A Hodge Podge of Activity

So our little man has kept us busy... can I blame him for Mommy not having the energy left at the end of the day to update the blog?? We have so much fun together everyday. I try to get us out of the house at least once a day, usually to a park to play. Jake is a little monkey, he climbs on, over, on top of ANYTHING he can find. I still have to stay close b/c he'll also try and JUMP OFF of any high apparatus he can manage to climb onto.
Last weekend we stayed pretty busy out and about. We went out to the Apple Orchard in Idalou for the Apple Butter Festival. Jake had a BLAST!

Playing in the corn field with his BFF Ellie

Cruising down the bounce house slide,

picking apples

Eating Apples

Sharing Apples

And just having fun.

... oh, and his favorite, jumping off the hay bales

Fun was had by all!!

This was also the anniversary for 9-11, so we took Jake out to the memorial they put up every year. It's overwhelming to be out there and think of all the men and women, past/present/future who have fought and even given their lives for OUR freedom. I hope we can raise Jake in a way that he appreciates the history that has brought us to where we are today.

Jake loves to go and feed ducks at the nearby parks.

There are a ton of other shenanigans I could show you and write about, but my time has run out. I hope you have enjoyed this update. It's hard to believe my next post will probably be about his SECOND BIRTHDAY!!

Summer Time...

So this post will be a little sporadic, so try and stay with me. I don't really have one thing to write about, so thought I would just do a little "what we've been up to" post. Jake is still growing like a weed getting taller and taller!!

Yep, that's the 3ft. red line at his head.

(As you can see he wasn't real thrilled about standing for a picture)

He is pretty sure he is part monkey and climbs and swings from anything he can reach!!

I can't say that his height is working to our advantage, HA! He enjoys being able to see onto tables, cabinets and drawers. Unfortunately he thinks that means anything within reach is fair game. He gets to hear the word "no" quite a bit.

He is still our little helper. I can't get out the duster, broom, or vacuum without allowing him to help. We have two of everything so that Mommy can have one, and Jake can have one. He's actually pretty good when it comes to dusting and descent with a vacuum (small bissel of course). He also likes to help clean out his little pool and water table. You won't see this Mommy complaining!

He still LOVES being outside and having friends over to play. We've gone to the big pool a few times, but since I'm by myself I haven't been able to get any pictures or videos :-( He's pretty cute in his life jacket. He LOVES to jump off the side. I still haven't taken him COMPLETELY under the water, but pretty close. That's just Mommy's fear, not Jake's. He doesn't seem to have a bone of fear in his body when it comes to things like that. He's working on learning to ride his tricycle since his legs are finally long enough to reach the pedals. He still likes to just scoot himself along, but is getting better with the pedals each time we go out. He'll be taking off before we know it!

One of his favorite INDOOR places to go to is the science spectrum and of course Jumpin' Jungle. I've just got one video of him going down the big slide at Jumpin' Jungle. He thinks he's pretty big and can conquer anything the big kids can. In this video he's trying to copy how the big kids went down on their back. He laid back a little too far and had to scoot up to slide down, silly boy, he's a hoot. Sometimes I wish I could video him all day so I could share the joy and laughter that he brings to me even on the toughest days. He's starting to say more and more, "Ahh Man!" is his favorite phrase... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the science spectrum, he still LOVES to go see the choo-choo's and now the airplane room. He will spend a majority of his time there.

We're not potty training yet, but we're thinking about tackling that after his 2nd birthday in October, still warm enough to run around outside in his birthday suite! We're not in any big hurry, but think, hey, if we can save money on diapers, that would be AWESOME!

As for his speech he's "talking" more and more. He has a little over 100 words that I can understand and about 35 that the general public could understand. He's starting to put two words together. "Bye-Bye Daddy", "Daddy Work", "Bye-Bye Joe-Joe", "I crash", "More please", "Chocolate Milk" and a few more.

