Merrill Shout Out

It just got back to me that my east coast family has been checking into my blog. I cannot tell you how freakin ecstatic I am about that. So, while the photo up loader is down on this site I just wanted to say thanks for reading up on us and I hope that you continue to do so. I will try back to update and load some pics from the past month on here by tomorrow. AND I am also on myspace and facebook (Melody Young) if you want to check me out there! Hope all is well with all of you and hope that we can start writing and keeping in better touch!
Love

Jacobs Love to Bounce

One more fun thing about the four month mark is that we are now encouraged to let Jacob start building and work on strengthening his neck muscles. This means that the Johnny Jumper was brought in from the garage and introduced to the little monkey. I realize that my opinion is severely biased but I just had to show off how amazingly handsome he is!

Say Cheese!

I have mentioned before that Alexis is taking interest in taking pictures. We have handed her down an old digital camera and so far she has filled her 1g card two times. Most of the pictures she takes are very unflattering to whom ever she has in focus. I thought though, that I would share with you her creative genius. You be the judge.

"Alright already enough with the pictures"

4 months

Mister Man eating some rice cereal!

Yup, that is what I said. Four months already. We took him for his well baby check, which he passed with flying colors. He is staying on the 5% curve, which means according to the rest of the nation he is a very small guy, but to us he seems ginormous. He tipped the scales at 11lbs 11ozs. When talking about how much and how often our mister is eating Doc laughed and nicknamed him Jake "The Barracuda".

Gramma dishing up some carrots


The great thing about hitting this four month mile stone is that we are now able to feed him baby food and rice cereal. Now, most babies, when introduced to rice cereal make a face then sort of spit it out. Not our barracuda, he went at it like it was best meal in the world. Because he did so well with the cereal we brought in carrots the following day. The only problem is that you literally cannot get the food to his mouth fast enough to keep him content.

There are tears in his eyes but I assure you it was because I could not get it into his mouth at a pace that he agreed with, not because he didn't enjoy the meal!

He is our little man and we love him!

Birthday Girl

Alexis celebrated her 5th birthday last week! That's right, she is already 5. I really have no idea where all the time has gone. Bryan and Nicole were trying to match Alexis' silly faces
The most "regular" face Alexis has made in a picture isn SOOO long
Our big little man just hanging out

The celebration started off with my good friends, Bryan and Nicole, coming to visit her. While they were here went to Chuck E. Cheese for the after noon, then came home to celebrate with a confetti cake, and open a few presents.

"Oh Good! A singing Barbi"

Wall-E
The Vanity

The following Saturday she and three of her school friends had a little party at Teddy Bear Junction (think Build-a-Bear) in the mall. My family was there and Rhonda and Tom drove over from Seattle. Everyone got to pick out and make an animal and sing and dance. The party wrapped up with an ice cream cake from Maggie Moo's.

Limbo

Alexis(squared) doing the Chicken dance

Same
Braden was too cool for school

Time so sing Happy Birthday
Alexis was really into the singing
Airplane time

She made out in the gift department this year. She got enough books to last us for bedtime for a month or so, gift cards and money, clothes, blankets, jewelery, purses, Barbies, and activity books!

To wrap up the event I took a Costco cake to school with her where she got to give all her classmates a piece of cake and have everyone sing to her one last time for the year! Talk about Diva!

Ice Skating is her new talent

One day, out of the blue, Alexis came up to me and said "Mom, the Disney channel just showed a five year old girl ice skating!" "That's really cool" I said back. She then continued the conversation by asking if I could take her ice skating the next day. I followed with a long "UUUUHHHHHMMMMMM..." all the while thinking "I haven't been ice skating since freshman year of college. What if I get hurt? Who will take care of the kids? What will I do with Jake? I gained a bazillion lbs since my last skating venture...can fat people skate?" Then it came to me. I had the greatest answer. I was so excited about it. I said "You know who would be fun to go skating with? AUNT SARAH! I delivered my idea like there was no other option, no one better to go with. Huge smile plastered on my face, eyes so wide I probablly came off as slightly crazy.

Alexis took this idea and ran with it. She immediately got on the phone and called Auntie Sarah to take her on this adventure. Luckily Aunt Sarah had the day off due to MLK Jr. Day. So my sister came to pick her up later that afternoon.

I did not go as the skating rink is outside and I deemed it too cold to take Jake out. I did get a good report however, that my little ice princess had a hard time the first lap-taking almost 45 minutes to complete a full lap, but got the hang of it during the second.

Here are a few snap shots showing off her talent!

Few and Far Between

Jacob playing on his activity mat
Digging a path through the yard so we don't loose her playing in the snow

I cannot believe that I have waited so long to post on here. I am sorry if you have been checking in and finding the same ol' blog from Christmas. I really have no good excuse, just that I have been extremely tired. I really cannot catch up on sleep, thus causing me to have little to no motivation to get on with daily tasks. Anyway, today I made a list of things to do and this was one of them.
Our handsome monkey
He is getting so big 3.5 months

Jacob is doing AWESOME! He is growing so fast. I am both happy and sad about this. He is my last little monkey and it just seems to be going by so fast. Can you believe that he is almost 4 months old? Ugh. He is knocking off all milestone check boxes. He is attempting to roll over, holding himself up on his arms for a second or so, pulling his (and my) hands to his mouth, noticing his feet and grabbing at objects. He keeps eye contact with you while you engage in conversation. He loves to smile. If you look really close you can see the mischief in his eyes. When you ask him if he is going to be a terror when he grows up he will smile and laugh. He thinks it is funny to pull Alexis' hair. Much like an old man with the paper and a beer, Jacob likes to sit on the couch with his pacifier and watch t.v. without interruption. He gets so into the show and when you lean over to kiss his chubby little face he lets you know he is upset with a frown and a little whimper. When you back off his attention returns to the t.v. where it stays until he is ready to nap again. When sleeping he must have naked feet and be wrapped up tightly in a warm fuzzy blanket which also covers his head. He wears 3-6 month clothes now and has slightly chubby cheeks. To sum it up, he is the best little baby on the planet.

Long little man
This is my break time

Alexis. Oh what is there to say about that girl? She is days away from turning 5 and is so excited for it. She will be celebrating her birthday at Teddy Bear Junction where she and a few of her friends will get to stuff a cuddly little friend and play games. This is the first party she will have that is not made up of all adult guests. For her birthday she asked for a new t.v. and a new dresser. What is she 25? Unfortunately for her I didn't think either of those were a good five year old gifts. She will have to settle with a vanity and Barbi house in one. Shhhh, don't tell her, it's still a secret. She loves preschool. She loves coming home to tell us what she had for snack, what games they played, and what her special friend said to her. She has a memory like an elephant. She is beginning to have her own style and no longer wants me to get her dressed or pick out her clothes. She walks through the stores and says "Oh this would look great on me." No idea where she gets this from.

This is her snow fort before the snow accumulated to over 65"

Blue digging a hole in the snow to hide a bone

I hope you all are doing well. Hopefully I will be a bit better about my postings. Hopefully one day I will get some sleep :)

Snow fort at about 55" of snow.