weekend in slc

this past weekend it was once again time for our favorite Jacobs Christmas tradition. every year near Christmas we spend a weekend at the Little America in Salt Lake City. Its always such fun and this year was no exception. we love the Little America, the hotel is so charming, especially when decorated for Christmas, and the rooms are huge. we love it there. Friday night we celebrated Nick’s birthday by a much anticipated trip to Benihana’s. I have dreams about that place. it. is. so. good. completely worth smelling like cooked meat for the rest of the night. Henry was definitely intrigued by our chef, and his skills and loved his sampling of chicken fried rice.

After dinner we put Henry down for the night, and thanks to my mom, we were able to go to a late showing of Sherlock Holmes. I love the first one and was so excited to see the new one. and oh my. it was so good. perhaps even better than the first.

Saturday we drew names for our family gift exchange, then spent the morning shopping around Gateway. After an afternoon of napping and relaxing we headed out to the Stoneground for another amazing meal and then a late night showing of Hugo. I wish I could say I liked this one, I probably would have, if I had stayed awake. a 1020 show is just a little too late for me nowadays. but Mckay loved it.

Sunday morning my family went to the Choir’s Christmas Program and then Henry met the big man in red at the Christmas Brunch with Santa. another family favorite where we ate and ate to our hearts content. We were so curious to see how Henry would react to Santa, and this picture shows it perfectly. He stared, mouth open at him for awhile and then was over it. Maybe next year he’ll show a little more interest.

Fun with uncles and auntie all weekend.

After a quick nap and some Football Henry went swimming in a real pool for the first time ever. He got really scared when Mckay jumped in the pool and disappeared under water but once he realized his dad was fine Henry was all about kicking his little legs with all his might around the pool. it was the cutest. This got us really excited for summertime when we can spend even more time in the pool.

After our swim we relaxed some more in the room, watching football and Home Alone. We had plans to walk around Temple Square but Henry is not loving his stroller right now and it was a little colder than even I can handle so we just took a family drive around downtown and viewed the pretty lights from the warmth of our car. We got Wingnutz for the boys Fantasy draft that night and spent the rest of our Sunday with more football, drafting and board games. It was such a fun weekend with family. If only it could have snowed even just a little, then it would have been perfect. we are wishing for it pretty hard at our house. hopefully we’ll seem some pretty flakes before Christmas.

little mover and 5 more pages, finished.

the babe is finally on the move and he can’t be stopped! I keep watching him crawl in amazement, thinking this can’t be my child. and he did it just one day shy of turning 10 months. all of a sudden he’s crawling around like it’s no big deal, when in fact it is a skill he has been trying to master for awhile now. friday night we could tell he was getting so close. he would sort of crawl, drag, scoot along but it wouldn’t take long for him to get frustrated. Saturday morning we woke up and he could just do it. crazy. and you can definitely tell he’s proud of himself.

other than that major milestone the past month has been pretty eventful for this mister. He had his first case of the major sickies. a fever of 105 sent us to the after hours clinic where our poor boy was subjected to several different tests, including a run to the emergency room. it was a long night and he was so miserable. thankfully his temperature eventually went down and after a few days he was back to his normal sweet and happy self. this month also brought his first little phase of rebellion. he was pushing stuff out of our hands, banging on stuff, didn’t want to eat anything ever, wouldn’t laugh or smile and lots of high pitched screaming. this only lasted about 2 days but for a mama who has only experienced pure sweetness from her baby it felt like forever and I may have been a little dramatic about it. in fact I may have had nightmares and a constant fear that our boy was going to grow up to be the meanest kid on the block. this was the first time I ever really got nervous about disciplining our kids. but that too has passed, although I’m sure not forever but we’ll just take these phases as they come. 

not everything was tantrums and fevers this month. he is becoming even more independent and curious and loves to explore wherever he is. he understands the few signs we’ve been using, “all done” “food” “milk”, etc. he is so friendly and loves smiling at everyone he meets. he loves being outside, still. loves music. is the easiest eater. still no teeth, not even a sign of them. he sleeps like a dream at night, but think’s he’s far too busy to nap. he’s great at giving kisses. loves watching dogs and other babies and he really really loves his grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles. 10 months. wow. double digits, he’ll be one before we know it. please time, slow down just a little.

also, I’ve been able to finish 5 more quiet book pages. only 4 left! I would love to have it finished by the end of the year. but that seems a little ambitious right now. anyways, I loved doing these few pages, a couple of them I really didn’t know what I was doing, I tried a few different things, and ended up really liking how they turned out.

