HAPPY HALLOWEEN

This is Jacob's first Halloween .
Jacob's Aunty Kim made his costume for him and I asked her to make him a TURKEY outfit cause that is what I call him and I think he looks adorable.


Here he is carving out his pumpkin earlier today, or should I say eating the spoon. He wasn't too sure of the pumpkin guts but he got brave and picked some up and then tried to eat the seeds.


We took Jacob to visit his grandparents and so Steve could raid the candy.

Grampa & Grandma Popham (My parents) and Steve's mum Grandma Hatzl

All by myself.

Well after some technical difficulties I am able to post again. Jacob has been busy learning to feed himself and has even managed to get the food into is mouth. He still has a hard time putting the bottle in his mouth but I think it's just because he doesn't want to tie up both hands with the effort. I have gotten real good at feeding him his bottle and driving at the same time!
We seem to be getting much better at the sleeping thing though he still wakes up once at night but usually I can give him his soother and rub his back and he's good to go. His daddy and I made him a nice comfy mattress topper and some bumper pads cause he is such a restless sleeper that he constantly bonks his head against the railings (and wakes us up).

I have a new Mummy

Today my Grandma came to visit me and my mummy left us to play (actually I ended up taking a nap cause I was tired after helping mummy clear the dishwasher). When I woke up from my nap there was a new mummy at my bed. It sounded like my real mummy but she looked different and those stringy things that I pull on were shorter and there weren't as many to grab hold of. I wonder if this is what my mummy meant when she said there were going to be some changes going on. Geesh I was even a very good boy today and had 2 naps and didn't even make any fuss (I might even decide to be good all the time and go to sleep like good boys should). Anyway I'm just glad that mummy's face didn't come back like daddy's face cause his is kinda scratchy.
This is me and my new mummy,
don't we look nice

Sweet Sounds

Yup today I will write in Jacob's journal as the day that he verbally acknowledged his mommy. On October 25th he finally said "mumma". I wasn't really sure if I had heard correctly cause we were at our playdate but then he said it again and it was definitely mumma. When I told Steve he was a little skeptical but then when he was feeding him his dinner he said it again and now it is true. Of course it is not really his first word as he said "meow" in early October but he was talking to the cat so it doesn't really count.
Today we also went to the Pumpkin patch with all our friends and picked out a great pumpkin to carve. We are not sure what it will be yet but Jacob is sure to help clean the guts out (and possibly taste test them too.)
Everyday I am amazed at how quickly he is learning new things such as walking, talking, dancing and chewing the big people food. I am also amazed at the things that he is learning that make us laugh even though we don't always agree on what he's learning such as climbing the stairs everytime our backs are turned, squirming out of his highchair, standing up in the tub, and smiling at us when we tell him "NO" and continuing to do what he's not suppossed to be doing. He's a challenge but we have decided to keep him anyway.

By George I think we may have it!

Well I think we may have stumbled onto the secret of getting Jacob to sleep. Since Thursday, I have been giving him his milk and then putting him down to nap/sleep while he is awake and then putting a pillow on the floor and laying in his room until he nods off. Sometimes it involves some crying, other times it involves alot of him playing with toys, acting like a chimpanzee and other times it involves him holding my finger until he has gotten comfy. Last night he slept from just before 9 until 6:30am and then he fell asleep again after I fed him until 8am. Of course today he wouldn't nap in the morning (he found his toys more entertaining) so i dragged him with me to buy a TV (ya that was fun!). He did manage to fall asleep on the way home and missed having his lunch but I guess he has decided that maybe one nap a day is all he wants.


Yesterday we went down to the school near us and played in some leaves. Of course I had to pile them up so I could take some pictures and so Jacob could taste test them. Today he gets to come up to the property and help us burn all the grass, thistles and blackberries that Steve has been busy cutting down. One day when he's bigger he will get to help his daddy do all the yard work.

Can you say SLEEP!

