The Fuller Family

2011-05-08T00:17:00.000-04:00

A special video for Mother's Day! I know you all will love this!

2011-03-30T23:53:00.002-04:00

Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since last I posted. Things have changed a lot. The title of the blog is no longer appropriate, as we are no longer the Ohio Fullers. In January we moved back down to Birmingham, Alabama, where I started working at Southern Research Institute. I am working only 1 block away from my graduate lab. We are now renting half of a duplex in the Hoover/Bluff Park neighborhood. We are actually only about a block away from our friends Andy, Rheanna, and Brandt Stevens. On the other side we have Rheanna's parents as well as her sister and family.

Jacob has started preschool at a local Methodist church in preparation for starting Kindergarten this fall. He is loving it and doing very well. Owen is our crazy 2-year old. We have no idea where his incredibly curly hair comes from. He is our daredevil and climbs EVERYTHING! They both keep us busy and happy.

We decided this year to actually try and take Easter pictures before Easter, and these are the best we could get. Our kids don't cooperate for the camera. We had a beautiful weekend, and decided to go to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens (where I had originally proposed to Leigh Ann).

For preschool, Jacob had to dress up as some kind of community helper. He wanted to be a fireman, which gave Leigh Ann all kinds of trouble. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find a fireman outfit for a kid in March. We found the hat at Party City, and she found some props at the Dollar Store. But she had to get creative with the coat. She found a men's small sweatshirt (can you believe that? he almost fits in a men's small, and he is only 5!!!!!), and some reflective duct tape, and voila! I thought it looked great, and Jacob absolutely loved it. He didn't want to take it off.

On another note, Jacob, our 5-year old, has just lost his first tooth! One of his front bottom ones. Hard to believe that he is already old enough for that to happen!

Finally - some new pics

2010-05-11T23:49:00.003-04:00

Alright, some of you, I'm sure, wondered whether I even remembered this website (that is, if anybody still checks in here). I'm not going to fill in the story right now. I thought I'd just update the kids' pictures, so you all can see how they've grown since the last time I updated. Jake is now 4 1/2 years old, and Owen is 1 1/2. They love each other a lot - Jake is always wanting to do stuff with his baby brother, and Owen idolizes Jake. Anyways, here they are:

A Special Message to Grandma Rice

2010-01-17T00:01:00.001-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDMA RICE!!!!!

Why It Is So Hard To Get Good Pictures of Jacob

2009-11-04T23:45:00.002-05:00

Pretty self-explanatory.

Owen is 1 year old!

2009-11-04T22:54:00.006-05:00

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

2009-10-07T19:32:00.004-04:00

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!

2009-09-12T14:33:00.002-04:00

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!

2009-07-02T22:06:00.004-04:00

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

2009-05-21T17:53:00.003-04:00

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

2009-04-22T15:46:00.002-04:00

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.

2009-04-18T15:25:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-23T11:24:00.002-04:00

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!

2009-03-15T17:25:00.001-04:00

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!

2009-02-20T23:16:00.002-05:00

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

2009-01-28T12:05:00.002-05:00

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.

2 Months in Normal Time = An Eternity With a Newborn

2008-12-17T14:03:00.002-05:00

Wow, I can't believe it has already been 2 months since Owen joined our family. Time flies - especially with 2 kids. A lot has happened in the last couple of months. I'll get you caught up.

The day after Thanksgiving we took a trip up to Detroit to visit our friends, Andy and Rheanna, who were staying there while in the process of adopting their new little boy, and we were happy to learn that they are finally back home in Alabama. We stayed the night in the same hotel with them and shared stories and got caught up. We were envious about how quiet their little boy was compared to Owen, who apparently has just as healthy a pair of lungs as his older brother. Jake seemed to enjoy himself as well with Andy, Ranna, and "More Owen." Andy had the good fortune of sharing his name with a character in one of Jacob's favorite movies (Toy Story), so Jacob had no problems saying his name. Rheanna was trickier, but Jake did a pretty good job with it. However, when he saw Owen side by side with Brandt, his words were, "Hey, it's Owen, and more Owen."

At the beginning of December my mom came out to visit for the better part of a week to see her new grandson and his blessing. We had a good time. We paid a visit to her favorite Fudge Shop here in Columbus (Schmidt's Fudge Haus, located in the German Village, right next to Schmidt's Sausage Haus, a great German restaurant with great homemade Bratwurst and Knockwurst). We decided it might also be fun to drive up to Amish country, so we hopped into the van, but unfortunately picked the day a storm came through, so our 1 1/2 hour drive up to Berlin, Ohio, ended up taking 3 1/2 hours, and by the time we got there, we had only 30 minutes until everything closed. Then we drove 2 hours back (road conditions had improved). So we still haven't seen much of Amish country, but it was a pretty drive! On her last day, we went to the mall, because they have a nice play area that Jacob loves, and it gives him the opportunity to run around when it is too cold to go out to the park.

Leigh Ann starts back at work on the 29th, and she is worried that she has forgotten everything (which I seriously doubt). I am sure she is looking forward to getting out of the house a bit more.

With tithing settlement season in full swing, I spend a good part of my Sundays at church, as well as a couple of hours on Wednesday nights. I'll be glad to have it over and done with (and so will Leigh Ann). All in all, though, I am enjoying my calling as ward financial clerk. And as long as the audits go well, the bishopric is happy to keep me in my calling.

Next week we head down to Chattanooga to spend Christmas with Leigh Ann's family. The fact that gas prices are down to a comfortable level is particularly nice as we face the 8-hour car drive ahead of us. Things got pretty easy with Jacob on long trips - especially since we got the van with the DVD player. Now we are back to having a newborn, and they can make road trips take just a bit longer.

Next year we anticipate making a trip, sometime near the end of the year, to Utah for my brother Richard's upcoming wedding.

That is about all there is to update on.

I can't think of a new title

2008-11-17T22:49:00.002-05:00

Here is a picture of my 3 favorite people in the world. Need I say more?
Leigh Ann thought this would be a good picture. Owen was sound asleep, but clutching onto her finger.
Already these two are spending time together . . . watching TV. If you notice, there is a red spot on the couch next to Jake's head. He snagged our "I voted" stickers from us on election day, and this is one of them.
Not my favorite picture of me, but I guess you have to take these as well. I was trying to get Jake to put down the sippy cup and smile for the camera - he is getting more difficult to get to pose for a picture.
And finally, Jake with chicken nuggets crammed in his mouth. Jacob has become quite the picky eater. He didn't end up eating this chicken. Lately, unless it has cheese as a major ingredient, he won't have much to do with it.

They change so much at this age!

2008-11-01T14:31:00.002-04:00

They really do change so much when they are little! Just look how different Owen looks just 2 weeks old!

Okay, so obviously that isn't Owen. Jacob, it turns out, has some very strong nurturing instincts! In the last week, he has been carrying his Buzz Lightyear doll around like it is his baby, copying everything we do with Owen. He brought Buzz up to me the other day and told me Buzz had "tinky poopies" (stinky poopies). He went and got one of Owen's diapers and the baby wipes, and proceeded to wipe him, then had us help him put a diaper on him. Then he will lay him down on the stairs and put a blanket on him. Periodically, he'll tell us to hush, because Buzz is sleeping.

Mike: Jacob, where is Buzz?

Jacob: Buzz is seeping, right dere.

He also puts his favorite blanket (it has Tigger on it) on a stool in the bathroom, because it also gets tired.

Mike: Jacob, where's your Tigger blankie?

Jacob: Tigger bwankie is seeping in cwoset (the downstairs bathroom is the closet). He too tired.

For some reason, his Woody doll doesn't get a diaper, but he also takes a nap, underneath a little wicker waste basket we keep in the living room.

Owen just had his 2 week doctor's check-up, and is doing great. He has put on almost a complete pound since his birth - now up to 8 lb. 9 oz. He is progressing well. He sleeps better than Jacob, but spits up a little more than him.

Well, that is the latest update.