W-Watch. Henry is fascinated by watches, if you’re wearing one you can bet he’s going to go for it. so a simple watch with embroidered numbers and felt hands that rotate around the button was in order for W. 

O-Opposites, or Octopus. This is one of the pages where I wasn’t really sure how it would turn out until it was all finished and it ended up being one of my favorites. I embroidered the word along with a picture on each leg. The legs are velcro-ed to their opposite.

N-Numbers. there are a million different things I could have done for Numbers and that’s why it took me so long to decide on what to do, but a simple abacus worked great. double layered felt beads slide up and down the thin ribbon to help learn counting.

V-Vroom! I knew I wanted to do something like this for V but I was a little intimidated by all the stitching and detail it would take. I was inspired by Homemade by Jill’s car play mat she made for her son. if you haven’t seen it I definitely recommend looking it up. it. is. insane. The car (look familiar? it was Mckay’s idea to replicate our own Toothless. yes that’s the name of our car, confused? refer to How to Train Your Dragon) is attached to a thin red ribbon that is long enough to ride the car along all the roads on the page to stops which include: the beach, pizza parlor, car wash, school, ice cream shop and the park.

J-Jigsaw Puzzle. This is the second attempt at this page. The first puzzle turned out really awful. this one was a little tricky to figure out but once everything came together it turned out great. too bad the top pieces chop the owls heads off. a little morbid I suppose but I’m definitely not willing to redo it a third time. :)

22 pages down, 4 more to go. H, M, R and Y. There’s a reason I’ve saved these ones for last. lots of ideas but not 100% sure what to do yet. and Y? that one has me totally baffled.

our thanksgiving

living so close to both of our families means we often get to celebrate holidays with both sides of the family and the celebration extends over multiple days, something we are so grateful. Thanksgiving day was spent with the Ryttings. Mairin was home from New York so we were all together, something we didn’t think was going to happen this year, since injured Chris should have been in Chile and we were supposed to be in Grad School out of state. So being all together this year was a pleasant surprise. We went for a little fallish walk, watched Greenbay continue to be undefeated and ate some seriously delicious food.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, like every year, we went and picked out our Christmas Tree. It was so fun to start celebrating the Henry’s first Christmas season.

Thanksgiving round two took place at the Jacobs home, where I was too lazy to take any pictures. this also included yummy food including one of our newer favorites: upside down caramel pecan apple pie. sounds complicated but it couldn’t be more simple. even I can make it and I am no baker. we had a great time with family once again and if I could just toot my own horn for a second, I did happen to beat the boys at Settlers. twice. in a row. (I got lucky.) it was such a pleasant break, it’s always such a treat to spend time with mckay. so many things to be grateful for. our wonderful, supportive families, friends, the gospel and the knowledge of eternal families, our health, and our sweet little babe who is the biggest joy. I could go on forever. we are incredibly blessed and I’m grateful for this time of year to reflect on all our blessings. I should really do it more often. we hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, looking forward to Christmas and all its fun!

weekend projects

 

henry is tending to be a little high maintenance lately. he’s fed up with his immobility and trying with all his might to become a crawler, it just hasn’t happened yet. He gets on his hands and knees and bounces back and forth trying so hard to propel himself forward. when we set him on the ground to play with toys he instantly goes from sitting to his stomach and then screams in frustration because he cant move anywhere. so most of my time is occupied with the effort to get this babe moving. despite all this we managed to squeeze in a few crafty crafts over the weekend. we decided to spruce up Henry’s room a little bit.

Project #1 was inspired from an idea I have seen all over the internet. and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I couldn’t even guess what the original source is but I remember seeing this done when I was just barely pregnant, so it’s definitely been around awhile, and on our “to do” list for quite some time. we bought wooden spice racks from Ikea and spray painted them white, attached them to the wall and they became little bookshelves.

project #2 came from the always inspiring Pinterest. I downloaded these free alphabet printables, printed them onto white cardstock and hung them clothesline style. only thing purchased for this project was the clothespins from hobby lobby.

