Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

What a year 2010 has been!! Here are some favorite picture memories of the past year:

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

Lots of Museum time this week!

Due to Gap corporate being shutdown this week, and Josh still having to work, I have had LOTS of time with my Little Man over the last few days! With this freezing cold/rainy weather though, I have resorted to indoor activities to try to keep Jake occupied. I find that if I stay home all day long on such days, both Jake and I get a little crazy. So...we've been heading out. On Tuesday, Tia Erica joined us for a wet morning at the Discovery Museum in Sausalito. For the first time, Jake was somewhat big enough to climb onto the "big kid" play structures. Once he climbed up, he couldn't figure out how to get down, but boy did he have fun running around the top of this thing:Thursday I decided to take Jake to the Coyote Point Museum in San Mateo. I have fond memories of this museum from my childhood, primarily around semi-finals for the middle school science fairs (yes, both my sister and I made it to the semi-finals over the years...such dorks). Jake loved the live animal exhibits, especially the bobcats, foxes and coyotes. The indoor area was primarily filled with science experiments that were slightly too advanced for Jake (he was most interested in touching the buttons and wheels on each exhibit, vs. actually looking at what they were about). Of the exhibits, he seemed to like the simulated San Francisco fog display the best...how appropriate:

Parent Teacher Conference Time Again...

Yep...another 6 months have past, so it was time for me to sit down with Teacher Ivy to discuss Jake's development. All in all, as you can see below, he is right on track, and in general quite an agreeable child in the classroom. I thought this comment was funny: Under "Steps for Success":

"Continue to strengthen (Jake's) gross motor development by working on his balance and leg strength during yard time and free play" (i.e.- he still falls A LOT! ha ha...very nicely put Teacher Ivy)

Christmas continued...

Our Christmas adventures continued:
We joined the Goines side of the family for the afternoon and evening of Christmas. We began by opening gifts...and once again...everyone was SOO generous. We received fantastic, thoughtful gifts from Josh's parents and Lindsay and Jonathan. Jake received his first train set AND his first Legos. The grand finale was when Grandpa Bill wheeled in Jake's big present...his first tricycle!! He ran to it immediately and had a HUGE grin on his face as soon as he was being pushed around on it. I'm having issue uploading Flip videos to this blog, but here are some snapshots of him receiving his new bike:

And on his first ride in SF on Sunday afternoon:

Val, Mike, Kate and James joined us all for the traditional Goines family Christmas dinner of enchiladas. It was a great meal and Jake behaved really well throughout, saving us the stress from the night prior of throwing food and crying at the dinner table. Our only mishap was a little accident involving wonderful Aunt Val and Jake. With all of the family there, Jake was running around before dinner giving everyone hugs and kisses. Now, his version of hugs and kisses are a gentle headbutt to the shoulder area of the recipient (hugs) and touching noses (kisses). Well...Jake was making his rounds, and somehow his version of a hug/kiss turned into a full-blown accidental headbutt to poor Aunt Val's nose. Needless to say, she was very uncomfortable all through dinner trying to stop her bloody nose. We felt, and still feel so horrible for this little accident. As Val said the next day when we stopped by to apologize again, "We'll be able to laugh about this someday with Jake...it was a Christmas to remember!"

Sadly, I got no Goines family Christmas picture, but I did catch Tia Lindsay and Jake giving nose kisses:

What a Wonderful Christmas!!!

We are now home, after a whirlwind three days of celebration with family. It was truly a WONDERFUL Christmas. Jake was in great spirits all days, even though he slept little and was the center of attention all day long. We could not have asked for a more fun, problem free (except for one...which I'll get to later), exceptional Christmas.

We began the festivities by going to my parents home on Christmas Eve afternoon. We drove up to a sunny, gorgeous day on Kings Mountain. Jake had a blast playing with Nana and Granddad in the "down down". My parents pulled out some of my old toys, and Jake took to the circus set and to the Memory game cards immediately. My Mom served up a tremendous Christmas Eve dinner with just our little family. Besides a mini meltdown by Jake at the dinner table, it was a relaxing evening. Christmas morning we woke up at my parents house, to find a Christmas gift extravaganza (we continue to say that it's going to be a "light Christmas" each year, and yet the gift piles just keep on growing). Jake awoke to a talking, jumping, rocking horse to bring home. While he was slightly scared to actually get on it's back, he gave the horse lots of hugs a kisses throughout the morning. Jake was interested in opening his other gifts for about 15 minutes, and then he was all about actually playing with his new toys.

