Happy 3 Year Anniversay Josh!

Yep...today marks the day! Three years ago we awoke in Monterey to experience the most amazing day we could have ever imagined. It's been a wonderful three years of marriage!

Playing Phone

While in Tahoe, Jake started playing phone...very cute. The funniest part was that 90% of the time, he would tell us that "Arthur" was on the phone. Arthur is his friend from daycare...how in the world he picked up his name, we'll never know.

(fyi- the freakish mess behind him in the video is an example of the mess Jake now makes during every meal!)

Happy Birthday Grandpa Bill!

We wish you a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY Grandpa Bill!

New word

While in Tahoe, Jake saw lots of squirrels, chipmunks and birds. But what new animal word does he learn instead.....

What a trip

Well...we've returned from a great week in Lake Tahoe. We have definitely learned a thing or two about vacationing with an infant. Here are just a few:

- We must redefine "relaxation" now that we have a 1 year old. Gone are the days of reading books by the pool (we're such fools to have brought two books each expecting to blaze through them). Gone are the days of peace and quiet as well as simply sitting around doing nothing. Our new definition should simply state that vacation/relaxation is when we are not at work, nor distracted by a computer or other things, but together as a family, enjoying ourselves.

- Staying in a three story home for a week, with a 1 year old who has never had a chance to experience stairs, is simply and utterly exhausting. We can't even count how many times we had to chase Jake up the stairs and then catch him before he attempted to go back down (he simply thinks he can point his head downward, and down the stairs he'll go...ouch).

- Beach time is GREAT with a 1 year old...plenty of space for him to crawl, endless sand for him to dig into, tons of people for him to watch

- If we ever want to go to bed early on vacation, get in the car, and drive around for a half hour sometime after the 8 o'clock hour. (We didn't figure this out until about 4 nights in, but it worked like a charm with Jake for the last few nights...finally some quiet to actually read our books!)

While there was little sleeping in, or laying around, we really did have a great week away.

Building Sand Castles

Jake had fun again at the beach today! We taught him how to build sand castles.

Jake goes hiking for the first time!

We decided to go for a hike yesterday and give Papa's new Father's Day present a try. Jake ended up really enjoying the backpack. I think he likes being able to see what is going on, and the walking motion actually nearly put him to sleep! We found a great little hike to a vista point that overlooked the entire Lake. It was absolutely gorgeous!! We're going to experiment with a longer hike tomorrow...we'll see how he does!

More Father's Day pics

For Father's Day dinner, we also took Mark's advice, and made a reservation at the Wild Goose restaurant. Thankfully, we made the earliest reservation of the evening, as Jake really has gotten to the point where anything nicer than say a Chili's type place, is just impossible to go to. Immediately when we sat down at this very nice restaurant, Jake starts pounding on the table and babbling loudly. The big, beautiful wine glasses on the small table were just begging to be broken. Josh and I could barely enjoy our great meals, as we had to hold our little wiggle worm who really didn't want to sit in his highchair. So, farewell to the nice dinners for a couple of years! At least the day at the beach was definitely a success!
Today we're off to the pool to see how Jake likes the water.

Father's Day in Tahoe

As most of you know, we are in Lake Tahoe for a week for our first family vacation, just the three of us. We are staying at Uncle Mark's fabulous home in North Star, which is about a 15 min drive from The Lake. For Father's Day, Josh requested that we spend the day at the beach. We followed Mark's advice, and headed into Nevada to the Sand Harbor state beach. It was FANTASTIC...very clean, HUGE beach area, not too crowded, and a fantastic view of Lake Tahoe, with snow capped mountains in the background. Jake LOVED playing in the sand, and had lots of walking practice time with Papa as well. It was a great day (dinner was a little rough, but more of that later).
Happy Father's Day again Papa!

Happy Father's Day Papa!

We love you Papa!! You're the best Papa EVER!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Happy Father's to our Fathers as well! We love you Jon and Bill!

I love mac and cheese!

I love mac and cheese!!

Pinata

Here is the funny video of Jake and his 1st birthday pinata. Of course, the darn pinata wouldn't break, and then poor Jake didn't understand what was going on.
Thanks to Mr. Bolger for taking this footage =)

Early Father's Day with Granddad

We celebrated an early Father's Day with my Dad this weekend, as we'll be gone in Tahoe on the actual day. We had a wonderful brunch up on sunny Kings Mountain to celebrate. Jake sat at my old highchair that my parents dug out of the storage room. He also took a turn on my Mom's old rocking chair from when she was little. It was a great day.

We look forward to celebrating with Grandpa Bill on the 27th.

Pool time!

With this amazing weather, we decided to buy a little kiddie pool for the back yard. Jake loves to get in it and splash around. We put him in the adorable swimsuit that Dan and Katherine brought back from France for Jake today...so french and so cute!

Yeah for Papa!!!

Josh ran the Giants half marathon yesterday without much training at all. Wahoo for Papa!!!

1 Year Old Stats

Here are all of the latest stats of our 1 year old Jakey:

Head size: 49.3 cm (98th percentile for his age)

Height: 30 inches ( 50th percentile for his age)

Weight: 20lb 14 oz. (20th percentile for his age)

Now we were VERY surprised to hear that Jake's weight was where it was. He just looks and feels heavier than that! Josh is now affectionately calling Jake "our little bobblehead".

Other stats:

Favorite food: blueberries, tofu, strawberries, pasta, avocados

Food dislikes: Anything that has to be fed to him (besides a bottle), not so hot about any veggies at the moment either

Favorite toys: Books, noisy walker, big bus toy, instruments

Schedule: wakes around 6:30 am, goes to sleep around 8:30 p.m. (still not sleeping through the night)

Teeth: 8, with #9 molar popping through at this very moment

Walking skills: Cruising everywhere, standing alone for about 30 seconds, but yet to take first official steps on his own

Words: Mama, Dada, Uh-Oh, Arthur (friend in his class), Ball, Bye-Bye

More Giants gear for Jake!

Jake received some wonderful gifts...most of which we're storing away for a rainy day. But, we did have to pull out the Giants bat and ball (many thanks to the Zimmerman family who we can always count on for some good baseball stuff!)

Jake had a great time playing with the ball and bat, and even tried to teach Tia Lindsay and Jonathan that the Giants are better than the As!

Celebration with Mother's Group

We had yet another celebration, but this time it was for ALL of the babies in our Mother's Group who were turning 1 within two weeks of each other. We met up at Julius Kahn park for a picnic and playtime. It was wonderful to finally catch up with ALL of the mother's whom I had come to depend on and appreciate last summer as I was learning all about crazy things babies do. They truly are wonderful girls and it is so nice that we're still in touch a year later!

(Jake and I, Lori and Cason, Lee and Lauren, Anne and Elijah, Stephanie and Allison, Casey and Christopher, Erin and Haylor, Tria and Arthur and Kristin and Lilly)- we missed 3 Moms who couldn't join us

Jake's birthday celebration at school

Oh yes...last week was a FULL week of celebrations for our little Jake. We went into school last friday to find this adorable sign on the door, and a request to come back and celebrate in the afternoon. So all of the kids sat down for a birthday "tea time" in the afternoon and teachers made this adorable hat and sang and sang to him. It was incredibly sweet!

More Birthday pics and video....

There were some people who were terribly missed on Jake's big day, such as his Tia Erica. For those who did not witness Jake blowing out his first candle, here is the big "Happy Birthday" song and a few other details. Jake seemed to be quite confused during the big song, and not so interested in the chocolate initially. But after I put a little frosting on his lips, he was ALL about that cupcake!! =)

The sweets:

Some of the decor:

Pinata time with Riley:

Happy 1st Birthday Jake!!!

Wow...what an amazing day it has been! It has been exactly 1 year since we rushed to the hospital and our Little Jake Tyler was born. I know that everyone says it, but this past year really has FLOWN by. Watching Jake grow every day has been life changing for both Josh and I, as we try to learn to be "good parents". We feel like Jake is truly an amazing little man, with a fantastic, fun, excitable personality, all of which he was just simply born with! We are incredibly grateful to have him in our life, as he is just a big ball of love an joy.

We love you so much Jake! Happy 1st Birthday!!

We had a special 1st Birthday BBQ this afternoon which turned out well. It happened to be a sweltering day here in SF, and poor Jake isn't a huge fan of being hot (he's a true san francisco kid!). But, we had fun anyway. More pictures to come, but in short...Jake LOVED his chocolate cupcake!

Discovery Museum

We headed over to the Discovery Museum again this past weekend, as Jake always has such a great time, and it is the perfect place for a beautiful day.

Seeing Mother's Group friends

Last week I was able to see a bunch of my old Mother's group friends. It was great fun to see how much the babies had grown. This Thursday we're having a BIG 1st birthday party with all of the original 13 of us Mother's and babies....it really will be a blast, as it just feels like yesterday that we sat around a circle and introduced ourselves with 6 week old babies.

Here is Jake with Cason and Alison