Each one is unique

2008-10-27T12:50:00.002-04:00

I know I am jinxing us by posting this, but already we have noticed some glaring differences between our two boys. Jacob would only sleep for 4 hours tops in the middle of the night when he was a newborn. It was probably 4 months before he first slept a good 8-hour stretch. With Owen, already he is sleeping for 5 or 6 hours at night. The other night, after feeding him at 11:30pm and expecting to be up again at 2:30am, we were both surprised when he first started crying at 4am. Then two nights ago, we fed him at midnight, and at 6am Leigh Ann was nudging me awake, asking whether it had been 3 hours yet since I had fed him. I answered that I had not fed him since the midnight feeding - he had gone 6 hours!

Of course now that I am bragging about this, we will be back to every 3 hours. But it has been nice.

In contrast, Jacob was still playing in his room over an hour after I put him to bed last night. I went to go put him back in bed, and asked him what was wrong. His response was classic Jacob!
Mike: Hey Jake, how come you're not sleeping?
Jacob: I too hungry, right here (pointing with his finger to his mouth).
Mike: You're too hungry?
Jacob: Yep. (Jacob is usually a man of few words).
Mike: How come you didn't want to finish your dinner earlier?
Jacob: No, too hungry. How 'bout fwoot nacks (fruit snacks)?
Mike: No, not tonight. You can wait until breakfast, okay?
Jacob: Okay.

On another humorous note, for some reason our eldest son has developed a fascination for the Disney movie "Sleeping Beauty." We have never shown it to him - Bevans, are you responsible for this? - and we don't know where it comes from. The other day, he saw a commercial on TV announcing that Disney has re-released it on DVD, and Jacob got excited and started talking about "Seepy Booty." I got so cracked up. His grandma Rice in California sent him an old book we had with various stories from Disney movies, and every night now Jacob wants me to read "Seepy Booty." We are almost to the part with the dragon, and he is getting excited.

The fun never ends.

Our Boys!

2008-10-25T12:48:00.003-04:00

Here are some new pictures of our boys. You can see the contrast between 3-year old Jacob and newborn Owen. Both just as cute, though.

Alright, here is the first video of Owen. We shot it at the hospital, but I just got around to getting it on the computer and compressed for the web.

2008-10-23T10:55:00.004-04:00

As Jacob talks more and more, we are being treated to more and more of those phrases you hear from kids that just make you laugh. This is our current favorite:

(Jacob, sitting on the floor, surrounded by books that he is looking through)

Mike: Hey Jacob, it's almost time for bed. Are you ready to go night night?

Jacob: No, I too reading.

Mike: You're too reading?

Jacob: Yeah.

Saying he is too anything is Jacob's current excuse to not have to do anything, and he will run through several options till he finds one that gets him out of whatever he should be doing.

Some of our favorites for not going to bed: too hungry, too tired, too wet, too light, too dark

And for not taking a bath: too wet, too dry, too bubbles, too scary

Never a dull moment with a 3-year old.

Meeting big brother Jake!

2008-10-19T22:31:00.003-04:00

Well, it looks like we may very well be checking out by tomorrow afternoon. Because of that, Leigh Ann's parents went ahead and brought Jacob to the hospital this evening to meet his new baby brother. We were worried about how he would adjust to the new competition for Mama and Dada's attentions. To our immense relief, he came walking into the hospital room asking "Where baby Owen?" He showed quite a bit of interest in the baby - obviously he wasn't quite as excited as the rest of us, but that was partly due to the fact that he could see lots of trees and cars from our window, which overlooks the Columbus city skyline.

On his ride home, Leigh Ann's mom called to tell us that he was repeatedly singing "baby Owen" to the tune of the Jeopardy theme song (yes, my son is a nerd! He enjoys watching Jeopardy with me, and will "sing" along with the tune during final jeopardy). So far so good!

More pictures of Owen

2008-10-19T15:59:00.001-04:00

More pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Announcing - Owen Thomas Fuller

2008-10-19T12:51:00.006-04:00

So apparently this little guy, in addition to inheriting stubbornness from both his Cate and Fuller lineages, is also impatient. Saturday started out fine. We had some errands we wanted to run before the big day this coming Thursday. We got some grocery shopping done, we got some things at Walmart and Joann's, and then we got some take-out dinner from O'Charley's prior to our friends the Bevans dropping their daughter off for us to watch. Leigh Ann felt a little uncomfortable, but chalked it up to having done a bit too much walking. But then (I'll spare you the details, which I'm sure Leigh Ann appreciates) the situation was such that Leigh Ann decided to call her doctor. Next thing we know, the Bevans are picking up not only their daughter, but our son as well, and we are off to the hospital for observation.

Well, turns out that Leigh Ann's water has broken and she was having some minor contractions. So in we go. We got to the hospital around 10pm. Her initial contractions subsided, so they went ahead and induced her. Things were pretty slow from midnight until around 5am, when they picked up just a little, but not a lot. The nurse decided that maybe having Leigh Ann sit up would encourage the little guy to get a move on - and boy did it. In the space of about 15 minutes, she went from not even halfway there to not being able to not push. Before the doctor could even get there, the moment had arrived, and so, at 6:19am, Owen Thomas Fuller was delivered after only 2 strong pushes by a 2nd year resident. He weighed in at 7 pounds 10.3 ounces, with a healthy set of lungs.

Leigh Ann and I are dead tired. We'll keep you posted.

Friday Musings

2008-10-17T14:38:00.002-04:00

So I have come to realize that a lot of others will post random musings on their blogs, not just the latest family happenings. I decided I would attempt it as well, to add some variety to this blog.

I thought I would take some space here to post some thoughts on something I am quite fond of . . . food. I am especially fond of it since my being diagnosed with diabetes and my diet that I have been on for several months now (absence does make the heart grow fonder).

These are some things I very much enjoy.

Barbecue. Alright all you non-Southerners, I'm not talking about anything that is cooked on a grill, I mean barbecue, which is pork - or pulled pork. I have my favorites, but I will try anything. Give me my choice, and I will ask for Dreamland (their ribs are fantastic as well). I got hooked on this stuff while living in Birmingham, AL, and swore that I would die with a rib lodged in an artery.

Ice cream. Thank heavens there have been major advances in the no sugar added variety lately, because I would die if I could no longer enjoy the stuff.

Chocolate. I've always liked chocolate, but my time in Switzerland on my mission brought me to new levels. The Lindt brand (especially the Pistachio) still is my favorite, but I also liked a Swiss brand called Frey. In a pinch, a good Rittersport or Milka bar was also good. Milka is a German brand, and the first place I served on my mission, Loerrach, was a small town in southwestern Germany that had a Milka factory. When the wind blew just right, the whole town smelled like brownies. This was absolute torture on Fast Sundays.

Cheese. While on my mission, one of my companions and I went on a quest to try the stinkiest cheeses we could find - anything with the word "mountain (Berg)" in the name was always a pretty good bet. I suppose I am partial to the Swiss varieties (Emmental, Appenzell, Gruyere), but I am also fond of some others, including Mozarella, Cheddar, Tilsiter, Edam, Gouda, and Parmesan.

Fondue. Another love I developed in Switzerland. While I have never actually had a dessert fondue (I made one disastrous attempt at some diabetic-friendly chocolate fondue once that looked and tasted like mud - just ask Leigh Ann, or our friends Andy and Rheanna Stevens), I have tried several others. I am particularly fond of cheese fondue - primarily a good Gruyere and Emmental blend, or an Appenzell fondue - but I also like meat fondues, especially Fondue Bourguignonne and Fondue Chinoise. Similarly, I also was introduced to, and love, Raclette, a dish where you melt slices of a special cheese (Raclette cheese) in a special oven, then scrape it over foods, particularly potatoes.

Seafood. My favorite freshwater fish is Rainbow Trout. I love it. But I also like most seafood. I prefer fresh, but I also like the fish and chips that I can get at our local Bag of Nails pub-style restaurant. Scoma's on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco remains a favorite.

German food. Luckily Columbus has a German village, which contains a nice restaurant called Schmidt's Sausage Haus. They make their own Bratwurst and Garlic Knockwurst, and they are excellent. I usually just take advantage of their all-you-can-eat buffet, which features all their sausages, a great sausage stew, as well as German potato salad, Sauerkraut, and Rotkohl (red cabbage). For some reason, though, my son hates the place, and become hysterical everytime he goes there. Needless to say, it has been some time since I have eaten there. One of these days maybe we'll figure out what his problem is there.

Those are the highlights.

