Early October trip to Water Valley

This is Jake with James's five year old cousin Emily. Jake was not too happy about having to sit on her lap, as he would rather crawl around and explore. Emily really wanted to hold Jake and I can remember being her age and wanting to hold my cousin Kati. So I always try and accomadate her, but she doesn't have any siblings and is not really good at 'playing' with babies. She get upset because Jake doesn't play these complicated games she comes up with. I had to show her how to play with a baby. I got her to crawl around on the floor and play Jake's version of tag. She knows patty cake, Old McDonald and Jake's favorite--the Itsy Bitsy Spider. I think they both ended up having a good time.

This is Jake and James's Papaw on his porch. Jake is fascinated by eye glasses.
James wanted to go scouting around in the woods to look for signs of deer. Jake and I volunteered to join in the hike as we both love going for walks. It was 90 somthing degrees! We took turns carrying Jake. Jake loved it, but I got eaten alive by something called a deer mite. Jake and James were relatively unscathed. I guess they just like the way I taste.


This is a spring fed pond out it the middle of the woods near James's family's land. His uncle, father and grandfather all own ajoining land in Water Valley where they live. Some of it has been passed down for about five generations now. It is very pretty to walk through and that is where James goes to hunt.

Jake at the Zoo.

Jake climbing a ladder at the Native American section.
No, they did not have Native Americans in the Native American exhibit,
just ladders like this to remind us to respect the land like the Native Americans do.
I am sure that the Native Americans would really approve of the whole concept of a zoo.
It is sort of like a reservation for animal if you think about it. You take a cheap
piece of wasteland, build a fence around it and stick a bunch of animals on it from all
the world. The animals aren't allowed to leave, and they probably couldn't survive in the
wild anymore, but hey--they don't have to pay taxes!

Jake's favorite animal was the elephant. Go figure!
I have no clue why he was so fascinated with it.

So many pictures, so little time.

I took so many pictures in the month of October that I have had to upload my camera twice (my camera holds 256 pictures give or take depending on how many movies we have on it at the time). When James and I looked at camera cards, he wanted to get the biggest one (that's a man for you). I told him I wanted one big enough to hold all the pictures I could take in one day, but small enough so that I can remember what the event(s) surrounding the pictures was. As usual, I won. Of course, I think I was pregnant at the time, which meant I got two votes to his one. It seems like I am always finding excuses to cheat him out of his vote. However, for those of you that think I must boss him around, I don't. James does what he wants. All the votes in the world don't get you anywhere if you can't enforce the decision. James lets me get my way on the small mundane things that he doesn't really care about, and in return, I get to feel like I am large and in charge! Those of you who REALLY know me, know that I am about as indecisive as you can get. I have meltdowns over what kind of toothpaste to buy. That, my friends, is why I am only in charge of small decisions like what size camara card we own!
Anyway, back to the reason we have so many pictures from October. At the beginning of the month we went to the Memphis Zoo with James's parents and his sister, then there was the annual Block Party at church, the Fall Festival at church, Halloween, a trip to Jackson, and 31 days of cuteness in the month of October. James had to go to Jackson to take his Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, which is a really fun 8 hour test (so I have heard, I am exempt from anything dealing with math). We drove down the night before and then Jake and I went shopping and walking around the Agriculture Museum (where James's test was scheduled). After James finished that evening we met Miranda (Ashford) and Jimmy Hamilton and their newest member, Baby Ally, for dinner.
I will do my best to post the pictures and explanations for them ASAP.
Oh, and by the way, spell check has not worked for me for the past three blogs. If I make a typo or show my ignorance by mispelling or misusing a word, please excuse me.

And may all your Halloweens be bright!

Jack 'O Lanterns James and I carved. The top is without the flash, the bottom one is with the flash so that everyone could see our cute white pumpkin! James carved the scary one in case you were wondering!

Jake practicing his most ferocious face to scare away our trick or treaters so he and Daddy can eat the candy (and NO we are not really feeding Jake candy, just so I don't get angry and concerned e-mails/comments).

My What Big Teeth You Have!

All the Better to Bite You With!

Jake now officially has four teeth. Maybe now that he is through teething for at least a few days, I can get some more blogging done.

What a cute little monkey!

Jake's Halloween costume arrived today. James refers to dressing Jake up for Halloween as 'baby torture', however Jake not only doesn't seem to be suffering, but seems to rather enjoy the outfit! He really seems to like the feet and tail. This bottom picture is from the online catalog I ordered the costume from. Now, I ask you, isn't Jake just as cute if not cuter? More pictures of Jake in his costume are sure to follow as we still have almost four weeks until Halloween!

