15 for a 4x6...highway robbery if you ask me!) so Brian's dad had to lurk around in front of Santa's workshop and secretly snap some shots (we were hoping no one would mistake him for a creepy child stalker and have him removed from the mall....if that were to happen, we already had it planned out that we would just pretend to not know him to save ourselves the embarrassment and meet him in the car later) So anyway-since he couldn't get very close, we only got one shot of Jake first getting on Santa's lap, before the waterworks started.

We'll have to see how it goes next year!!

Beware the Abominable SnowBaby!!

Even though Pittsburgh didn't have a white Christmas this year, Nazareth, PA did and Jake was able to enjoy his first sled riding trip. Sure, we spent more time stuffing him into his snowsuit and bundling ourselves up than we did actually being outside, but it was worth it. I'm not sure Jake knew what to make of his trip on the sled, but the dogs sure had a good time playing in the snow!

We're baaaack!!

After spending the holidays across the state with the in-laws, we have returned to home sweet home (aka-the new Toys R Us stock area) Needless to say, Jake had a great Christmas, got spoiled rotten and enjoyed seeing friends and family. We are very grateful to have so many wonderful people in our lives who love spending time with Jake.

It might take me a little while to get caught up on blogging, as I am still trying to dig my way out of a toy pile at our house and have a gazillion pictures to sort through, but I promise, I'll document all of the highlights very soon!! For now, a picture of the best Christmas present ever will have to do...he even comes gift wrapped :)

2008 Holiday Card: The Outtake Reel

You know how sometimes in movies, the best part about it is the blooper reel at the end? As cute as our "good" holiday pictures of Jake turned out, I have to admit that I LOVE the outtake shots that we got.


"Awww, how nice...you want me to pose in nothing but my diaper and a Santa hat? OK! Oh and a Christmas ornament? Score!"



"What? You don't want me to eat this?? But it's sooooo good! Nom-nom-nom-nom"





"Ok, I'll sit in this chair & look really cute. I won't try to eat the ornament and I'll even give you a nice open-mouth smile."



"Ok, I'm done...I'm so over this sweater vest!!"




"No, I'm serious....take this ridiculous looking outfit off NOW!!"




From our family to yours, Happy Holidays!!! :)

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

It is now officially Christmas in our house....the tree is up!

Ever since we have lived together, Brian has talked about going out to one of those tree farms where you chop down your own tree, then drag it through the woods to your car, "Christmas Vacation" style. And ever year, something has come up to prevent us from doing so...and while I feel bad that something has always come up, a part of me is always relieved. Why? A number of reasons:

1. I hate the cold. I get whiny when I'm cold...no one needs to hear that.

2. I hate the cold even more when there is physical activity involved...there's nothing worse than your lungs feeling like they're going to explode because you're out of shape and hiking through the woods, then the cold makes it feel like someone is stabbing you with an ice pick.

3. I don't understand the point of having to do manual labor, then pay someone else while you do it. (especially when you're paying twice as much for the tree!)

So back to this year...we had full intentions of going out to a tree farm for the family adventure...however, when Saturday rolled around, it was just too bitter cold to do so. (Phew!) After a promise to Brian that next year we would go to the farm, we headed out to Lowe's for a good old fashioned tree picking.

Once we got it up at home, I of course had to introduce Jake to the tree & get some pictures (I have a feeling I'm going to be saying the phrase "No touch" a lot over the next few weeks....)

(and no-he's not posing as Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer, he tipped forward at school & has some battle wounds)

I also have to show off our new favorite ornaments from my friend, Teri...we did an ornament exchange at my book club meeting this month and she got me these in honor of our annual Luau Party :)

It was a very productive weekend....but it was one that left Gracie feeling quite exhausted.