Time is running out

2008-10-16T14:17:00.002-04:00

Well, we are now in the final stretch. Leigh Ann's doctor has scheduled her to be admitted to the hospital a week from today to be induced. We are supposed to arrive at 8pm. Why so late? Who knows. My own personal theory is that it may take some time, and going in at 8pm means that it is less likely that this kid will be born in the middle of the night - which is nice for the doctor. We went into the hospital at 4pm for Jacob, and he wasn't born until 4am - the doctor showed up around 3:30am. So I'm guessing our doctor would rather not have to show up at such an early hour. I don't completely blame her - she is also pregnant, and due the week after, so what pregnant woman at the end of her third trimester would want to trudge out in the dead of night?

Of course, Leigh Ann will be up all night. She is really hoping that what they say is true, that the second birth goes quicker than the first, and that she won't have to go 12 hours again. We will also be sure and get her a big meal before we show up. We didn't think ahead last time, and she hadn't eaten since noon the day of, so she went almost 24 hours before getting anything decent to eat - ice chips don't really cut it, especially when your diabetic husband, who has to eat, is munching on something over in the corner (speaking hypothetically of course).

Leigh Ann has a different doctor this time around, so we don't get to go to the more convenient St. Ann's hospital that is closer, rather we have to drive downtown to OSU hospital. I've heard it is a nice facility, but the idea of having to go downtown doesn't appeal to me.

3 Years and Counting!

2008-10-12T10:41:00.004-04:00

So we have reached another birthday with Jacob! Actually, this one came almost a week late. I was in San Antonio, Texas, for an international HCV conference from last Sunday until Thursday, so I wasn't actually in town for his birthday on Monday the 6th. We decided to wait until Saturday to celebrate. Leigh Ann's mom came into town to stay with Leigh Ann while I was gone, in case munchkin number 2 decided to make an early entrance into the world, and her dad took the opportunity to pay a visit to his company's office in northern Ohio. I got back on Thursday night, and Leigh Ann's father arrived Friday night, so we had the party Saturday morning.

Jacob was excited when he came downstairs. We had his presents set up on the table, along with some balloons. What did Jacob love? The balloons. His Grandma Rice sent him lots of tractors and a couple of tractor books, which he loves. His Grandma Cate and Daddy Cate (these are all his names for them) brought him a Backyardigan's DVD and music CD (Jake still loves Pablo) and some more Thomas trains. We bought him a little Thomas the Tank Engine tent to play in. He proceeded to pile all of his toys into the tent to play with. But at the end of the day, what did he love the most? That's right, the decorations - the balloons. Helium-filled balloons are just about the coolest things a little boy could get.

This last month has been a doozy in terms of sickness. The week before I had to leave, Jake came down with pink eye. Leigh Ann and I were frantic to not catch it - me because I had to go to a conference and present a talk, Leigh Ann because she had to work her last weekend before her maternity leave, and didn't want to expend any more PTO.

Neither of us got pink eye. However, on my flight down to San Antonio, I came down with a killer cold, and spent most of my time in San Antonio in my hotel room nursing a fever. When I returned, I found Leigh Ann also was starting to come down with it. We now both look very pathetic and have nagging coughs that we are trying to get rid of. We're hoping that everybody will be back in good health shortly, as we are less than 2 weeks from the due date for our second energetic little boy.

Jacob continues to increase his vocabulary. More and more he is sounding intelligible - although he still clings to certain false words, even though he can say the right thing. Specifically, the work that he uses to replace both look and work is "merk." Oh well, one step at a time.

A message to Amama Cate, Daddy Cate, and Amama Rice

2008-08-31T17:47:00.002-04:00

We shot this video a while back on our video camera (my birthday gift the year Jacob was born), but I have only recently downloaded it onto my computer. I was compiling all the videos for the last year, and seeing this clip, we thought the grandparents might like to see it!

2008-08-07T22:16:00.003-04:00

So our family took a trip at the end of last month to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. We spent half a week there with Leigh Ann's family, staying in a cabin in Pigeon Forge. We lucked out with beautiful weather, and had a great time. Being in the mountains was a great feeling - although it made the flatness of central Ohio all the more stark. One day we took a drive up to Clingman's Dome. This first picture is of the 3 of us sitting on the Tennessee/North Carolina state line at Newfound Gap, not far from the Dome.
We then drove further up to Clingman's Dome, where we had a picnic lunch.
Finally, this picture was taken off of our back balcony at the cabin - giving you a pretty good idea why they call them the Smoky Mountains - this was early one morning.
Jacob behaved perhaps the best he has ever done on a long trip. We enjoyed eating at Bubba Gump's in Gatlinburg on our first night - Leigh Ann has been craving their stuffed shrimp ever since she had it while visiting San Francisco during our honeymoon.

We also took a tram ride up to Ober Gatlinburg. Jacob enjoyed the long tram ride up and back. He was also excited to see that they had real bears up at the top. Ober Gatlinburg has a series of amusement park-style rides. Leigh Ann's brother Brian and I took the opportunity to ride the alpine slide they had there. We bought Jacob a stuffed black bear, which he loves, and after helping him realize it was not a cat (when he first got it, he kept making meowing sounds), he now affectionately calls it "Smokyabear."

We were all sad to leave, but Leigh Ann and I were grateful to not have to share a room any longer with a little boy that enjoys getting up earlier than we do. Unfortunately, several of us seem to have picked up something in the air up there, and we then spent much of the next week with intestinal flus (I'll spare you all the grisly details - suffice it to say it was no picnic).

First trip to a carnival

2008-06-25T11:51:00.004-04:00

Every year we have a jazz and blues festival in downtown Gahanna, Ohio. Last year we only strolled around to see what all they had at it, and found that, in addition to the music and food, they also have a carnival set up. This year we decided to take Jake to his first carnival - it was a mixed bag.

We only had a couple of hours to spend before Leigh Ann and I were dropping him off with friends so we could have a night out. They had 4 rides specifically for kids, but the only one Jacob wanted anything to do with was a car ride (a bunch of cars that go round and round - kind of like a merry-go-round, just with cars). He had to sit in the red car that looked like Lightning McQueen (from the Disney/Pixar movie "Cars"). He had a blast. Then he insisted that we ride the ferris wheel. Leigh Ann couldn't ride it (pregnant), so I went with Jacob. Once we were locked in, I knew it was not going to be a fun ride. He really didn't like the starting and stopping as they loaded everybody on (especially not when we were stuck at the top). He quieted down once we started moving, but not for long. He was more than ready to get off once it finally stopped!

We thought that another trip on the car ride would calm him, but he was in full break-down mode, so Leigh Ann made the executive decision to also introduce him to one of the wonders of our modern culinary world - cotton candy!

As you can imagine, Jacob did love the cotton candy. Initially he would only lick it, but we finally convinced him he needed to take big "Cookie Monster" bites so he would be done by the time we had to drop him off with our friends and their daughter Abby. Jake loved this stuff! Leigh Ann repeatedly asked him if she could try some, but he would pull it away and cry, "No, my turn!" We have had marvelous success teaching him about sharing!

Jacob continues to grow up. His vocabulary is growing daily, and more and more of it is actually intelligible. Leigh Ann is progressing with pregnancy number two. Standing for long periods of time and picking Jacob up is getting harder, but she's still insisting on doing everything she did before.

Here are pics of Jacob with his cotton candy (if you look closely at the one in the van, you can see that his mouth is blue and pink).

A New Bed and a New Baby . . . .

2008-06-13T11:47:00.003-04:00

So last week we finally switched Jacob over to a normal twin size bed, in order to free up the mattress on his toddler bed to go back in the crib that will be soon needed. Jacob transitioned very well from crib to toddler bed - he loved having the freedom of getting in and out whenever he wanted (especially to go grab toys!), and yet we never had a lot of problems with him getting out of bed, or coming out of his room before he was supposed to.

So just as with the toddler bed, Jacob loves his new bed. It is still a bit high for him, and we have had to put a little step stool next to it so he can climb in, but he thinks it is the greatest thing. The morning after his first night on it, after finishing breakfast, he headed back upstairs to repeatedly climb in and out of the bed. We bought bedding, but he still prefers to sleep on top of the covers with his old Cars blanket! We'll also go in to check on him before we go to bed, and he has usually moved off of the pillow.