We wish that Erica was in this picture, but she is behind the camera for this great family pic:

Here is Jake entering the room filled with gifts on Christmas morning...to find his new rocking horse. As I mentioned above, he wasn't so keen on riding the pony yet, but he will grow into it soon we're sure! Thank you Santa!!

Ok...video isn't uploading correctly right now...here are some snapshots from the video:

We went down to Josh' parents home around lunch time to spend Christmas afternoon and evening with them....pictures and stories to come tomorrow from those adventures...

Merry Christmas!

Our wonderful neighbor Katherine took these pictures of us in front of our Christmas Tree.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Holiday Card

Yes...yet again, as Josh continues to point out, I significantly miscalculated just how many Holiday Cards I needed to order. For some reason, after I spend all this time creating our holiday cards, I get so excited to order them, that I never really think through just how many cards I need to buy (crazy, considering I spent 10 years of my career in PLANNING!). I sincerely apologize to all you wonderful friends and family if you did not get a Holiday card from us yet...some are still in the mail, and some may get a New Years Card instead.

Happy Holidays from the Goines'!!!

Goines Family Annual Christmas Party

Immediately after the college friend holiday party, we headed down to the Annual Goines Family Holiday Party. As usual, Mark and Gail were amazing hosts, serving up delicious dinner from Simon's restaurant. It was great to see all of the Goines family in one place, although I didn't get any good pictures of the large group unfortunately. Jake was pretty well behaved, considering he had already done 4 hours of holiday parties earlier that day.

One of his highlights was definitely meeting Rachel's guinea pig Patches. Jake is ALL about the animals right now. He has no fear, and wanted to climb right into poor Patches cage!!

Jake also discovered Rachel's piano, which we already know that he loves to play with. Lastly, he found car's to zoom around the floor (I believe they were Tommy's?). It was a good time, and we look forward to seeing all of the Goines' again very soon.

Christmas party with the kids

My girlfriends from Santa Clara have an annual holiday get-together each year right before Christmas. This year we decided to include the husbands and kids and skip the nice lunch out/girl time. Well....parties with many kids under the age of 2 are REALLY chaotic! Thankfully, the Drogin's were kind enough to host the party, and they had a terrific playroom filled with toys. Needless to say, much of the party either Josh or I were in the playroom with Jake playing with the new and different toys.

It WAS very cute to see how much the kids had grown since we had seem them all this summer. We caught most of them for a quick picture moment before the nice clothes were covered with crud.

From left to right: Ben Bolger (17 months), Will Drogin, Khloe Koontz (3 months), Jake Drogin (20 months), and our Jake (18 months).

Adding pictures taken by the Bolgers:

Getting to know each other...

Little Ben Bolger and Jake are still getting to know each other. At this point, they have seen each other many times, but really haven't actually played together much. Well...they bonded over mud puddles at the San Francisco zoo this time! Yep...of all of the activities and animals, Jake and Ben got the biggest kick out of jumping around in the rain puddles!

We're sure that they are going to be good buddies when they get older, so it was great to watch them giggle with delight together in the water:

Last pics:

Goats Again!

Yep...we had to go to visit the goats again while we were at the zoo. It's so much fun, as you can buy handfuls of food, and let the kids actually feed the goats. Both Ben and Jake tried to taste the goat food this go-round, but both decided it wasn't so tasty.

Jake's first carousel ride!

At the SF zoo, very strategically on the way to the entrance of the children's petting zoo area, there is a great big Carousel. This visit, Jake was actually quite fascinated by it, and all of the colorful moving horses. Ben Bolger is an old veteran of Carousels, but he seemed equally excited, so we put all of the boys (big and small) on the Carousel for a ride. It was super cute watching the Dads and Sons riding around. Jake seemed to have a fantastic time, and will most definitely be requesting to go again next time we're at the zoo.

Santa Arrived...at the Zoo!!

