4 months

Well, he is actually 4 and a half months now, but who is counting? I took him in for his well-baby check up and learned that he is our monster! This baby boy is now in the 67th percentile for height at 25.5 inches and 44th for weight at 14 lbs 11 ounces. That is pretty promising for a family of pudlies! I actually went back and looked in Aimee and Porters baby books and learned that Pratt is approximately the same size as Porter was at 7 months, and Aimee at 9 months. What has it taught me? Don't buy too many things ahead of time until you know how closely your baby follows the sizes. Just when I thought I had it figured out... So Pratt continues to be a super happy little guy. Although, he recently learned to roll over in both directions, but sometimes gets stuck on his tummy. He handles it pretty well for a few minutes, and then he starts to get testy. Lucky for him, Aimee is quick to answer is distress calls. When he gets up in the morning I nearly have to beat her off to keep her from mauling him to death! She likes to help undo his diapers when I change them, and is a pro at feeding him, if I need her help. Last night he did about 13 and a half hours. Don't worry, that isn't the norm. Usually it is about 11 hours, and I am not complaining! He has had a couple of little growth spurts where he got me up in the night, but for the most part my little Pratt man is super sweet to his mommy. One thing that is not perfectly pleasant about Pratt is his drooling. I have had people ask me if he is an early theether. Nope, he is just very well hydrated and wants the world to know. He loves to sit or stand up, and that means a wet ring from the top of his clothes to his belly button. If I am holding him, I too either have a wet shoulder, or spit streaming down my arm. It isn't my favorite thing about him, but it is a defining characteristic at this point. While I hate to see each phase end, I am loving watching my little Pratt man grow!

independence day 2011

Thanks to our good friends, this was such a fun day for the kiddos! Really the only thing I did that was festive was let Aimee watch the General George Washington animated movie while I did her hair. However, she has been saying "thank you for America," every time it is her turn to say the prayer. After lunch we went to the giant slip and slide. It was actually a huge roll of plastic that our friends the Bullock's set up on the hill across the street from VG. They strung about 15 hoses from two hydrants together to keep sprinklers on it. It was pretty enginuitive! Aimee's preferred method of getting to the bottom was riding on my back. It took a few tries to figure out how to stay in the middle, and how to slow down at the bottom enough to not get all scraped up when the slide ended and the grass started, but Aimee and I had a blast! Porter was more a fan of the kiddie pool at the bottom. My friend Ashley got several of us to put on a little carnival for the kids. We all came up with a simple little booth. The kids were given tickets to use to play at each booth. We had face painting (Aimee got a princess crown on her forehead), bubbles, photos, a bean bag toss, pin the pan on Flynn Rider and a fishing pond. We even had a snow cone stand and cake. It was so cute! It was a pretty hot day, so the boys were pretty worn out by bed time. Aimee was too, but somehow she managed to find the energy to stay up and play until the fireworks went off. This was the first year that fireworks weren't lit at Rosenblatt stadium. Lucky for us, all of the flooding at Harrah's casino caused them to have to move their fireworks show to Horseshoe casino. This is just across the river from us, and was visible from the lawn across the street from Village Green. I'm not sure how much of the fireworks the Jacobsen's were able to see, since Aimee was crawling all over them during the show, but it was pretty fun. Aimee and I were also able to come home and have a quick Skype with Chad before calling it a night. It was a wonderful day to remember how very blest we are!

mahoney park

We had planned to go to the water park as a family before Chad left, but the weather didn't cooperate. Instead I went the day he left. I decided it would be a good distraction from worrying about Chad driving to Phoenix. Luckily for me I had my good friends around to help me. In fact, if you didn't read my last post, you should. It was the highlight of the trip! It made me extra glad to other people I knew around me. Once we got in and unloaded, I got the kids slathered in sunscreen. This was the only thing Pratt fussed about. Then we were off. Aimee and Porter had very different ideas of what would be fun, which was a little tricky at first. Aimee was ready to dive right in and get wet. Porter, as usual was much more cautious, and just wanted to roam on dry ground. After being forced to watch Aimee for a while he finally warmed up to the water, and the two of them had a great time. I only wish I could have got a picture of them going down the frog slide. This turned out to be the main attraction for the two. They did have to lean about taking turns, and not crowding in line, but it eventually sunk in. Pratt was content to just let me hold him on my hip, and be partially covered with a nursing cover to avoid full sun exposure. A couple of times my friends took Aim to do some more adventurous things since Porter and Pratt just weren't up for that, and also sat with Pratt while he slept for a bit so that I could be a fun Mommy. The kids could have stayed all day, and it was great to watch them have so much fun!