Last Saturday, Jacob and I spent a couple of hours at a local antiques mall while Leigh Ann was able to get away for a few hours with her friend (some relaxing shopping time without the kids). I enjoy looking for vintage shaving equipment, and we were also hoping we might find a cheap headboard to go on Jacob's bed. What we did find was a Woody doll (from Toy Story) and Jacob is obsessed with him. So obsessed, in fact, that I had a little trouble getting him out! After finding Woody, it then became his obsession to find Buzz Lightyear. Over and over, he kept holding up Woody saying, "Hi Woody, where Buzz? I no see Buzz. Wherezee?" Every day, he checks with Woody at least once to see if there have been any Buzz sightings. Needless to say, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 have now moved near the top of his favorite movies to watch.

In other news, we went in for Leigh Ann's 20 week appointment and ultrasound on Thursday. The doctor said that everything looks just fine, and we are still on schedule for a due date of October 25. Her doctor said that we can be fairly confident of the due date, because she is due 5 days later, and she doesn't want to be delivering our kid in between her own contractions. So we will keep you all posted on the progress.

Oh, and by the way, we are having another boy!

At long last - new pictures

2008-06-04T23:21:00.002-04:00

As promised, here are some recent pics of our little man. Jacob has become quite the talker as of late, and more and more of it is actually understandable (at least to us!). He now knows how to say his own name, although he has modified it (he says something like Adger). He is fascinated by phones right now, and has claimed Leigh Ann's and my last phones. He pretends to make calls, and always announces himself by saying, "Hi, a me, Adger." Translation: Hi, it's me, Jacob.

Jacob just tonight transitioned into a regular bed. So that we could have the mattress in his toddler bed back for the crib that we will soon need, we went about getting a bed. He was very excited tonight when he saw the new bed. It is a bit too high for him still, but we put a little step next to it, and he easily climbed up. He didn't want to sleep with regular sheets and a blanket, so he ended up sleeping on top of the covers with his faithful Cars blanket!

He keeps us busy, as always. We keep trying to get him used to the idea of a younger sibling, but he doesn't react favorably. We have finally brought him to the realization that there will be a new baby, and currently it is in Mommy's tummy. Frequently now, whenever tummys are discussed, Jacob will let anybody within earshot know that Mommy has a baby in her tummy. When Leigh Ann first told him this, he went over and lifted her shirt a little to see if he could see the baby!

He is quite the character. He will do anything if he thinks it will give him a laugh. I ask him, when he has obviously got a dirty diaper, if his diaper is poopy, and he promptly responds, "No, no puppies." I'll say, "But Jake, you smell stinky." He then replies, "No, no tinky puppies." I am torn. On the one hand, he is not telling the truth, and I want to teach him that is wrong, but at the same time, I can't keep a straight face as he tells me he doesn't have any stinky puppies in his pants, and it might confuse him if I tried to punish him while laughing.

Anyways, enjoy these new pics!

Gone for a while

2008-06-04T11:55:00.002-04:00

Sorry, I have slacked off a bit in posting on here. It has been almost 2 months since my last post. I will try to get the newest info up before too long, and pictures of everybody's favorite Fuller kid.

Incidentally, we go in on the 12th to find out what baby #2 will be. Stay tuned . . .

Walking in Dada's Shoes!

2008-04-09T11:43:00.001-04:00

At long last . . .

2008-03-30T20:52:00.003-04:00

As promised, here are new pictures of everyone's favorite little Fuller boy! Jacob has had quite the last month. After discovering his absolute fear of the dark, we have gone from a night light to keeping his closet light on, and we are finding he is sleeping better! Why didn't we discover this sooner? Well, Jacob is an interesting little boy. If he is really sad or scared and will start crying, you won't hear him. Chances are, if you can hear him, he is faking to get his way on something. Needless to say, he was not being loud about this fear. Things are much better now.

Leigh Ann and I had the opportunity to make our annual trip to Scali's Restaurant for our anniversay on Saturday. This has got to be the best Italian cuisine I have ever had. My favorite (actually, the only thing I have ever gotten there) is the Brasciole. You have to love steak, ham, and mozarella, but if you do, this is heaven on a plate. The Chicken Marsalla gets two thumbs up from Leigh Ann. Afterwards we went out and saw the very romantic movie, "I Am Legend." I thought it was a great movie, Leigh Ann liked it as well, but said it was kind of freaky and made her nervous! I would recommend it.

And Then There Were . . . 4!

2008-03-27T13:49:00.002-04:00

Alright, we have been keeping pretty tight-lipped about it until now, but I guess it is time that we can make the announcement. We are expecting our second child! Leigh Ann just had her first appointment today, and the baby is just a hair (literally) under 3 cm long, putting us just shy of 10 weeks. The estimated due date is October 25. We must have a thing for October babies - Jacob was born October 6.

We've known for about a month now, but wanted to put off a widespread announcement until the first official doctor's visit. Jacob, our ever amusing and crazy 2-year old, does not seem that excited about the prospect of sharing the house with another child. Whenever we ask him if he wants a baby brother or sister, he promptly says no! Oh well, you can't blame him. He's had the run of the place for over 2 years now. That's a lot of power to have to give up!

Leigh Ann, of course, is waiting for the fun of the first trimester to end! We are celebrating our 4th anniversary this Saturday (technically it was the 26th, yesterday, but we both worked, and since she I work days and she works nights, it meant we had a total of maybe an hour together) - and she is hoping that she will be able to enjoy our favorite Italian restaurant here in Columbus - Scali's.

I know I have been a slacker about posting in the last little while - I'll try to keep more up to date, especially as the pregnancy rolls along!

Jake and Dada

2008-02-04T23:44:00.001-05:00

Sometimes for fun, I can entertain Jake with the built in camera on my Mac laptop computer. With the Photo Booth program, he can see on the screen what the camera sees, and he enjoys watching things on the screen. I can usually get him to smile this way, since he doesn't really think of it as a camera. So I snapped some pictures the other night of him and I. We had been having a good old time, playing some Backyardigans games on the Nick Jr. website. Actually, I played the game, and he sat there enthralled, thinking it was an actual episode, and wanted another when the game was over. Leigh Ann also found a Blue's Clues game and played it with him the next night. It still amazes me how utterly he loves those shows, Blue's Clues especially. He constantly walks around the living room with his official notebook, looking for clues, then goes and sits in his thinking chair.
We are all doing well. I was supposed to take a trip down to Galveston, Texas, over a week ago for a conference, and from there go to Lafayette, Louisiana, for an experiment. But the experiment got canceled at the last minute, and I came home unexpectedly. The experiment has been re-scheduled for this coming Tuesday, the 12th, so I am heading back down that Monday. I know, you are all wondering what there is to do in Lafayette. Keep wondering. As far as I know, there is nothing to do, other than go down for my experiment. It is close to Avery Island, though, where Tabasco sauce is made.
Leigh Ann's parents were able to come up and stay with her and Jacob while I was gone, which was a big help for Leigh Ann.

I thought I would also show you Jacob's Santa pictures from last year. If you go back and look at those from last year, you will see that Jacob was definitely less excited about seeing Santa this year than he was last year.

End of the year Wrap-up

2008-01-13T17:45:00.000-05:00

Alright, so I know I haven't posted in a while, and I apologize. Everything always seems to get turned on its head around the holidays, and we seem to just now be getting back into the normal rhythm.
In November my family came out for Thanksgiving. David flew here from Korea, Richard from Utah, and Mom and Clyde from California. We had a great Thanksgiving meal in our little home. We were surprised that our first Thanksgiving turkey went so well. We took David to see the Kirtland temple, because he arrived a full day before everybody else, and the others had already seen it. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we all went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, which was very impressive. Jacob did amazingly well!
This year for Christmas we decided Jacob was big enough to put the regular big tree up. The Sunday before Christmas, Leigh Ann snapped a picture of Jacob and I, already for church.
One of Jacob's new Christmas gifts was a new Crayola Color Wonder coloring book, with the "Cars" theme. Everybody who know Jacob that, at least at the time, he had two obsessions - Cars and Blue's Clues.
And to follow up, for Christmas, we found Jacob an inflatable Blue's Clues Thinking Chair. He had a lot of fun with it down in Chattanooga with Leigh Ann's parents (where we spent Christmas). Unfortunately, the chair could not withstand the requirements put upon it, and seems to have sprung a leak. I am trying to identify the leak and seal it up, because he loved the chair, as you can see in this picture and in the video below. All in all, it was a very busy holiday season, but we had a lot of fun visiting with family, and while we were down in Chattanooga, we took the opportunity to meet up with some of our Birmingham friends - Andy and Rheanna Stevens and Holly Woods - down in Gadsden at the Cracker Barrel. Jacob continues to amaze us with how well he handles the long drive to and from Tennessee.

