Quite the Chatterbox

Jacob has become even more vocal as of late, and is constantly "talking." Some of it is intelligible, some not, but he is definitely improving.
One of his favorite things to do now is sing the "ABC" song. Of course, he doesn't actually say the letters, and will substitute whatever sound he likes, but he is almost pitch perfect with the tune. And if you sing the last part to him, "Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with . . . " he will cheerfully sing "ME!"
His favorite show on now is Blue's Clues, and for anybody familiar with it, whenever Jacob sees the pawprint, he will yell out "coo," which, obviously, is him trying to say "Clue." In addition, he will carry out a whole conversation with himself, over and over, saying, "A coo, a coo . . . oh, a coo? . . . A coo!" It is hilarious as he will do this over and over. And sometimes I will draw a pawprint, and as soon as he sees it, he says "A coo."
Perhaps the funniest, though, is that in preparation for Halloween, we bought Jacob a pirate's hat and sword (he loves wearing the hat!), which, once he saw at Michael's, he had to have. On his previous favorite show, The Backyardigans, they had an episode where they all pretended to be pirates, and sang repeatedly, "A pirate says arrr!" So, after reminding Jacob of the song, every time you ask him what a pirate says, he lets out this very deep, growling, "arrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!"
I need to post the pictures we took of him wearing the pirate's hat and holding his sword.

Fun In The Sun

As I said in our last post, we took a week off and spent part of the time at the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We were blessed with beautiful weather, and an amazing condo. This place was like a mansion, and I would consider moving there (marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, 3 BR, 3 BA, HDTVs in the living room and all 3 bedrooms, with DVD/VCR included). It was on the 7th floor, and we had an incredible view of the lagoon, and were right across the street from the ocean. Combine that with lots of good seafood, and we loved it. Jacob didn't think much of the water (the ocean or the swimming pool), but did love playing in the sand, after we washed the sand off of his face!
This was too cute to pass up. We wouldn't put on one of his shows (currently Blue's Clues is his favorite) in the living room, so Jacob went to join his Uncle Brian in his room to watch his TV.
Jacob didn't think much of the pool, but he absolutely loved the inflatable swimming ring we got him that was shaped like a dolphin. He has a walrus bath toy that he plays with, and apparently this dolphin looked like the walrus (to him), so he called it by the same name. He can't quite say walrus, and so the dolphin became his much beloved "Walry." He dragged "Walry" all around the pool, once in a while dipping "Walry" in and asking, "Wheresat Walry? Where is he?"

I took this picture last night! It was too cute to pass up. I even got Jacob to smile (it was actually because he had just pulled his Blue out of the wastebasket and was cheering). Jacob was great on the whole trip, and did extremely well considering the amount of time he spent in his car seat (30 hours, along with incidental traveling around town).
All in all we loved the trip. Jacob had a blast. We all got sick of watching (over and over) the Blue's Clues DVDs, which is currently Jacob's favorite show, but it was a small price to pay for him behaving so well on the trip. If anybody else is considering a trip to Gulf Shores, we would highly recommend going just a week or two after the peak season, like we did, and you will get great rates while the weather is still good. And I can recommend an excellent condo!
Now we have to settle back into the normal routine, until our next vacation! My family is making the trip out here in November for Thanksgiving, and we are all really excited. Richard is coming out from Utah, David from Korea, and my mom and Clyde from California.

Weird Eating Habits

Jacob has been a bit frustrating as of late with his ever changing eating likes and dislikes. The only constants seem to be ketchup, french fries, grilled cheese, and fruit loops. Everything else is completely hit and miss, and can change from one day to the next.
So imagine our surprise at some of the odd things that he has developed a real taste for. For one, he loves dill pickles. We tried this at one of our local BBQ places, and he just gobbled down the dill pickle slices (almost as surprising as the fact that their is halfway decent BBQ this far north of the Mason-Dixon).
He likes my Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil Triscuits. In general he likes most crackers, but I thought for sure that the high pepper content in these would be a turn off. Not really, though. The little boy mooches off of me whenever I have these out.
Finally, and this was the biggest surprise, Jacob loves salsa. We went out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant last week, and Jacob normally will munch on the tortilla chips. He kept pointing at the bowl of salsa (we assume because it looked so much like his beloved ketchup), so we pushed the bowl to him. We thought for sure he would start crying once the salsa hit his lips. This is by no means a super hot salsa - I would say mild-medium - but imagine our surprise when, rather than crying out, he proceeded to redip his chip in the salsa. For the rest of our meal, he continued to eat the salsa - not just dipping the chip to wet it, but actually scooping out the chunks and everything. Who knew?
We are heading down for a week to spend time with Leigh Ann's family. We are planning to take a couple of days and head down to the gulf coast (Gulf Shores, AL) for some sun, sand, and surf. Unfortunately, we may end up getting rain, wind, and indoor pools. Cross your fingers for us.
For Labor Day, we were daring and staged a large grill out at our humble home. In total we had 10 adults and 5 children, and our kitchen and living room were packed to capacity. It went well, though, and we had plenty of food and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. A new family that we have met through church came as well with their 3 children, along with our friends the Bevans, and a few others. Jacob played the role of the troll under the bridge, challenging all that tried to pass by his chair as he was eating. Actually, what he would do was kick (lightly) one of the other children everytime she passed by his chair.
Jacob is exactly one month away from hitting 2 years old. He continues to grow and learn. His vocabulary is increasing, and he is getting better at letting us know what he wants, but there is still a lot of gibberish mixed in with real words.
Leigh Ann just had her schedule changed at work, so she now goes in later to work, and we find that we no longer have to have a regular babysitter for Jacob, as we can now trade him off on the days that she works. This means Leigh Ann gets more time with him (we will wait to see how she survives that!). Our friends the Bevans will watch him on Fridays for a few hours, but Jacob seems to love going to their house. Their little girl comes over on Mondays, so Jacob gets to see his girlfriend twice a week. Quite the ladies' man.