Jake in June

The Dangers of Photographing Jake:

Jake, in his natural habitat, is interrupted by his Mama.
Oh, what is that you have Mama?
...and then he grabbed my camera. As you can see from the five hundred other pictures that I have posted, no cameras where harmed--just slobbered on.

Jake's Christening (June 4th)

Jake looking adorable and behaving perfectly.
Jake being baptized.
Jake trying to get the minister's gold watch.
Jake with his Dad and his Dad's first cousin Emily at Vanelli's after the Christening.
Jake and James.
Jake demonstrating how to blow a "raspberry".
Jake looking adorable again.

Combination Father's Day and James' Dad's Birthday
Jake, James' uncle Phillip and cousin Emily at James' parents house on June 17th.
Jake and Emily both looking adorable.
More of Jake and Emily looking adorable.

Jake and Maggie

These two pictures are of Jake and Maggie in the Church nursery. Maggie is almost a month younger than Jake. Although there are about 4 other babies born the same month as Jake, Maggie is the one that he plays with the most often. So I guess you could say she is his first same age playmate.

Well, this is my third attempt to post these in about a weeks time. Blogger does not like pictures apparently! I have new pictures from July 4th and the surrounding time frame to upload if this last attempt at June's pictures works.

Home with Jake

I have more pictures that I have been trying to attach for two days now, but perhaps there is a size limit or something. I will post these for now and post the others later, perhaps when Jake has gone to bed it will be easier. My last day teaching was the 24th of May and I graduated with my Masters degree from the Mississippi Teacher Corps program at the University of Mississippi (with a 4.0) on the 13th of May. I am taking the month of June off to reflect and spend time with Jake before seriously making other career decisions. My Scottish grandparents will be visiting from the 3rd-24th of June and my American grandparents as well as most of James' family will be over this weekend for Jake's Christening. He turned six months old last week (on the 25th), and it is amazing how much he has grown. He has clear likes and dislikes, is really intent on crawling and loves peek-a-boo. He has been laughing for some time now, but a few weeks ago he started making this clicking noise with his tongue and then started laughing at himself. It is the first thing he has done to make himself laugh. He is alot of work but he is more fun than anything. There is something so great about the way he smiles at me when he first wakes up in the morning or when I sing to him. I think my favorite thing that he does is snuggle up to me really close when he wants a cuddle. He is so soft and warm and he smells so good. He is a really good baby and I feel lucky to be his mother.

My Portfolio is FINISHED!

No, Jake did not help. In fact it was very hard getting anything done around him. He is so cute that I just want to play with him all the time. He will be six months old in another week. At his four month checkup with the doctor he was 18.5 lbs and 26.5 inches. I am interested to see how much he has grown at this next appointment (6 month check-up) as he is now in the 9 to 12 month old clothes! People keep teasing that he might grow up to be taller than James. It is possible as James is 6'4", but his mother's father was 6'7"!
As the title suggests, my portfolio is complete. Now all I have to do is present it this Saturday and then I graduate the following Saturday. If you want to check out my portfolio it is at www.geocities.com/islanne. I still am making minor edits here and there, but I will still probably be doing that up until the minute I present it as nothing is ever too perfect! I promise that I will blog again soon. I have tons of pictures of Jake from Easter and the surrounding weeks. My aunt, uncle and cousins from England were over during the Easter holidays, and I just learned that my Scottish grandparents are coming over for three weeks in June. We hope to get Jake christened while they are here. There is so much to write, but for now it will have to wait another week. I have progress reports to get out and we are state testing this week so I need to go to bed. Just three weeks of school (with my students) left!
PS James is holding Jake in the above picture. In case some of you thought that my arms were just really hairy or something. Jake loves playing on the computer. At first we didn't see any harm in letting him, until he changed all of the text size settings in our web browser!

The Impossibly Hard Life of Baby Jake

Jake relaxing in the recliner after a long hard day with his best friend Eyeore.