With the new year comes new challenges. The latest, and biggest, is our quest to potty train Jacob. So far it is going slowly, as he is not that keen on the idea of having to go to the toilet to do his business, rather than just using a simple diaper. At the very least, he seems to be learning bladder control, as he will hold it in as long as he has underwear on, and then let it go the second we put him in his trainer pull-ups for nap time and at night for bed.
We hope you all have a great new year, and we'll continue to post the news and progress of our young family.

Love,
Mike, Leigh Ann, and Jacob

Aaah, young love!

2007-11-19T11:29:00.001-05:00

I just took this one because I was experimenting with the B&W function on our digital camera, and you don't have to deal with red eye!
So I think I have mentioned before that Jacob has a girlfriend. Her name is Abby. They hang out together a couple of times a week, on average, when Abby comes to our house on Monday mornings and Jacob goes to her house on Friday afternoons. Jacob usually does not like other kids his age. He doesn't like them near him, and he certainly doesn't like them near his toys. But Abby is the exception. So far, she is the only other child that Jacob allows near him. Not only near him, they will give each other hugs and kisses. Here, you can see that Jacob is actually sharing cookies with her (unheard of). He also calls her by name. Just to give you some perspective, the only other names he knows are Mama, Dada, Pooh, Blue, Pablo, and Elmo (thanks to Abby). They are cute together. To give you some idea of the contrast, you can see there that Abby is very daintily holding her cookie with just her thumb and index finger, while Jacob has his whole hand clamped on his while cramming it into his mouth. In this picture, they are watching Fish Movie (aka Finding Nemo) together.

Jake's second halloween

2007-11-01T14:04:00.001-04:00

So this was Jacob's third Halloween, and we didn't do anything for the first 2. So this year we thought we should do something. We were at Michael's one night getting things for making our Thanksgiving wreath (we decided last Christmas that we could make a Christmas wreath that we actually liked for cheaper than buying one that we only sort of liked, and thought we could do the same for Thanksgiving), and I put this hat on Jacob, and he wouldn't take it off. So we bought him a matching sword, and he was going around saying "Arrrrgggggh!" whenever I asked him what a pirate says. We took him to our church chili cook-off/trunk-or-treat on Saturday, and it didn't go so well. We had bought him his pumpkin for holding candy that day, and he immediately decided that it was the perfect container for his various cars he loves to play with. In fact, it was so perfect, he would not allow anything else in there. When we tried to put candy in it, he screamed. In addition, when we would try to get him to go up to a car to get candy (even when he knew the person), he screamed and tried to run off. So it didn't go as smoothly as planned.
Jacob got a "Cars" fork and spoon for his birthday, and he has been learning to use the fork (he already pretty much has the hang of a spoon). Sometimes it goes well, sometimes not. He hasn't learned yet to poke the fork into things. Lots of times he'll just pick the food up and place it on the fork. Oh well, he's learning.
Jake continues to grow and be more and more of a handful. He is every bit a 2-year old. He screams a lot more. He has recently decided he does not want to take naps at all, so he sits in his crib for 2 hours and talks to his stuffed animals (you can tell when he is talking with cookie monster because he starts growling, which he learned from me and my poor cookie monster imitation). Last night he discovered that he can pull his foot up to his nose and mouth. I'm sure his mother will love to see that!
We just finished painting our guest room. We had been wanting to do it for a while. Leigh Ann had to work several Saturdays last month, so I decided I would make myself useful while she was at work. Unfortunately, with a 2-year old, this meant that I could only work when Jacob was in his room, so that meant 2 hours during nap time and then late at night after he went to bed. I got almost all of it done over 2 Saturdays, and then last Saturday Leigh Ann came in and helped me with the rest, which included the border with the ceiling and along the base boards, as well as fixing some of my mistakes and touching up. We are happy with the results. We have now painted Jacob's room, the guest bathroom, the downstairs half bathroom, and the kitchen. The only other room we are considering painting is our bedroom, but we aren't quite ready to tackle that, and haven't even started thinking of colors.

0 . . . 1 . . . 2

2007-10-08T10:08:00.001-04:00

Thought it might be nice to see the evolution of Jacob. Here are pictures at birth, his first birthday, and his second birthday. He has certainly changed a lot.

2 Years Old

2007-10-08T09:53:00.001-04:00

Well, the little munchkin is now 2 years old. We had his birthday party on Saturday, and it went great. We had to do all of the decorations while he was down for his nap, so when he got up and saw everything, he started walking around in amazement, then started running around, excited. He loved seeing "coos" everywhere. The paw print cookies were a big success, and he loved the Blue that was stuck in the middle of his cake. He would not sit still for any pictures except when he was eating his cake (of which he liked the frosting the most!).
He loved all the gifts he received, as we can attest to, since they are strewn all over the living room floor. In particular, he loved the new cars and the car rug to drive them on, as well as the little train track he received (thanks Bevans), and is also now enjoying eating with the Cars spoon and fork that his Grandma and Grandpa Cate bought him.
Jacob's eating habits have changed a bit. The biggest change is that he is very picky, and other than french fries, you never know what he will and will not like. One new habit, though, is his hating having food on his hands. We attribute this to hanging out with Abby Bevan, who hates having dirty hands. So anyways, with his being new to using utensils, you can imagine what this is like. He will try to pick something up with his new fork, only to have it fall off. So he will then pick the food up, put it on the fork to eat it, and then cry out until you wipe off his now dirty hand. This can continue for the whole meal (as it did last night). We go through several paper towels at each meal, now.

A boy and his dog

2007-10-02T10:20:00.001-04:00

Jacob continues to be fascinated with Blue. Every time he sees a paw print, he yells out "a coo, a coo." And he calls the show "Coos coos." I don't know why, because he can say "Blue." Just one of those things.
Well, this Saturday Jacob turns 2. Hard to believe that he is already 2 years old. Anybody who sees him, though, swears he is older. He is just such a big kid. Sometimes I think we expect more of him because he does look so much bigger than his age. Oh well.
We are throwing a "Blue's Clues" themed party for him this Saturday. We found cake toppers so he can have a Blue cake (not as easy as you might think). Everything is going to be blue. Somebody thought we should get a pinata shaped like Blue, but we thought Jacob might not take too well to people beating his absolute favorite character with a stick.
The weather is finally starting to change here, and it looks like Summer is on its way out. We have broken out the long pants for Jacob once again. That was no problem. The problem is that he has become quite fond of wearing sandals, and when we tried the other day to put socks and regular shoes on his feet, he threw a fit.
Jacob has definitely become more social. Originally we couldn't get him to stay in nursery, and were wondering if all our hopes of having a few peaceful hours at church would be dashed. But now he can't get in there fast enough. As soon as the closing prayer is over in Sacrament meeting and I stand up, Jacob grabs my hand and leads me to the Nursery room. He also absolutely loves the children's playroom at the YMCA where he gets to play while Leigh Ann and I work out. All you have to do is say, "Jacob, do you want to go to the gym?" and he is over at the door in a flash, ready to go.
It is amazing how many demands on your time you have as you get older. Leigh Ann and I have to plan certain activities, like shopping for Christmas gifts, over a month in advance, as Saturdays seem to get eaten up. If you don't carefully plan to get some time together, it is amazing how difficult it can be (and I'm sure Leigh Ann can attest to how bad I am more often than not at planning such time).

Quite the Chatterbox

2007-09-24T16:25:00.001-04:00

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

2007-09-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-06T14:19:00.000-04:00

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.

Calling All Cars

2007-08-17T10:42:00.001-04:00

As I said, one of Jacob's favorite games is to hide his cars, then turn to you and ask, "Wheresat cah?" He loves these little cars, because they are particularly easy to hide.

