Fun Indoors

What's For Dinner?

I know I've talked about how much Jake enjoys pretending to eat, but lately he's been getting the pots and pans out and cooking up a storm. A few times, he even tried to cook himself up for dinner.

DUIM (Driving Under the Influence of Milk)

Jake got a dump truck for Christmas, and he's finally started riding it every day. The funny thing is, he prefers to sit on it backwards. You'll notice in the pictures that he's also drinking while driving, so we've got a lot to teach him before he gets out on the road. Thankfully, we have quite a few years until that happens.

Working From Home

Ryan has been blessed to be able to work from home on Fridays, which makes Jake and I pretty happy. I'm sure Ryan gets way more distracted at home than he does at work, especially when Jake is constantly wanting him to play, but Ryan wouldn't trade his Fridays at home for anything. Jake has always been super excited about computers, and we have to be careful not to leave either of ours lying around or he will play with them. Last Friday, when Ryan was at home, Jake really wanted to sit by his daddy and work on his computer, so I decided to put him on the stool by Ryan and let him play with his own computer. The look on his face shows how serious he was about his work : )

Fun Outside

We've been blessed with warm, sunny weather the last couple of days, so we've tried to take advantage and spend some time outside. Ryan and I had so much fun watching Jake, because he was so excited about the littlest things. I guess we've been cooped up too long this winter. He loved watching the geese flying overhead and kept pointing to the sky and saying, "Oh," over and over again. His eyes were soooo wide. The wind was blowing quite a bit too, so he loved watching the leaves blowing around in circles. He kept chasing them, even into our neighbors' yards, hoping he would catch just one. He finally resorted to picking them up off the ground. I'm just glad he's no longer scared to touch leaves and grass. You'll also notice from the pictures, that he helped Ryan wash the Jeep. I didn't think we'd ever get the hose away from him! Here's a slide show of some of the pictures of Jake playing outside.

Our Clean Little Boy

I've come to realize that my cleaning habits have rubbed off on Jake a little bit. It used to drive me nuts that he wouldn't touch certain foods with his hands, because that meant Ryan and I would have to feed him everything. Thankfully, he grew out of that stage and feeds himself for the most part (utensils are a little tricky sometimes). He still doesn't like having food on his hands or mouth, though, so I have to keep a paper towel beside him so he can wipe off his hands and face. He also enjoys spilling his milk or food on the table just so he can clean it up. He likes to keep the floor clean too. Here are some pictures of Jake sweeping the floor. I hope he always enjoys cleaning this much, but I'm sure it won't last.

He's doing such a thorough job.

He obviously didn't want anyone to see him cleaning. What a face!

What an Imagination!

Jake has always cracked us up with his imagination. He loves to pretend! His two favorite pretend play activities are eating and talking on the phone. Before he even turned one, he loved sitting with a spoon and container (it never mattered what kind of container) and pretending to feed himself. Sometimes he didn't even use a spoon and container, he just pretended to pick something up with his fingers and put it in his mouth. He also loved feeding Mommy and Daddy. Now he prefers bigger bowls and spoons, but he still enjoys pretending to eat.

He's always been obsessed with every phone in our house, so it wasn't surprising to see him pretend to use the phone. He will put anything up to his ear and start talking. He begins with, "ello" (his word for hello), then jabbers for a while before sometimes saying, "Bye," and hanging up. When he uses his hand for a phone, he pretends to push a button on his palm to turn the phone off. It's too funny, because he acts so serious.

He also pretends to read his books, take his temperature, put gel in his hair, pour soap or lotion on and rub it in, etc. One of the funniest things, though, was when he got club soda out of the pantry, pretended to pour it on the carpet and then wiped it up with his pretend cloth. He'd only seen me do this once, about a month before. It's amazing the things they pick up on. I really hope he continues to have such a fun imagination.

Fun & Embarassing Photos

Jake has been testing out his independence lately, and when socks and shoes are lying around, he tries to put them on. He's not quite coordinated enough to put them on himself, so we have to help him. One day, he decided he wanted to put on my boots. I'm sure he'll hate this picture when he's older.

This next picture shows off Jake's plumber's crack. This is pretty typical when he's sitting on the floor playing.

Making Daddy Proud

He loves BestBuy just like his Dad!

New Blog

Since Charla thought the other blog was too complicated, and everyone else seems to be using Blogger, we decided to move our blog over here. Since it seems to be easier to manage, Charla has promised to update a lot more often. We'll see how that goes.

We are doing well. Jake is growing like gangbusters! People comment on how he looks like a football player these days. I guess that's to say he is very thick. Which he is. But it's a cute thick!

I'll let Charla fill in more details about what's going on with us. (Women are better at that). Here is a recent pic of Jake.

Jake sitting in his new MegaBlock Wagon.