Why It Is So Hard To Get Good Pictures of Jacob

Pretty self-explanatory.

Owen is 1 year old!

Well, Owen has now hit 1 year old.  And he is walking everywhere!  Here is a video of him walking around, and then of him celebrating his birthday - you can see him bouncing along to the singing.

Jacob went as Shrek for Halloween this year.  Leigh Ann found the costume, and then fashioned some Shrek ears for him.  He loved it.  He wore it to his pre-school, then for some trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, then for our Ward Halloween party, and finally for his friend, Lucas' birthday party.  We got a lot of use out of that costume - and Jake cleaned up on the candy.

As you can see (and already saw from my post for Jacob's birthday), Owen loves cake.  He dives right in.  He didn't get quite as messy here as he did with Jacob's cake, where the frosting ended up all over his face, but he still thoroughly enjoyed it.
And why not toss in another one of the cute kid?

Owen and Jacob just had their yearly doctor's appointment today.  They both did really well, but neither appreciated the multiple shots they had to get.  Jacob continues to top the charts.  He is still in the 97th percentile for both height and weight, at 45.5 inches and 47 pounds.  Owen is not really that far behind.  His weight is in the 85th percentile at 26 pounds, but 97th percentile for height at 32.25 inches.  Yup.  We raise 'em big here.  At this rate, they should be taller than me by their 10th birthdays!

4 years down, ???? to go

I cannot believe it - Jake is now 4 years old! The time is really flying by now! In just another couple of weeks, Owen will be 1!!!!! Jacob had a fun day yesterday for his birthday. He started out with opening his presents (mostly Thomas the Tank Engine stuff from both grandparents, and from us), then went to preschool, where he had cupcakes. Then Leigh Ann and I took him to see both Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2 at the theater, in 3D (which was a lot more impressive than I thought it would be). We then went to pick up Owen from the Bevan's, who watched Owen for the 4 hours of the movies, and we had cake there with them and their daughter, Abby.

As you can see here, Owen really enjoyed his piece of cake!
Jacob, after some coaxing, started to enjoy his cake as well.
Here is the birthday boy, opening up some of his new train stuff!
Here you can see even more of his haul!
And this gives you a shot of just how much Thomas stuff he got! Leigh Ann found the large track at a store nearby for a fraction of the normal price! Jacob loves this new Thomas setup!

Busy month!

Alright, I bet you thought I had forgotten this place! Nope. Just been really busy. We have had a whirlwind month. Last weekend we headed out for a family vacation to Washington, D.C. (Mike's first time there). We actually passed Pres. Obama's motorcade on Tuesday, as he was heading to an Arlington, VA, school to deliver an address. We were coming into town on 12th street, and he was going out. Since it was Labor Day weekend, some things were trickier to see than others, but we hit the highlights: Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, WWII memorial, Korean War memorial, Vietnam memorial, Jefferson Monument (from afar), FDR monument, Library of Congress, National Archives, Capitol building, Museum of Natural History, Watergate Hotel, Kennedy Center, White House, Supreme Court Building, National Cathedral. On our way into town, we stopped off to see the LDS temple. Here is a picture of us in front of it.
Leigh Ann had to get a picture with Jake at the Tennessee column of the WWII memorial!
The person who took this picture was supposed to get a picture of us with the Jefferson memorial in the background. You can clearly see it, directly behind me!!!!!
Owen enjoyed the opportunity to get out of the car and crawl around on the LDS temple grounds.
Here we are in the gardens behind the Smithsonian castle. We would have taken a picture with the castle behind us, except it would have just looked like us in front of a red brick building.