Sometimes eating can be so tedious, don't you think? In an effort to not be the world's worst parents when it comes to what we feed our child, we have begun to make whole meals out of vegetables. Jacob still is fond of some types of food that are green, such as peas. But sometimes, it just isn't quite as exciting as macaroni and cheese, or a grilled cheese sandwich (are you catching a common theme for his favorite foods?).
He has added quite a bit to his vocabulary as of late. Maybe it is from hanging out with his girlfriend, Abby, who is quite the accomplished speaker, and is a few months younger than Jake. He now can say car (cah), cup (cuh), shoe (soo), ball (bah), block (blah), Winnie the Pooh (Pooh), no (NO!), mommy (mommy or Mom!), daddy (dada), cheese (sounds kind of like shee, but we are confident it is cheese, because he holds up a piece of cheese when he says it). I may be leaving out a few things, but that is a pretty good list. He also understands toes, even if he will not say it, because if you ask him where his toes are, he will reach down and grab them. He can also correctly identify his bath toys, which are boats, a walrus, a shark, an octopus, and a lobster, and if you ask for each one, he will pick them out of the water and toss them at you!
Finally, what collection of children's pictures would be complete without one of your child walking around in your shoes. Jacob now enjoys taking my shoes and putting them on. It has been fairly difficult to catch him in the act with a camera, but Leigh Ann was finally successful.
Not a lot of news to report. August has been a mixed bag, weather-wise. We had a week where it was miserable, both hot and humid, but we seem to have kicked the humidity, which makes it a little more pleasant. Leigh Ann has been battling a dual bacterial and viral infection, and has temporarily lost her voice. Ever the active one, having to spend a couple days at home with nothing to do is almost worse than the illness itself. I come home to find her bored out of her mind.

A month of Potter

2007-08-02T11:50:00.000-04:00

The month of July ended up being dominated by Harry Potter. Leigh Ann and I were able to go see the newest movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the day after it opened. We saw it on the IMAX screen, with the 20 minute action scene near the end in 3-D. This ended up not being quite as good as we had hoped, as the action got very jumpy and hard to follow.
On the 21st, then, our copy of the last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, arrived in the mail, and Leigh Ann began at once to read it. She was done within a week, and I then quickly read it. So now he have the whole story. On the whole we both enjoyed it. Leigh Ann has now decided to reread all of the books, while I have decided to go back to my old favorite, J. R. R. Tolkien. I've started reading the Hobbit (I don't know how many times this makes for me).
Jacob's vocabulary continues to grow. He enjoys pointing out cah (car), cuh (cup), stih (stick), and ball (which he uses interchangeably for both balls and rocks) wherever we go. Of course, his favorite word is "no." He has lately taken up saying it 2-3 times whenever he says it. Thus, when you ask him if he wants to go to bed, he will usually reply, "No . . . no . . . no!" I can't imagine how he has picked up this word.
We continue to believe our son has been blessed with an overactive sense of humor. While he can now say both "Mommy" and "Dada," he seems to enjoy switching them. While with me, he will call to me, saying Dada, and whenever he hears the phone ring, he will look at me and ask "Mommy?" However, when Leigh Ann appears, instead of calling out "Mommy," he will yell out "Dada." We are convinced he does it, not because he doesn't know the difference, but because he knows it will get a good laugh.
He currently has a few favorite games. One is to throw the ball around and chase after it. Another is to take some object, usually a ball or one of his cars, hide it, and then go up to you and ask "Where'sit?" This is great fun for him, and he gets a huge grin when you discover his hiding place (which is usually always the same place). His final game is hide-and-go-seek, which he especially enjoys playing with his friend, Abby. He will hide around a corner, and then shriek with delight when she comes around the corner and finds him. Jacob really loves playing with Abby, and loves it when he goes to her house to be babysat (I usually have to drag him out to the car, with him kicking and screaming because he doesn't want to leave). From time to time, though, he can get pushy with her, and we are trying to teach him not to push other children.
Otherwise we are continuing on as usual. Summer hot weather has hit us here in Columbus, although we have had quite a few days thus far where the weather was really pleasant.

2007-07-18T11:31:00.000-04:00

Jake is learning to eat with a spoon now, and it has been interesting. He is doing really well for being at it for less than a week. We have tried with cereal and yogurt. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes not. His biggest problem is that he can scoop up the food and bring it to his face with all of the food still on it, but then has the tendency of turning the spoon upside down to put it in his mouth (I guess he thinks that it should lay with the bowl of the spoon on his tongue, as it seems to fit better that way), and spilling most of the cereal and milk onto his tummy. We have typically been stripping him down to his diaper to do this, so we don't go through too many outfits a day.
He has definitely gotten more picky in his eating, and will change his tastes from day to day. One thing that he still loves, though, is french fries. He especially loves them with ketchup. Ever since a recent trip to Wendy's, he also prefers to have his ketchup in a little cup, so he can dip the fries in the ketchup. Sometimes he just prefers the ketchup, and will dunk the fry, lick the ketchup off, then put the fry down and do it again with a fresh fry (you see, the old one is now used).
Leigh Ann and I went to see the newest Harry Potter movie last week, and we loved it. While the book was not our favorite, we really enjoyed the movie. We saw it in IMAX, with the 20 minutes of action near the end in 3-D. We would have preferred seeing it on the normal screen. Maybe it was because we were too close to the screen, but with all the action taking place, the 3-D was too jerky, and the image didn't always match up, so it wasn't a great experience. Oh well, live and learn. We have already pre-ordered the last book, and are supposed to have it delivered to the house on Saturday. I'll have to suppress my natural impatience while Leigh Ann reads it. That is why I recently went to the library and got some books I thought would occupy me for a while. If not, I'll probably just reread the 6th book.

More Fun With Friends

2007-07-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

We're hoping our friends, the Bevans, don't get too sick of us. After staying at their house until 11pm on the 4th of July, we were there until almost midnight celebrating Maury's birthday (hope I spelled it right!) on Saturday. Jacob wasn't quite as happy this time around, until we determined that he was hungry. You would think that sooner or later we would catch on to his various signs. Maybe one of these days he'll just actually tell us that he is hungry.
We had burgers and sausage, again grilled outside, and enjoyed the sunny evening (wishing that the 4th could have had that good of weather).
Jacob and Abby again played together, and their budding romance continues to blossom. Yesterday at church, Jacob was acting up (we are not big fans of church from 1-4 pm, since Jacob doesn't get his proper nap, and so is really cranky at times), but when Abby came up and put her head on his shoulder, he became silent and looked at me as if to say, "What's this all about?" It was really cute. We watched Abby for a couple hours yesterday evening as well, and they took turns laying their heads on each other's shoulders. In addition, they had great fun climbing up and down the stairs and playing hide-and-go-seek.
Leigh Ann and I are excited for this week, because I have already ordered our tickets for the IMAX showing of the new Harry Potter movie. We're going to see it on Thursday. We have mixed emotions about this movie. It is Leigh Ann's least favorite of all the books, and made her so upset when she read it, that she had to throw it across the room a couple of times when things got so frustrating.
Here are a couple new pics of Jake. He enjoys putting a little wicker wastebasket on his head and walking around the living room. Every once in a while he will do it, and I finally got a picture of it. So . . . enjoy!

4th of July

2007-07-05T16:35:00.000-04:00

We had a thoroughly enjoyable 4th of July. We didn't see any fireworks, but we still had fun. Both Leigh Ann and I had the day off. We took the morning to do some shopping and get out of the house. Unlike California, we weren't in a short supply of rain, and we made sure we had our umbrella ready in case we were caught away from the car when the next storm would hit.
Jacob decided to not take a nap, and instead spent about an hour in his room tugging on the curtains from his crib and talking to himself.
We headed off to spend the evening with our friends, the Bevans, where we had a great dinner grilled in their backyard (of which we are jealous, as Jacob loved playing in their backyard). We feasted on burgers (provided by the Bevans) and bratwurst and knockwurst (from our favorite, or at least my favorite, German restaurant, Schmidt's), along with various side dishes. Their daughter Abby (who is adorable, and we are thinking of planning an arranged marriage between her and Jacob when they get older) obeyed her parents and went to bed at a decent hour, but Jacob, in keeping with his refusing to take a nap earlier, refused again to go to sleep at their house. So for the rest of the evening, he alternated between sitting on their bean bag watching "Cars" and playing with toys. We were really surprised how well he behaved, and let us play two full games, one of Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit, and one of a new game (for us) called Time's Up (at least I think that is what it was called). We finally got home by a little after 11pm, with a very tired little boy who tried to pretend that he was awake as I carried him from the car to his crib.
So although we didn't see any fireworks, we had a really good time. I hope the rest of you enjoyed your holiday.

