Updates

Enough of the hate mail, I have some time so here is a marathon post of some of the things we have been doing lately.  

Jake is doing really well, he is a pretty good baby, although Brooke doesn't think he is as good as Hailee was at this age.  He is growing, fast, he is already 8 pounds 13 ounces, so the boy is doing well.  He seems to sleep pretty good, pretty much all day and most of the night.  He has allowed Brooke a few 3 hour stretches at night, so that's good.  He is pretty fun and everyone has very much enjoyed holding him, he gets passed around a lot.  He had his first week at church today and did well, he slept through the whole thing so that was nice for Brooke.

Hailee is doing pretty well but is struggling a little bit with Mom and Dad spending so much of their time and attention on Jake.  She has been acting out a little bit, but for the most part she just wants to help.  We are learning a lot on how to deal with her so she gets the attention she needs and she actually is a pretty good helper for her age.  She wants to help more than she is worth, but we appreciate the fact that she isn't taking out her jealousy on Jake.

Brooke is doing great and feels really good.  She thinks it's nice to be able to breath again and her heartburn is all but cured.  She has a lot more energy and is getting used to the sleepless nights.  She loves being home with the kids and is having fun doing projects around the house.  I don't know how she does it.  She is also addicted to Twilight so her nose is in a book every time she gets a spare minute.  

I am just working and coming home to a packed house, well packed for me.  We have been quite busy, it seems that every time we try to slow things down we fail.  I figured that once we had Jake we would be home more often, but that hasn't seemed to be the case so far.  I guess life never really slows down. 

There are a few noticeable changes on the blog, check out my Twitter updates down the side and you can select to follow my blog as well.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

I haven't had a whole lot of time to post or really do much of anything.  I did sneak out and see Burn After Reading, it was good and a pretty typical Coen Brothers movie.  No time for a full review right now.  Brooke gave me Lego Indiana Jones for a gift and I have been enjoying that in my few spare minutes, we have also been able to watch a few movies through Netflix, some notable good ones were.

The Brave One

Music Within

Be Kind Rewind

American Gangster

Lars and the Real Girl

As far as music goes, I listened to Death Magnetic the new Metallica album, it's some good and some bad.  The new Jack's Mannequin album comes out on Tuesday, the new single "The Resolution" is great so hopefully that will be a winner.

So below is what most of you came here to see.  Pictures of our latest adventures.

  

Where's Hailee?  Brooke took Hailee over to a new place near us called My Gym.  It was fun and Hailee enjoyed it.

Jake's typical pose, he does pretty good holding up his head.

With all the time at home Hailee has been busy doing lots of art projects.  She loves to color and paint.

Jake likes to lay down and look at various things, Brooke puts out the stuffed animals and he seems to really like to look at them and even has started to reach for things.

Obviously I wasn't supervising this art project.  It seemed to be conveniently cleaned off her face by the time I got home from work.  The evidence is on the camera.

This could pass for a first day of school picture, but Brooke just liked her outfit.

Hailee loves to try and help out with Jake.  She loves to kiss him and give him hugs.  For the most part she does good, she is a little rough but everything has good intentions.

Sometimes Jake likes her affection and sometimes he doesn't.  The two above pictures show one of each.

OK so people always make fun of me because I color coordinate my candy and eat each type by color.  I thought I was kind of crazy but I didn't really realize that it was hereditary.  So check out Hailee's fruit snacks, organized by color, at least she takes after me in some things.

So we decided that it was time to free our frogs and our salamander.  We took them to a pond near our house and released them to the wild.  We feel like we found a good habitat for them and hope that they are happy there for a while.  We did spot another frog living there although he was big enough to eat all of our animals in one bite.  Hailee was actually really excited and enjoyed the whole experience.  We decided to make it a family affair.

Hailee got a little too close to some of the animals and the water.  She loves running around at this park and seeing all the ducks and geese.

Hopefully we will have time to update a little more frequently.  I know a lot of you are anxious to hear more news about Jake.