Happy Birthday, Jacob

Well, as many of you know, my son turned 4 this week. It's hard to believe that it has been that long ago. As I look back over the last 4 years, I remember many things. A tiny baby with jaundice who came home with a bili blanket...

The boo-boo face...







And let's not forget "D"

The first birthday...

and the happy-go-lucky boy..

We went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate. I wasn't too sure how he would react. Jacob can party with the best of them or clamp down. He really enjoyed himself. Didn't want to eat a thing, just play. It was a nice evening. We were joined by Nana and Papa, Uncle Bob, Aunt Bev, and Riley. Randy and his family also joined us.








Jake got his picture taken at one of these sketch booths, similar to the old Create-a-card stations (only one token!).










So I opted to get one of Christian as well. Christian was wondering around, checking everything out.








The boys crashed on the way home, so Jake didn't get to open his presents from us. He opened them the next day. Now that all of that fun is over, it's time to get ready for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Wrap-up

Well, the holiday went pretty well.

I was suppose to work on Thanksgiving Day, but we were so slow that they sent me home 3 1/2 hours early. Nice, but I lose out on the holiday pay.

We made the 2 hour trip up north to Todd's mom's for Dinner on Friday. The boys liked playing with their cousins, but they didn't eat a thing. Well, except cookies. Great! They were actually pretty good during the drive there and back. We borrowed my mom's DVD players. Jake fell asleep on the way back and missed the pretty flashing lights in the rear view mirror. That's right. Todd got pulled over. We were coming into a small town and he didn't slow down fast enough. The cop let him off with a warning.

We did our Thanksgiving on Saturday. Again, the boys didn't eat at all. My mom cracks me up. She was really wanting a picture of the boys, so here's what we got:

As you can see, children are never all in a good mood at the same time. Todd also put up our Christmas lights (and beat Julie, haha).

Sunday, we put up our tree. In case you don't have kids, this is what the typical tree looks like in a house with toddlers:

(no ornaments around the bottom, several up top, and a few on the floor).

Well, Jake's 4th birthday is tomorrow, so we are going Chuck E Cheese for the first time. More to come, I'm sure....

I Got A Deal!

I have mentioned that I booked our vacation to Disney in February. Well, today, I saw that they are offering "buy4 days, get 3 free." Additionally, if you travel January through March, you get a $200 gift card. So, I decided to call them and ask if I could apply it to my booked vacation. We were going to stay 5 days, but I have no problem with adding time. It turns out, that I did qualify for the offer, and it is $50 cheaper than it was before! So, now our vacation is longer, cheaper, and with free spending money. You can't beat that!


I decided to check out some airfare, since I have kinda been on the fence about that. Northwest and Airtran both want about $1000 for 4 to fly roundtrip. (Christian is free at the park, but we have to pay for him to fly). I checked out Southwest and found out that they were only $600 - almost half the cost. Plus, they don't charge for bags (yet!). The only downfall is that they don't assign seats. When we flew with them last, we had to split up. It says that families get to board second, so that shouldn't be too bad. I could alway say, "Excuse me. Could you scoot over so my 2 year old son and I can sit together?" If they don't, they'll have to deal with him. Good luck with that!

In other news, Christian FINALLY got approved for speech therapy. I'm looking forward to starting that soon. That way, we don't have to play the catch up game like we are playing with Jake.

That Was Fun (Not!)

OK, I just finished voting. Stood in line for an hour and Christian screamed the whole time. At least Jake was good. What irritates me is that "our" precinct had the 1 hour line, while the 2 other precints had no line = open voting booths. Hello??? Am I the only who has a problem with this?

It could have been worse, I guess. I went earlier when Jake got out of school, and the wait then was 2 hours. Todd was smart - he voted absentee.

In other news, I went to Jake's school this morning. The theme for the month is occupations, so I talked about being a nurse. I brought in gloves, masks, and xrays. I also gave everyone a bandage and let them all play with my stethoscope. It was very cute!

Happy Halloween!

The boys had a great time trick-or-treating last night. They both dressed up as pirates. Jake had a lot of fun. He really got into it this year. Christian wasn't so sure. He didn't mind people talking to him, as long as they were giving him candy.