I was actually concerned about his speech and had ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) come out. It's a FREE service to ANYONE to have them come out and do an evaluation. They handle, speech, physical therapy, occupational therapy and I'm sure a lot more. So they came out last week and "evaluated" Jake. Needless to say he didn't qualify. He is 22 months old; his expressive speech (how well he communicates with others) he was performing at 26 months. His receptive speech (how well he understands others/follows directions, etc) he was performing at 34 months. MOMMY BRAGGING RIGHTS... He's a smart cookie!! He amazes me everyday at what he understands. I thought this was pretty funny; they put a little monkey inside a circle and asked him to get the monkey out of the circle... so he picked up the circle and moved it out of the way, HA! The therapists thought that was pretty funny too. He is a THINKER. You can see the wheels moving in his head. Another thing they did was get out dolls and ask him to get the Mommy, Daddy, Baby, etc., he did that with no problem. Then they asked him to give them the Daddy's little girl, he did that. Then asked him where the little girl's Daddy was, he chose correctly. They tested him on his understanding of position words like on top of, behind, under, etc. He identified all the primary colors (blue, red, orange, yellow, green, and also white and purple).  They asked him to hand him the block that was bigger and smaller and he got that correct. Then had him sort the circles and squares and he did that. He put shape puzzles together and stacked 7 small blocks. I REALLY enjoyed having them out. I could go on and on bragging, but I'll stop there. Have I mentioned how he absolutely AMAZES me every day?!?

This video is pretty long and taken a month or so back. He speech would be more clear if he wasn't eating the whole time. It's just that the highchair is the only place he sits still long enough for me to get any kind of video of him talking. This is more for me to have, watch if you have a few extra minutes.

His newest thing is jumping off his bed... STRESSES THIS MOMMY OUT!!



I'm sure there is a lot I've left out, but I'll end here for now. To sum it up, Jake is such a blessing to us EVERY day! He really is a good boy. He has his moments of pushing boundaries, but all in all behaves very well. I've implemented a picture schedule to help us get through the day and mostly help him know when it's TV time and when it's not. He LOVES his DVD's. His favorites are Thomas, Dinosaur Train, Curious George, and Cars. He would watch shows all day if I would let him.

I am so blessed to be able to stay home with Jake every day. We have so much fun together and I love to see him grow and change every day. I wish I could document it all! I hope you have enjoyed the photos and videos of our ALMOST 2 year old. Oh, and by the way, we are NOT speaking the "terrible two's" over our boy. So you won't see a post titled "The Terrible Two's" Just sayin'. 

The World Aquarium!

So a few weekends back (July 8th-10th to be exact) we headed to Mesquite to visit Gerald's family. We hadn't been there in FOREVER, and a visit was due! Jake did GREAT on the trip there. We didn't even have to bust out the portable DVD player until after Abilene. He slept about 45 min, played with cars, trains, animals, more cars and more trains. He's really getting better and better at traveling. (I do wish he would sleep more though). So we got to Mesquite and Jake really took no time at all to warm up to his Bauchi and Grandpa. They went outside and Jake got to run in GREEN grass barefoot. He LOVED it. (We're in the middle of an AWFUL drought here in Lubbock and our grass is brown and crunchy) Bauchi and Grandpa keep a beautiful yard and flowers. Jake really enjoyed the BIG sunflowers. He also had fun running around with his four-legged cousins Leo and Mona, both dachshunds.
The next morning we woke up, got ready, packed a lunch and headed out the door to the Dallas World Aquarium. It was AMAZING!! It's WAY more than just fish. We got to see penguins, monkeys, sharks, turtles, GIANT crabs, flamingos, birds, alligators, etc. UH-MAZE-ING! Jake was a little busy body, but really enjoyed it. He especially liked the room where you actually walked under the shark tank. They would swim right over you. We stayed there for quite a while and went back at feeding time. (By then J was pretty tired and didn't care much, but we thought it was really cool). We got there around 9:20, and stayed until lunch. We didn't actually end up eating there, but it was good to have the sandwiches with us b/c Jake was able to eat his sandwich on the way home and it kept him awake. He CRASHED when we got back to the house. After he woke up we headed over to Aunt Michelle's house for dinner and a party for Bauchi. Her birthday is July 15th so we wanted to celebrate while we were there. It was SO GREAT getting to see MOST of his Aunts and Uncles. (We missed Aunt Dawna, Uncle Billy, and cousins Alyssa, Little Billy, Doug and David.) Jake really enjoyed playing with his cousin Grayson, who is 14 months old. Well... maybe I should say he was nice enough to "share" his cars and trains with Grayson (with a little convincing from Mom and Dad) I'm SICK because we walked away from there without taking even ONE picture of the two of them together!! We didn't even take pictures of the party! I guess we were just having too much fun. That night we spent the night out at Michelle's (Thanks Dust-Man for giving up your room for the night), then headed back to Bauchi and Grandpa's for lunch before heading back to L-Town. Jake got to play a little more in their backyard and ran around with Leo and Mona. We had a great trip back, minus our car croaking on the side of the road about 30 min from home. :-(  Luckily we have friends that love us and came to our rescue. We thought our CRV was a goner, but we're getting a new (used) engine put in and she will hopefully be back on her wheels again soon! YAY!! Anyway, that was our weekend trip to Mesquite, we had a GREAT time there!! Enjoy the pics we DID take!

