Happy Birthday Lee Lee

Well...I waited all day yesterday to post a big happy birthday to Lee Lee, as I was hoping to get a cute picture of Jakey and Lee Lee last night at her celebration...but sadly I didn't. So, here I now am, posting a day late. But, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEE LEE!! We are so thankful for everything you do for us and Jake!

Thanksgiving!

This year Josh's sister Lindsay decided to host Thanksgiving Dinner...and she did an AMAZING job!!! Lindsay and Jonathan went all out, with a baked turkey (SUPER moist and delish!), stuffing, mac n' cheese, string beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce...I mean the menu went on and on! We were SOO impressed with everything and so very thankful for being able to just show up with dessert as our life is in such chaos right now! WONDERFUL job Linds and Jonathan. Many endless thanks yous!!!!
Sadly I missed taking a picture of the adorable table settings as well as the enormous spread of food...and then I somehow cut Lindsay's face out of this picture....not my best photographer moment!

Jake Quote of the Day:

This morning Jakey and I are listening to some silly music, so I'm wiggling around and just having fun. All of a sudden Jake stops the music:

Jake: No Mama, don't dance like that! You have to dance to the BEAT!
Me: well...excuuuuuse me!!!!

Can you imagine! A 2 year old saying that! Too funny!

Happy Birthday Tia Erica!

We are so sorry not to be near Tia Erica to celebrate her big day today. We'll have to celebrate when she comes home for Christmas break in December. But, until then, Happy Birthday!!! We miss you!

Cotton Balls!

This morning Jake was in the bathroom with me as I was getting ready and I saw him take off with my bag of cotton balls. I thought nothing of it until I realized that things were very quiet in the living room. I walked in to find him "juggling" my cotton balls, SO proud of himself! And check out the mess that he made just this morning before school!!! Can't wait for a playroom type spot for him in our future new home someday!

Dance Time!

I arrived to pick up Jake the other day from school, to find Dance Time going on. Jake had positioned himself right next to the mirror so that he could watch himself, and he had NO interested in going home with Mama. Pretty cute!

Pumpkin Carving

It has been a tradition for too many years to count, so my wonderful friend Brie had to come over for a quick pumpkin carving session last weekend. Jake was interested in joining us this year, but only because he wanted to play with the knives....ugg. I thought for sure he would want to get his hands all messy with the seeds and guts of the pumpkin, but he had no desire. But, it was great to catch up with Brie. Here are the basic pumpkins...Tessa came over to play just as we were taking our picture.

How Papa puts Jakey to bed:

Had to catch this on video....Josh tries to put Jakey to bed these days when he gets home in time, so that they can have a few moments of quality time together. Normally we read stories before bedtime, but Papa has started singing songs first this week...always the same song- Take me out to the Ballgame (of course, right!). After singing it a few times last night, Jake totally picked it up. Here they are singing the song together in the dark...pretty cute!
It's really dark to watch, and turn up the volume!

More Halloween Pics

Our neighbor Katherine took these pics of yesterday:
Yes...Papa ended up wearing the blue monster costume on his head for our brief trick or treating adventure...

Halloween...ouch!

Well....Jake really, REALLY didn't want to dress up for Halloween this year it turns out. Josh and I both left work early to make it to his daycare for the "Imagination Parade". Each room picks something, and MAKES their costumes. Well...Jake's room made apple costumes (painted garbage bag for the body and a toilet paper roll on their heads for the stem), and moments before the parade Jake decided he absolutely did not want to wear the apple costume (his two best buddies also rebelled). So, Josh and I rushed over to find him placed at the very end of his class parade, in tears of sadness the entire walk. Somehow I DID manage to convince him to wear his skeleton PJs to school as his shirt though, so at least he was in some sort of costume.

During lunch I rushed out and and got supplies for a pumpkin costume, because as of this morning, he promised that he would wear a pumpkin costume for trick or treating. Of course, once he got home and saw the pumpkin costume, he opted out of it vehemently as well. Thank goodness he was ok with putting on the the skeleton PJ bottoms for a somewhat complete Halloween costume (although to him, we just called it his jammies, and he was ok). We walked down the block to the great Avila street which is totally closed off to cars for Halloween night. It was jammed with kids of all ages, and neighbors all mingling. Sadly, at the very first house the teenage kid handing out candy jumped out and scared Jake to death...and that was pretty much the end of trick or treating. We did get to walk down with our great friends Dan, Tessa and Katherine who had the best family costume of anyone we saw: Curious George, Man with the Yellow Hat and Lady with the Yellow Hat...so cute.

All in all, it wasn't Jake's favorite day ever. Crossing our fingers that next year he will be more interested in this super fun day!

Here he is very upset in the school parade:

This is what he finally decided to trick or treat in:

Our neighbor Dan and his daughter Tessa: