New Beginnings

Anthony Eric Jacobs

As we welcome the arrival of our newest family member, Anthony Eric Jacobs, I've decided to take this as an opportunity to start over. I'm going to start taking on my responsibilities with a new sense of pride and joy. I've started a new schedule for Alissa, putting her to bed at 9pm with a nap at 2pm. Today she went down for a nap at exactly 2pm. That is why I have a chance to blog, both kids are sleeping, Yeah! 

I've also started disciplining her, and it has been great to see her decide to make good decisions instead of disobeying. Today we were going to the car and running a bit late, so I told her to go get in her carseat, and I could tell she was thinking about wanting to drive the car (she really likes to play like she's driving the car with eric). She was about to start throwing a fit and I gave her a warning and immediately she went and got in her carseat, it was amazing. 

I'm also about to start working on feeding her more healthy foods, and making sure she's getting the proper servings of the 5 food groups. I will be using the MyPyramid for toddlers site as a guide. 

And, last but not least, Anthony, is doing well, He's finally on a better eating schedule, eating every 2 hours instead of every hour. He also sleeps great at night, he sleeps with me and eric and nurses throughout the night, but I'm able to get good sleep.

Here for your viewing pleasure, Alissa at the zoo, our christmas gift from the Huy Family, zoo passes:

Blog Burglar

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to warn you that somebody is going around on blogs, and posting blogs on other peoples blog sites. The previous blog was not posted by me!!! Although I don't mind taking the credit for it, I just wanted to warn you that she might do the same to you... Just watch out for a mother of 5 that seems sweet & innocent, she may even be married to a pastor, but really she's a blog swiper.

Besides having my blog broken into, All is well with me, I just had a baby shower today, that was very fun, My friends in my new bible study threw it for me at Julee's house. It was very sweet of them and blessed me a lot. I'm currently 33 weeks along, only 7 more weeks to go. I'm trying to clean out some stuff in my house and make room to set up the crib and changing table and stuff. That's going ok, it just seems like I always have more stuff than I know what to do with. I've been trying to get rid of stuff that I don't need, or haven't used in a long time, but sometimes I think I need more than I actually do.

Alissa is doing well, she's talking a lot, and even says some sentences. We haven't been potty training too much, I've decided to take a more relaxed stance, and wait till she's ready, She still enjoys the process of sitting on the potty and stuff, but doesn't actually go. She knows exactly who to ask for what, She asks Grandpa for candy, Grandma for mints, Auntie for cookies, and Daddy for Ice Cream. And she asks with the sweetest most angelic face possible, she says, "Pleeese I Cweem, Pleeese" and if you don't give it to her quick enough, she'll give you kisses, hoping that's what will win you over.

Christmas

Here are pics from our Christmas, We had a lot of fun having christmas with Alissa this year, she is old enough to enjoy opening, and receiving presents. She loved all of her gifts, and has been playing with them nonstop since she got them.

Our Gifts under our snowman christmas tree. We had a christmas tree that we were going to take from Grandma's house, because they couldn't get one, because maury's allergic. But the tree got rained on multiple times and by the time we had the time to pick it up, it was only a couple days before christmas and it was too big of a hassle. I had a christmas tree poster like this snowman, but Alissa likes snowmen, so we decided she'd enjoy this much better than a silly tree.

Alissa's Stocking

Opening her first gift

Posing with her Little People

Opening Presents at Grandma's House

Eric & I

Our Favorite Gifts, I got the salsa from Josh & Heidi. Eric got the pan scraper from me.

Alissa & Nathan opening presents

Crawling Blanket

I had to share this cool blanket that I made, I'm very proud of it:

I made this for Alexis. She can lay in the middle and crawl to the things all over the blanket, They are all different textures and colors, to help stimulate learning in a baby. I got the idea from a Gymboree play and learn book, and just gathered different materials that I could find in my house, and put it together to make this blanket. It was a lot of fun, and pretty simple. I did run out of the blanket edging stuff (whatever it's called). So I will have to fix that later.

My New Couch

I finally got a new couch for Christmas, my first ever!! LaNette bought me a slipcover for my couch. It makes my couch look soooo much better. Here are my before and after pictures

Before: 

After: 

Looks Cool huh! 

The Joys of Motherhood

So, I've been wanting to blog for a long time, about random things that Alissa is doing, but I lost my camera, and I really wanted to be able to post pictures along with the blog. So, I'm going to blog tonight and then get my old camera that doesn't work as well and post pictures tomorrow. 

I've been really enjoying motherhood, and have found that all my emotions have been intensified since I've become pregnant. I got to experience Alissa's first bloody cut and her second all in one day. On November 19, I was pushing Alissa in an umbrella stroller, she had sat down in the stroller probably 1 minute before. Next thing I know, I was stopping and Alissa fell out on her face. I went to help her up thinking, that she was fine, and found blood on her mouth. She had fallen asleep in the stroller and when she fell she cut her lip. My mom was with me and she was able to take charge, we were in line at the grocery store, so she asked the worker to go get some popsicles. Alissa was fine after that, just a little fat lip. Later that day, we flew to Utah for thanksgiving and before we were going to bed, Alissa started jumping on the bed, she fell, and hit her head on the wall, on a chair rail. Again, thinking she was fine, I went to help her and when I saw her face, she had a nice cut above her eyebrow, I proceeded to run her upstairs where Eric was to figure out what to do about it. We then asked LaNette if she thought she would need stitches, and instead, we just put a butterfly bandage on it. Now, Alissa handled all these incidents rather well, but that night I was an emotional mess. It's so hard to watch your precious baby girl get hurt and know that you could have been more careful and prevented both of them. I don't know how parents do it over and over again, but I just pray that my kids don't get hurt more than a couple times. 

Alissa has been learning new words, at an amazing speed. Eric and I, marvel at how quickly she learns. Just the other day, I showed her a snowman on my sock and now she knows the word, "snowan" and points them out all the time. She has also picked up the phrase, "bye, adios" from Handy Manny. It is very cute when she says that. She also walks around the house saying, "oohh, Peete", and "ooh toodles" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. As you can see she watches slightly too much tv, she's learned to use sign language and talk from it. She is also trying to get me to potty train her. She asks to go potty every so often, and she doesn't usually go, but she sits on the potty for a second, then says she's all done, jumps off and flushes the toilet. But just yesterday, she went in her potty for the first time. At first she was worried that she wasn't supposed to, but I let her know that it was good. 

I'm also getting excited for a new little one around the house, I'm now 23 weeks. And the baby is starting to move a lot more often. For those of you who don't know, we picked out names. If it's a girl, Juliana Joy, after Julee, and if it's a boy, Anthony Eric, after Tony. Eric and I are very happy with the names we chose and while Eric is hoping for little Anthony, I'm hoping for sweet Juliana.