My Favorite Things

Here are a few of Jacob's favorite things this fall:  

Leap Frog Letter Train at Nana & Papa's:  Jacob loves to push it inside and outside.  When he is outside, he insists on pushing it down the really steep hill on the side of their house.  He gets a look of glee on his face when someone lets him do it.

Coming to find mommy :)  Not that I hardly leave him alone anyway, but Jacob doesn't let me get out of his sight for ONE second!  In fact, we already play "hide and seek" together.  I give him a super fun look like "come and get me!" and then I run into some room in the house and duck behind a bed, in a closet, or behind a door.  He comes in with the biggest grin on his face and looks for me until he finds me.  I yell "boo" and he dies laughing!  The funny part is that he will walk away like 5 feet and then turn around to "find" me again so I'll yell "boo!"

Taking the toilet paper off the roll.  He has pulled it through the entire house before.  Now, we just keep them empty and keep the roll out of reach :)

This kiddo loves walking around with golf balls.  He was really excited that he found this one in the yard.

He here is checking out Chloe's new dog house.  It was brand new, so no doggie germs yet.

Jacob loves dogs sooooo much!  Chloe and Tiger (mom and dad's dog) let him crawl all over them.  It is truly unbelievable what they will let him do to them.  Sometimes, I think he is going to pull Tiger's eyes out!

My most favorite of all is . . . .. .. DADDY!!!!

Hanging Out at the Park

Toccoa has an awesome new playground for little ones and Jacob just loves to go!  We only get to go when daddy can come too, since I can't lift him up on any of the fun stuff.  He really loves slides now and will pump his little body forward to go down.

We thought we would let him try the big slide so that he could go further. . .

Then daddy had to get in on the action!

Jacob loved having his daddy there to help him do everything :)

What a sweet time at the park!  Side note:  this was actually our second time arriving to the park on that day.    30 minutes before, we got there, got Jacob out of the car, and then realized that he had just pooped through his clothes.  So we immediately put him back in the car to change him.  It was suffocating to be sitting in the back seat with that terrible poopy!  Brett and I were both gagging.  Jacob was crying like a crazy man that we had put him back in the car to change his diaper.  He LOVES being outside like you wouldn't believe.  I then realized that I had no extra pants and it was definitely a little cold outside.  So. . . we had to walk him back around the car and put him in his car seat.  He was literally devastated.  He cried for an extra long time on the way back home (5 mins away).  He was so disappointed that I ended up running in to get him some sweat pants and we headed back to the park.  As you can see, he was happy as a lark when we arrived back to have fun!

Golfing with Daddy

Three Fridays in a row, Jacob, Brett, and I went to play nine holes at the local golf course.  The people there were really nice and allowed us to ride along while Brett played.  Jacob thought it was super fun!  He would get a huge grin on his face while he rode the golf cart and would pick up all Brett's putts when we got to the green.  Finally, Brett gave him two balls to hold in his hand so that he would leave his putts alone :)  Watch out Uncle Stan!  Jacob is going to be a good golfer !

Getting ready to play with Daddy!

So proud of my golf balls!

Rice Box Sensory Play

I really love looking up fun and creative things for Jacob to do.  I saw a post about a sensory bucket for one year olds and decided to make one.  He had a blast!  At first, he wanted to just put his hands in the rice.  Shortly after, he realized that it would be really fun to throw the rice out of the bucket.  I am pretty convinced that he was trying to empty the bucket one handful at a time!

Rice all over the floor!

Sitting in rice :)

We got rice all over the jeans, in our socks, and in our shoes!  However, it kept him very enthralled for like 15 mins, which is an eternity for his age!  When it was over, I just swept up the rice, threw it away and put the bucket with the remaining rice out of reach.  My kitchen floor was cleaner than when we started!

Youth Fall Retreat--Dahlonega, GA

During out students' fall break, we took a small group of them up to Dahlonega for a fall retreat.  Little man stayed with my parents and I came home one night early since they had to work on Tuesday.  It was a great group and a super fun way to get to know lots of them better.

Pic after our hike :)

Hanging out with mommy & daddy :)

We love hanging out with our sweet boy during daddy's time off.  Below we took him with us to play disc golf.  Really, Jacob and I just watched while Brett played.  He loved it!

Walking with his hand on his chest!  Precious!

We laugh and call this Jacob's "stash."  When Chloe was a puppy, she would bring anything from the yard (or neighbor's yard) that wasn't tied down and put it right in the middle of our front yard.  Sometimes she would even steal people's shoes that they had just taken off to go inside our house!  Jacob likes to bring things over to the baby gate and then drop it on the other side.  He grunts when he realizes that he can't reach it and then walks away :)

Playing with Heather's toy!  So happy!

We made him a tunnel with a blanket and chairs for little man and he loved it.

Book time has turned to tickle time. . .

I love hearing my boys laughing!

Getting to know the new house

As we settled in to our new life, we could see our little man getting more and more comfortable.  The first few weeks he was extra fussy and did not want us to get out of his sight.  He soon began to really know the house and would explore all over.  He tried to open doors and could pitter patter from the front of the house to the back in no time!  

For sure one of the greatest things about living in Toccoa are the grandparents!  As you can see, Jacob is soooo happy getting to hang out with more grandparents!  Nana & Papa came over for like 4 Friday nights in a row so that we could go support our youth at the football games.  He didn't miss us at all!

Settling in for breakfast :)  Around 11 months, Jacob started being really difficult to feed.  We started turning on Baby Einstein or Letter Factory while he ate lunch or dinner.  Breakfast he seemed to do fine without any entertainment.  I definitely felt like a bad parent. . . but it worked!  Thankfully, that was a short phase and we can now do most all our meals without the TV.  I sing, talk, and let him look at books while we eat.  He is so BUSY BUSY BUSY that he is bored to tears in the high chair if something is not going on.  Sometimes we read a book 5 times while he is eating lunch.  Chika Chika Boom Boom is memorized in its entirety right now :)

Playing with the guitar Raegan gave him.

Around a year, he started walking around with his hand holding his throat.  He would do it all the time, even though there was nothing wrong with his throat!  People who weren't around him much would say, "ohhhhh, does his throat hurt?"  We were at the doctor multiple times during that short phase and his throat was perfectly fine!  Just a phase and super funny!