Christmas 2007

We had a very quiet and relaxing Christmas. Had our little family dinner on Christmas eve - prime rib, sweet potatoes and green beans - all turned out very edible - surprisingly! We opened the family gifts on Christmas eve - well most of them, saved a few for the morning - as Jakob got sooooooo many! Mark and Jakob played some video games - Tiger Woods Golf - lovely! We took a lot of naps and watched the Polar Express. Jakob and I made sugar cookies a few nights before Christmas - he decorated with quite a lot of sprinkles - Santa really liked them. We left the cookies, and Jakob's pretend chocolate cupcakes, and carrots for the reindeer out. On Christmas morning Jakob actually slept in, but was a bit low blood sugar in the am, so needless to say he wasn't that into his presents - after we got some food into him he was good to go. Jakob said that he "heard jingle bells last night", he was right Santa went into his bedroom and rang some bells and even left a jingle bell next to his stocking! We actually got snow on Christmas, it stayed around for a couple hours, we didn't go out in it - "too cold" per Jakob! Instead we watched Toy Story and the Jungle Book and stayed in our pj's until 4pm. We had Amber and Josh over for blueberry pie that evening. All in all a very quiet Christmas - and no new baby to speak of!

Jakob decorating the cookies for Santa


Mark and Jakob playing video games


Jakob on Christmas eve putting out the goodies for Santa and his reindeer


Jakob opening one of his favorite gifts from Santa - A set of Lions - most of you know how obsessed he is with lions right now!


Our first white Christmas!


This picture was taken on Friday, it's of another one of Jakob's favorite gifts - a 200 piece wood building set that his Aunt Christina gave him - Mark really likes it too! Mark built the Eiffel Tower - which Jakob then destroyed! Jakob is really into building farms, barns or some type of enclosure for his animals with this set.

Holiday Preschool Program

On Tuesday, Jakob participated in his preschool's holiday show. First there was a ballet performance, which Jakob didn't participate in, but did do some ballet moves in his chair. He doesn't do ballet because Ian doesn't do it! You can see in the pictures that the girls are in their ballet outfits and the boys are in theirs (black pants and white shirts). Ian and Jakob were responsible for handing out programs to parents - they did a great job and were very serious about their job. Incidentally Jakob and Ian wore the same shirts - Jakob in blue and Ian in green - super cute.
The show went on with the group singing many Christmas and Hannukah songs. The pictures are of the kids singing "Away in a Manger" and "Jingle Bells". Jakob's rudolph nose was broken, but he didn't really need it as he has a pretty red nose/lip from a recent run in with the mat/carpet at preschool.





Here, Jakob and Ian are showing eachother the cards and flowers they got as a gift from their favorite teacher, Molly.
Note the scab on Jakob's upper lip area - that darn rug burn - hoping the scabs will be gone by Xmas.

Proud Parenting?

Yesterday Jakob did something I never thought I would hear about and be so proud of. He taught another child how to poop on the potty. Linda, his preschool teacher was very excited about this. Apparently, Jakob was going poop when a younger little guy who has not been successful with this, was brought in to try to poop, when Jakob was asked if Nicholas could watch he was hesitant but then was very proud to show off his business! Nicholas turned around and pooped on the potty.
This goes with the many other things I never thought I'd say, do or be proud of as a parent - but we are proud of our guy being a good example in someone elses life!

Gingerbread House

I haven't made a real gingerbread house since I was in Girl Scouts - many many years ago. I thought we would start a tradition of making one with Jakob, well mostly putting one together. I bought a little kit from Trader Joe's, but didn't buy enough frosting - me make frosting - come on! I will have to pick up some more so we can finish the house - but even then, I don't think the frosting will stay on, Jakob basically licked it off while taking bites of the candies we put on it! I don't know if you can see in the pictures, but the licorice has bite marks out of it as do some of the fruit jellies. There is a xmas tree in front of the house, decorated with red oraments, white frosting and a yellow fruit jelly that has bites out if to make a star. Even though it was a bit cheesy, It was nice having the kit because, I don't think Jakob would've had the patience to make one from scratch, maybe next year!

Decorating the Tree

Well, we put our tree up yesterday, Jakob has been asking to put it up for a couple weeks now. Yes, we have an artificial tree, I don't like it but I've got pretty bad allergies to real trees and we live in such small quarters that I would be dying with a real one in our house. Mark grew up with an artificial tree, so he likes it, plus there is no having to remember to water it and the lights are all ready on it - it's very simple, which I have to say I like!
Jakob helped put up some ornaments, mostly on one or two branches, which I fixed later. He got tired of the decorating after about 20 minutes - probably Mom and Dad constantly telling him to "Be careful!" didn't help any. He did put the angel on the top - after a few tries, he dropped it 2 or 3 times - but eventually got it on there with some help from Daddy.
Later, we took a walk in the cold (freezing rain) to see the Moreland Christmas tree (neighborhood tree) that is all lit up now - it was one of Jakob's favorite things to see last year - it's a huge tree and it's so pretty. So, you'll see a couple pictures of Jakob all bundled up before our walk (he's even wearing a scarf that my Grandma made him - so cute). We made it about 2 blocks before we both started to freeze in the rain and wind, saw the top half of the tree and headed home. We'll save that walk for another night - probably not tonight as we are expected to get rain and "hurricane force" winds - gotta love Portland and global warming! (I just took a closer look at one of the pictures of Jakob in front of the tree, and I'm not quite sure what he is doing with his hands - throwing some sort of gang sign? Gotta love Mark's influence on our son!)

We took a trip to Toys R Us yesterday to see what Jakob wants Santa to bring him, of course he still wants an electric train - which we can't afford and really don't want to get (Thanks to the Santa at Sun River who suggested an electric train!). We tried to make some of the other toys look really flashy like, tinker toys, an electric car race track, legos etc, but didn't get a real answer on what we should tell Santa to bring. It's hard to shop for a boy who likes everything and everything that is over $50 - sucks being on a budget too! Of course, he is 3 years old and I'm sure that he will love anything that Santa brings him. He will be so overwhelmed with the fact that he REALLY is getting presents that he won't know what to do!