Break Dancing at 22 months old??

Jake was on FIRE last night after a fun day with Nana. He was being super silly, and I came into the room to find him doing these moves. It looked very much like he was BREAK DANCING!! It was so funny...I only caught a little bit on film, but imagine him doing these moves continuously around the room. Yes...in Jake's excitement, he threw puzzle pieces all over the floor a well...hence the complete disaster in our living room.

New Favorite Reading Spot

Jake has discovered a new favorite reading spot....it's INSIDE the stuff animal basket in his room. How he decided to actually get in to the basket, who knows, but it's hilarious coming in to find him sitting inside, right next to his bookshelf, reading or talking to his animals. (by the way, Yes...I realize that it is April and Jake is wearing his Christmas PJs...but they just now finally fit him, so I figure, why not??)

First M&M

In general, Jake really hasn't experienced much in the way of candy yet in his life. One, it's not good for him, but two, we've been scared about the supposed "sugar high" that so quickly happens to little ones (which we definitely have witnessed with giving him cupcakes at special occasions). Jake has so much energy already, the last thing we need for him to do is bounce off even more walls. Well..I decided to put 1 M&M in three of Jake's Easter eggs this year in this Easter basket, to see what would happen. From the video, you can see, he really wasn't sure about it at first, and gave the first one a try, but then gave the last two to Mama and Dada....so sweet!

Easter Dinner

Oh yes, this is the last Easter post....I'm telling ya, it was quite a year of Easter celebrations! Sunday afternoon we headed up to my parents house for my Mom's fantastic Easter dinner. My sister's friends Rachel and Justin came as well, with their 13 month old Clara. Jake and Clara had yet another Easter Egg hunt before dinner. This time, Jake got into it, and ran around picking up endless eggs before little Clara could get to them. My parents really went all out, and spoiled the kids with Easter baskets, circus tents, egg hunts and lots of toys. The food was delicious and we had a great time. Jake had WAYYYYY too much sugar, and had a meltdown in the car on the way home...oh well...it was quite an Easter!!



Nana gave Jakey his very first suitcase for Easter this year...perfect timing for our upcoming trip to Hawaii!

Easter Celebration with Tessa and friends..

After our early morning Easter basket fun, we headed upstairs to our wonderful neighbors home for a little Easter chaos with 4 other little ones between 15-20 months old. It was adorable to watch them all interact, as always. The Dads hid eggs throughout the living room, and while we expected madness of kids diving for eggs, none of them were really interested in the eggs, and rather preferred to play with all of Tessa's fantastic toys. Jake had an especially fun time running after Tessa's good friend Arlo, who is just about Jake's size, but a couple of months younger. They very much enjoyed chasing each other around, while the calm little girls watched from afar.

Easter Morning

Well....it's safe to say that the Easter Bunny was VERY good to Jake this year...wow...it has been quite a weekend of celebrations!!

To start, early this morning we had our own mini-Easter celebration, when Jake opened his Easter basket from us and some gifts from Lee Lee and Grandpa. He was in a fabulous mood, and was SO excited to open his eggs filled with goodies.

Easter Celebration #1

Today we had our Easter Celebration with Grandma Lee Lee and Grandpa Bill. The Los Altos Country Club puts on a fun family Easter lunch that Josh's parents invited us to. The Club really went all out, with kids games, face painting, a balloon lady and an Easter egg hunt. Jake is still a little too small to really participate in all of these activities, but he was definitely interested in the balloon lady, hoola hoops and Easter egg hunt!! The Easter Bunny was even there taking pictures, but of course, Jake was horrified by the idea of sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap and cried hysterically even being near him....oh well...maybe next year. Here is Jake looking for eggs, with the Easter Bunny right in front of him:

Jake learned about hoola hoops for the first time!

Jake gave driving the golf cart a try as well....

The balloon lady made Jake an ELMO balloon....he won't stop hugging it now...so cute!

Jake danced with Grandpa and the hoola hoops
Jake even practiced a little golf

Some wedding pics

I have received a few cute pictures taken by family at the wedding that I'd love to share. The wedding was held at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, which is where Josh and I were married just about 4 years ago. It was truly wonderful to be back, to reminisce about our crazy, fantastic wedding day. It was a great day, and Lindsay was incredibly calm and easy going all day long. Both Josh and I were in the wedding party, so Jake got to hang out with my parents and sister all afternoon as we had to get ready and take pictures. It was fun to be all dressed up, since it is quite rare these days that both of us are dressed up together. Jake was dressed up, but as I previously mentioned, he woke up under the weather on Saturday morning, and therefore was quite a grump throughout the wedding. Thankfully my wonderful sister volunteered to take him back to the hotel allowing my parents, Josh and I to fully enjoy the wedding reception...we owe you HUGE Erica! The reception was so much fun, that is, once I could get over the guilt of not being with my sick child. The food was great, the band was AWESOME, and the guests were so much fun. It was a GREAT wedding, and we are so excited to have Jonathan as our Brother-in-Law and Emma as a niece!

