San Francisco Aquarium

We decided to venture out and try something new this weekend, so we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf and spent the afternoon at the San Francisco Aquarium. All in all, it was kind of a sad, tiny aquarium that really isn't worth the money...but we still had fun watching Jake with the fish (literally ALL the fish were sad gray fish...not a single colorful fish was to be found in the entire place!). He is definitely amazed by animals right now, which is super cute to watch.

All about standing!

It appears that Jake might just skip over the whole crawling thing altogether, as he seems WAY more interested in standing up as often as possible. While he still needs to hang onto something, his little legs are now strong enough to hold him up for quite awhile. Here are some pics of the standing skills:

Old pics from Josh's b-day brunch

As our entire household caught the flu Josh's birthday weekend, I never was able to post some of the family pics taken at Josh's family brunch:

Papa playing with Jake

While Jake isn't crawling yet, he does have this super fun crawling tunnel. Papa likes to get inside the tunnel and play with Jake...very cute to watch:

Seeing Katie and Ben

Saturday afternoon we met up with the newly engaged Katie Rendler and her wonderful fiance Ben. We met them in darling Los Gatos to catch up before they were off to their big masquerade ball. It was wonderful to congratulate them in person about their big engagement...we are so happy for them both!!

We're SO Sorry!!!

We want to write an official apology to all of those who Jake has infected with the stomach bug. It appears that what he got a week and a half ago, he is STILL spreading around, as both Grandmas have gotten it, and how the poor Bolger family. We are so incredibly sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused you guys!! Drink your fluids and get some sleep, and we'll keep our little germy son away from all!

Jake got to see his BFF again

We were lucky enough to see our great friends, the Bolgers this past weekend as well! Little Ben Bolger has grown so much, and is now as tall as Jake, even being 4 weeks younger (he is quite the string bean compared to our little Chub though!). Jake was very excited to see his friend, but they still didn't play much together yet. Next time, when they are both sitting up, I'm sure we'll get some fun interactions between the two of them!

Jake meets Charlie

Our old friend Lindsay Brown was in town this past weekend, staying down in the South Bay. Thanks to our friends Shannon and Zach, we had a fantastic lunch on Saturday, and got to see Lindsay and meet her new puppy Charlie. Charlie is very, VERY friendly and loved to lick Jake all over (even licking his hair!). I'm sad that I didn't get a pic of Shannon and Zach with Jake (next time!), but here are pics of Lindsay, Charlie and Jake. Lindsay hadn't seen Jake since he was 3 weeks old...he has changed quite a bit since then!

Jake helps us open mail

A new nightly ritual: Mama brings in the mail, and sits down with Jake to sift through it. Jake LOVES to taste all of the mail, discarding certain pieces as junk, but most enjoys those catalogs with endless pages to rip up!

Flu, Flu, go away!

Wow...well...Josh's birthday week started off well, as he and I got to go on our first dinner date in 7.5 months! My Mom was nice enough to stay late on her Thursday Nanny day, so Josh and I went to Mamacita here in the neighborhood and had an excellent, quiet, yummy celebration dinner! Friday however, I got the dreaded "please-come-and-pick-up-your-sick-child-immediately" call at work. Apparently the stomach flu was being spread around the entire day care center, and Jake was the first incident in his room, and they wanted him out ASAP. The poor guy had a tough night, but woke up the next morning seemingly better. We met the families for a Birthday brunch celebration for Josh (which was delightful..thank you all for coming, and apologies for the absolutely obnoxious waiter). By the time we got home however, Jake was getting sick again, and proceeded to get worse throughout the day. Sunday was my turn...yep...woke up with a horrendous flu. By Sunday night, it hit Josh the worst actually (thank goodness we had today off, so he could just stay in bed all day long). None of us are totally up to snuff yet....so, please, please flu...go away!

Jake and Papa Celebrating

Happy Birthday Papa!

We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful, loving, fun Papa in the whole wide world.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! We Love You.
-Love Jake and Mama

Drool...

The drool is endless these days!

Random Picture of the Day

Complete concentration

Playing with my new camera

The next few posts will most likely be purely random pictures of Jake. I've been playing with my new REAL camera (thanks again Nana and Granddad) and of course, Jake is the perfect muse.

Jake's first visit to the park!

I've been dying to take Jake to the park for weeks now, just to see if ANYTHING would be small enough for him. Today we finally ventured over to one of the many wonderful parks in our neighborhood. I brought my awesome new camera (thanks to Nana and Granddad) just in case we actually could get Jake in the swing. While he is definitely WAY too small still for the swing, we let me kind of dangle around in it for a bit while Josh held on to him. At first all he wanted to do was people watch (just like Mama!), but Josh finally got him to smile a little bit with a few tiny pushes on the wing. All in all, we probably won't be going back for a bit still, but very soon Jake will be begging to go every day I'm sure!

Here are just a few of the many pics on my new camera to capture the moment:

Riley's 1st birthday party

Saturday we went to Riley Zimmerman's 1st birthday party. We can't believe that it has already been a year since we held Riley in the hospital the day after she was born. It was hilarious watching Jake stare in envy at the "big kids" crawling and walking around him at the party. When one would come near him, he would lung and grab them and try to bring them to him. My camera was dead, but thanks to Lindsay Koch we at least got a family pic from the party (yes...Jake found the pretty cardboard coasters, and ate them for most of the party)

Bath time continues to get more and more fun

Jake has always LOVED bath time. It's become extra fun recently, as he can now sit up in his Little Man tub and truly play with bubbles and toys. Last night he actually came out of the tub with prune fingers from playing so long!

Jumping Jake

Our neighbors Dan and Katherine loaned us this jumper thing that you hang in the door frame after they saw how much Jake likes to jump around with Mama and Papa. I always thought these things were really unsafe, but this one seems pretty secure for his weight at the moment. The first few times we played with Jake in it, he really didn't understand what to do. I think he has finally figured it out though!

Jake's first taste of Cheerios

This past weekend Jake tried Cheerios for the first time. His natural gag reflex prevented him from actually enjoying the Cheerios the first time, but ever since he has been gumming them and then swallowing them quite well. This was a momentous occasion, as we know Cheerios will become a life long favorite for sure!

7 Months old today!

I can NOT believe that Jake turned 7 months old today. Lets see...over the last month he has officially learned to sit on his own (still no crawling), is now eating real food (just discovered Cheerios!) and still can't wipe the smile off of his little face.

We love ya Jake!

I tried to give him a candle for his 7 month celebration, but I only made him cross-eyed (see pic) and then of course he tried to eat it!

Crazy monkey

Josh's Uncle Bruce and Aunt Lynda gave Jake this crazy laughing monkey for Christmas. It's quite adorable watching Jake with it, as he just can't understand what it is!

Blah, Blah, Blah...

While I don't want to say this is actually Jake's first word, he has taken to conversing with us with ramblings of literally "Blah, blah, blah". It's quite hilarious and adorable. We're definitely still working on Mama and Papa...but here he "talking":

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year dear friends and family. We had a wonderful New Year's Eve celebration last night with our fantastic neighbors Dan and Katherine and their 4 week old newborn Tessa. It has been a great week off for me, filled with bonding time with my Little Man. Every day he is surprising us with new fun tricks. Lately Josh and I have been having so much fun getting Jake to laugh, as he is just the happiest baby one could ever, ever wish for. Whenever he laughs, you just can't help but laugh along with him, as he is just consumed with pure joy!
This is the wonderful mood we woke up with January 1st, 2010. We feel so lucky to have a year of wonderment and adventure ahead of us this year with our treasure of a baby boy.