Ball!

2007-07-02T11:53:00.001-04:00

I have been a bit delinquent with my postings, and I am sorry.
Jake has been growing and getting into even more mischief (if that is possible). His favorite pasttime continues to be playing with balls. He has also learned to climb up and down stairs, which makes it a lot easier not having to climb over a gate anymore to go up the stairs. I don't know how many times I have banged my knee trying to get over that stupid thing. Just in time, as well, as Jake, with all of his hanging on the gate, yanked one of the bolts for the gate out of the wall, so it hasn't closed right ever since.
Summer is upon us here in Ohio. While it has gotten pretty hot in the last couple of weeks, today it is actually fairly pleasant.
We had to deal with a pretty sick little boy last week. With fevers in the low 100's and a lack of appetite, Jake was not a happy camper. Before the fever subsided, he also developed some congestion, which means he also wasn't sleeping well at night, so there were a couple of times we were awakened in the middle of the night. But he is back to his hungry self, and all is now forgotten.
Life continues on here in Columbus. This month we are awaiting the arrival of the newest Harry Potter book and the newest Harry Potter movie. Leigh Ann got me hooked on the books, and I have to admit that they are really entertaining reading. I still cling jealously to my love of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but that will never change.

June 11

2007-06-11T13:46:00.001-04:00

I know, I know, what an imaginative title for this post. To be honest, not a whole lot of new stuff has happened, but I felt an obligation to put something up. I haven't taken any new pics of Jake since the last ones I posted, so I can't fill up space with those, so you'll have to be content with my ramblings.
Jacob continues to entertain and frustrate us, all at the same time. As his skills increase, so does the level of mischief that he can cause. Lately he has discovered climbing, and has even attempted to climb the book shelves on either side of our TV (much to his mother's dismay!). Right now he has discovered a wonderful invention - balls. He has at least 6 that he is fond of, but each morning he arises he calls out "ball" looking for one very specific one. It is a rubber bouncing ball that has a plastic eyeball in it. It bounces the best of all of them, so it is his favorite. If he can't find it right away, he'll look at you and ask "Wheresit?" The search will continue until he finally obtains it, at which point he will yell out triumphantly, "ball!"
His vocabulary and speaking skills are increasing as well. Unfortunately, he has now successfully learned how to say no. Just last night Leigh Ann asked him if he wanted to go to bed, and he looked at her and said no.
My brother Richard moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan back to Salt Lake City last week, so now our nearest relatives are Leigh Ann's family about 8 hours away in Chattanooga. We did get an opportunity to go up and visit Richard once while he lived in Michigan, and we were able to drive over to see Lake Michigan (you can see it in the background of the picture of the three of us on the side of the blog). Unfortunately, Jacob developed two ear infections and a sinus infection, staying up all night crying and forcing us to head home early so we could get him in to see his doctor.
Summer seems to have finally come to stay, and we have been enjoying the sunny days. We try to cook on the grill at least once a week, and Jacob loves going outside to the point that you have to drag him kicking and screaming back into the house (literally).
Otherwise, life goes on. We are still working, still working hard to keep up with the exercise and diets, and still constantly searching for new ways to entertain ourselves.

Fun With Food

2007-05-31T23:08:00.000-04:00

Not that he has ever been the cleanest little boy when it comes to eating, but I thought I would show some of his dirtier moments when it comes to eating. The worst is usually when he has macaroni and cheese, or sweet potatoes. In fact, mac and cheese is the regularly scheduled meal on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which also happen to be his bath days. So far we have refrained from taking any bath blackmail pictures.
While he is not yet the biggest speaker, he is starting to make more sense. He now says dada regularly, but unfortunately uses it for both mommy and daddy. His other favorite word is ball, and it usually refers to one specific ball that is currently his favorite toy. When he can't find it right away, he will usually turn to one of us and ask, "Where is it?" And then, if you call for him, he'll usually turn to you and ask, "What?"
He particularly gets cracked up when you fake a really big sneeze. Just tonight, he started doing them himself. He would get himself all worked up, and then do his biggest sneeze, which mainly consisted of him spitting, but it was hilarious. This is what typically passes for entertainment now that 24 and Lost are done for the season.

First Haircut

2007-05-26T22:01:00.001-04:00

We finally decided that Jacob's hair had just gotten too shaggy, so we broke down and took him to get his first haircut. Not that we didn't think that his bushy mop top wasn't cute, but it was just sticking up in every direction all the time and was starting to hang over his ears and into his eyes. So we got him an appointment at Cookie Cutters, a place that specializes in little kids' haircuts.
They get to sit in a little car that can be raised and lowered, and there are TVs for them to watch some movie. Jacob enjoyed watching "Cars" while he got his hair cut. At first he wasn't too excited about it all, but when the girl that was cutting his hair brought him a sucker, he decided maybe it wouldn't be so sad after all.
Below are a series of pictures from what he looked like before the haircut, a couple during the haircut (including my favorite with his hair put up in a mohawk), and the final product at the place, as well as a picture with him all cleaned up at home afterwards.
Jacob did remarkably well and did not complain at all during the whole ordeal. All in all, it was a pretty good experience, and he looks like a cute little boy again, not some homeless child.

Not much else new has come our way since I posted last. Work continues. Leigh Ann is starting day one of her three working days which will include Memorial Day. Such is the life of one who works in the healthcare industry. Sometimes you have to work a holiday. I am taking the opportunity to get caught up on John Wayne films (May 26 would have been the Duke's 100th birthday, so they have been showing a lot of his movies on AMC and TCM).

Candid shots

2007-04-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

Well, sometimes you do whatever it takes to calm the beast down. Jacob has not been feeling well for the last couple of days, so we have been doing everything we can think of to get him to settle down. After breakfast, he was pitching a fit, so I turned the computer camera on him so that he could see himself, and I snapped a couple of pictures in the process. They aren't as high of quality as with our digital camera, but they're not bad.
Later in the day, to get him to calm down I gave him some apple Pedialyte, which he loves. That calmed him down enough that he was in better spirits, and then he really got lively when he learned how funny it is to pelt the cat with one of his balls. That got him hysterical, until the cat decided he had had enough, so he jumped the gate at the bottom of the stairs and fled under Jacob's crib.
Jacob got sick early Friday morning, or late Thursday night. We're not sure exactly when. All we know is that when Leigh Ann went to get him out of bed at 9am, his crib looked like something out of a horror movie, and you could see everything he had eaten the previous day. After washing him thoroughly and airing out the room, he finally looked like a little boy again.
Anyways, here are the pictures.

More Easter Pics

2007-04-19T12:12:00.000-04:00

Here are some more pictures, including Jacob's first ride on a carousel.

Easter Fun

2007-04-14T10:13:00.000-04:00

Easter was a mixed bag this year. Unfortunately, while Children's Hospital considers Christmas a holiday, they don't do the same for Easter. And since it was Leigh Ann's usual weekend to work, she spent Easter at work with the dinner I had made the night before. Jacob and I had a bachelor's Easter dinner with our friend Adam, whose wife and daughter were out of town for a wedding. We didn't get any Easter pictures taken, because Columbus is looking more like Christmas than Easter.
On Monday, we made the trek down to Chattanooga, TN, to spend the week with Leigh Ann's parents in their new house, sandwiched between Red Bank and Signal Mountain in the north-western section of the city. Leigh Ann is having to adjust to a new house, after spending most of her life in their old house.
We went out and took pictures of Jacob at a park along the Tennessee river, even though the weather has not been the best here in Tennessee. It has been fairly windy, and there has been a bit of rain. Jacob also got his first ride on a carousel at the park. He thoroughly enjoyed riding around on a frog, but got even more enjoyment out of running around in the large field afterwards. It was a chore to try and get him to go back to the car in the end.
Both Leigh Ann and I have caught some kind of bug which has tried to dampen our stay, but we are still enjoying having a week off of work. We are not looking forward to the drive back to Columbus tomorrow. Jacob does well on the drive, but the last half hour always seems to be a little too much for him. Having a DVD player in the van has been a lifesaver.
While here in Chattanooga, we always take the opportunity to head down to Birmingham to see friends. We stopped in to see my old boss at UAB, who was ecstatic to see me again. He tried to convince me to come back and do a postdoc with him. Needless to say I turned down his offer. We then went and met our friends Andy and Rheanna Stevens and had dinner at my favorite BBQ place, Dreamland. Anybody who ever gets to Alabama has to try this place. For you westerners, it will give you an education in the true meaning of BBQ. BBQ is not a verb. What we call BBQ is really just grilling. BBQ is a noun, and is a specialty of the south. I have vowed many times that I would die with a Dreamland rib lodged in an artery.

