Communication

As of yesterday, our "little punky" is 15 months. What fun! I thought I'd better give an update since she is growing and changing so fast.

Our lil J is an excellent communicator. I couldn't begin to tell you how many words she knows. Dozens. This past month she also started saying short phrases like 'thank you', 'bye-bye', 'nite-nite' etc. As of the past few weeks, she has added short sentences like 'where'd it go?' and 'there it is!' and 'see-you!' (later) and 'i got it'...I could go on and on. She also knows parts of several songs including "Happy Birthday" "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Old McDonald Had a Farm."

Language development is totally fascinating to me. It's amazing. I downloaded these (really poor quality) videos the other day. Jenna repeated everything she heard on the video (that she wouldn't say while I was recording). Stinker!

I really love how she knows what she wants and what she doesn't want...and she'll let you know! Jacob was 18 months when this happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was so exciting not to have to guess what he wanted to do or eat...

She still does EVERYTHING her big brother does. I'm not sure that will ever change. She's a feisty little thing. Like her Bubba, she never slows down. Ha! And I thought it was just a boy thing!

That's all for now. I'll leave you with a few pictures. Yo wekkom (you're welcome in lil J language).Jenna and DaddyMom, stop taking my picture all the time!Cheeeeeese!For Aunt Heather and Nana: look who's not afraid of his truck anymore!!!

And last but not least, my favorite picture of them all. Look at that little curl on the side of her head. It is the most precious little thing in the whole wide world!

Trick or Treats

our bee and unicorn

Our bumble bee with his bumble bee. This was an emergency costume since the duck costume we bought a month ago was now too small! Guess our little guy is growing!

Jenna's costume was a bit small...notice how short it is. I think it was uncomfortable to have the hat part on so it stayed down most of the night.

"Trick or Treat Please In My Bag!" was Jacob's phrase of the night Halloween. We trekked around the block, our bumble bee running ahead and our little unicorn in the wagon. Speaking of the wagon, I blinged it up a bit with glow-sticks. Safety first! Jacob enjoys getting a "trick or treat" after eating all his dinner or for being an extra good boy. Jenna enjoys sharing them.

Mulletless

Brian carved a pumpkin last night. Turned out well.

Jacob painted a pumpkin while Daddy carved one. He was very into it!

Random pictures from a day at the park a few weeks ago...

I'm behind on blogging. Again. But here's my best effort to let you know what we've been up to. Brian and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on the 12th. Lucky 7! I am SO LUCKY to have him. Brian celebrated his 35th birthday on Monday. Would have been a great day if Jenna hadn't have spent the evening vomiting. Thankfully Outback has to-go. She's fine now, by the way.

Speaking of Jenna, she is a very busy girl. She has successfully learned how to climb in and out of the sandbox. I also taught her how to go up the ladder on the swing set so she can go down the slide. It seemed like a good idea at the time....


My precious angel lost her mullet on Tuesday, October 27th. While I absolutely adore her long, single curl in the back center of her head, I just couldn't take it anymore. It was a mullet/rat tail looking thing and it was just gross. So we took her up the street and had it chopped off. I thought it looked horrible at first because her hair grows in sort of a swirl in the back so it still looked like she had a mini rat tail even after we cut it because the hair bunches up there. Once we washed it (and I chopped it a little more) it looks lots better.

Before

During
After

Our church's Fall Festival was last weekend. Jacob jumped in all the different bounce houses and snuggled on all the animals in the petting zoo. I guess he thought they would make a good pillow. Jenna went on her first pony ride (Jacob didn't want to) and a good time was had.

Yesterday one of my girlfriends threw a Halloween party for all of our kids. We had a blast decorating pumpkins, icing cookies, and playing.

Howdy Folks!

We made our annual trek to the Great State Fair of TEXAS this week! It was a bit wet, but we still had loads of fun. Some of the things we ate were Fletcher's corney dog (duh!), Little Bob's BBQ sandwich (I get EVERY year. This was Jenna's favorite hands down!), fried honey bun (pretty good), Texas nachos, corn on the cob, cheeseburger, fried pecan pie (YUM!), and two "lemon shake-ups" (freshly shook lemonade). I think that might be all. Oh wait, and dippin' dots ice cream.

The kids had a blast! I had a list of stuff I wanted to do and we only made it half way through the list. We let Jacob go to school in the morning so we didn't arrive until 1:45. We stayed for the parade at 7:30 which Jacob loved!

We did visit the Railroad Museum. Jacob loved being in a real train. Plus, it was a safe place for the kids to run...priceless!

Here's Brian and Jacob watching the Pirates. It was a diving show with a pirate theme. When it was over, Jacob kept asking if we could go back and see the pirates! I took a picture of him with the pirates but it was blurry. I had to take our crummy old camera since it was raining. Oh well.

The petting zoo...Jenna BAAAAAed at more goats than I can count. She also baaaed at the cow, ostrich, zebra, etc. I told you she can baaa really well. And of course, she wasn't scared a bit of the animals.

Our one and only family picture from the day.

