Paul, Jen, Jacob, and Lydia: 2010

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Halloween, Lydia's Blessing, etc.

We had a super fun Halloween this year. I let Jacob pick his costume. The choices were a monkey and the giraffe. The conversation went something like this...

Me: Do you want to be a monkey or a giraffe?

Jacob: giraffe

Me: Do you want to be a giraffe or a monkey?

Jacob: giraffe

Me: Sounds good to me.

He loved his costume and showing it off to everyone...as long as he could wear the hood only when he wanted to. I was excited to make Lydia a little sushi, too, and my mom helped with her costume since she was here the week before Halloween.

This is what happened around 3pm when Jacob decided he wasn't going to take a nap. I'm so glad we're out of that phase and he's back to taking naps. :)

We had Lydia's baby blessing on November 7th. It was really nice to have all of Paul's family and my dad in town for the weekend.

Jacob's been saying some funny/cute things lately. While we were in Colorado for Thanksgiving he was on a walk with Paul. He heard a dog bark and said "somethin woofin." Also, while we were at church (in a very quiet ward with only a couple of small children) he said loudly "Dat guy sayin a prayer!" We couldn't decide whether to laugh out loud or be mortified. lol.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Deck

This was one of our first real home improvement projects since we moved into our house. After 3 trips to the hardware store and 3 gallons of stain, it's done. Thanks to Emily & Jonathan, Mom & Dad for your help with the staining/watching the kids.

before

after

Sunday, October 3, 2010

A bike, a bike!!

Here's my favorite part of Jacob's birthday party. Thanks Dad for the video!

Jacob's 2nd Birthday, etc.

Here's a first attempt at making a cake in a long time. My mom gave me all of her old cake pans and luckily there was a Sesame Street one because Jacob LOVES Sesame Street. For days he was begging me to make his "Bibip" cake. It was definitely a united effort between my mom, my friend Jamie, and me. Now I'm excited to make a Halloween cake...we'll see how it goes.

It's too bad we don't have more pictures/video of some of the other parts of the party, mainly the part when he starts screaming "A bike, a bike, a bike!!!" when he sees his new tricycle outside. It was hilarious!

While everyone was here, my dad took a few spins around the area in the plane. I think everyone liked it, although Jacob was pretty indifferent. I think the highlight of his trip was putting chapstick on his chin. :)

Here's the birth announcement that Jonathan made for us. Thanks!!

Our little girl is already getting so much bigger. She's 6 weeks old now.

Monday, September 6, 2010

New baby

We've had a crazy couple of weeks, but we have our cute and healthy baby Lydia at home with us. Jen went into labor 3 1/2 weeks early on the night of August 18th. We showed up at the hospital around 2 am. My parents were going to be our babysitters when we went to the hospital, but they were unfortunately still on a cruise in Alaska, so my sisters and brothers-in-law helped us out a ton until Jen's parents could fly in from Denver. Lydia Teija Porter was born a few minutes before noon, right in the middle of a huge rainstorm.

There were a lot of similarities to Jacob's birth. She weighed about the same (6 pounds 10 oz; Jacob was 6 pounds 4 oz), had the same breathing difficulties early on, and was whisked off to the NICU for evaluation. The doctors ended up saying she had "a touch of pneumonia" and prescribed 7 days of antibiotics, during which time she would need to stay in the NICU. After Jacob's 10-day stay when he was born, this was a piece of cake to us, and Lydia improved faster than Jacob did. She was on oxygen for a few days but then did fine without it, and she was released from the hospital a week after being born. Compared to some of the other 2 and 3 pound babies we saw in the NICU, she was lucky.

Jacob has turned out to be a very nice big brother and has been asking to hold her. He is always trying to share things with her - at first he tried to give her food but I think we finally got the message through that she only drinks milk.


In the NICU with oxygen

In her nose is a feeding tube, which they used a little until she could eat on her own

with great Grandpa & Grandma Porter

Strawberry hat from Finland

Jacob looking huge again

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Jacob counting

This is the latest of Jacob counting. He has recently upgraded from one, two, one, two, ONE!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Minnesota

Last week we went to Minnesota to spend some time with Jen's side of the family in a small town called Menahga. We got to do lots of fun things and Jacob seemed to like the change of scenery. One of his favorite things was playing with the "puppies."

Jacob got to fly in Grandpa's private plane...

...and ride in the pontoon boat.

He has become quite the little talker and will be 2 in September. We're hoping he does ok with arrival of Baby Sister, also in September. Jen has 8 weeks to go with her pregnancy and is feeling well most of the time. None of us is liking the hot weather we've had this week.

He doesn't like to go anywhere without his blankie.

Jacob loves playing with his cousin Jack, and Jacob thinks everything Jack does is hilarious.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Jacob's new car

Jacob's new Cozy Coupe ($5 at a garage sale)

Playing bubbles with his cousin, Jack

27 weeks pregnant

Friday, May 28, 2010

Ultrasound #3 plus Jacob update

Today Jen had another ultrasound and they confirmed what they suspected last time - it is a girl. She weighs about a pound and a half and they said everything looks normal. Here are a couple of the pictures we got.

Jacob has changed so much in the past few weeks. He has become quite the little talker and now says more words than we could count. He learns new words after hearing them just a time or two. "Tella" (Nutella), carpet, hammock, and tent are some of his newest.