The Attack of the Monkey Pox

Well, not really monkey pox, just Baby Measles. We call Jake our little monkey (he climbs things, bites things, makes whooping and hollering noises, he clings to us with his hands and feet, he even wears a diaper like a domesticated monkey AND he is curious and always into mischief like Curious George). My mom used to call Carrie and I monkey 1 and monkey 2 so I think that is part of it as well. Anyway, the two day 102 fever was followed by red rash pictured below. His fever finally broke Sunday night and he has been mostly his usual self since then with the exception of his sporty red spots.
Click on a picture to see what Baby Measles look like.

As you can see it has not dampened his spirits one bit. Here he is trying to break into the refrigerator, his newest appliance obsession.

Time is Flying...

...and yes we are having fun.

Well, not too much fun the past two days as Jake has been sick for really the first time in his life. He is running a 101-102 degree fever with no other symptoms. He has vomited (spit up an entire feeding in a projectile manner) a few more times than usual, but I think it maybe that he was gagging on the medicine we were trying to give him to reduce his fever. We started mixing it with some formula and he takes it much better that way than just giving it to him straight. Even sick and vomiting on me (twice on me, once on James) he is still cute and he is being really sweet even though we can tell he doesn't feel good. He hasn't slept well (or any more than usual) but he wants us to hold him most of the time. I am hoping he will be back to his usual self tomorrow. I can't believe that in two and half months Jake will be 1 year old! I can vividly remember this time last year, being pregnant and impatiently awaiting his arrival. I just can't believe that it has only been nine months since his birth I have gotten so used to life with him and then some times it seems unimaginable that he is that old already. My baby boy is steadily turning into a little boy.

As you can see from these pictures Jake loves music! He likes to listen to James play the guitar and sometimes we let him play with the guitar. He found a brass bell that one of my students gave me for Christmas and he loves ringing it and then turning it over to see where the noise comes from!

We baby proofed all the cabinets in the kitchen except one. I put all the things Jake can play with in that cabinet that way he can play in the kitchen when I need to be in there. So far it is working out well for both of us. For a while the kitchen was off limits for him, and he used to scream whenever I would step over the gate into the kitchen. Even though he could see me, he didn't like being left in the living room even if it was just long enough for me to get a glass of water!

Jake enjoying some pasta in a teething bag. He has had a lot of trouble making the transition to solid food. He seems to gag on anything and everything. Someone recommended these teething bags because he can't bite off too big of a piece. So far it works pretty good!
Jake and his great aunt Yvonne.
Hayden, Jake's second cousin, who is 11 months older than Jake-Hayden is 20 months, Jake is 9 months.

Last Saturday we went to Adamsville, TN to visit James's aunt, uncle, first cousin, his wife and their son Hayden who is 11 months older than Jake. Hayden was very sweet and cute. I think we all had fun!


Two Saturdays ago we decided to go to the park. We go to the park often to walk and swing because Jake likes to watch the ducks, geese, and people. This visit I brought the camera to capture his first time on a slide!

Jake loves his Daddy! He watches everything James does and if James is eating it or drinking it he just has to try it as well. Here James let him try chocolate milk and below Jake tries some of a roast beef sandwich.



High and dry. Jake loves climbing up on stuff and crawling over stuff. This day he was standing at the end of the couch and so an interesting toy so instead of crawling around the diaper bag, he crawled right on top of it and proceeded to play with the toy. This is a picture of Jake climbing on the baby gate that we used to keep him out of the kitchen. We have tile floors in the kitchen and we were afraid that he would hurt himself falling. Now that he is almost walking he has much better control over most of his falls. He almost always lands on his butt and it is almost always a planned fall--meaning that at the time he thinks it is the fastest and most convenient route to get somewhere else fast.

