Tessa time

Jake is just LOVING our upstairs neighbor Tessa these days. She is now 13 months old, and walking around like a champ. Every time she passes our door, Jake runs to the door yelling "Tessa, Tessa!". Its incredibly sweet to watch. Last night we caught them as we were heading to get some dinner. Tessa immediately took over pushing Jake in his stroller. It was so cute!

Beach time again

It was a cold day, but that didn't stop us from heading to the beach for some run around time. Jake decided that he wanted to chase all of the sea foam, and pop as much of it as he could. Pretty cute!

Hanging out in GGP

As Josh was super duper busy this entire week and weekend with work stuff, I have had LOTS of Jake time (and sorry...little time to update this blog). But, today Tia Erica came up to play with Jake and I. We decided to head to Golden Gate Park, as we've heard about this train exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers for ages now, and we had to check it out. Well...the train show really was spectacular!! I highly recommend it for anyone with Little Ones, especially those who are super into trains like Jake is. Basically they built three huge train tracks, and surrounded them with mini replicas of all of the major San Francisco landmarks. The best part was...all of the landmarks were made out of super interesting recycled products like rulers, keyboards, ketchup bottles, etc. Jake LOVED it!!! He didn't really care of all of the exotic, gorgeous flowers throughout the conservatory (although he did get attached to this little cupid/angel statues), but the train room we had to visit twice.
Here was Ghiradelli square made out of light switch plates and the Japanese tea garden entrance made out of mahjong tiles and computer parts!

He's Counting!!!

It's crazy...but all of my annoying repetitive counting of nearly everything we do seems to have sunk into Jakey!! He can count from 1-6, and then he usually skips to 10..but still! When he started actually saying numbers in sequence, I just couldn't believe it. Check it out!

Baby showers...

More and more of our friends in the city are finally having babies...yeah!!!

On Saturday we went to a couples shower for our friends Carolina and Phill...due in March. They are going to be wonderful parents, and we are SOOO thrilled that they are going to be having a baby in just 8 weeks!

The shower was great, although, as usual, I pretty much got to chase Jake around most of the time, and not talk to many of our friends. Jake immediately made good friends with a 15 month old named Abby...VERY cute to watch them together. He was also enamored with the two older girls who were in town from Montana...he really does have a thing for older girls!

Anyway, it was good fun meeting some new people and watching boys drink beer out of baby bottles (go Dane!).

Here is Jake and Abby...both were obsessed with the starbursts...not to eat but to play with...

Putting Words Together!!

Jake is finally putting two words together! It's so exciting to hear, as he really is trying to communicate with real words all day long now.
Some of his newly put together phrases:
- "Come Mama"
- "Sit Down"
- "Go home"
- "Big truck"
I know...it's not a big list...but it quite a step! =)

Jake's new favorite

Josh's parents are moving in the coming weeks, so today we had a great time looking through all of Josh's old stuff. Jake is now obsessed with Josh's old cars and airplanes. It's so sweet to see him play with his Papa's old favorite toys!!

Just wait until I get some pics of Jake is some of Josh's old clothes...the classic 70s t-shirts and overalls...can't wait!!

Hummus!

Jake could eat hummus by the spoonful (or perhaps I should say handful) for all meals....he loves it!!!

Erica and Jake's day

Here are some pics from Erica and Jake's day and night together this past weekend. Once, again, we are so thankful that she was able to watch Jake for a full 24 hours for us!

Shared Birthday Family Celebration

With both Josh and Jonathan's birthdays in the beginning of January, it looks like we've started a new family tradition of a big combined birthday celebration with all of the Fredriksons and Goines'. We decided to try Buca di Bepo's for the venue this year, as it is loud and fun and ok for little ones. It turned out to be the perfect location, as they put us virtually in our own little room, where Jake could walk around and make noise without disturbing too many people.

It was a great dinner and a great family get together. Looks like the next time we'll all be together will be at the big wedding in April!

Here Jake decided to start putting stickers on Granddad's face for his own entertainment:

Of course Jake was smothered with love and attention by the two grandmas:

Here the two birthday boys got to blow out candles together:

Many thanks to Erica!!

Josh's big birthday present this year was a 1 night get away up to Sonoma, with a day at the spa and a nice dinner out. We hadn't ever left Jake overnight with anyone before (as it really isn't fair of us to do, as he is still waking up throughout the night...who can you inflict such a night on??). But, my wonderful sister Erica gave Josh for Christmas/Birthday a full night of baby sitting. So...we took her up on it and headed up to Sonoma on Saturday morning. We arrived just in time for our spa appointments, and then spent the afternoon lying out next to a pool reading the afternoon away. Now....it has been a longggg time since either of us has been able to sit around and do nothing all day, so to us, this was paradise. After some naps (well...I took TWO, and Josh didn't take any) we headed to old town Sonoma for a great dinner. It was lovely just having some alone time and real conversation time with Josh. After dinner, we came upon this old theater in the Sonoma square, and we decided to take advantage and went to a movie (the King's Speech is an amazing movie for anyone who has not seen it yet!!!). It really was a wonderful day away, and we are so incredibly thankful to Erica for taking care of Jake!!!

Here is Jake giving Erica his headbutt hug to say thank you and good-bye:

And here are more pictures of Jake "helping" Josh open presents on Friday evening:

Birthday festivities begin...