porter funnies

My kiddos have been playing hard this summer, as you might be able to tell from this pic of Porter. This little man was leaning against me while I was sitting on the floor. When I got this is how he repositioned himself. He falls asleep about three days a week while eating his lunch. Perhaps this contributes to his squirty size. He doesn't usually get much down before his head is tilted back and his mouth wide open with his eyes cemented shut. It is pretty cute! He has had some other cute moments as of late. I admit Chad asked me to blog one, and I forgot what is was, but here are a couple of others to that had me laughing pretty hard"

1. Porter was sitting at his chair eating lunch. There was an open package of Oreos on the counter, and he asked if he could have a cookie. These were not double stuffed, so earlier I had been taking two cookies and combining them. This left two single chocolate cookie parts. I handed the creamless single chocolate cookie to Porter thinking that this would work out well for me. He picked up the cookie, looked and Chad, and then at me and started to sob. He knew that he had been shafted. It is kind of a bummer when your kids can no longer be fooled.

2. Saturday was a rough morning at our house. Chad and I blubbered all morning as he said goodbye to us for two months. He left that morning to drive to Phoenix where he would be doing a month long externship at the Mayo clinic, and at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital. After he finished that he would head straight for Salt Lake City to do a month long externship at University of Utah, both in Orthopedics. These kiddos adore their daddy, so I wanted to do a lot of fun things after he left to distract the kids about their daddy being gone. That afternoon I took them to a water park. One of my good friends was helping me get my little crew in the door. I took Pratt and the loaded down stroller, she took Aimee hand and carried Porter. While I was at the ticket window trying to dig out the right bills I heard my friend Melanie (aka Aimee's sunbeam teacher "Sister Jakeson") start to laugh and tell Porter to shush. I kept digging. A second later the laughter was getting louder and louder and she just kept telling Porter to be quiet. I got our tickets and moved over to her to find out what was going on. She told me that Porter saw a girl in a bikini. He pointed at her and said "that girl's not modest!" Then he started to look around and saw several others in bikinis. He proceeded to point at each one and one and in a not so quiet voice tell everyone that they were "not modest." Pretty smart two year old if you ask me!

holy pollies

To Porter they are rollie pollies, but Aim calls them holy pollies. This poor bugs definitely abundant, and they are one hot commodity in this neighborhood. If I send the kiddos outside with a container of some sort they will spend a good hour hunting them down. The neighborhood moms have all agreed that these little insects are a good match for Village Green. What better defence mechanism than rolling up in a ball to escape (at least some of the time) certain death. Being the wise old mom that I am, I know of a few hot spots, so when the fighting-over-a-bug erupts I can usually put it to a quick end. The other day that didn't work so well, because the altercation was over a centipede. There was even hitting and tears involved. Honestly, I thought it was hilarious that two little girls were fighting over a bug. We have had to make rules about bugs. One is that they don't get to come in the house. After I drug the kids in for lunch the other day, I found out that Aimee had one in her hand. I recited the rule and she said "okay mom." I kind of forgot about it until about an hour later. We had eaten and I had laid Porter down for a nap. I had just sat down to feed Pratt when Aimee asked to go outside to play. I noticed that she was holding her fist closed, so I asked what she was trying to take outside with her. She opened her hand and revealed the balled up little rollie pollie she caught before lunch. She assured me that she hadn't let it get in the house. What an entertainer! This rule was created when Aimee and Porter brought in a container full one day that didn't manage to stay closed all the way through lunch. This is the picture of them "cleaning" up their rollie pollie mess. I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I truly believe that bugs are filling the measure of their creation when they fall into the little hands of curious little minds.