Here's what you've been waiting for

That's right, here they are. The latest pictures of Jacob. Still a rascal, but don't let these pictures into fooling you that he is a very serious kid. In all reality, he is almost never serious. He is more often than not playing and smiling. He just won't ever smile when he knows the camera is on him.

3 Years

As of last Monday, Leigh Ann and I have now been married for 3 years. 3 years she's been able to put up with me! We went out to celebrate on Saturday, since she had to work on Monday. After shipping Jake off to stay with some friends, we went out for an excellent Italian dinner. We found the best Italian restaurant here in Columbus in a small strip mall tucked away in one of the suburbs here. It came highly recommended by a friend here at work, and it was well worth it. While it was too pricey to completely replace Olive Garden for us, it was a nice change.

Afterwords, because we are such crazy, wild people, we went to see a movie. We saw "Amazing Grace," the story of William Wilberforce, the British member of Parliament in the late 18th and early 19th centuries who fought to end the slave trade in England. It was an excellent movie. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially those of you who, like me, think that a good movie is becoming an endangered species in this day and age. You come away feeling good, and not just like the standard sports movie.

Colds in the cold

We are having to battle the cold from both without and within. After the temperature climbing up to 72 degrees early last week, we once again plunged to below freezing, with some light snowfall. While it was nowhere near as cold as it had been a few weeks ago, it was still slightly depressing that we had gotten a small glimpse at spring, only to have it yanked away.

The entire family has also been fighting off the cold. Jacob came down with it last Sunday, and you know mom and dad were soon to follow. We have been trying to deal with a sick baby, while being sick ourselves, and also meeting our work obligations. It has been a little tricky, but we are surviving.

Jacob continues to develop. He is more independent each day, and strenuously objects to anyone having to help him with his meals any more than setting the food in front of him. He is just learning to use the spoon, and doesn't actually get much onto it and into his mouth, so it takes a while. But he wants to learn. He has also starting working on his ability to climb. He enjoys climbing onto the couch to search for the remote controls we hide on top of it. That has forced us to have to find new places to guard them. He continues to make life anything but boring.

Latest News

I suppose I should be more dilligent in updating the blog. But it turns out I am as good at that as keeping in touch by email (ironically, I created this blog so I wouldn't have to email as much).
Our lives continue to continue. Not a whole lot of exciting stuff is occurring. We had the opportunity last weekend to meet Leigh Ann's parents in Lexington for a relaxing couple of days. Lexington is the largest city between us and her parents that, while not exactly halfway between Chattanooga, TN, and Columbus, at least offers things to do and places to eat. We enjoyed the more pleasant temperatures in Kentucky that weekend over the sub-arctic temperatures we've been experiencing here in Ohio. While it is clear now, it still remains bitterly cold (although, thankfully, not as cold as it has been).
Leigh Ann and I continue to work. My project is beginning to pick up speed, so I am having more work to do in the lab. Unfortunately, I am dependent on others for receiving samples for my experiments, which led to my working late the other night. Thankfully, we have a great person watching Jacob now, and she was more than happy to watch him a little while longer, as I was late in picking him up. This would never have been possible when we were taking him to a daycare center.
Leigh Ann continues to do her part helping out the children of Columbus working in the Children's Hospital radiology department. As if she didn't get enough opportunities working with children at work and at home, she also spends a great deal of time working in Primary at church. You'd think that with all of this working with children, she should get an honorary doctorate in early childhood development.
Jacob remains as crazy as ever. As he continues to grow, he becomes even more independent. He is resisting more and more any food that is fed to him on a spoon, as he wants to feed himself. Unfortunately, he does not yet know how to use a spoon, so that limits what you can feed him, and increases the frustration as he refuses to eat it if you have to spoon-feed him. According to the babysitter, Jacob has started talking, and has said such things to her as, "Close the door," and "What's that?" Sadly, he has not yet chosen to speak to us in anything other than baby babble. So he seems to be holding out on his parents. In addition, he has discovered that it is fun to spin in circles until he is dizzy, then try to walk. This resulted in him knocking his head into a lamp table. After a few minutes of crying, he was right back up doing it again. One day he'll learn!