Thank You Jacob . . .

for the wonderful birthday present:

Renovations!

Kitchen before:



Kitchen after:



Master bathroom before:


Master bathroom after:


Jacob's bathroom before:


Jacob's bathroom after:


Basement bathroom before:


Basement bathroom after:

The Twos!

They finally decided to move Jacob to the twos room at daycare. :) I know he's only been 2 for a month but I really feel he needs to be with the older kids to help him with his development particularly talking. He did surprise me this morning when I dropped him off. They had a bin that a bunch of different colored shapes in it and he held up a circle, a triangle and a star and told me the name of each shape. I didn't know that he knew what they were called. He's also really starting to recognize letters. When we were at BJs on Sunday he pointed out and said M, E, T and A on various signs in the store and last night when we were playing with his laptop toy he pointed out M, N, O and P.

Potty Time!

Somebody went pee pee on the potty tonight for the very first time! While I’m sure it was a complete fluke I was still very excited. I haven’t really started the potty training process. Jake got an Elmo potty book for his birthday and we’ve read it a couple of times. The last couple of days I’ve let him come in the bathroom with me when I have to go and I’ve told him to listen to my pee pee go in the potty. Tonight after I went and he flushed and put the lid down he climbed up on the toilet. I asked him if he wanted to go pee pee in the potty. He seemed interested so I got out the potty ring and put it on the toilet. I took off his pants and sat him down and he went – just a little bit but hey I’ll take it. I guess I’ll have to see if he does it again.

TA DA

New Things

I’ve been a little worried about Jacob’s language skills. While he’s starting to say more words a lot of them are not that clear and he hasn’t been putting words together. Tonight he surprised me at dinner by saying “more cheese.” Later when he was on the changing table he covered his eyes with his hands and then took them off and said “boo I see you.” So maybe he’s finally starting to get it after all :)

Jake can now count to ten by himself (well mostly). He’s also starting to recognize the numbers as well. Tonight when I handed him the phone to talk to Grandpa he pointed to the “9” button and said nine and then pointed to the “8” button and said 8. He also knew “1” and “2.” I’m hoping that when he finally gets moved to the twos room at daycare that things will really take off.

Jacob is Kosher!

Well actually he just completed the final step to his conversion to Judaism – immersion in a ritual bath called a mikveh. The first step was his circumcision which we did last March. At that time he was given his Hebrew name (he was named after my mother). The next step (which had two parts) we did today. The first part was a meeting with the Bet Din which is a group of three rabbis. They asked me questions about my background/Jewish upbringing and how I planned to raise Jake. The second part was to dunk Jake in the mikveh. He had to go completely under and I had to let go for a second so that the water touched him everywhere. He did a really great job and didn’t cry at all (although I’m not sure he really liked it too much). I had to say a couple of prayers and then we were done and Jacob was officially declared Jewish. We got dressed and we got a certificate to commemorate the event. It was a nice present to receive for Hanukkah!

I tried to take some pictures but because Jake is constantly in motion these days it’s hard to get any decent shots. Here are a few.