Jacob and Brian on a ride. They were standing in the back of a fire truck and the were 'shooting' the water out of the hose to the burning building. It was his favorite ride. He also rode the race cars but it was a bit jerky. We were going to do the fun house but it was flooded from all the rain. Jacob also played basketball (which he ROCKED) and did the dart-throw balloon pop game. He won 2 goldfish and a blue puppy.

This is an 'annual' picture. I can't wait to see how big J will be next year!

Ketchup

I survive scrap-weekend! Actually it was a blast. I missed my kids and my man lots (ok, mainly just the first night) but I knew they were having tons of fun so I didn't worry a bit. Seriously. I made a good dent in Jenna's book too. I'm about half way done with her book, not bad!

The kids had their annual physical (wink!) and here's the stats:

Jacob: 29.5lb, 37"

Jenna: 19lb 2oz; 29.75"

We also had our annual family pictures taken. I am having such a hard time deciding which ones to order. Here's the link to check them out. http://gallery.me.com/sreeves3275#100778

Jenna is lovin' dancing and she sure can boogie! She is also learning some animal sounds. She barks very well.

Jacob loves listening to 'his' music. He know lots of songs with hand motions and is learning so much in preschool.

They are both healthy, happy kids. Who could ask for anything more?

This past weekend our BF's the Reeds came for a visit. It was tons of fun as always, well, until Brian forgot their car was parked in the driveway and scraped the side while backing out. Oops! That's what insurance is for. No big deal!

Jacob and Jolene playing with his new dinosaur puzzle (a present from Jolene) Jacob and Jessica. She's sporting her new hip brace.

Jolene brought Jacob a birthday cake since she missed his party. So sweet!

The kids have been spending hours outside playing with acorns. We collect them in buckets and dump trucks, line them up, spell stuff with them, etc. I had no idea acorns could be so entertaining.

Jacob FINALLY saw a rainbow. A big storm blew through last week just before bedtime. After we read books, I had a gut (aka God) feeling that there would be a rainbow. We hopped out of bed and ran downstairs. As we stepped out the front door I looked left. No rainbow. Then I looked right. No rainbow. WHAT? I just KNEW there was going to be one. I was so disappointed. We had to go back into the kitchen to get bumble bee so I decided to look out the back door just in case. Guess what we saw? Yep! A giant rainbow!

Baby G

cousin lovin'

Last week we blessed to have a very brief but fun visit from Brian's brother Chris, his wife Val, and my darling nephew Gavin. Brian's sister Heather gave them her frequent flyer miles so they could come visit. Thank you Aunt Heather! They spent several days with Heather in Austin, then they all (including Heather) came up and stayed with us for 2 days until they had to fly home to Arizona.

Aunt Heather, Jacob, Brian, Jenna, Uncle Chris, baby Gavin

They arrived on Jacob's birthday. We went to Peter Piper Pizza for dinner and play, then it was home for cake. The world's ugliest cake, that is. Jacob wanted blue and yellow icing...then I did writing in green. It turned out so ugly! But it tasted really good.

The birthday boy snuck into the ice cream when we weren't looking.

Baby G is 3 months old. What a chunk! He is the juiciest little (big) thing! I'm so glad we were able to see him. Chris graduated in May and just accepted a job last week. Unfortunately, the job is in Arizona. They were hoping to come back to Texas but at least he has a job! PTL!

The weather here has been very, very, very rainy. The past 2 days it has finally stopped but there's more to come tonight. I love the rain but it's hard on the kids, especially Jacob. So, we have gone puddle jumping a few times. We have been searching for a rainbow but it's been too cloudy. We'll have to keep looking.

Work has been crazy. Hello flu season. I leave Thursday for a scrapbook retreat with my Murphy Road girls. I'm very excited and very ready to escape MommyLand for a few days. It will be my first time away from Jenna and the longest time I've been away from Jacob. I'm not sure how well I'll do but I have a feeling the time will fly by. I'll let you know!

J & J B-day Bash

The kid's birthday party was a blast! Seriously, it was the first year that it was actually fun. I guess because Jacob was old enough to actually play with his pals, plus we kept things as simple as possible. We grilled hamburgers, had chips and baked beans.

Right when the burgers were about done, the "surprise" visit from a Wylie firetruck came. We all headed outside to meet the firefighters and climb around on the truck. Wylie FD is the best! The kids loved it and Jacob was truly in heaven. He ran right up to the truck and climbed right in. It was funny because some of the older kids were a bit overwhelmed. Not my boy.

Then we ate, had cake and ice cream (a Diego cake from Target...it was so yummy!) and headed outside for some playtime. We had a pinata which was great fun, then we (we being me) opened the presents. The second present Jacob opened was his "real" weed eater and once he started playing with it, he was totally uninterested in any more presents.

God blessed us with a beautiful day for a party! Who'd have thought that we'd have such a nice day in early September? The kids played on the swing set, drove around Jacob's power-wheel truck, collected acorns, had lawn mower races, played football....

Jenna ran around like the princess she is, chasing everyone and trying to get in on the action. She didn't like the firetruck too much so she hung out inside and talked to her great grandma. She got some cute new clothes (my dad even picked out a dress for her!) and some fun toys too.

My dad was the secondary photographer and I don't have any of his pics yet so there's no cake pictures or family pic yet but I'll post those later.