Jacob & Eliza

Liza's now 6 months. It's crazy how fast the time flies. She's a happy and active little girl that loves her big brother and sister so much. Seeing the relationships those three have together just makes me so happy. We all just adore Eliza and what she brings to our family.

 

Two crazies and the random things they do together during the day

Jacob is now 3!!! Crazy. He was so excited for his birthday - and I think the gifts were just a bonus. He just loved the attention and the fact that we were celebrating him. We had a mini party with my family on the 9th complete with a Spiderman cake.

Then on the 12th I asked him what he wanted to do - go to the zoo, visit dad at work, go to the children's museum - and he chose having his best friend Aiden over to play cars. Thankfully Aiden was available and willing to play. Such cute boys.

Then that night Jacob got presents from us - a Spiderman skateboard & a Spiderman 'house.' Can you tell what he likes?

Then we were off to Red Robin with grandparents (and a couple uncles and aunt). While there Jacob got to open a few cousin presents and then enjoy a big slice of mud pie.

 Happy Birthday Jacob! We love you!!!

November

Emily finished up soccer on the 3rd. It was a tougher fall since they played co-ed, which ended up being mostly boy teams, but we think Emily improved and it was a good opportunity. She's a good little defender and we're looking forward to seeing her on the field again in the Spring. 

Jacob was a good sport attending all of Emily's games. He's excited for when he can get out there himself. He continues to grow up on us and is getting more and more stubborn - heaven help us. We sure do love having him in our family though. He can be incredibly sweet and fun to be with even though he's more exasperating than not lately.

 Eliza is growing up so fast! I swear Emily & Jacob didn't grow this quickly. And she's a good sport to put up with everything Jacob & Emily put her through. She is so sweet and her smile just melts my heart.

 Playing in the latest snow storm on the 11th. Jeff's just like one of the kids. And I mean that in a good way. They all just love it when their dad is home and they can play with him.  

 Roasting Marshmallows one night for FHE

 Zoo on the 21st

 Thanksgiving was pretty calm for us. We had dinner with the Snows at my parents house and my mom pulled out a few Thanksgiving crafts for Emily & Jacob to work on. They loved it. There is so much for us to be thankful for. We truly are so blessed.

October

Jacob has done more than sleep this month, but for some reason most of my pictures the past little bit have ended up with him passed out in some funny situation. Which actually seems to happen a lot. With this first picture I'd already taken him into his room and put him down for a nap. He'd come out a few minutes later and said he wanted to finish his lunch. So I told him as soon as he did he needed to go back to bed. Not too long after that I found him asleep in his chair. 

And I'm ALWAYS finding him asleep covered in books. This one is with one of his favorites - Go Dog, Go. 

Jacob is a pretty entertaining kid. His laugh is highly contagious and just music to my ears. He's also pretty ingenious with his toys. This day he decided he wanted to skate and took out two tupperware containers and slid all over the kitchen for the next 30 minutes. 

Even though he's a lot of work and can be very exasperating, I sure love my little man!

On 10/20 we started Liza on solids. She does ok with it - she pulled a few funny faces that first time and continues to do so if we give her anything with too much texture. But overall she seems to enjoy it. Now we just need to help her figure out how to drink from her sippy. She plays with it more than she drinks from it.

 So true...

 With two kids in diapers we seem to have a plethora of big boxes around. The kids tend to use them as houses, beds, cars, sleds, or as in one of the pictures below - a fort (piled on top of the garbage cans and held up by the table, but they still enjoyed climbing under it).

 Of course all three kids LOVE playing with daddy and just love it when he's home (so do I:) ) He is so good to play with them... or let them play on him. I couldn't ask for a better father for my children.

 Checking out a lego magazine

Uncle Chris's birthday

 Annual pictures at Lyle's Pumpkin Patch

 An attempt at getting all the grandkids ...

 ... and why I took over 60 pictures.

Everyone (minus those out of town) 

Our first snow! The kids were so excited. I snapped a quick picture of all three kids before Emily headed off to school. Then took a couple more of Jacob enjoying the snow before waving to Emily as the bus drove by.

The 26th was the parade and Halloween party at school. Emily was a cute witch, Jacob a great spiderman, and Eliza was an adorable little elephant. We even found a twin for Liza. Miss Mary (Emily's Kindergarten teacher) was there with her daughter who is only a week older than Liza. We're getting excited for Halloween!

Taking an afternoon to visit the Children's Museum and the Tinkertoy exhibit before our membership expired.

We had the annual Halloween dinner at our house again. There was lots of yummy food with very disgusting names. 

Eliza was sleeping during the cousin Halloween picture and Jacob was in one of his moods and refused to be in it. So the next day I did a quick Halloween photo shoot with them.  

And I snapped a few extra without costumes (well, kinda) while I was at it and kids were still happy.

The 29th we carved pumpkins. It was the first time Jacob had seen the inside of one and he wasn't so sure about sticking his hand in there...

Halloween night we had a jack-o-lantern pizza and then got ready to go trick or treating. 

Jacob made it about half a street's worth of houses and then got a large bag of peanut M&M's and decided he was done. He then sat in the stroller the rest of the night and ate candy. Emily continued on and asked at every house for something for her brother too and Eliza slept peacefully in the stroller next to Jacob.We only made it through one and a half streets but the kids had PLENTY of candy. When we got home the they dumped out their stash to show Grandma & Grandpa their goods.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!