 

these pictures don’t do justice to how cute these printables are. ( no windows = poor lighting. but I love them. a lot. such a fun way to add visual interest in a room. I’ve already caught henry looking at them every once in awhile. we also gathered up some things for our next project. also for Henry. Mckay will be helping with this one which is wonderful. projects with the husband are one of my absolute favorite things.

weekend

complete picture overload coming up. this weekend was amazing. all the Jacobs under one roof again, total heaven. we had so.much.fun! Henry was an instant fan of Marty. We played non stop, ate way too much, and started Monday wishing the weekend had been just a little bit longer.

big week.

big things happening this week. Last night we welcomed brother Chris home from the MTC. foot surgery. he’ll be home for about 2 months. bittersweet. such a bummer to leave the spiritual high of a mission to come home, instead of heading to Chile with his district, but we’re a little excited that he’ll be home for the holidays. I guess if you had to come home for surgery, now would be the ideal time. So with one brother home we have another one on the way! Marty is coming home from his mission in Australia on Saturday. and boy are we excited. It’s been almost 4 years since my entire family was all together so it’s going to be loads of fun. Aaaand, this little gentleman turns 9 months on Friday. I can’t even believe it.

still no teeth (so cute), still no crawling (although he sways back and forth on his hands and knees building momentum, so we’re close. just need to move that hand forward… he is excellent at scooting backwards.

new skills: clapping, which is super recent, and giving kisses, which just melt my heart. A henry kiss entails him leaning forward, mouth open until he reaches your cheek where he then drools all over you. I love it. he’s such a happy easy baby, and loud… always talking and cooing to himself which is cute, but makes things like church a little rough. For some reason he is the most high maintenance at church, doesn’t want you to put him down, but doesn’t want you to hold him either. he gets fussy and loud and by the end of sacrament I am exhausted and my arms feel like they’re about to fall off. I have yet to make it to a full 3 hours of church.

 

lots of firsts coming up especially with the Holidays. like his first experience with snow the other night. he was intrigued.

and first wearing of a tie. we are so blessed and love our sweet babe more than we ever thought possible.

we carved pumpkins

or I guess I should say Mckay carved a pumpkin, whilst the babe supervised.

I, for the second year in a row gave up after about 20 minutes. One day I’ll actually complete one. But a fussy babe, picture taking and the roasting of the pumpkin seeds kept me too occupied. The carving got a little competitive this year when we learned there were prizes. Had I known the winner would get a gift card to Café Rio I probably would have tried a little harder, although I did benefit from Mckay’s second place prize. also a gift card. I on the other hand was cheated out of my last place prize (apple pie caramel apple) when brother Adam ate it.  the night was complete with delicious steak sandwiches and corn chowder and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mckay replicated the mom tattoo, pure brown-nosing skills at their finest (my mom was the judge).

Monday we continued the Halloween celebration with some epic chili courtesy of Mrs. Klappoth, Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake (thank you Paula Deen) and my first Zombie movie ever. ew.  I love celebrating a holiday over an entire weekend. Next up, Thanksgiving which means a visit from auntie Mairin. hooray!

Mr. Pan

As of the beginning of the week I had all but given up on finding Henry a costume I liked. I was pretty sure I wanted him to be Peter Pan but wasn’t willing to spend 30+ dollars on an outfit he would wear for a day, plus I wasn’t obsessed with any that I saw online. Tuesday I found the most perfect Peter outfit on makeit-loveit.com, a site I used to frequent all the time but hadn’t been on in awhile. I remembered she always made the cutest costumes for her kids and was so happy when I saw her tutorial for the Peter Pan outfit. it looked so simple, even for me. I got the supplies Wednesday (poor Mckay had to experience the line to cut fabric at Joannes, which is always insane) and had plans to make the costume on Thursday, talk about last minute... It took the majority of the day but I have to say I love it, mostly because of the little man that’s wearing it. Those of you that are experienced sewers please be kind… :) this was my first time sewing any sort of clothing and my sewing skills are limited at best. but, thanks to the tremendous help of my mom it all came together. Not bad for less than 11 dollars.
 






thanks to husband for indulging me in a little impromptu photo shoot. Hope everyone is enjoying their Halloween weekend! This has just got to be the best time of year, love love it!