This one actually turned out pretty good. We are on the top steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out over the reflecting pool to the Washington monument in the distance. As you can see, Jake was a good sport, and loved having his picture taken!
So now I will go back in time. This picture is of Owen from August - he is starting to get more teeth in than is shown in this picture, but this gives a good shot of him flashing those pearly whites! He was about 10 months old here (now we are closer to 11 months!).
Jacob scored some great PJs at Kohl's - they had Buzz Lightyear and Woody PJs (from the Toy Story movies - his favorites) on sale 2-for-1 - here he is dressed up as Buzz Lightyear. As he told me the other night, "I wuv Buzz Whitehere PJs and Woody PJs!"
Again, a little older picture, but this is Owen in July, about 9 months old, with his top front teeth just breaking through. Now the boy is a bottomless pit. He will down an 8-oz. bottle of formula, and then scarf down whatever else you put in front of him! He is never full!!!!! I don't know what we will do when these guys hit teenage years!
Again, from July. We took a trip down to Chattanooga to celebrate the 4th of July and Leigh Ann's dad's birthday. While there, we made a trip to a train museum that has a running train that you can ride - Jacob absolutely loved it. He named the train Thomas, and we were riding in either Annie or Clarabell (for those of you familiar with Thomas the Tank Engine - Jacob has the names of all the trains already memorized!).
There has been other news, as well. The weekend before our D.C. trip, Leigh Ann's family came to town, and we all went up to Cedar Point, an amusement park up on the shore of Lake Eerie. I conquered my fear and actually went on my first real rollercoasters. Of course, it is probably a good thing I didn't do any research ahead of time - the second rollercoaster I tried, the Millenium Force, had a >300 ft. drop, and at one time not too long ago was the highest continuous circuit rollercoaster in the world. The drop from that height is at an 80 degree angle, and you get up to 93 miles/hour. Yeah, it scared the crap out of me - but Leigh Ann and I rode it again! I ended up having a blast. If anybody gets the chance, I highly recommend Cedar Point. I tried as many of the rollercoasters and other rides as possible. One of our favorites was the Wicked Twister. I was too chicken, though, to try the Top Thrills Dragster - it uses a linear accelerator to take you from 0 to 120 mph in about 4 seconds, shoot you straight up about 400 feet, then drop you back down. No thank you.

Jacob has started pre-school. We were lucky to find a sister in the ward who runs a pre-school from her home, and they meet twice a week for 2 1/2 hours. We hope Jake will learn a lot - especially how to listen and behave!

That is it for now. I'm sure there is more, but this will have to suffice for now!

Alright, since I haven't posted pictures in a while, here are several. Our boys continue to grow like weeds - Owen is about 25 pounds now at 8 months! Jacob is just shy of 4 feet tall, and pushing 50 pounds. We keep joking that he'll be able to ride rollercoasters by his fourth birthday.

Owen loves going for walks in the stroller - anything to get outside. This was at Jacob's first (and last) soccer class at the YMCA. It didn't go over well - that is why we don't have a picture of Jacob at his soccer class.

Unlike Jacob, we have no problem getting Owen to smile for pictures! Jacob was just as happy as a baby - he just wouldn't smile for the camera!


Jacob absolutely adores his little baby brother Owen now. He spends most of the day playing with Owen and entertaining him. Owen loves it too! He follows Jacob around everywhere. Owen is now crawling everywhere, and has even started to pull himself up onto his feet and shuffle along the couch. Now there are even more things within his reach - not good news for us! That is why you see those baskets in the background - to keep Owen out of things.




We had some great weather one Saturday afternoon, so we headed down to one of our Columbus Metro Parks, where they have somewhat of a botanical garden. We were able to get some good pictures of the boys.

Alright, I guess I can update this blog

Well, better late than never!

Owen is getting huge - at every doctor's visit he is right at the same pace as Jake. So we'll have 2 big boys! Always in the 90-95th percentile for height and weight.

Owen is sitting up better now, and incredibly mobile. While not properly crawling, he has his own method worked out - a mixture of army crawling on his stomach, along with rolling and sudden lurches. He makes really good time, too. We'll set him down on one side of the room, turn our head, and next thing you know, he is on the other side. Usually he is after all of the DVD's on the bottom shelf (these are "Jacob's" movies, and it annoys Jacob greatly that Owen would get into them). He also likes to kick the door to the TV cabinet, which ends up pushing all the buttons on the cable box and screwing it up. So we are back to stacking a basket in front of it, as we had to with Jacob.

The pictures above are our "Easter" pictures. I say that because we are always late at getting them taken. Jake wasn't very cooperative with the pictures, so that one with the two of them is about as good as it gets. Owen is our photogenic baby. We never have a problem getting him to smile. Jacob was a happy little baby, but we could never get him to smile for the camera, so all his pictures look very somber.

Owen's 6-month appointment

So Owen is now 6 months old, and we took him in for his 6-month appointment today - no big surprise, he is taking after Jacob, and is huge!

Today he weighed 20 lbs. 15 oz. (95th percentile), and measured 28 in. long (90th percentile). So it looks like we are going to have another big kid!

The latest.

Well, a lot has changed since the last pictures. As you can see, Owen is getting better about sitting up. He is still a bit wobbly, but getting much better. He will even occasionally hold the bottle in his hands. He has at least one tooth now, and rolls all over the place - onto his back, back onto his stomach. He scoots around the place without crawling, so you put him down, and he is off. It makes it very frustrating trying to change his diaper or his clothes!

Jacob saw this St. Patrick's Day hat in the store a while back, and had to have it. It was dirt cheap, so Leigh Ann bought it for him. He has really destroyed it (it was only flimsy plastic), but he still loves it. Now he calls it his "Fireman Sam" hat. I don't know if any of you know who Fireman Sam is - it is a claymation show for little kids, British-made from the late '80s, but they show episodes on our PBS Sprout On Demand, and he loves it! So whenever he wants to pretend he is Fireman Sam, he puts on his "Fireman Sam" hat and his "Fireman Sam" shoes (which are just whatever pair of my shoes are available). You will notice, if you look closely, that Owen is behind him in a walker - Jacob made sure that he was standing in front of Owen, as he didn't want him in the picture. Whenever Owen is someplace Jake doesn't like, he'll go up to him and go, "No, Owen, scoot, scoot!" He really is warming up to Owen, but sometimes he just doesn't like to shave the limelight. Things are really getting tricky, now that Owen is more mobile, and can potentially get into whatever toys Jacob has on the floor.
Finally, here they are together! Jake normally doesn't like Owen that close to him - Leigh Ann really lucked out getting this picture. You can see just how adorable our two boys are (and I am not biased in the least!). I believe there are two grandmothers and a grandfather that would probably agree with me. They are a handful, but we love them.
We were informed last Sunday that Jacob had an assignment for his first talk in Primary this Sunday (how do you like that for advanced warning for a talk for a 3-year old?). Leigh Ann has been working with him, and, as long as he doesn't develop stage fright, it looks like he will do great! He loves holding up the pictures, and does a really good job repeating his lines. Hopefully Owen will stay quiet enough during the talk! He is a little jabbermouth lately, and is particularly fond of his new-found ability to shriek really loud - not to complain, just because he can do it!

New Jacob Quotes

We got a kick out of these - Jake's vocabulary and ability to string sentences together is getting a lot better, and they are consequently sometimes very funny.

Jacob was sitting at the table for dinner, and he went to grab his sippy cup. Turning to Leigh Ann, he asked:
Jake: Mama, is dis juice?
Leigh Ann: No Jake, that's pink milk (milk with Strawberry Quik).
Jake: No, dat's not milk, dat's juice.
Leigh Ann: Well, you go ahead and try it and see for yourself.
(Jacob takes a sip)
Jake: Um, actually, dat's pink milk.

A few weeks back, Jake's favorite word was "either." Whenever he didn't want something, he wouldn't just say that he didn't want it, it was always, "no, don't want that either." It didn't matter that he hadn't been offered options - it was always, "no, don't want that either."

