Jakey's party

Fun food made its appearance at the party. We tried to have all of Jakey's favorites. In the jars, we had kettle corn, oatmeal cookies, chex mix and animal crackers. Of course we also had dinosaur cake and his favorite sandwiches.

Jakey spent a lot of time in the pool. He had a great time with his friends. He probably would have stayed there the whole time if we didn't force him to get out and eat something.

I found these awesome foam animal visors at Michael's. All the kids got one and got to wear them at the party. Jakey had a few that he was interchanging depending on his mood.

Here is our visiting superhero trying his hand at the beanbag toss. Love the cape!

New paint job!!!

Our house just got freshly painted. The base color is pretty similar, but it's all patched and painted evenly now. The big difference is the trip color. We have 2 colors now instead of just one, and we chose sage green and dark red for the contrasting trim colors. We are SO happy with how it all turned out. Our painters did a great job.

They sanded the door and refinished it, so now the oak veneer comes out instead of being painted over.

They also suggested painting the garage door to match the house. It also makes a big difference.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, Nate outdid himself and got me some antique glass bottles from a nearby antique store. He tried to find replacements for the 2 glass bottles we got on our honeymoon in PEI, which have broken in a couple of accidents in recent years. It really made my day that he gave me such a thoughtful gift. I made the cinnamon blueberry muffins --a favorite recipe from Epicurious.

Jakey has been really into Birthdays recently so he wanted to sing Happy Birthday and blow out a candle with his muffin. He looks a little tired because he had an ear infection. Both he and I ended up with ear infections that week.

Friends

It's so good to see old friends. A couple of weeks ago, Bonnie and her family were able to come by for a short visit. Jakey is enjoying is time with Hewzon and Cameron.

This is our first time seeing baby Roland. He's not such a baby anymore!

More quilting

I didn't get nearly enough pictures of our last quilt night. I didn't realize that we are almost finished and won't have this opportunity much longer. Here we are putting together one of the last quilts with our very last quilt squares. We had exactly 48 squares to work with and Manna and Shelley managed to make them work to create 4 quilt tops. So now we have no more squares left.

Amy is doing a good job supervising.

Favorites

This is my favorite outfit on Jakey this winter. The hat is a treasured garage sale find. I will be very sad when his head is too big for it. The jacket was a Gap kids jacket given to Jakey for Christmas.

Here is Jakey's new and improved room. That is one set of curtains that I made for him behind his new-to-us toddler bed. I got the fabric for the curtains from the Uptown Whittier antique fair, an estate sale, M & L, Amy's Nana Norma and Maxine Hooper. The quilted pillows in Jakey's reading corner were made by my grandma.

Jakey still loves to swing in his dolphin.

Would you believe we are still getting tomatoes from last summer's tomato plant? Only in California.

Mini Pumpkin

This little guy was given to Jakey by his friend Gioia. In its prime, it was the cutest mini jack-o-lantern that you ever did see, but a couple of nights of candle-lit wonder turned this cutie into a small sinister looking jack-o-lantern. However, you can sort of get the idea here.

What Jakey likes...

He loves to play with Nate and I. He really needs a little bro or sis, because we are always having to play with him. Here is Nate trying to catch a few Zzzzs but Jacob isn't interested in letting dad sleep.

Jakey is also very social. He makes friends with everyone at school and here at home. He loves people so much. He has really warmed up to the girls in the quilt group because he sees them a few times a month and at church. He seems to think they are coming over to see him.

He is going through a semi-annoying phase of wanting me especially to do everything he is doing. If he is wearing a hat, I have to wear one too. If I have a jacket on, he wants one on too... bib, shoes etc. It's getting a little old, but sometimes results in cute pictures.

He is also getting very creative. He loves playing with his "colors." He is not a drawing prodigy yet, Nate is just good at drawing robots and was willing to let Jakey color all over his robot creation.

End of summer fun

It's chile roasting time. This time of year, Nate gets the itch for roasted green chile. He has been buying them up from the farmer's market and trying to simulate NM chile roasting on our grill. So far it hasn't quite been the same as NM.

Jakey and mommy have a special reading corner. This is also where most of Jacob's toys are kept. It's kind of a mess back here, but it's his special place.

Hot summer days

Well, here is my hair cut. I don't really do well with close ups. So, this is the best shot we could manage. I like the length. It's a lot lighter now and not so hot. I can also still pull it back if I want to get it out of the way.

More Jacob shots with our succulent pots.

Meet our friendly garden gnome whose hat got broken when Nate tried to lift it with one arm. Luckily it was only the hat and not the head or something else. It still hasn't been repaired. Hopefully it will grow back someday.

This is Jacob's favorite place to play. What boy wouldn't want to have all of this gravel for a bulldozer to shovel around?

Curious Jakey

He looks like such a big boy with his new haircut. This is his last week of being 1. I think he's ready to turn 2. He has been growing up so much this summer. He learns about 3 new words every day and copies what we say pretty well too. He loves any kind of ball and knows how to say basketball and soccer ball. He also loves trucks and cars. He likes eating fruit, especially all of the berries that have been ripe this summer. He also started eating pasta again, for which I am grateful. His favorite kind of meat is still chicken, although he really liked the pulled beef that Nate had at the Cuban restaurant in Hawaii. We also discovered that Jacob really loves black beans in Hawaii. He has also discovered juice and Sesame Street. He can name some of his favorite characters--Elmo, Ernie and Big Bird. This summer we have been going to the park a lot. We go to a few parks within walking distance, and before we can even see the park he starts saying, "Hi whee" which is his word for park because whee is what you say when you ride the swings and go down the slide at the park of course. He's becoming really good friends with Meow (Mugsy) and lays down on him whenever he gets the chance. He can climb into his eating chair by himself (it's attached to our kitchen table). He sleeps 12 hours a night like clockwork and usually doesn't even cry anymore when we put him to bed. He also still goes down really well for a 3 hour nap every afternoon. I just tell him night night time and he usually goes to his room. He has been more affectionate with us this summer and likes to give mommy and daddy hugs as much as he can.

This is one of his favorite spots to hang out. He could stay here for hours watching the boys and girls and cars and trucks go by. Sometimes he yells out to the neighbors, or people visiting our house from these windows.

Fabric organization

Nate built these shelves in our study closet mainly for my fabric overflow. I haven't completely filled the shelves yet, but there is more in the garage. I bought 3 new plastic bins for storing scraps and stuff and they got filled in about 5 minutes. I may need to get more scrap bins!

I can't believe I now have almost 1 whole shelf free for more fabric. There is more fabric to put on it, never fear, but it looks nice to have it all organized. It hasn't looked this good in months.

Fun times in the old backyard

Remember when all you needed was dirt and some garden tools for a good time? Wish we could go back to those days again.

Turkey burgers again. Yum. We didn't even have zucchini to go with it, and they were still good.

One of the best parts about summer is visits from old friends...and getting to eat great grilled food.

More special friend time. Now we have all of these kids. Where did they all come from? Jakey's new favorite book is One Fish Two Fish--he's letting me share his special reading time.