Josh was an usher, so he got to seat Jake and my parents (in the very back corner of the lawn by the way, so as not to allow for his crying to disturb anyone)

Erica ended up holding Jake the entire ceremony to keep him happy:

Here is Josh with the Groom and other groomsman: This is such a bad picture...but it's literally the only one of I have of me so far...yes, I'm squinting directly into the sunlight...love those pictures!

The Aquarium

I'll get back to the wedding once I get some more pictures, but we did head down to Monterey early to spend some time with our wonderful friends the Bolgers, as well as to just get away. Thursday we met up with Jen, Jeff and Benny Bolger (as Jake likes to call him) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and then went to dinner. The Aquarium really is quite magnificent...it's very different going and looking at everything through a 2-year-old's eyes. They have a great area for kids to touch sea creatures, which Jake loved. He also loved watching the penguins getting fed. About 45 minutes in, Jake had enough of the stroller and literally started running around like a mad man, dodging around people and things, screaming with delight...definitely kind of scary for us, as there were a ton of people there!!!

Anyways, it was wonderful to let Jake and Benny play together again and to see Jen and Jeff. We already can't wait to see them again soon...hopefully a getaway trip sometime soon?

What a weekend!

We've just returned from an amazing 4 day break in Monterey to attend Lindsay's WEDDING! I don't have many pictures yet to share, as both Josh and I were in the wedding, and therefore could not take any pictures. I don't even have one of Jake all dressed up for his Tia's wedding...but imagine...pinstripe suit pants, pinstripe vest, white shirt and pink bow tie...he was just too cute (unfortunately, of course, he decided to not feel well on this very very important day, so my wonderful sister took him back to the hotel promptly after the ceremony, so no dancing pictures of Jakey either!!). I will share pictures as I get them, but this is the only one that I have which is from the great photo booth at the wedding. With more pictures will come more details, but it really was a fantastic wedding. The best part was seeing Lindsay so incredibly happy the entire day....she truly found her perfect match in Jonathan!!

Jake gives baseball a try...

With baseball season officially here, we decided to pull out the T-Ball stand that Jake was given for his first birthday (thanks again Zimmermans!). Now, we don't have a very good backyard for baseball, as it is a typical SF cement backyard, but we figured that we could at least practice the swinging. Well...Jake loved it, although he didn't want ANY direction from Mama or Papa. Currently he is swinging with a single right hand (he will NOT put two hands on the bat, no matter how much we plead with him), and he likes to stand about 10-12 inches from the ball. The longest ball he hit was about 3.5 feet.....we'll see how the skills improve as the spring and summer progress.

Jake's first Easter Egg Hunt!

We continue to discover more and more reasons why we LOVE the neighborhood that we live in. Today our local recreation center held a free Easter celebration for young kids. While it truly was complete chaos, Jake had a great time making an Easter bag, experiencing his first Easter egg hunt and playing with bubbles. My parents were in the city for a wine tasting, so they stopped by to witness some of the cute Easter madness (and Jake even let us sit down for lunch together!).

The Easter egg hunt in particular was hysterical...the organizers laid out a couple hundred plastic eggs all over the park, and the kids all lined up at the start line. Jake picked up on what to do immediately, and started running around like a crazy kid picking up eggs. The entire hunt was over in about 1 minutes, as there were easily 150 kids there...but it was cute to watch Jake.

Jake is quite ready for his BIG Easter egg hunt with Grandma Lee Lee and Grandpa Bill in a couple of weeks.

Jake's first Easter Egg Hunt:

Dinner with Lee Lee

Grandma Lee Lee stayed for dinner on Tuesday night, which was quite a treat! We all walked down to Chestnut Street and went to one of favs- Squat and Gobble for dinner. Jake was pretty well behaved, and VERY excited to have Lee Lee with us!

Forts!

It's hard to keep Jake occupied for long these days, so earlier this week we started teaching him about building forts. Now, we don't have much furniture to really turn into a fort, so it's basically me throwing a blanket over a couch or building walls of pillows, but he seems to have a blast anyways!

Sharing...

Well...sharing has become a larger and larger issue lately with our little Jakey. He is at the stage where he will simply go and grab a toy out of our another child's hand, and run away with it.

When Emily sent me these pictures of Jake and Taylor Schofield riding Jake's pony together, it was a reminder...he does KNOW how to share...kind of!

Hiking and Beach Day

Sunday was so gorgeous outside, we couldn't stand staying in. So we headed over to Marin and did the Tennessee Valley hike to the beach for the day. It was a great little hike, and Jake was totally happy at the beach, as well as in the BOB for the hike. We'll definitely be going back! Jake's "project" at the beach was collecting rocks and building a BIG rock pile.....simple pleasures I tell ya (yes...I forgot all of the beach toys at home...so, we used some imagination).!!!