Now he is experimenting with the word "just." Every morning, when I go in to get him from his room, he is usually sitting on the floor, either reading or playing. I'll go in, and say:
Mike: Hey, Jake, did you sleepy good?
Jake: Um, yay-ah (yeah, with an overly exaggerated southern accent we can't explain). I just woke up.
Mike: You just woke up? (never mind the fact I have heard him stomping around for at least 30 minutes)
Jake: Yay-ah. Don't go downstairs right now, okay? I readin'. (translated, he doesn't care if you go downstairs, but he doesn't want to go downstairs just yet)

We are a happy family!

I was just playing around with the camera on my computer, trying to shoot some pictures of Owen and I, when Jake wanted to come over and "say cheese." Next thing you know, everybody was in on it. Jake, of course, would not relinquish the sucker long enough to take some pictures! Those are his current favorite rewards for using the potty.

So Jake is slowly but surely being potty trained. I would say we are half there - unfortunately, it is the smelly, more messy half that we aren't quite there with yet. That continues to be a trial. Otherwise he is doing great! He has a love/hate relationship with primary these days. He cries and doesn't want to stay when you drop him off, but then puts up at least as much of a fight when you try to pick him up at the end of church. We count that as a good sign. Potty training is a huge blessing. Instead of going through multiple diapers a day, we now use just one pull-up a day - he wears them to bed at night. Huge cost difference. His conversation skills get better and better, but they are still just as funny!

Owen, in true Fuller boy fashion, is growing like a weed! At his 4-month appointment he was 18 lbs. 8.5 oz., and 27 inches long. That put him in the 95th percentile for weight and the 97th percentile for height. These big kids are hard to lug around! He smiles all the time, and loves watching his big brother. He is also quite the talker. He is constantly babbling, and now has added "dada" to his vocabulary. You can see mischief in his eyes. He flops around like a fish when you try to change his diaper, and then grins at you when you tell him to stop. He has now started on foods, and so far has not been too picky. He seems to like carrots a lot.

Leigh Ann and I continue to work. Between that, the kids, and church obligations, it seems we get little or no time to ourselves anymore! In just over a week we celebrate our 5th anniversary! Hard to believe she has put up with me for that long!

Finally! Some new pictures!

We are proud to say that Jake has finally taken to potty training. Of course, heavy bribing has been employed - you do what you can! And yes, the ends do justify the means - whatever we are spending on bribes is much less than what we were spending on diapers!
This guy, however, is still in diapers. Owen is drinking rice cereal mixed with his formula to combat the reflux he seems to have. The upside? Less spitting up, and he has been sleeping clear through until at least 6:30 am. The downside? Well, its not like our boys are slow in the whole growth curve! Owen seems to really be filling out now. He sure smiles a lot - at least when he isn't screaming that he isn't being held.
Leigh Ann thinks he looks like me - I don't know, he seems way too cute for that to be the case. But maybe. Jake heavily favors Leigh Ann's looks, so I guess this one will take after me - poor kid, the deck is already stacked against him!
Leigh Ann was holding Owen on the couch, and Jake decided he wanted to sit with mama too. I swear I didn't pose this picture at all. I just prayed they would stay in place long enough to get the camera out. It is now my favorite picture of the three of them.

So there isn't a lot new to report. Our old TV was dying on us, so we had to go get a new one. We have now moved into the world of LCD TVs. Jake didn't like that "his" old TV was going away, but he seems to have gotten over it - this TV, apparently, can also play Blue's Clues, The Backyardigans, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Fireman Sam.

Owen is growing like a weed. He is now 4 months old, and he smiles a lot, talks constantly, and is generally good natured, until you get to about 2 hours before his bed time. Then he screams! We have them both in the same room now that Owen is sleeping through the night, and it seems to be working.

We are patiently waiting for winter to be over so that we don't have to deal with any more snow or ice storms. But it hasn't been nearly as bad a winter as last year. We did have some bitter cold days a few weeks back.

Other than that, things continue in our family much as they have.

New Pictures

Alright, no time right now to describe everything. Most are self explanatory. I at least wanted to get some more recent pictures - especially of little Owen - up so people could see him. More later.