My mommy has decided that I need to learn to sleep properly. I have been refusing to follow any kind of sleep regime and now my mommy has threatened to let me cry it out. I don't like to cry but when i do it seems to a) either have my mommy and daddy come running to pick me up and give me lovin or b) they make funny faces at me or c) and this is the one that I hate, I get more and more upset cause they are trying to teach me a lesson. I really would like to fall asleep and stay asleep but I can't seem to get the hang of it. I heard my mommy say that she is witless and she can't figure me out. Mommy is also pretty sure that I understand everything that she says about my lack of cooperation regarding sleep and you know what I DO! I am going to try my hardest to get this sleep thing under control cause I don't like waking up all the time and staggering around drunkenly in my bed at night. Mommy was spying on me one night and she said that i must be a monkey cause i was making music on my crib and throwing things. Aunty Kim says that mommy and daddy make monkey noises too!

We went to Babytime today and got to introduce my new friend Carson. His mommy and mine work at City Hall together and Carson is going to be my neighbour when we move to our new house. I have volunteered to teach him everything that I know and he seems to be catching on cause I heard his mommy say that he only likes to sleep in her arms too! It's so nice to have mommy's who love us (oops and daddy's too).



Well my little turkey has been caught in the act of sleeping (I think he is trying to prove me wrong that he has sleep issues). Of course this would be is second attempt at sleeping today cause the first one lasted only 50 minutes and some of it was in the car ride home from babytime. I am hoping that we can settle the sleep problems before i have to go back to work so if anyone has any suggestions short of drugs, electrotherapy, singing loudly while rocking back and forth and lobotomies then please let me know.

Turning 9 months with a bang!

Well Jacob turned 9 months old on Wednesday and it arrived with a cold and fever. The poor kid now associates me with cleaning snot from his nose and his daddy is the saviour. Of course good old daddy has managed to miss all his bad colds cause he always seems to have a trip away during these fun times. I think that I should make him change all the dirty diapers for the next month cause that is a challenge and a half now that Jacob has decided that he really would rather not stay still for this inconvienence to his rather busy day.


We celebrated Thanksgiving with both sides of the family and managed to survive having 15 people in our tiny kitchen for dinner. Jacob had his first real Thanksgiving dinner and actually his first "real big person's food" and really seemed to enjoy the stuffing (sorry Uncle Mark but he isn't a stuffing snob!).
I have decided to take Jacob in for some Christmas pictures as I don't think the weather is going to cooperate and give us snow for any cute shots. I have even bought his winter snow gear in the hopes that we may actually experience some snow close to home.

My first trip to Disneyland

This is Jacob's first trip to Disneyland (if you ask Steve it might be his only one though). We went with my family for 8 days and had a great time. Unfortunately Jacob had a cold for the whole trip but slept amazingly well through all the loud shows and rides. He really enjoyed the trip to Seaworld where he was entranced with the sharks and the whales. He did really well on the plane trip and even made some new friends with the Japanese students.

He won't remember much of this trip other than through pictures so when he is old enough to enjoy the full glory of DISNEY, then his dad and I can take him again (of course his dad will be really old then and may not enjoy himself on all the rides!)

Mommy's technically challenged

Okay, so today Karen learned about blogs... Well, actually she learned just enough to make herself a little crazy trying to get this thing to work. After a few mild expletives and a little help from me, we seem to have things working. This'll be handy for her to interact and share some news about Jakey and his wild rate of development. Today, he pooped on the carpet by blowing the seal on his diaper with a high-pressure liquid load. I think that he thinks he's one of our cats!
Jacob's Daddy

Okay let's see if this works

Hey there we went to our first playdate today and we learned that creating a blog was the thing to do so here we go.
Jacob seemed to enjoy himself with his friends but I am a little worried that he may run some of them over in his enthusiasm to get to new toys (either that or he thinks everything on the floor is a cat to sit on!). He doesn't seem to be big on the socializing part of the play group visits but he sure enjoyed testing Kiera's toys out. We are going to host next weeks visit and maybe Jacob can introduce you to his favourite toy - his cat Frisbee! She is the most docile animal either that or she thinks that Jacob is her long lost kitten and she is his mother.
When we got home from our visit, Jacob was very tired and had to go to bed without lunch cause he was very crank. He slept about an hour and half and then woke up and had a wonderful lunch of bananas and yougurt (he was boycotting the carrots today). Then he decided to help me do some laundry by pooping himself and having it squirt out of his diaper all over the carpet, his toy hammer, his hands, legs and body. Let me just say that trying to clean a carpet with baby poop on it is not fun. Needless to say he was popped into the tub which he loves.
Well i should try and post this and see if it works