Let me read you a bedtime story

Jacob has started to "read" us some of his favorite books.

First week in Nursery and what do we get?

We decided to bring Jacob into the nursery this week at church.  He still has another week before he hits 18 months, so was are staying with him for these first 2 weeks.  He has such a great time!

I had to laugh because one of the nursery workers commented that they were glad that so-and-so's black eye was healed up for the new kids first week in nursery, (didn't want to shock the new parents.)  I guess there was a little issue between a couple of the kids and one ended up with a black eye a few weeks ago.

Well, Jacob made it through his first day of nursery unscathed.  But, later that afternoon when he woke up from his nap I heard a loud bang immediately followed by crying.  I ran in to see what had happened and found Jacob standing in his crib with his blanket over his head.  He had a dark spot just below his right eye that quickly turned into a large "goose egg."  Someday he will learn that it's not the best idea to run around with a blanket over his head.

So if anyone asks, yes, Jacob did get a black eye on his first day he attended nursery!  ;)

He's reading! :)

Okay, maybe not. But check out what Jacob learned just a few days after Halloween.

Okay, now that I'm all caught up...

It's time for a Halloween post! We began our festivities with the Ward Halloween Carnival. We dressed Jacob up as an aviator. At the last minute Dave and I decided to dress up as Hawaiian Tourists. There is a man in our ward that brought all his photography gear and took these fun Halloween shots.

While we didn't carve pumpkins (how lame is that!) Jacob and I did have fun coloring pumpkins and going on a "Big Pumpkin" hunt around the house.

If you are familiar with "The Flight of the Conchords" this may look familiar to you:

While we didn't take Jacob around the neighborhood trick or treating. we did make it over to Paul and Mary Ann's. Isn't he a cutie!

We ended the day passing out candy at our house. We had over 100 trick-or-treaters this year! A new record for us! We actually ended up running out of candy. Luckily, Bill and Michelle + kids came over for a bit and Sarah was kind enough to offer her younger brother's candy to the last trick-or-treaters!

Playing in the leaves...

We have these 3 autumn blaze pear trees next to our driveway. The leaves are just gorgeous right now!

Did I forget to mention?

He is walking! (and has been for sometime now)  He took his first steps about a week before his 1st birthday. Over the past two months he has gradually moved towards walking almost exclusively now.

A visit to the dentist

I decided to take Jacob in to a local pediatric dentist for a complimentary "Happy Visit." He now has 10 teeth and 2 more molars on the way.

Jacob did really great at the dentists office. The dentist examined and cleaned his teeth, did a fluoride treatment and recommended that we start saving for braces. :( Jacob's baby teeth are pretty crowded on the bottom but look beautiful on the top. Unfortunately, beautiful now means trouble later. His top teeth are really snugly fit. No gappy smiles for my boy. :)

So, for now, we just keep on brushing and start flossing. Have you ever tried to floss a 1 yr old's teeth?

We left the office with a "goodie" bag filled with a Tigger toothbrush, dental floss, Baby Bling Vanilla Ice Cream flavored toothpaste and a superhero flosser. They even gave Jacob a coin to use in the prize machine. We picked out a little "egg" with some dino sticker in it. Not to bad for free!

Someone had a birthday!

Yep, it's official. Jacob is now a toddler! (No, he is not quite walking. He can take 6-7 steps at the most).

It has been a wonderful year for our family. We love our little kiddo!

We were fortunate to have Grandma and Grandpa Lyon here from Colorado for the weekend of his birthday. So, we took advantage of the occasion to hav

e a family dinner and birthday party for Jacob.

The menu included: Teriyaki Chicken Sandwiches (courtesy of Dave's awesome BBQ skills), chips, fruit salad and some cooked veggies.

For dessert? a slice of homemade Neapolitan Cake (a strawberry and chocolate layer cake with strawberry frosting in the middle and cream cheese frosting on the outside, topped

off with chocolate sprinkles and salt water taffy.)

What did the birthday boy think of all of this? Dinner was great. Opening presents was a lot of fun. He couldn't be bothered to try any birthday cake or ice cream. He put up such a fuss that we couldn't even get him in the high chair.

This is the closest that Jacob would get to his cake. Just before we sang to him he reach out and took out a handful of frosting. We were lucky enough to catch this on camera!

All he wanted to do at the end of the evening was go back downstairs and play with his new toys! He especially loved the push toy that he received from Grandma and Grandpa Lyon.

We had so much fun with his birthday party that we decided to do it all over again the next night with Dave's side of the family! We had fun watching a slide show that Dave and I put together of Jacob's first year, opening presents and eating cake. Well, almost all of us enjoyed it. Jacob again did not want anything to do with his birthday cake! Funny kid!

Jacob's 1 year photos

Thanks Marie! You did an awesome job! Check out her other work at http://thatsawrapphotography.blogspot.com/

It's been a long time!

So I'm back after my 2 month absence. I would like to say that I was so busy doing totally awesome summer type things and couldn't be bothered to update my blog.

But then I would be lying. I guess I just lost my motivation to post regularly. Anyhow, here are a few pictures of what we have been up to:

Cousin Samantha had a Justice League Birthday party. Everyone was asked to dress in the colors of a Justice League character. So we dressed our little guy up a Superman. Unfortunately this was they only picture that was taken of him, so you can't really see how cute he was. I was Batman and Dave dressed in the colors of Aquaman.

Jacob's favorite activities around the house include: crawling in and out and under things, opening and closing cabinet doors, repeatedly..., opening drawers and pulling things out and then stuffing them back in, climbing into boxes, laundry baskets, etc, crawling up and down the stairs.

