Happy 1st Birthday Jakers!

My baby is 1

Wow, I can't believe how fast his first year went. It definitely felt faster than Vince's first year and I've been told it will get faster and faster. I've already had visions of them going to kindergarten, passing the sacrament, going to highschool, leaving on missions!! haha

Mr Jake pancake is such a perfect person. I remember thinking when we just had Vince, how can I love someone as much as Vince? But the moment I first saw him and held him in my arms, I knew. Your love grows in a way that you really can't explain, and I feel fully comprehend. Jake is so precious to me. He's a entertainer and loves to make us laugh. He's a tough guy but loves to cuddle with me when he's tired. I'll pick him up and he'll lay his head on my chest and suck his thumb. It's the absolute cutest thing I've ever seen and literally melts my heart!

We love you Jake!

Being a mother to Vince and Jake is the best thing that ever happened. I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for the wonderful blessing and opportunity that He has given me to be a mother to His precious children.

Jake's stats:

21 lbs 4oz

29 1/2 inches tall

Can walk but tumbles after some steps, he's in the in between stage

Loves to climb anything and everything

8 teeth with the 2 top molars peaking through and the bottom soon to follow

has recently learned the lovely scream/high pitch talk when he wants something

has his own language, it is so cute to hear him babble

he can say mama, dada (but rarely does), amen and Jesus

loves animals, especially to watch birds flying in the air, he'll point and just stare and babble

loves laughing and playing with Vince

We are so blessed to have so much family around and most everyone was able to come celebrate on his big day. It was actually a little overwhelming and there were some tears but those ended quickly when he tasted the cake :)

Park Days

Lake Wilderness Park is our go to park around here. It's has a great playground, obviously a lake and lots of grass to run around in.

I am so proud of Vince and for the growth and confidence he's made just over the summer. When we used to go to the park, he would be afraid or nervous of all the "big kids" running around and wouldn't want to go on the equipment unless he was the only one. Or he'd start to go on and another kid would go on and he'd get off. I would try to encourage him and he would sometimes warm up, but it took a while. He was also afraid to climb up lots of the ladders too. 

Well just over the past few weeks, he's come leaps and bounds. He now makes friends at the park, playing and talking with other kids. He's climbing every ladder available, some I was really impressed he did it, and owning the playground. It's so fun for him and for me to see him becoming a "big kid!"

Jake's enjoying it more now too and he's learning to walk and can go down slides with our help.

Melissa 1st Birthday and the Fishes

Melissa and Jake are 8 days apart. We went down to Olympia to celebrate her turning one and it was so fun. The boys love going to see their cousins, especially Andrew and Jared because they're other boys their age to play with. It's so fun to see them playing together and having a blast. We wish we lived closer. :)

The boys played, then we had dinner and cake. After we went over to the salmon fish ladder, that's 5 minutes from Shawn and Traci's house. It was neat to see all the salmon coming up the river. And it was amazing how big some of the fish are. We also have some right in front of our house and I kid you not, some are at least 3-4 feet long!! They seriously look like little sharks!

Vince was so cute looking through these binoculars

Birthday girl and Jakers

Vince doing some yard work, such a helper :)

Melissa eating her cake. She's so funny, she wouldn't eat it until her mom cut it up.

This was at the fish ladder. The boys had a blast running around the whole time. It was so cute to watch.

Here's one fish that got into our pond. This one wasn't the monster size, but still pretty big.

22 mile Hike

Ok, this blog post is kinda lame because there's no pictures with people in them, but I had to post about this because my husbands a beast.

He's in the Young Men program for our church and they do lots of scouting things. One was a 22 mile hike. They started at 6:00 and finished about 8 hours later! Seriously walking for 22 miles, that's like a marathon. He was dead the rest of the day, but he did it. There was a good handful of boys that did it too and everyone completed it!! Go Cedar River Ward. You guys are awesome

Part of the hike they went through a 2 mile long tunnel!

Over look off a bridge down at least 100 feet

Do the Puyallup

Growing up we would always go to the Puyallup Fair. It's for 3 weeks starting in September and one of the top 10 biggest fairs in the USA. About 3 million visitors per year!! The first week of school, every kid would get a free ticket and parents would pull kids out of school all the time to go. We even got to one year during school! My parents are such rebels ;)

I've been telling Ryan about this fair for years and now that we live here we actually got to go. We actually went twice! Once on the opening weekend when my dad was here and another Ryan and I went for a date night. It was so fun!!

The fair has some amazing things to see. Especially the artwork and these wood carvings. This bear was incredible.

Of coarse there's tons of good food.

I'm sorry but that's just nasty. And no, we did not partake of the insaneness

These pulled pork sandwiches were heaven

Lots of animals to see. The boys loved them. I talked to one of the sheep owners for like 20 minutes all about her animals. We might be getting some sheep, if we can get the Enumclaw house we're looking to buy :)

Ok, the boys faces say it all. The cow behind them is named Oliver. Hes a Brown Swiss and weighs over 2,800 lbs!!!!

HOLY COW!! (literally)

They couldn't believe it either :)

I am so bad at taking pictures sometimes and thankfully my grandpa caught this one. My dad was in town visiting for a week and the only picture I got was up above, of the back of his head when he  was ordering food!

I love this picture of grandpa Craig and Vince! It was really fun to see my dad and for him to have got to see Vince and Jake and spend some time together. It's hard being so far away but, we were glad with the time we spent together.

We got to drive over to eastern Washington and see Kittitas where dad had lived for a few years in his childhood, went to the fair, hung out with my brothers a lot, showed him around here and just spent time together. It was great.

Twins

Yesterday I got Vince dressed in overalls and knew I had to put Jake in the same outfit. He even had a red shirt to match. I could not get enough and was taking pictures literally all day!

They are the cutest!

Later that day when Ryan came home and we were playing outside he thought to bring out the John Deere power wheel and we got more pictures. After looking at some, they reminded me of Awkward Family Photos, but since they are 2 and under it was just pure cuteness.

This was Jakes first time on the power wheel and he LOVED it! Just look at that smile.

Haha, Vince and his seriousness was cracking me up

After they had a tractor pull :)