Here's what you've been waiting for

2007-03-31T16:39:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-30T12:58:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-18T12:55:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-06T14:17:00.000-05:00

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!

Latest Pics

2007-02-10T12:46:00.000-05:00

This is the family on our cruise back in October. We are on Martha's Vineyard in this picture.

So I'll admit it, one of the major reasons for this blog is for people to keep up to date with the most interesting person in the family. I have been negligent in getting more recent pics of Jacob available for people to see. These were taken from November to this month. The top one, with the cheerio stuck to his nose, was from November (13 months), as was the one below with him showing you his belly button. The next one, where he is daring me to take his mac and cheese (one of his favorite meals), was from December (14 months). Finally, the one of him sitting on the couch was taken this morning (currently 16 months), holding his Winnie the Pooh ball as he was watching Pooh's Heffalump movie. We're glad he will watch something other than the Backyardigans, which get old after watching them the millionth time.

We are still trying to survive this ridiculously cold weather. Not a lot changes from day to day for us. Leigh Ann is working this weekend, so I am taking this time while Jacob naps to get caught up on organizing all of my pictures of the munchkin and getting some of them posted.

Too Freakin' Cold

2007-02-08T13:11:00.000-05:00

So after this last week, Leigh Ann is questioning why I have brought her to this arctic wasteland. In the wake of an arctic cold front moving across our state and further east, we have been hit with frigid temps. It is regularly dropping down to single digit temperatures, and when you add in the wind (there is always wind here, with no hills or mountains to block it), we have had wind chills below zero. Last night it got down to -15. A few nights ago we got a lot of snow, and, combined with the ridiculously low temps, it made for a miserable experience. It was too cold for the salt on the roads to work properly, so traffic was averaging 5-10 mph.

Aside from our new daily ritual of going to the gym (we conveniently have a YMCA just a stone's throw from our front doorstep, making it a little easier to keep up our New Year's resolution to exercise more), we have been staying indoors, trying to keep warm. Our end unit condo, which originally seemed so attractive, is difficult to keep warm downstairs. As a result, to keep it comfortable downstairs, the upstairs becomes an oven (the thermostat is downstairs), so you are too warm when you go to bed.

Otherwise, life goes on. Jacob continues to refuse to talk. We have been putting a lot of effort into trying to get him to speak in English, but only get babble. Our biggest success is to get him to say "two" as we count from one to four. His growth seems to have slowed down a bit. He's been in the same size of diapers for quite a while now, and ditto for clothes. He still continues to be adorable, even when he is getting into trouble, or misbehaving (which is not an uncommon event).

Cutest Kid In the World

2007-01-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

And I'm not biased at all! Of course, I can't claim any credit. Luckily, his mom's genes seem to be the dominant ones.

Kirtland and Niagara Falls

2007-01-25T16:21:00.000-05:00

Since I have just started this blog, and not a lot of new things are going on right now, I thought I would take the liberty of showing some things we did in the last year, just so people know that I actually am posting things. Last May, for Mother's Day, my mom, my stepdad Clyde, and my brother Richard came out to visit us. We took the opportunity to do a road trip up to northern Ohio to visit Kirtland, and then continued on to Niagara Falls. We're enjoying being relatively close to numerous sights here in Ohio. We are currently mulling over the idea of visiting Washington, D.C. sometime this year. According to Mapquest, it is only a 7 hour drive (not bad).

Anyways, the top image is all of us in the front room of the Newell K. Whitney store, in Kirtland. Next is a picture of the room upstairs above the store where the School of the Prophets was held (for those of you who are LDS, you will know what this is; for those who aren't, email me, and I'll tell you). Next is a picture of Niagara Falls (Horseshoe Falls) taken from the boat we rode on right up to the foot of the falls (Maid of the Mist). Finally, the last picture is of the Kirtland temple.

If you ever get the chance to go to Niagara Falls, take it. It is really impressive. I was a bit shocked, however, as to just how much of a tourist trap the city is. We stayed on the Canadian side, which is the better side for seeing the falls. We'd like to go back again and spend a little more time than we had. Jacob, though, hated the boat ride. That close to the falls, you get drenched, and it is cold and load, so he really didn't appreciate it at all, and Leigh Ann and I spent most of the boat ride trying to calm down our screaming son! What great parents we are!

Walking the Freedom Trail

2007-01-18T10:39:00.000-05:00

I thought I would share some pictures from our recent cruise to New England for whoever was interested. I enjoyed the history of the places we visited, so I am including a few of the sites along the Freedom Trail in Boston. The top picture, however, is a view of lower Manhattan, as seen from the top of the Empire State Building. If you notice the two very large cranes to the right, that is where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood.

The next picture is of the Old North Church in Boston, where the lanterns were hung to warn if the British soldiers were coming by land or by sea.

Next is the house of Paul Revere.

The last picture is of the Old State House, the site of the Boston Massacre.

New Blog

2007-01-14T00:02:00.000-05:00

I am trying this out as a way to keep people up to date on us and how we are doing, without having to send out emails (which I have gotten bad at). Hopefully I will be better at keeping this up to date than I have been at emailing everybody. I will try to keep it current.

We have had a busy year here in Columbus, Ohio. Jacob is now 15 months old. He is walking all over the place, and is very independent. He is also very heavy. At his checkup last week he was 28 lbs. 11 oz. He is definitely not opposed to food, although he has gotten pickier. He dislikes most vegetables now, but still loves all fruits. Although he does not speak in any language known to man, as of yet, he is nevertheless quite the talker. He also loves to laugh, and is quite expressive with his hands and facial expressions. He is definitely a little boy, and loves playing with his cars and being tickled and tossed in the air.

Leigh Ann and I are still working at Children's Hospital, she as an X-ray tech and I in the research wing. We both enjoy our jobs, for the most part, and are glad that we are both able to work at the same place. Leigh Ann just changed to working 2nd shift (3:30-11:30 pm) 3 days a week, which cuts down on our daycare costs, as Jacob only has to be watched anywhere from 6 to 9 hours a week. We have been very fortunate to find some very nice women in our ward that have been watching him. It is so nice to not have to take him to some big daycare place.

We just had a busy end of the year for 2006. In October, just as Jacob turned 1 year old, we took a cruise of New England and Canada with Leigh Ann's family. We saw Newport, Rhode Island, Martha's Vineyard and Boston, Massachusetts, Bar Harbor, Maine, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. We all enjoyed it immensely, but were glad to get back home and sleep in a different room from Jacob, where he couldn't wake us up several times each night.

In November, we made a trip down to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to spend Thanksgiving with Leigh Ann's family. It was nice and relaxing, despite getting stuck in traffic going through Kentucky. As usual, we went out shopping the day after Thanksgiving and were able to get most of our Christmas shopping out of the way.

In December, we were able to take a week and go out to Yuba City, California, to spend Christmas with my family. It was the first time that Jacob was able to see his uncle David, who was the only uncle from either side to not yet see him. It was good to have our whole family together, as David flew home from Korea and Richard flew in from Michigan.

We are continuing to enjoy being homeowners, despite the new problems it poses. We are still learning what everything means, but have coped so far. Columbus is definitely different from other places we have lived. Leigh Ann does not like how flat it is here compared to the South, nor does she particularly like the snow. It has its advantages, though, and we are beginning to think of it as home.

I will close this post, and, as I said, will try to post as new things occur. We hope you all are enjoying the New Year, and look forward to hearing from you. I am posting Jacob's first picture with Santa Claus that we took in Yuba City.