Happy Baby New Year

Here is a round up of December 2012 pics, featuring Jake!

A quick video of Jake doing some talking and smiling. I almost didn't post it because I'm talking too much. But his smiles are too cute not to share.

 

And a final quick video of Jake playing with toys. He is coming a long way in his hand/eye coordination. He is reaching for things and trying to control where they go-- mostly in his mouth.

 

 

Christmas Morning 2012

We had a really great Christmas morning, but there are not many pictures to show it. Seriously, I took as many pictures of the cat as I did of the kids. Well, here are the meager few I was able to take.

 

Legos! Luke's big ask this year was for legos. He loves legos.

Jake took it all in, but it was just another day for him. Luke enjoyed opening his brother's presents too.

Luke doing his happy Lego dance as he assembles his first set. He took his shirt off because he was too hot. See how Jake has his hand to his head as Matt is feeding him? He does this thing now while he is drinking a bottle where he rubs the sides of his head and forehead with both of his hands, like a man worrying or suffering from a headache.

I took Luke to Petco to pick out a gift for Roosevelt. I figured we'd get some mice or a feather toy, but Luke saw this cardboard castle set and it was all over. Roosevelt loved it.

Later that night we went to a party at Aunt Mary's house. Luke won this cute panda hat and surprised us all by wearing it all night as he ran around the party. He is not usually a hat guy. It looked really good on him, he must have known. I wish I'd taken a picture.

 

 

O Tannenbaum

This year was Jake's first Christmas and our family's first Christmas in 220 S Forest. Here is what our Christmas tree looked like, late at night on Christmas Eve. We were able to snap these pictures just after Santa left.



 

 

 

 

This Christmas I was so grateful: that our family is together in a beautiful new house in St. Louis, that we are surrounded by family and friends, that Jake is with us filling our lives with his smiles.

Jake Talks and Laughs

Jake is trying really hard to talk already. I think he thinks he really is talking. He absolutely loves it when you repeat back to him the "words" he is saying. His face lights up and you do feel like you're having a conversation. Another thing he does is "blow raspberries," like he's trying so hard to blow words out of his mouth. Here is a video of this.

Jake has the best laugh! It even makes his cynical big brother laugh with him. Here is a video from today of Jake laughing on Daddy's lap.

And one more of Jake's great smile!

Good Morning, Jake!

One of my favorite moments of the day is going into Jake's room to get him when he first wakes up in the morning. He wakes up sometime in the 6am hour. You can hear him "shouting." He doesn't really cry. He makes just enough noise to let you know he's ready to be picked up. Here is a video I took from this morning.

Here are the pics from this morning too.

220 South Forest Avenue

Whew! What a busy, exhausting few weeks it has been. We moved into our new house on Nov 16, and since then we've been unpacking, cleaning, painting, dealing with repairs, decorating, organizing, looking for furniture on Craigslist, doing yardwork, shopping etc. etc. And we're still not done. Probably won't be totally settled for another month or two.

But we love the house and we love the neighborhood and we can't believe our good luck that we get to live here. The house was built in 1889 and was remodeled about 6 years ago. The pictures below are professional pics that were taken from the sales listing. This is how the previous owner had it staged, and sadly not exactly the way it looks right now! We've still got boxes and empty spaces.

The front of the house. The house actually sits up on a hill, sideways from the road. We are just around the corner from the Middle School and the Webster Groves Rec Center. We are also pretty close to Interstate 44, which I didn't notice at all when the leaves were on the trees. You do notice the traffic noise in the house, but most of the time it is white noise.

The living room. We made our first fire in the fireplace last week. Other than that, we don't actually spend a lot of time in here yet. We only have one couch, but it leaves plenty of room for Luke to play.

Another view of the living room. Currently our bookshelves are filled with boxes and things we don't know where to put yet.

The kitchen. Looks nice, but just about every appliance is broken in some way. The dishwasher guy is coming tomorrow, and I have to call someone to come fix two of the burners on the gas stove.

The dining room. The previous owner took the sconces and chandelier and we don't have a dining table, so we don't spend a lot of time in here yet!

Another view of the dining room. Look at the beautiful archway that leads into the front foyer and the beautiful arched built-in. These are the architectural details we fell in love with.

The sunroom. This is the smallest room in the house and ironically where we spend most of our time right now. The TV is in here and it also serves as the temporary dining area.

Another view of the sunroom.

The entry way with the beautiful spiral staircase. The jewel of the house. As much as I go up and down these stairs fetching things for the kids, I honestly don't mind since the stairs are so beautiful and fun to use. You can see the sunroom to the left and the archway to the dining room on the right.

The back porch. We intend to spend a lot of time here. The house sits on a little over a half acre, so lots of room for boys to run around.

Jake is 13 weeks old today!

 

 

Happy Belated Halloween!

I am two weeks behind in my blog postings, so here are the Halloween pics! Luke was a black cat again and Grandma Stewart sent a raccoon costumer for Jake.

We took Luke to a Halloween Party and he went trick-or-treating with a bunch of kids. He totally latched on to the three, cool 6-year-old boys at the front of this picture.

Grandma Siorek showed Luke how to make a witch's cauldron with dry ice!