Growing and Growing; Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Jake does his best Risky Business...
(completely unstaged and unprompted)

Jake had his 2.5 year old well-child visit last week. Granted, he's actually 31 months, but...

He was a whopping 29.5 pounds (35th percentile) and 37 inches (65th percentile)! His head is still 97th percentile, but it's holding steady. We aren't so sure about all the nurse's measurements, but he's in the ballpark. We have pretty much come close to hitting 50th percentile! Whoot!

His pediatrician thinks he looks great. She was particularly pleased with his speech. Based on what she saw (and the ASQ - Ages and Stage Questionnaire) she said she would not have said he was a candidate for speech therapy. Of course she told us to keep with it because she only saw a snapshot, but that pretty much confirms what our speech language pathologist (SLP) has been saying for the past month or so. Our SLP thinks that Jake will drop down to speech once per week soon and probably be out of speech by age 3. Great news but scary somehow. So, so much of his progress is due to his SLP and what she has taught us. What will we do without her? I guess the answer is, we won't need her.

Here are some photos from Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had a great time at Kimberley and Michael's for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to have all five cousins together! Christmas in Raleigh was wonderful too, complete with snow!

Four cousins!

Aunt Kristin and Hannah

Lily in the Bounce House. Who has a bounce house IN their house?
My sister! It's awesome (and slightly crazy)!

Uncle Jeff and Caleb

We went to a great Children's Museum...

Jake's first visit to Santa

Gamma B helps Lily with her gingerbread house
(Jake made one too)

Good times with Lily!

Good times with Pop-pop!

Good times with Daddy!Good times with Gammy Jan!
Cuddle time with Papaw!

Christmas Morning...
Someone was pretty excited!
Another year, another bear sweater (thanks Gammy Jan!)

Jake and Bailey wish you another laid back Holiday!

Birthdays and Half-birthdays!

In the past week, Jeff turned 35 - now eligible for the Presidency - and Jake turned 2.5 - still eligible for extreme cuteness. Pop-pop and Gammy Jan came to celebrate, along with celebrating Dale's birthday two weeks ago. For Jeff's birthday, I took the plunge and bought him a digital SLR. So now we will have great photos - tens of thousands of them if you know Jeff... Here are a few from the park on Sunday.

In the past two weeks, Jake has started singing songs, which is very exciting for us. This has been one of his speech therapy goals since we started speech back in March. His singing is still pretty unintelligible, but we've had some other great musical milestones - like singing the last note of a song (on key) and tapping in rhythm. The whole family has been going to Music Together classes on Saturday mornings, and we've really enjoyed them. I'd really recommend them for anyone with toddlers looking for a music class.

Here's Jake doing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and being generally adorable. This video also demonstrates some of his apraxia, although I would note that his singing is much less intelligible than his normal speaking. (Note: if you are viewing this post via email you won't be able to watch the video. You'll have to go to the blog webpage).

Tomorrow we head out for Pennsylvania for a big family get-together for Thanksgiving. We're all really excited. Since I never got caught up with the Summer posts, here's a video of Mariah and Jake from August. As you can see, we are in for fun times...

What do you mean that's a bear?!?!

November 17: Prematurity Awareness Day

Today we met with Wake County Public Schools for our "transition meeting" - getting ready to transition Jake out of Early Intervention (birth to 3 (on the dot!)) and into special education services. Oh, how I hoped we would never have this meeting. That he would be all "caught up" and we would leave this whole "preemie thing" behind us. But it seems the "preemie thing" is not going to go away. It's part of who Jake is (part of why he is) and part of us. From the March of Dimes events we go to, to the searching for answers for his apraxia, to my realizations that I have far more patience than I ever did before and a far greater tolerance for accepting help from others, this "preemie thing" is a part of us.

Look at the picture above, really look. That's Jake just a few minutes old - that's his hand around my index finger. That's his red skin - already an indication that he will suffer severe jaundice and spend several days under the bilirubin lights. That's an intubation tube down his throat performed in a standard maternity room by an amazing respiratory therapist who insisted that I get to touch my baby before they rushed him down to the NICU. He's one of my heroes, as are so many of the amazing medical professionals at Duke who saved my son. This year, I'm saying thank you to all of them. And just like last year, I'm so very, very grateful.

Happy Halloween!

Jake had a great time doing his first real trick or treating! On the advice of his speech therapist, we did a lot of practicing of "trick or treat" and "thank you" and answering "bear" when people asked him what his costume was. It really paid off! "Trick or treat" often came out more like "treat or treat" (but isn't that really what he was after?), and his precious "thaankooo" will probably stay with me forever (perhaps I need to take a video of that!). We are loving having Kathryn and Lily here with us (Aunt Kat and Vivi, as Jake says). Enjoy the photos!

And check out the updated photos from Jen and Brett's wedding - little Jake was pretty dapper in his tux!!

Got some good practice at the Junior League Trunk or Treat!


Loved the Bounce House!


Lily took the plunge for apples!

Pumpkin carving night!!

Dora and the Bear ready for candy!!

Pumpkin Patch!!

We took Jake back to the same Pumpkin Farm we went to last year. There are all kinds of activities there, and apparently, a plethora of goofy plywood cutouts to pose with. Lots of fun was had once again. Enjoy the photos and happy halloween week! The cutest bear ever pictures are coming next weekend! :-)

Aunt Jen and Uncle Brett make it official

In early June we headed up to northern Michigan (Jake took his second airplane trip!) for Aunt Jen and Uncle Brett's wedding. The wedding was at the Grand Traverse Resort which provided a beautiful setting and some great golf!

Not only was almost all of Jeff's family there, but Gamma B and Papaw came up as well. They were a big help with Jake and we enjoyed sharing a condo with them and getting to stay out late while they retired early with Jake. Jake also got to meet his Navy family contemporaries - Will and Max (sons of Casey and Greg). He also met Kathleen and Omar, but Cyrus, Leila, and Sam will have to wait until the next time.

Unfortunately, Jeff and I only took about 3 pictures all weekend. Boo! We did get the pictures that Jan and Dale took - but they didn't take any pictures at the actual wedding (they were a little busy being parents of the bride), so our selection here is limited. Pictures or not, the entire wedding weekend was wonderful - from the amazing view at the rehearsal dinner restaurant to the sweet Hawaiian-influenced ceremony and super fun reception which kept everyone dancing!

Jake loved riding forward facing for the first time in Grandma's minivan!

The Happy Couple successfully finish rehearsal!

It was great to see Colorado family at the wedding - here's Denny, Georgia, and McKenzie

Wait a second - that's my grandma!
(Grandma Jan, Will, Jake, and Gamma Kit)

Jake enjoyed one of the hotel restaurants (and yes, Gus the dog goes everywhere!)

We don't have any pictures from the wedding - but here's what Jen's hair looked like! :)

Dad and Jake at the Sunday wedding brunch - they both still love the iphone!

Jake really loved his cousin Kenzie (can you see the resemblance?)

Georgia was not so sure about Jake eating lemons!

At the airport - happy to go home!

In his tux with Papaw...

With Mom....

And finally, we celebrated Jeff's third Father's Day (wow!) later in June. Jeff and Jake dressed alike (I believe they did so on purpose) and Jake gave Jeff some great presents - including some framed photos and a Michigan bolo/ladder golf gameset (a version of which is being played in one of the pictures in the birthday post).


Two posts in two days and I'm caught up to July! Hooray!