Learning Colors

We painted again the other day. This time Jake did so much better, he only put the paint in his mouth one time ( I hope he's not the glue-eating kid). It has been raining a lot here this past week and we've been stuck in doors most of the time. So we paint and color as a way to learn colors. He can say all the colors except orange. It's funny because he tries so hard and gets frustrated because he can not pronounce that word. I love his art, we framed one of the paintings. We'll be mailing the rest out to our family.

Rainy Day Fun

I think Jake may have become a complete southern boy the other day. You see, when it rains water collects at the foot of our driveway forming a huge puddle. I didn't think anything of this until one day I saw jake throwing himself aginst our storm door (a glass screen door). He was jumping and giggling. I got up to see what was causing my son's excitment and found my neighbors son sitting in the puddle playing with all the nasty things including dirt and gravel. I must say that I wouldn't be suprised if there were small animals in this gross water! Of course Jake,being all boy, had to play too! After all, that's what showers are for, right?!

Homecoming

Do you remember homecoming? I do, like it was yesterday. It was all about finding the perfect dress and getting a date. Not in Oklahoma! The little towns here have a blowout. They have all kinds of activities and festivities. Including live bands, turtle races (that's right!), a parade, a carnival, and a street dance. It is crazy. The turtle race, which I left work to see, was the funniest thing. People catch random turtles, dress them up and then race them. The kids win money for it. The parade was full of random floats including class of 2002, 4-wheelers and the local clinic. Everyone joins in the fun, including the nursing home residents. The residents were all lined up on the sidewalks in wheelchairs. I love it here!

Growing Up Fast...

This morning I was looking back on some of his baby photos and I realize how much he has grown this year. It's going too fast! Jake is 17 months old now. He sleeps in a toddler bed. He gets up a lot of the time and it takes us about 1 hour to actually get to sleep. He's doing well though. His vocabulary has increased tremendously over the past 2 weeks. He had added, where'd it go, what's that, eat, out, down, bird, tree, clouds, mimi, mine, pa-paw (Kenny's grandpa), bath, flower, spider and so much more. I think he can probably say 30-40 words. He counts to two, tries to sing his ABC's (he gets to C), he knows yellow and blue. He knows his ear, eye, nose, tootsies, belly button, ear, mouth and hair (we're working on hands and knees). Potty training is not the greatest, my fault. We stay so busy on my days off that I have to put him in a diaper part of the day, plus daycare doesn't have a potty chair and he's too little to get on the big potty. But he'll go if I ask him to. He's really defiant right now. He screams "NO!" at me all the time. I have had to spank him pretty regularly and now he hits really bad, so we've stopped spanking and now use a lot of timeout. I hope this phase passes soon! He loves to give kisses and it's those moments that keep him on my good side. We really miss our family, I hope that you guys enjoy the pictures and feel like you're part of his childhood.

Swimming

Lake Rat

My son is offically a lake rat (Kari you would be proud)! He is so comfortable in that environment. He has NO fear of the water. I know I discovered this while visiting California but he took it to another level on Monday. Jake would just run out into the water. He got waist deep and tried to go further. He fell once and got dunked under the surface and still didn't care. We went on some bumper boats and he got mad because I was holding the straps on his life jacket while he hung over the side of the boat dragging his hands through the water. He wanted to climb out. Needless to say he starts swim lessons on June 25th!

Cardiac Update

Most of you guys know I had a cardiac procedure done last week. I wanted everyone to know that things went fairly well and I'm back at work today. There was a small issue with bleeding that was resolved later that evening causing us to stay up there in Oklahoma City one more night. The hardest part was being away from Jake. It was my first time away from him. Thanks mom and Kristin for coming in to help me out and thanks Sharon for keeping Jake the first night. I went was really bruised at first, it looked like I was beat with a baseball bat. It looked great in the bathing suit I was wearing on Monday at the lake! Anyway I just wanted to let all of you know things are fine!

Sharon's Birthday

Happy Birthday to Sharon! We spent Sunday afternoon at Sharon's house with all the cousins. We BBQ'd and played outside. Jake is going through a jealous phase, no one can get close to me! He was really cute. His cousin Lindey kept wanting to kiss him and he kept pushing her away, except one time, he tackled her.