Sister Grandma Jill

Two weeks ago, Monday, we had the privilege of taking Matt's mom to the airport to send her off on her mission to Melbourne, Australia. Because only Eric and Julia were able to come with us, we felt we should let the rest of you Jacobs see what it was like. (P.S. Mom said we got to take her to the airport because we are her favorite!)

On our way from Heidi's house to the airport. I believe that car in front of us is Eric and Julia's new Santa Fe. Maybe if you squint really hard you can see it.



Sister Jacob!!




Her driver.




Beckett saying Goodbye to Grandma. He laughed the whole time.




Anabelle is going to miss Grandma too.




Eric and Julia.



Poor Eric. You can see that he is confidently thinking he is Mom's favorite. It is so sad how deluded he really is.





Matt unfortunately is mistaken as well. (Although I am sure he is the runner up)






Ahhh! Here is Mom's real favorite. My twin. We will finish each other's sentences just as well when she gets back.



Once Mom was safely in the airport, where did we go to celebrate? A bar!!! No, just kidding. We went to the Pie Pizzeria. Matt and Eric got this Greek pizza, which wasn't too bad. Julia and I got a Ham and Pineapple pizza (aka Hawaiian pizza). It was absolutely delicious.

Promised Videos and Pictures

Here is the video I promised you guys:




Here are some cute pictures too. (Only the first one is of her walking)



I think Matt is going to have a hard time with this one wanting a cell phone too early.




Maybe this one too.






Babyzilla distroys the train station!!! Look out!!!

Walking!!

I am going to call it official. Anabelle is walking! She has been walking to everything today. She doesn't make it all of the time, but she is choosing to walk first rather than crawl. She has been taking lots of steps whenever we have coaxed her to walk before, but when it came to getting around, she wouldn't be too adventurous and just crawl everywhere . Today, though, she has been walking first and then crawls after she falls down. Plus she is walking further than before. I think it is safe to say she is walking. Yay!!! It's also sad that my little girl is growing up. Scary too, because the two of them can really gang up on me now. Seriously though, my mom said the other day at a family get together, when we were trying to get Belle to walk to everybody, that we were witnessing a miracle in the making, and that is very true. It is a miracle that she can walk and become more independant. She wants to feed herself now too. She is very different from Beckett. A new season in our life has begun. Wish Matt and I luck!








p.s. These videos were taken last month. Sorry they are so dark. It was at night and we don't have the best lighting in our living room. They are all I have right now of her walking, but I will post more pictures and videos later.

An interesting blog

Okay, I have been slowly becoming more and more green. In some ways I think I drive Matt nuts (i.e. - constantly unplugging appliances that are not in use or turning off the computer instead of putting in sleep mode). I also am into clipping coupons and bargin shopping. My sister-in-law, Kim, sent me the link to her sister's blog that is all about being green and saving money. So I am going to post the link on my blog so that all of you can take a look. There are some really cool things on there, like a recipe for laundry detergent that costs about $0.02 a load. I am going to try it out and see how it works. She uses cloth diapers and it works really well for her, so I think it should work for my laundry. I'll let you know after I give it a try.

http://clippingcorners.blogspot.com/

Time for a change

Well, the Hanukkah background is gone. (sniff, sniff) We just wanted to hold onto it as long as possible, but change happens.

The latest in our life is not much. Anabelle has cut her first tooth (for real this time, last time I think it got scared and went back in). Now we are anxiously awaiting the second. She is also extremely close to walking (as stated before). She took about three steps last night, but she isn't steady enough to walk completely. My bet is that she will be walking by the end of the month. (That will be our goodbye gift for you to take on your mission, Mom Jacob) She is also getting more of a little personality. She is very determined and wont be distracted easily. She has mastered the stairs and unless you block them completely, she will find a way to play on them. Maybe if she would have a tumble on the stairs she wouldn't like them so much, but, fortunately, that has not happened yet.

