Catching Up Chapter 3: Jacob turns Six!

Jacob's 6th birthday was June 21st... We seems to be on an every-other-year pattern for parties... Last year was the great Bliss Water Park party, with pool & sprinkler & slip-n-slide, so this year was a "just family" year. It also turned out to be a "one-present" year, because it was such a BIG present! :) We sent him on a scavenger hunt...

and the clues eventually took him to the present...

After some more practice rides, we let Jacob choose where to go for supper, and he picked Gattitown. I was so glad he picked it -- I was wishing I had gone there for MY birthday, but didn't get to! :) Both the boys rode the (lovely pink) car... love those faces!

And Jacob took a ride on the bumper cars:

He also did great at the skee-ball & the whack-a-mole games. It was very fun for everyone!

(And that concludes our catching up adventure! I think we're up-to-date. :))

Catching Up Chapter 2: Fun Moments

Here are a few fun moments from January of this year:

Ring-around-the-rosie:

Jeremiah playing along to Rowlf the Dog's "Halfway Down the Stairs"...Listen for Jeremiah's enthusiastic "hallelujah!" part-way through. heehee.

And, one rare quiet moment that I caught. Check out those faces! (Jacob's eyebrows, especially!! Yikes!)

Catching Up Chapter 1: Jeremiah Turns Two!

Jeremiah's 2nd birthday was April 1st... He opened some presents:

And played:

He did great at blowing out the candles:

And eating cake:

The present that Jacob picked out for Jeremiah (with Nana's help) was this microphone... which Jacob also enjoyed a lot:

I remember thinking "I can't believe he's TWO!?!?!" ...and now I'm still thinking, "I can't believe he's TWO & a HALF!!" :) Arrrrgh...

Playing at the Park

Jacob has some kickin' new monkey skills:

And Jeremiah was learning about his shadow:

All very fun. :)

snow day!

Wednesday was Jacob's very first snow day! It was supposed to be his first day back to school after the winter break, but it snowed Tuesday evening, sending most of Kentucky into a tizzy.

To be fair, most of the tizzying was warranted. :) Richie & I were out to dinner for our anniversary, and on the way home we did a slow 180 as we tried to brake down a slight hill. Since we ended up exactly backwards from where we started, we decided to just go with it and go home a different way. Yikes! I was glad I wasn't driving...

Anyway, our day off was a lot of fun! (We're all SO glad that it happened on a day that Richie was off too.) There was pancakes for breakfast, and playing in the snow:


and warming up:


and plenty of fun inside (Jeremiah's very into music these days):


The best moment may have been when Richie brought Jacob & Jeremiah into our bedroom at 7:something am & told Jacob there was no school... I wish I had a sound clip of Jacob's reaction. It was a very excited, yet calm & collected, "yeeeeaaaaahhh!" :)

christmas picture attempts

The progression of funny pictures from the "boys-in-front-of-the-christmas-tree" photo shoot... These guys are so fun:

thanksbegiving

We went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving... All the Blisses converged there, and we got to stay in Dave and Dawn's great new (huge!) house. We had tons of fun with everybody (playing Settlers, loving on the cousins, playing Happy Family, eating turkey dinner with the best GBC in town, hanging curtains, etc), but one of my favorite memories is the leaf pile. It was truly fabulous!

Here's Jacob's turn:

I love how Jeremiah comes in halfway through to see what the heck is going on! If you listen close, you can hear him "talking" to me about it just before he appears in the shot. :)

And here's Jeremiah's turn:

halloween

Halloween was pretty fun. Jacob had been begging and begging for a Buzz Lightyear costume -- WITH wing-span, as he calls it -- for months and months and months. Nana & Auntie Jen finally gave him his wish. :) They also sent a lion costume for Jeremiah, which was very cute (though I think a monkey might have been more appropriate for these days!). Unfortunately, me being me, there was no eye-liner or anything to give him a lion nose and whiskers. :)

They got to do two trick-or-treats this year... First there was "trunk-r-treat" at church, where a bunch of people volunteered to pass out candy & stuff from the back of their cars, all lined up in the parking lot. Then there was the regular neighborhood trick or treat.



I've decided that I really don't like trunk-r-treat. It's no fun at all: kids are just herded along in a big crowd, you don't see anybody except the back of the person's head in front of you, and the older kids keep going around and around the loop, cutting in line all the time & taking more turns than they should. All the while, Jeremiah is cooped up in a stroller, tired & cranky, not able to see anything or anybody. Blah. Who wants to do that?



Whereas the regular old trick-or-treating is so classic! You load the little one in the wagon, while Jacob tears down the street ahead of you (to infinity and beyond!). Then you walk all around the neighborhood, seeing all sorts of people & costumes, Jeremiah waving all the way & making friends with everyone. Jacob gets to stop at a house to explore the many decorations (all-be-it creepy), and to chit-chat with the owners (who are pleasantly surprised by his precociousness...hopefully). Plus, after you get home, you still get to answer the door for the kids who are still out, and see Rita's tail puff up to 6 inches around whenever the doorbell rings. :) Far superior to the trunk-r-treat cattle drive!

See? How is this fun? It's not. I think next year we'll stick to the real trick-or-treating...even if we have to skip church. (Scandalous!)

pumpkin goodness

Jacob had his first school field trip on Oct 17th, which was also his Bliss-day! (Jacob's been with us for 4 years -- can you believe that?!?!?) Anyway, both Rich & I got to go along (because it was a Wednesday) and left Jeremiah home with a sitter. I think it meant a lot to Jacob that we were there, and that we were able to give him our full attention. He's a great big brother, but we can tell he misses the individual attention. :)

The field trip was to Boyd's Orchard, and it was pretty much a blast. Except for the rain. And the chaos of a gajillion kindergarteners. And the stench of the petting zoo. But really it was a blast. Really. I guess.

Each kid (and gorwn-up too) got to pick a pumpkin from the patch, which was nice and muddy:

There was also a HUGE slide, which Jacob went down about 82 times. He only got yelled at a few times for going too soon. :) There was also a tire jungle-gym... The 2nd picture is Jacob and his friend Rohan. (I think they sit at the same desk/table.) Anyway, this is one of my favorites from the trip because it shows what a good friend Rohan must be, and it was the first real reassurance that Jacob really is making friends, and that he is not a social outcast! (Even if he is the tiny-est kid in the class.) :) No worries, right?

Later that night, Auntie Jen arrived for a couple days' worth of visiting. While she was here, we put our field trip pumpkins to good use:

The 1st one is the one I made. The 2nd one is the one that Jen made -- you can't really see them, but there are stars all around it that are only half-carved out (like the eyes). Very cool.

The last one is Jacob's... He picked out the design (from BHG.com -- yes, we are total nerds, and we like it that way), but I carved it. I think this one is my favorite because of how the bats overlap the moon, though it's really hard to say. I love the squiggly mouth on mine, and I love the half-carved stuff on Jen's. (And the eyebrows!)

So that was October. And just to be fair, here's the best October picture of Jeremiah (who is also a pumpkin):