Watch out for that flying...

Today while Jacob and I were exiting the post-office a bird flew right at us. Well, actually, just above us.  I noticed that something smaller flying just below the bird.  I didn't notice it pass us as the bird flew over so I looked down to see if whatever it was hit Jacob.  

Yep, it did.

Whatever it was turned out to be POOP.....

 on Jacob's FACE.

The poor kid didn't even defend himself.  In reality, he was hardly fazed.  However, I was horrified.  Bird poop all over my sweet baby's face!

I really wanted to take a picture, but I was alone and struggling to make it to the car while carrying my jumbo diaper bag and Jacob, now complete with poop on his face. Plus, I couldn't just leave it on his face while selfish mommy took a picture for her blog. ;) 

Anyway, we made it too the car and I was able to clean off his face before he smeared it around. :)  It was a small miracle as Jacob is normally a very squirmy boy! 

Lesson Learned:  If you see a bird swooping down towards you, don't duck, 

RUN!

The CRAWL!!!

Jacob has been working on "THE CRAWL" for a while now.  A couple weeks ago he discovered he could back up into a sitting position.  While that was an accomplishment, it was in entirely the wrong direction.  So the past few weeks have been filled with rolling around to what he wants, getting up on all fours, and backing up into a seated position ending several feet from the object he intended to arrive at.  Last Sunday he got the forward not backward thing figured out and has been scampering toward whatever catches his interest ever since.

Trip to Grandma's House

A few weeks ago Jacob and I went on our first solo trip to Grandma's house.  I was a little bit nervous about the plane ride, but he did great and slept through most of it.  It was neat to also spend time with my sister and her 4 year old daughter who came along with us.  Jacob had a great time swimming for the first time. There is a really neat rec center near my parent's home.  Jacob loved splashing, floating in the lazy river and his first dunks underwater.  I am excited to take him swimming again this summer.

My family has always been all about the factory tours.  Over the  years we have gone on tours of Hostess, Jelly Belly, Blue Diamond Almonds, 

Hershey's to name a few.  My mom actually located a local company that we had never been to, so,

 in the  middle of a blizzarding storm we headed over to Hammond's Candies.  It was cool to see first hand how they make all of their hard candies.  They start with a huge (70-90 lb. log of hard candy and  them stretch it out and make the various shapes.  One of my favorites was the Mitchell's Sweet, a marshmallow log surrounded in caramel.  Yummy!

Other highlights included playing with Grandma and Grandpa, baking both new (5 min. Artisan Bread) and old (Superman Cookies), dinner at my brother, Brent and his wife Lelia's house, lunch with everyone at Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse, making coffee filter butterflies and dragonflies with Grandma, Brent and Samantha's Marble Magic creation, Brent assisting on the messiest poopy diaper change of all time, (thanks Brent!  I bet you can't wait to have kids ;) ) Samantha feeling sick and getting the royal treatment at the airport on the ride home, (she rode in a wheelchair and we got to skip the long security line an go through the disabled lane instead) and Lelia's Peanut Butter Bomb Cupcakes, they are the best!

7 Months Photos

Today, on a whim, I called up my friend Marne and set up an appointment for another photo shoot for Jacob. She did one when he was 7 weeks old, so I figured, now that he is 7 months old we should get some more! I guess that means the next one will be when he turns 7 years old...

Anyhow, these are a few of my favorites. She did a great job capturing his personality! He is such a fun and happy little boy.  

Also, if you look closely, in a few pictures you can see those teeth I mentioned previously...

More carrots please!

After days of a sore throat and no appetite, today Jacob loved eating his carrots!  This is probably the messiest feeding yet.  I have a really hard time letting the mess sit until he is done eating. So it took all my self-control not to wipe up his forehead and hands right away.  He just looked so cute that I had to grab a camera.  I'm sure that those of you with young children are chuckling and saying to yourself, just you wait!  This is nothing! :)

I am just happy that he was actually excited to eat.  Over the past little while he has cut back on the amount of milk that he drinks by almost half!  The poor guy has been teething over the past few weeks.  He now has two teeth that have popped up on the bottom and a third breaking through up top.  I will try to post a photo of the toothy smile soon!

 

no no no no no

About once a month we Lyon sisters like to get together for Sunday dinner.  This past Sunday we all gathered at Cherisse's house.  We had a lot of fun taking turns asking Jacob questions. Here are a couple of clips of Melodie and Samantha asking questions to Jacob. 

Hallelujah!!!

After weeks of dealing with my little cat napper, I decided to try swaddling again.  Here is a picture of Jacob after he woke up from his nap yesterday.  

We had been very avid swaddlers until Jacob was about 4 months old.  He seemed to do well without the swaddling when he slept, so we stopped.  But over the last few weeks he has been unable to sleep more than 20-30 minutes during his daytime naps unless we held him.  So, yesterday, I swaddled him up for him morning nap and he slept, and slept, and slept.  I finally woke him up after 3 hours!

I am trying it again today, so far, his been napping about and hour and a half.  Yeah for swaddling!

Dinner Time

It has been a long standing tradition to go to Grandma Dolinar's house for Sunday dinner.  This past week Jacob joined us at the table.  He got to sit in the coveted wooden highchair! We used a dishcloth to tie him in.  What a cutie! 

Little Girl?

What is it about this outfit that makes my little boy look like a little girl?  I mean, it does have all the requirements for a boy's outfit.  It's blue and it has something manly on it, like cars...

Avocado

Don't worry, I won't be posting every time that Jacob tries a new food.  :)  That said, this morning, Jacob had his first experience with avocado.  He liked it!