Visit from Kris, Owin, and Olive

Kris, Owin, and Olive made a trip up from Rochester on Monday. We were hoping to go to the pool but the day started off cold and cloudy. That didn't stop Jake and Owin...they played trains and drove trucks up until the point Jake couldn't drive one more inch without falling asleep at the wheel. He excused himself to his sleeping quarters and in the meantime it cleared off and became a gorgeous day so we moved outside. Owin had a great time playing in the tunnel and shooting hoops while little Olive took a little cat nap in the stroller. Thanks for making the trip up guys and we'll see you again soon!

Ride like the wind

Is Jacob's "thumbs up" hilarious or what!? Seriously though...we really look forward to our evening bike rides. Although I truly enjoy the bike rides it is inevitable we have to come up hill to get home no matter where we go...I'm still trying to figure out the path of least resistance. :)

Hooray for dads

We met Grandma and Grandpa Jacobson in St. Cloud to pick up Jake on Sunday. We had a nice lunch to celebrate Father's Day and then let Jacob run around outside until he got tired enough that he would fall asleep on the way back home.

A happy belated Father's Day to Grandpa Doug as well who is touring Scotland right now. We are so sorry we missed the call - we had Scott's phone on alert but not mine. See you on Sunday!

black sheep pizza

One of our favorite pizza* places. If you haven't been...you must. Don't forget to order a house salad. One is enough to share. We don't make it here often, but just a hop skip and jump away from the art festival it was a great way to finish the day.

*I said "one of"....Jake's is still my all-time favorite.

Stone Arch Festival of the Arts

With Jacob spending the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa J's, we spent a greater part of Saturday at the Stone Arch Festival of the Arts. We were quite happy to have our little peanut home again on Sunday but it was fun to have no agenda, no schedule, and no 8pm bedtime routine for a couple of nights.

A great view.

Under the big big bridge.

I'm all about freedom of expression. I'm also all about freedom of press. Unfortunately for her, in my opinion, this is a picture you might see in the "Don't" section of a fashion magazine.

Live music. Outdoors. Nice day. I like it.

The best mango tea. Ever. Totally worth the $6 I spent.

Not even close to being as good as a gyro on Welch at 2am, (ISU campus for all of you non-Iowa State folks) but I was so hungry it was still good.

Nice Ride

Nice Ride bikes are here! We noticed them while hanging out in the city last weekend. I'm sure they are really convenient for students or people that work in the area but it would be fun to grab a map and rent them for the day to check out the city by bike.

Jenny Driscoll rocks!

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday! Jenny and Greg along with their three kiddos Owen, Carly, and Wyatt are our dear friends from Colorado Springs. She read the post on how we lost our book *sniff* and a few days later...a new Knuffle Bunny! Jacob is very excited to have it back in his collection. Jenny, thank you. You have a heart of gold.

Photos

We had our photo shoot with Sarah Barntsen a few weeks back. She has just started her photography business and the previous Shutterfly post is just a snippet of the many fantastic pictures she took. Although her business is new she has a lot of experience behind the lens.

I am looking for some fun, creative ideas for creating a wall gallery. I'm all ears if you have ideas!

Summer 2010

Click here to view these pictures larger

Love and H2O

Jacob may or may not care about reading his "blog book" when he grows up, but I do hope he reads this one and is reminded to be as thoughtful of a husband as his daddy is.

We had quite the night last night. I had planned to go out for the evening (dinner and a movie!) with my sister and a couple of other friends. I had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed two fantastic glasses of wine before I got the text that said "Plz call if you get this before movie". Uh-oh. Upon calling home I had found that Jacob had thrown up twice (maybe 3 times by the time I got home) but thankfully found him happy as a clam in the bath. We were able to tag team to get him and some other furniture items cleaned up. (Unfortunately his Knuffle Bunny book will have to be replaced.) He was feeling much better and we didn't have anymore throwing up, but it was definitely a long night.

The one thing that I noticed is I didn't really look at the clock. I remember when he was a newborn I would constantly keep looking at the clock thinking how tired I would be the next day. Last night, after 3 or 4 attempts of trying to get back to sleep we just snuggled, read books (in the dark) four different times, got a drink of water three times, had a diaper change, talked with kitty, laid in Mom and Dad's bed so he could hold Dad's hand while listening to Mom try to recite Goldilocks and the Three Bears (he then wanted to see the book) and by 4am he said he was ready to back to his crib. These nights are few and far between. If this were a regular habit we'd definitely be enrolling ourselves in "How to train your kids to sleep".

The luxury I have as a stay at home mom is that we can lay low the next morning or have an early nap if need be on nights like this. Last night was different though as I actually was working in the morning and then had another boy coming over for a short while after lunch. It all worked out just fine but it made me SO thankful for my (mostly) full time job as a stay at home mom and the fresh brewed coffee and bouquet of flowers that I woke up to this morning. That's coming from the man who gets up at 4:50am to get ready for work and last night probably got about 50 minutes of really good sleep. Now that's a thoughtful husband.

As a side note...if you are wondering why Jacob was sick...totally my fault. The poor kid was dehydrated and probably had a bit of heat exhaustion. Scott and I are both extremely sensitive to the sun as I am sure Jacob is. I am great about getting his sunscreen so he didn't get a sunburn, but we were busy all day I didn't remind him to keep drinking his water. This is your friendly reminder...don't forget to hydrate!

Awesome

Days go by

Doesn't it seem as soon as summer rolls around the days seem like they are on fast-forward? I think the fact that we're here in Minnesota is the main reason. Although the days are longer we pack so many things in to enjoy every bit of warm sunshine that we can before summer quietly slips away and we're commenting on the changing color of the leaves.

The past couple of weeks have flown by. We spend a lot of time outside, playing at the park, reading books, and playing with friends. We spent one morning catching some entertainment at Teddy Bear Park followed by a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich and OREOS! Poor kid has never had an Oreo cookie in his life (at least that I have given him) and they came with the kids meal in a cute little blue two pack. He immediately said, What's that? and upon telling him they were cookies for his dessert he was quite excited. The first thing he did was twist off the top and starting licking the "ice cream".

We then ventured up to Grandma Sue and Grandpa Jake's house for a few days over Memorial Day weekend. I took a detour and spend a night with Sarah and Mike in Brainerd at Mike's family cabin. We spent the greater part of the afternoon at the Manhattan Beach Club listening to GB Leighton. What a lovely afternoon! We relaxed at the cabin, observed Mike looking quite funny in snorkel and fins in order to go on a dive quest for a lost cable (he was successful on the first try) and then I got my butt whooped from Jenny and Sarah in pretty much every game of Pounce that we played. I forgot my camera so the weekend events have no supporting photos. If I can get a hold of the picture of Mike that Sarah has on her camera it is definitely worth posting.

Grandma and Cindy hung out with Jacob for a couple of days before I joined them. Mark, Scott, Chris and Larry headed to Canada for their annual fishing trip. They had a lot of rain and not a lot of fish, (at least compared to years past) but they still had a great time.

We got home Tuesday night and I'm not sure where the week went but we're already heading into another weekend!