Jake gets held by his great grandfather Carr(while wearing the shirt from my Aunt Anne-Marie, Uncle Robert, and cousins Marianne and Shona).
Jake playing in bouncy seat with his "very hungry caterpillar"

(it is from a book that we read to him).
Jake wallowing in his toys.
Jake practices standing with his Daddy.
More of Jake wallowing in his toys.

Jake recovering from a bath in the bathrobe my friend Blair sent him.
Jake helping Daddy with the bills.
Jake takes a nap on Paw Paw (my dad).
Jake talks to us.
Jake kicking blocks over with his Granny (my Mom).

Jake visiting with his paternal grandparents.
Jake playing in (and chewing on--he is teething) his "Johnny Jump Up."

Jake spends quality time with Mommy and Daddy!


My Mom took these, and they are on her blog, but I couldn't resist stealing them and putting them on mine as well.

Pictures from last weekend!

On a typical morning James gets up at 5:15 (Jake and I are usually still up from our 4ish feeding). James takes a shower and gets dressed and then takes over on Daddy Duty (Jake likes being held at all times!). I get completely ready to go by 6:30. James helps me carry down all of my stuff for work and Jake in one trip (Jake hates being strapped in the car seat unless we are actually moving). Then Jake and I leave to meet Momma at the parking lot at school and James goes back to finish getting ready and leaves for work by around 7:00 (I have to be at work by 7:15). Well as Jake is normally well fed by the time James takes over in the morning, their favorite morning time activity is a 20-45 minute nap together while I get ready, as evidenced by this photo. The quilt (all you can really see in this picture is the back of it) is one Momma made me out of pieces of dresses I wore as a little girl. It is Jakes favorite quilt, even though it is way to big for him. I left him with James one evening so I could go to the grocery store, when I came back James had Jake swaddled in it (he had all the excess just sort of piled up on top). James claimed that it was the only thing that would comfort him, and I didn't really believe him at first, but Jake really does seem to have a preference for this particular quilt. We don't know why, but we are starting to realize that there is a lot we don't know and much more that doesn't make sense. Ahh, the joys of parenthood!

In this group of pictures he looks so angelic you would think we drugged him! These were taken right after we got back from his first Sunday at church (last weekend). It was raining outside so we didn't get any good ones of him at the church (maybe next time). I don't know if he was just acting the part, because all of the ladies at church (including the nursery attendents) made such a big fuss over him, however, he behaved beautifully the whole time! I think it is funny that even though I have a degree in Journalism, my mechanical engineering husband takes most of the pictures (the better pictures anyway, he would have me add). Once again, everyone at church went on and on about how much he looks like James. I think this is funny because right now James is sporting a full beard and mustache so you really can't see all of his facial features that clearly, but yet perfect strangers still think he looks like James! I think he looks like James, but also a lot like Carrie, which is nice. I have been a little annoyed that he is so different than me, I guess because I had to go through so much trouble to get him and he is so cute that it would be nice (and selfish) to see a little bit of me in him. I remember when I was pregnant thinking about how nice it would be if he looked like James and had at least something about him that reminded us of Carrie, like her eyes. So far it looks like he has her eyes, her hair color, and her birthmarks. It is strange to think that every part of our body once existed as part of someone else. Some things are obvious like when you can see that you have your grandmother's eyes or you mother's hand for instance. I often take it further and wonder who I got my legs from, and some of the less obvious traits that I inherited.

This is one of the closest pictures I have been able to take of him smiling. My mom has had more success. Isn't he just so cute! Now you know why I haven't been able to e-mail any of you back (or make any calls). I spend all of my time staring at him and holding him (and feeding him and changing him), I just don't want to do anything else!

I love this picture. Jake likes to pinch people, especially when he is upset. In this picture it looks almost as if he is warning me that he will pinch me if I don't quit taking all these pictures. He knows the difference between our faces without the camera and our faces with the camera held in place to take a picture and we have real trouble getting him to look at us, smile, etc. when we have the camera!