Our wonderful friends the Bolgers drove up from Monterey for the day today, to play with us at the SF zoo!! We had a fantastic time with them and their son Ben (who is 1 month younger than Jake). Jake did LOTS of new things today, including riding a Carousel and taking a Train ride!! But...to start the day, SANTA was sitting at the entrance of the zoo!! Jake has just learned to say Santa's name (well...he calls him "Tanta"), and he didn't quite know what to make of sitting on Santa's actual lap! It was super cute, and a great way to start our visit.
Many more pics to come, but wanted to share these for now:

Little Mishap

Last night was my good friend Brie's annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (pictures of that to come later). Jake came along, as we had no babysitter, and we knew that he was going to have a blast. Well...not one, but TWO dogs came to the party. Jake was SOOO excited to see the "dog-dogs" as he calls them. He was chasing them around, dancing, and in general being quite the little ham. Unfortunately, Jake was pestering the little dog just a little too much, and poor Seamus had enough and nipped at Jake. So, we have our first Dog bite/scratch (we're not sure which). Jake is totally fine. He has a little bloody scab on his eye lid now though, just time for the holiday pictures...gotta love it! =)
We're so sorry Seamus!

Holiday Sing-A-Long

It was Pajama/Holiday Sing-A-Long Day at Jake's school today. All of the kids came over to the Gap building, and we all sat in a big circle and sang songs. Of course, it did not take long for the non-shy kids to get up and start dancing in the middle of the circle. And you guessed it...Jake was one of them of course. It was little tiny Jake dancing around with all of the 3, 4 and 5 year olds! As one of the parents said "wow...Jake has some moves"! I'm not sure what you call them, but he loves to move his little body to music!

We made it through 1.5 years of parenthood!

Wow...Jake is 18 months old today, which means that we have been parents for officially 1.5 years! Thinking back to when we found out that we were pregnant, we really had NO idea what we were in for. No matter how much advice you received through friends or books, you just can't explain parenthood until you've lived it. But..we've survived and we love it!

Here are some of my very favorite moments over the last 1.5 years:

1. Of course...the day Jake was born. After a very longggg laboring process at home, it was wonderful to finally meet him. I thought that I was exhausted then...but now I know that those few hours were nothing compared to our crazy life now.

2. Bringing Jake home from the hospital for the first time, and looking at Josh with complete bewilderment as we walked through the front door. We often turned to each other in those first few days and asked "What do we do with him now"?

3. Rocking and napping with Jake for hours in his room during those first few weeks. We would sit in his sunny room after Mommy bootcamp and just rock, read and nap for hours each day. It was wonderful just watching his sleeping, beautiful face.

4. His smiley disposition. Jake started smiling VERY early on, and really never stopped...it melts our hearts no matter what time of day or night he does it.

5. My morning time with Jake. Generally I get about 2-2.5 hours every morning to play with Jake before I leave for work (and I'm not going in late...I leave by 8:00, but he is just a VERY early riser). We have a routine, and he kind of just follows me through the house and chats away all morning long. He has learned to mimic much of what I do, and I think it's just hilarious. Of course....he also is getting into everything these days, so I am generally tired even before I get to work, but, that's part of being a parent, right?

6. Walking hand-in-hand with my son. This is how Jake likes to take walks now...no more stroller for the most part. It's very sweet and touching...and we love our little family:

18 Month Stats!

Jake is going to hit the 18 Month old mark on Sunday! crazy! We already did his big check-up though, and here are all of his latest stats:

Head: 51cm- as always "well above the 98% percentile"

Weight: 23lb, 3oz.- 25th percentile

Height: 31.5 inches - 25th percentile

New words: Walk, Toes, Moon, Star, Truck, Airplane,Nose, Baby, Doctor, Cookie

Christmas Trees!

As I have worked in corporate retail for 7 years now, often times when this time of year arrives and I am kind of over the excitement, as I have planned, assorted and strategized the Christmas season for the previous six months...but, this year, I'm SUPER excited for the holiday season. Much of my excitement is due to Jake, as he sees all of the crazy traditions start to appear in our home, his face just lights up with excitement. So, this past weekend, we actually got our Christmas Tree! I know...it's early, but, nothing makes me feel cozier than sitting at home with Christmas tree lights twinkling throughout my living room. As Jake isn't quite old enough to run through the tree forest and actually cut down a tree with us (although this is a BIG tradition in the Fredrikson household, and I look forward to doing it with him in the near future), we headed to good ole' Home Depot for a 6 foot tree. Jake was very excited to run around the tree area and claim all of the trees were "mine" (his new favorite word). He actually got upset with an adorable family as they tried to examine one of the many trees that he had claimed. Here is Jake running around picking out all of the trees: