Fun at Chuck E Cheese!

One of the girls that I work with has a daughter at the same daycare as Jacob, so the kids were invited to her birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese last weekend. It wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected for noon on a Saturday, and both kids had a blast!



Emily loves to go and dance in front of the camera. They project the picture to big screens up on the wall. Jason turned to me and made a comment about how our daughter isn't shy at all. No kidding! She was dancing her little heart out up there!



I think we have taken Jacob to Chuck E Cheese one other time, but he was really too little then to do anything. He loved riding in the car and getting his picture taken with Chuck E.



The carousel is always a hit with both kids!



Most of the other kids at daycare are little girls and they are all about Emily's age. I thought it was cute when we got to the party because they were all running over to him and giving him hugs and kisses. I didn't realize he was such a ladies man!

Emily loves to swim!

I'm a bit behind on my blogging. Emily started swim lessons last summer. The place where she is taking them starts with a two week everyday class, and then they can move into weekly maintenance classes. Since she loved it so much, we let her continue to do the maintenance classes. She has mastered floating on her back independently and turning from back to front and front to back on her own. She is still working on swimming the width of the pool independently, which is one of the things that she needs to do to move to the next level. They also have to do a five minute "float test" fully clothed before they can move to the next level.

She was so proud of her certificate and loves going swimming every week!

The Not Quite Terrible Twos...

Jacob is not quite two. With Emily, I remember saying that we never went through the "terrible twos" stage. Perhaps time has helped me to get over it, but I honestly don't remember two being a very rough year and I really think it was because she was a little chatterbox at that point and could communicate with us.

I'm not sure what to expect with Jacob. He is such a mellow kid most of the time, but when he wants something (which typically involves something we don't want him to have!), he can throw quite the tantrum. I bought Valentine's candy yesterday and made the mistake of leaving the bag on the couch downstairs. He didn't waste any time getting into it and trying to help himself. Jason took him out to run errands and apparently gave him a sip of Dr. Pepper. He took this picture and sent it to me from his phone as the after shot when he wouldn't give him more.

Jacob still isn't talking all that much although he is saying more and more new words. We've been working with him on signing and we've been trying to make him sign for things and attempt to say the word before we give it to him. Sometimes he just doesn't like waiting, though!

From the mouth of ... Emily!

I am way behind on blogging right now. I have a bunch of pictures to upload...I just haven't had a chance to do it between craziness at work and sick kids (both kids have had the stomach flu). I thought I'd share a few quick Emily stories, though.

Yesterday on the way home, Emily said, "Mom, do you think that tomorrow in my snack, you can send me two of those cheese cracker things?" (Emily recently discovered the Handi-Snak breadsticks and cheese dips and won't take anything else for snack now) She continued with, "My friend Gavin really likes them and he always asks me for some, and so I was thinking I could take some to share for him. Do you think that would be OK?" I told her that I wasn't sure that would be such a good idea because maybe Gavin was allergic or his parents wouldn't want him to have that for snack. Then, she said, "Well, his parents always send him not so good snacks like fruit and stuff like that." (I guess this reflects well on my parenting skills since fruit is considered a "not so good snack.") Then, I couldn't help but laugh when she said, "I'm sure his parents still love him, but they just send not so good snacks for him."

We were watching the news on TV tonight and President Obama was on. Emily's class at school watched the inauguration on TV and they talked a lot about the election and the new president. She pointed to him and said, "That's our new president!" I told her that was right and asked her what his name was and she said, "President Oklahoma." She was close! :)