The World Aquarium from Gerald Miller on Vimeo.


World Aquarium from Gerald Miller on Vimeo.

July 4th...

Well, our July 4th didn't turn out as planned. Our poor sweet boy was sick :-(

We discovered he had a fever AFTER we went to church on Sunday, Oops. He was acting perfectly fine, it wasn't until I noticed his red cheeks that I checked his temp. With a hope and a prayer we sent him to bed fever free. Unfortunately it came back with a vengeance in the night. So our hopes of taking him to his first parade were shot. It was a PERFECT morning for a parade too, cooler and overcast. Oh well, we still had fun. Gerald made a yummy breakfast of blueberry waffles and homemade syrup to start our day out right. After that we spent a good chunk of the morning watching shows (Thomas the Train and Cars are Jake's FAVORITES). Then we went outside for a little bit to let Jake "paint" the fence with water. At that time I think his fever was coming back because he didn't want to stay outside long and that's NOT like him at all!.

After a 3 1/2 hour afternoon nap (we finally had to wake him up) we were determined to keep the TV off so Mommy tried to use her creative genius (HA!!!!) Started out simple with a new Mickey Mouse coloring book and new crayons (real creative, I know). That lasted all of 5 min. He just wasn't interested in sitting and coloring, so back outside we went. He painted the fence a little more and played in his water table and sand box for a few. So I decided to bring out the big guns. I had made colored ice cubes for him to "paint" with.

I got a plain white T-shirt for him to paint and later use as a smock. So this was how it was SUPPOSE to go..

But this is what MOSTLY happened....

Guess they looked a little too much like Popsicles. Ultimately we put the "paints" away and got some real Popsicles out for him to enjoy. We'll try to paint our shirt again on another day when he can understand that they aren't to eat.

So that's it folks, that was the excitement of our July 4th. We had hot dogs for dinner and turned in early. We hope to have a make-up night with some friends that we were suppose to get together with. Oh well, it's not like we missed fireworks or anything, they were banned this year because we are SOOOO very dry. I think we've had just barely over an inch of rain ALL YEAR. They weren't even selling fireworks this year. It made for a very quiet 4th of July. I guess there is always next year!

I hope everyone had a great time celebrating the freedom we have as a country and the freedom we have in CHRIST!!

Galatians 5:1

1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2 Corinthians 3:17:
17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

So Thankful that I am no longer in bondage to sin!! That is TRUE freedom!!







North Carolina

So back in March, I got an e-mail from my brother-in-law wanting to know if we wanted to visit my sister in Charlotte for a week in June. Well DUH.... OF COURSE. Then came the catch. "Your sister will have NO IDEA you are coming. I'll be leaving for FL on Tues for a conference. That's the day you get there. On Friday you will drive Tonya to the airport and get her on a plane to join me for the weekend (she will also have NO IDEA about this until you tell her.) **Great, so I was going to be the one to tell her that she was going to leave her 4th for the first time** You and Gerald will stay home with the kids...." HUH???? We needed some time to think about this. As much as I wanted to see my sister and my nieces and nephews (We don't get to see them nearly enough) the thought of G and I taking care of FIVE kids for THREE days was somewhat overwhelming! I didn't immediately jump at the chance. After some discussion and finding that Donnie's sister would be at the house some to help out (she's living with them for the summer and volunteering/interning at their church) we decided, WE CAN DO THIS!! So off we went on May 31st. We boarded a plane from Lubbock to Dallas, and then Dallas to Charlotte. Jake's FAVORITE part about that trip was the tram we got to ride from gate to gate at the DFW airport. He is sooooo into trains these days!!