We had a nice little family birthday dinner last night to start Josh's birthday weekend of celebration. I made him chocolate peanut butter cupcakes and we opened gifts. Jake went crazy with the tissue paper...I have video which I'll upload later, but it was hysterical.
We're now off to his surprise night away...more later.

Happy Birthday Papa!!!

It's here, it's here!! Today is Papa's BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Josh! We love you and look forward to celebrating with you all weekend long!

(I love this pic, as I feel like I can actually see Josh's face in Jake's face...he looks just like Papa!)

Josh Appreciation Week...day 4

In honor of Josh's birthday coming up on Friday, I'm posting about Josh this week:

Josh,

We love that you're quite the family man under all of your smart businessman ways. We love that you look forward to coming home to see us every night. We love that you want to spend quality time with us when you're not working so hard. We love that you care about us as much as we care about you. We love that you like taking adventures with us. We love that you like to laugh and do silly things with us from time to time as well.

We love you and we can't wait to celebrate your birthday with you tomorrow!!!

Josh Appreciation Week...day 3

In honor of Josh's birthday coming up on Friday, I'm posting about Josh this week:

Well....it's safe to say that Josh is quite the guys guy. He loves his sports (it rarely matters which sport, as he seems to enjoy them all). He loves his boy time/sport time/play time. While it means that I lose him for much of the weekends in the fall (thanks to Cal football), I have to say I can now laugh at his addiction to Sport Center....plus I've been able to go to some amazing sporting events myself! It's adorable watching Josh try to instill his love of sports in our son...Josh literally can envision himself already coaching the little league team in the near future. I look forward to the day when I see both of my boys on the field!

Josh Appreciation Week...day 2

In honor of Josh's birthday coming up on Friday I'm posting daily about Josh this week:

So Josh and I met about 10 years ago now, as most of you know, while working at Intel. Looking back at pictures, we were just babies! I don't have any pictures from those first few years, as I didn't have a digital camera back then (wow..that's crazy!), but we really have grown up together! We've been through a lot, but we've have had so much fun along the way. Josh is an incredibly caring and protective guy, who definitely puts family first!! Here is a trip down memory lane of my life so far with Goines:

2003: NYE

2004: Bolger wedding (Josh's first semester at GSB)

2005: One of the few times I've ever gotten Josh to dress up for Halloween- GSB halloween party Feb 14th, 2006: The proposal

2007: Honeymoon in Spain

2008: Last big trip before kids- to Ireland

2009: Jake arrived and we became parents

2010: We made it through 1.5 years as parents and are still learning together daily

Josh Appreciation Week...day 1

In honor of Josh's birthday coming up on Friday, I wanted to post some pics of my favorite Man each day to remind everyone how wonderful he is.

Day 1: Proving himself with his first diaper change EVER the day Jake was born, Josh made me so proud! He was such a fantastic help those first few days of parenthood, and I'm still so thankful for everything he does for us!

It's FREEZING outside!!!

Oh man....it's been freezing all week here in SF, but I didn't really care until the weekend came along. YIKES...we had to pull out all of our seriously cold weather gear to go outside with Jake. And...we went to the beach of all things! why...who knows...it's just a special place for us, and it's a nice place to let Jake run around and play.

Chuck E Cheese

Today we went to cute Riley Zimmerman's 2nd birthday party over in Dublin. It was held at Chuck E Cheese!! Jake had never been to any type of place like Chuck E Cheese before, so instantly when we got in the door, he was very interested in all of the colorful excitement. Marc and Allie had reserved a big space for their party, and served up pizza and yummy cupcakes. Jake had a great time going on some mini rides and watching the Chuck E Cheese figures perform for all of the birthday groups. Josh and I hadn't ever been to such a party with Jake, and we were definitely overwhelmed, but Marc and Allie were totally calm with tons of kids running around for Riley's party. It was a great time, and Jake was upset to leave of course!
I took a bunch of small videos, so I just threw tiny snippets together here to give you the gist:

Little Spaces

Whether it be empty boxes or hidden corners, Jake seems to find them all in our home, and get inside them. He decided to turn his new rocking horse into one of those spaces the other night, and wouldn't stop crawling under it...forget getting on top of the horse, Jake was all about getting under it:

19 Months Old

Jake is 19 Months Old today. Quick updates:
New Words: Too many to count...he can repeat nearly every word that we say now. Putting them together isn't happening yet, but he is still chatting all day long, half in real words, half in his babble. His most used words are: bus, truck, airplane, milk, cracker, mine and Mama/Dada
New interests: trains/cars (he can spend an hour now moving his cars around the room to new little hiding places...it's quite a shift from the 1 min attention span that he had just a month ago), climbing, stickers/coloring, and still very much into books
Size: He is still on the smaller side (except for his head of course). Josh's Mom looked up Josh's stats at 19 month, and they were very similar to Jake's in weight and height.
New food likes: ketchup, salsa, mango, tacos
We can't believe that we're counting down to his 2nd birthday soon!

Playtime with the Fredriksons

Jake and I went up to my folks house last week for some playtime. Jake had fun chatting with Great Grandma Jennie, playing trains with Tia Erica, riding his new horsey with Granddad and being held by Nana: