Jake's Birthday was a big hit! (literally)

Well, happy birthday little buddy!

I'm sorry to say that second children are deprived in the picture taking category. I took way more pictures of Ethan when he turned 2 than I did of Jake, but that's kind of the way it goes. Either way, we had fun and we're really glad Jake was born and that we get to have him in our family. :)

If you want to turn your head sideways you can see the decorations Ethan helped me put up during Jake's nap. (I need to remind myself, AGAIN, to not take videos vertically because they don't rotate. ha ha)





Jake loves food, music, and balls. We made sure his birthday celebration included all of those. (just as a side note, Ethan's special birthday dinner is always chicken nuggets with chocolate milk. Jake was giddy about his deluxe fruit platter. These two boys do NOT have the same food preferences. Ethan would eat cereal for every meal if he were allowed to. Jake gobbles up zucchini and beans and sort of picks at his biscuit. )


This ball toy has provided hours of entertainment--the thing in the middle spins around and it plays music and there are buttons and ramps and levers to make the balls do different things. The annoyingness of the music has been worth the entertainment value. :)


My sister Allison gave Jake a great collection of kid songs that has been a huge hit. This is the boys dancing to one of the songs a few days after Jake's birthday...











And, speaking of big hits....

Amidst the birthday treats (cookies and ice cream, because Jake doesn't really like cake--can you believe it?) , our neighbor knocked on our door and asked us if we knew about this:


Um, no. We didn't.

We did find a rock in the back, so our best guess is random vandalism, but we'll never know exactly what happened.

And of course it started to rain, so we had to bring the car seats inside, covered with shattered glass, and remove the covers and clean up the glass and vacuum them up, and put a tarp on the car, and file a police report, and call our insurance... Too much fun.

It was weird to be angry at a nameless person, and I found myself wanting to just find whoever it was (my guess was a clueless teenager) and just sit them down and let them know how much time, effort, energy, and money the whole thing was going to cost us and invite them to think about that kind of thing before you just go throwing rocks or acting on whatever other impulses you may happen to have. I'm such a mom. :) But then I got sad that maybe whoever did it doesn't have a mom who HAS taught them that kind of stuff and I got to wondering why they were wandering around at night anyway and ultimately ended up feeling sort of sad for the potentially bleak future of this unnamed vandal. Lots of assumptions and unanswered questions...

Anyway, $250 deductible later we got a new windshield and moved on with your life, so what else can you do, right?


But most importantly, we love you Jake!! Happy Birthday!



And, here are some fun pictures from our last trip to Waterman's Pumpkin patch. We have gone there every year since we moved here and realized that next October we will be living somewhere else...

Growing Growing, all the time...

It's in his genes...

This is the pumpkin eating dinosaur they have every year. Gotta love it.

I love what you do for me, Toyota!!
(Does anyone else remember those commercials? Funny that we have 2 Toyotas)

This is a calf nursery painted like a pumpkin. And a cute little "pumpkin" inside!

Happy Fall!