He was a champ the entire time. He really travels well!! He crashed in his stroller as soon as we got off the plane and didn't even flinch when we moved him from the stroller into the car seat. It was good for him to get in a little nap before arriving to see his cousins.

Soon we arrived at the house. I was so excited that we had actually pulled this off!! Luckily Jake woke up right about the time we turned into their neighborhood.

That was PRICELESS!!!
Obviously Tonya was SHOCKED to see us there and took the news of her Friday departure VERY well. She was so excited to have a little kid free get away with the hubs! The next day was filled with Monkey Joe's (a jump-house place) and Fro-yo that night with the kids and Aunt Coco.

Monkey Joes in NC from Gerald Miller on Vimeo.

Before heading off to Palm Springs, FL, my sister treated me to an AMAZING pedicure. We had a good time being pampered together. Wish we could do it more often. 

After that we didn't get many more pics or videos. We stayed busy having fun though, with soccer games...

                                                             (On our way to the game)

                                                                         (Sweet Erin)

(Waiting for the game to start. Best cousins!!)

 Going to church, playing Wii, bike riding, walks, playing with computers, cars and trains...

 more Wii, meals together, bedtime stories

and just a lot of laughter rough housing and pillow fights.

Oh, and of course following Jake up and down the stairs. He maneuvered them like a champ by the time we left. We survived the week as "parents" of 5. Of course it helps that my sister and Donnie have raised their children with such integrity. Joshua is their helper and has such a servants heart. He could run the house as well as any adult. Caleb is their comic relief, HA! He wants to be like his big brother and does just about 21anything Josh does. He is tender-hearted and LOVES his sisters too. It's so sweet to see him and Ella play together. He is just FUN to be around. Ella is their princess. She LOVES her big brothers, but also has her girlie side. She was a good "big sister" to our Jake-Man. She always made sure he was where he needed to be. I think she's going to be a good leader as she gets older and will grow into a beautiful woman with great faith and also a big heart. Sweet Erin is just that, sweet Erin. She's very different from her brothers and sister, but that just shows me that the Lord has AMAZING things lined up for her. She will have her own special place in their family. I believe she will grow up to be their bold one. Bold in all that she does. I can't wait to watch her blossom.
We were blessed to be around those kiddos for a week. I hope as Jake grows up they can grow closer together and all become amazing men and women of faith!

Family...

So Grammie and Granddad are back on the road again. Through a waterfall of tears we said good-bye on Friday. We stood on the sidewalk as Jake waved and said "Bye-Bye Bus, Bye-Bye Bus..." It was an amazing month filled with memories that will never be forgotten. Jake absolutely loved having Grammie and Granddad around. It won't be the new cars, the new clothes, the talking puppy dog, Car hauler, ping-pong balls, choo-choos (which he even had to sleep with) that he'll remember. It will be the time spent together. Other than the few days that Grammie and Granddad were rather sick, (and the week we spent in NC - which will be my next blog post) we got to see each other everyday. They went to the mall with us, to the park, to Jumpin' Jungle, Chick-Fil-A, Toys-R-Us, Target, shoe shopping, you name it. Of course there was also a lot of precious time spent just here at the house playing in the floor with trucks, cars, choo-choos, and balls. Jumping outside, playing with bubbles, swinging, playing in the sandbox and water table, and just going for walks. It melted my heart every time.
I was reminded everyday the importance of family and making the moments count. Though we don't know their travel schedule, and we might not get to see them as often as we would like, the bonds will last a lifetime. Jake enjoyed a lot of love and fun with Grammie and Granddad. You couldn't wipe the smile off his face. He would get so excited when I would tell him we were going to see them, or they were going to meet us somewhere. He didn't care if they were going to come baring gifts or material things, he just knew they would be there and that was enough to light up his day. He would drag each of them around by their finger to help him or watch him do different things. He just wanted them there, and they were, every moment they could be. I am so blessed to have parents that love me and my family so very much. I'm so thankful that they give of their time and energy to invest so much in our lives.

Sooo... enough of the mushy stuff, I'll show you what you want to see... PICS AND VIDEOS!