Jake loves playing peek-a-boo and has a pretty good sense of humor for a baby. I was having trouble convincing him to eat something one day so I pretended I was feeding it to his stuffed bunny rabbit and he started laughing. Another day he just would not take his nap (and I was exhausted) so I told him the bunny and I were going to take a nap without him and I laid down on the bed and cuddled up to his bunny. He also thought that was hilarious. Sometimes he reaches up and grabs my teeth and then bursts out laughing. I still haven't figured out what that is about. His only two teeth are on the bottom, so maybe he thinks it is funny that I have teeth on the top of my mouth. Who knows. All I know is that I am completely smitten. His current favorite song is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." So I sing it to him even though it creeps me out. I have come up with a compromised version that allows me to sleep better at night. For the last line when you are supposed to sing "and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again" I sing "and the itsy bitsy spider was never seen again." On a more serious note, we can't go anywhere without at least one person going on about how cute, sweet, charming, smart, etc he is. Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am. This past Wednesday I went to a PW (Presbyterian Women) meeting at church and the nursery worker was going on about what a little angel he is and how cute he is. She then brags to another worked about how involved James is in Jake's life and how James sat in there one Sunday during church to make sure Jake was okay (I was there too but I guess they are used to mothers staying). She then told me I was very lucky that James is such a good father. It is true, although I would like to believe that it has more to do with good planning and management, communication and love than luck. I am very content with my life. I was happy with my life when it was just me and James (although now I don't know how). I am very happy to share my life with James and Jake. I want more children, but if for some reason it doesn't happen that way, I know that I will be fine with that too. I feel very grateful for what I have.

Our Trip to Natchez

Jake helps me pack.
Above, Jake launches his "Bounce across Mississippi" Campaign. Below, Jake enjoys crawling around my grandparents living room.

These picture are of Jake playing the piano. He didn't bang on it like most kids do, he actually fingered the keys and seemed to enjoy the diffent sounds each one made. The bottom picture is a "the making of" picture for the above picture so that some of you don't think we endangered any Jakes in the production of this blog.

Pictures from the Fourth of July

If you are drinking something Jake wants to "help". Here he is "helping" my dad drink a Dr Pepper. Incidently he occasionaly insists on helping me brush my teeth, put in my contacts, make coffee, etc. When the teething starts to get intense the poor thing does NOT want to be put down, so I have to hold him while I do everything unless he is taking a nap. Also since teething he no longer sleeps through the night.
Jake loved the Fulton fire works. We went to the Coffee House to watch them with my parents and a lot of my former students.

Jake likes his hands and feet, but he still isn't too sure about bananas.

James, Jake and I took a nap at my parents house. Don't worry Meredith, after the picture I laid back down so that Jake couldn't fall out of the bed.
More pictures of Jake enjoying the fountain.

Whew!

Well the past two months have really flown by. James returned Sunday from 10 days in Indonesia where he was inspecting equipment at a coal mine that FMC does business with. He seemed to have fun. He even found time to play golf twice! Jake has mastered to art of crawling and is intently working towards walking. Several times this past week he has stood up by himself without holding onto anything. In another few weeks he will probably be walking. He is such a constant source of amazement! After Labor Day I start my new job. I will be working with upper elementary school students in an attempt to raise their MTC Reading scores from proficient (which means they are reading on their grade level) to Advanced. It sounds like I will only work with a few kids at a time and it is only 16 hours a week so there is still plenty of time to play with Jake. Towards the end of July we took Jake down to Natchez to meet some of my family that haven't made it to Tupelo to see him yet. He met both sets of my grandparents (Scottish ones and Natchez ones) at his Baptism, and he met my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins from England who came over in April. Apart from them and my parents, of course, that was all of my family that they had met. So now he has met his great great step grandmother, two more of my aunts, two more of my uncles and two more of my cousins. Oh, and I can't forget his great uncle Cricket (my grandparents dog that is like a child to them). On the way back from Natchez he got his first tooth. A week and a half later tooth number two followed, both of them are bottom teeth. Now he appears to be working on a top tooth. This Friday he will be 9 months old. He is getting so big. He has been in his 18 month old clothes for a few weeks now. We were walking at the park last month and a two year old little girl walked by and pointed at Jake in his stroller and said "baby". It was kind of funny because Jake was bigger than she was and she seemed to expect him to say something back. He can say Mama and Dada and little things like that (sometimes he says what sounds like bye). He can almost wave at people and he can make a kissing noise, but he can't blow kisses yet. People are constantly shocked when they find out how old he actually is, most assume him to be much older. His eyes are still very blue and his hair has really come in a lot thicker but it is still difficult to tell what color it is going to be. It is a beautiful coppery color. Some people look at him and say "what beautiful blond hair," others say "what a lovely red head". I personally think it will turn a darker brown color. Well I guess only time will tell.
For some reason my pictures aren't loading correctly so I will try and load them on a separate blog later tonight. Perhaps it is because I have 3 million of them, who knows!