Also, Belle has her own room now. The kids did fine together in one room, until Christmas. For whatever reason, sleeping at other people's houses has destroyed my kids sleeping habits. Beckett now comes and crawls into bed around 3 or 4 am. Due to the fact that Beckett leaves the door open when he comes to join us, he would let out all the warm air in their room, so Anabelle would then wake up around 5 or 6. When we tried to take him back to his bed, he would cry really loud, which would then wake Baby Belle. In the best sleeping interest of all, we moved Belle into the front room, across from our room, so that she wouldn't wake up when we return Beckett to his bed. She is sleeping fine now. Naps are working out better also because they can now take naps at the same time and Beckett doesn't wake up Anabelle playing for an hour before he conks out. So, all in all, this move has been good for everyone. (except that Beckett still crawls into bed with us, I think we just need to get one of those things you put on door knobs so kids can't open them, that should work for at least a month until he figures out how to work around the door knob thing)




This was the typical arrangement prior to the room switch. You can see Beckett's head resting right next to Matt's. When I got out of bed, Belle was more than happy to take up the space that I had been using.

Beckett is growing up more and more each day. Sometimes when I look at him I don't even recognize him. He now likes oranges. I shouldn't be surprised because the boy loves fruit, but I am. Neither Matt nor I like eating oranges. I don't like to peel them (which I now have to do so Beckett can eat them), and I especially don't like the stringy stuff leftover that you can't get off. But hey, it is one more food that Beckett does like, so that is a positive. Usually it is the other way around.

We are missing Matt terribly (and it is only the 3rd week of school). Hopefully he can test out of one of his classes and then he will be home one more night during the week. Hooray!! Keep your fingers crossed. It is also looking good for him to get his Bachelors in December. Things are looking good.

I am Matt, the fool - darn me to heck

So I wrote that last blog about me, me, and my new blog. You probably said to yourself, "well he sure is caught up in himself."
Clearly!
I apologize to all who wanted to know more than what I have been up to. (And to anyone who thought my Engrish comments were too racist - Lighten up!)
Alissa has been combating colds and miscellaneous rashes and suicide attempts at home. Both kids are fine and dandy and are growing like weed. Oops, I mean weeds, with an "s". I would have no clue what weed grows like. Heh.

Anabelle took her first steps without her training arms on (those would be our arms). I was helping her walk a little and she just seemed a little extra motivated. So I turned her towards me and let her go and she took two or three good steps and fell into my not-too-distant arms. Easy peasy. She's repeated the process several times now, especially when self-motivated. She walks but hasn't a tooth for her redneck smile. So I guess she has a 70-year-old-hobo smile.

Beckett ... still talks to stuff - walls, couches, windows, more walls, inner space, outter space, who-knows space. We haven't let him on Myspace yet, but we feel he has addressed it even in its absence.

So there you have it. Now you can apologize for having thought me so self-centered. Just kidding.

*Stay Tuned for a Very Important News Bulletin*

*beep beep bip bip beep beep*
And now back to completely useless information!
It's about time we blogged again, so I decided tonight's the night ... we'll make history (Nice one, Billy Joel, but no one would have caught that one.)
We are done with Holidays. No mas. Nein. Nyet. Jamais.
They were great and lovely and we thoroughly enjoyed every bloody moment we spent with the bulk of you at your parties and get-togethers.
I particularly enjoyed my boss closing the shop three days in two weeks. It was just fantastic and I hope that all you who still work in retail will find employment elsewhere so you, too, can feel the benefits of temporary unemployment. 'Tis a blessed thing.
To those of you who sought to spoil our children -- Shaaaaaame on you! A pox upon thine house!
And to those of you who didn't -- shaaaaame on you! Now I got pox all over my house!

I began school today. I set myself up for a tear-wrenching disaster by taking 18 credit hours whilst I work nearly full-time at the shop. For those of you who can't remember (or were never acquainted with) how college works, slave labor is tallied in credit hours. If you earn enough of these hours, you are released into the green pastures of LalaLand where you are allowed to think for yourself (usually meaning less liberally) and work for money (usually meaning not much). I am, as of tonight, signed up for two management classes (small business management and project management), two communication courses (advanced audio/visual production and interpersonal/small group communication), two English courses (Eminent Authors: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Intro to Fiction) and finally two Engrish courses (Japanese-American authors and Japanese poriticar phirosophy).

I do have an announcement to make as well. I will begin my new blog. My good friend Mike Wheeler came up with the title for me: Intermittent Ridiculousness. So come one or come none. Go there. It'll be good. Or maybe it won't. It shouldn't suck outright, though. So there you have it. I'll have silly columns, and maybe a couple videos, clowns and maybe even Batman (ya know, for the kids.) Whatever I put there will at least be funnier than this post. I'm actually surprised you made it this far. That's really incredible. Truly.