Jacob turned one

Jacob turned one at the end of April, marking one year that we've been in Temple. I can't believe it's already been one year, but at the same time, I'm like, is residency OVER yet??? Sheesh. One year down, four more to go. Looking back, it's been a rough year. I've struggled with the newborn stage, having Jeff be gone ALL the time, and being the new girl with very few friends in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Poor Jacob didn't get the monthly photo shoots and monthly stats updates like I did with Christine when she was a baby. Jacob, I hope you will forgive me. You are lucky your mama is still alive.

We had a little birthday party two weeks after Jacob's birthday because we wanted to wait until Daddy could celebrate with us. Gigi and Pooh Bear came, and Tangie Bear and Blue (from blue's clues) were also invited (Christine was in charge of the guest list).

I made possibly the worst looking cake I've ever made. I think my cake decorating teacher would throw it in my face. The cake was too moist (though Jeff tells me that's impossible) but at least it tasted good.

 Christine assisted with the candle blowing.

 Then Jacob had his first ever taste of cake.

 He was a big fan of the strawberry cake.

 He gobbled it up quickly

And even ended up licking his plate clean.

Jacob is such a sweet boy. He likes to snuggle when he's not busy running and climbing and causing general destruction.

He says a few words like Daaaa (dad), bye, hi, ahhh duuu (all done), but nothing close to mama yet much to my dismay

He loves to run around outside. His favorite is playing in Christine's play house. For his birthday we got him a water table that he has so much fun with. Combine that with our splash pad and sand table and the kids have a pretty awesome time playing outside.

Jacob's main goal in life is to kill me. Recently he was chocking and I had to use the baby Heimlich maneuver on him. I had him upside down on my arm and wacked his back with my palm and out flew a metal bolt. "What the?!!!! Where did that even come from??"  I keep a pretty clean house, I try pretty dang hard to keep all small objects off the floor because Jacob puts everything in his mouth. I sweep my kitchen floor several times a day and had just mopped the kitchen floor spotless the night before the incident. How could he have possibly found a random metal bolt somewhere in the kitchen? a few hours later, Jacob was playing in the kitchen while Christine was finishing eating lunch at the table when I notice that Jacob has something in his hand: a metal washer. WHERE ARE THESE THINGS COMING FROM???? At the time he was under the table, so I get down on the floor and climbed under the kitchen table to figure out where these chocking hazards are coming from. Turns out he had UNSCREWED it from the table leg. I checked all the other bolts on the the table to see if any were loose and they were all tight. (afterwards I had Jeff take a wrench to all of them again to make sure they were extra extra tight). I was just baffled. He is deconstructing my furniture!  He must have been working on unscrewing that thing for weeks. Spinning and spinning it looser and looser until he got it off. Ahhhhhh!

 He loves to read books. Every night we read books together and Jacob loves to pull out a book and bring one to me then climb up on my lap, and when I finish he jumps down and grabs another. Christine of course wants to pick some books out too, so we end up reading about 10-20 books a night; always ending with Good Night Moon.

Sweet Jacob I love you so much!

A few quick funny Christine stories

The other day as Christine sat down for her daily Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich at her plastic princess table, she turned to me and said, "Daddy, what has beautiful, colorful wings and flies around?" I answered, "A butterfly." She paused, thought to herself, and then replied, "Correct! Now, what about a person?" I didn't know what she meant and answered, "What do you mean? Like an airplane flies?"  "No," she responded, now pointing her finger at me to begin her instruction,  "A fairy!  Now, Daddy you have learned a question."  We obviously ask Christine lots of questions to help her learn, and she has taken upon herself to educate us as well!  We often get questions like, "What does the word watermelon start with?"  "w" "Correct!" Some things that I need education on are matching outfits. Christine at the age of 3, has already realized that her fashion since is far superior to her Dad's.  Sadly, Angela agrees. Several mornings I have been falsely complimented for outfits Christine chose, and Christine has been falsely accused for outfits that I chose.

Christine has also mastered the power of adverbs.  When she does not want to do something, she will add several adverbs to her plea to make it more convincing.  When she doesn't want to eat her tuna sandwich, "Daddy, tuna is very, very, very yucky." When she doesn't want to wash her hair, "I never, ever, ever, ever want to wash my hair, ever!"  When she wants to have a cookie with lunch, "I just really, really, really want to eat my cookie with my lunch!"

The other day when she was waiting for dinner I told her she needed to be patient, she turned to me with her thumb and index finger just slightly apart, "Ummm, o.k. i'll just be a little patient."

Bluebonnets

The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas.

In the spring, the flowers grow along all the roads and highways and in fields in thick patches of blue. They are a beautiful wildflower. I've never seen anything like it. Utah only has sagebrush growing along the roads, and the Azaleas are quite beautiful in Houston, but they only grow in people's yards. But the bluebonnets are everywhere.

A lot of people who live in Central Texas have the tradition of taking pictures in the bluebonnets every year. I was excited to add this to our traditions as well.

Luckily they were still in bloom when I got back from Utah (I was worried they wouldn't be), so I packed the kids up and we drove down the road to a nearby field.

 The kids were mesmerized by all the flowers. I couldn't get Christine to look at me to take a picture because she wouldn't take her eyes off the amazing bunches and bunches of flowers. The smell was amazing too, I might add.

Jeff actually was pretty sick (totally my fault, I brought the bug back with us from Utah, or should I say Flu-ta) He was a good sport for coming with me and the kids.

Maybe next year when we take bluebonnet pictures again I will actually do Christine's hair and iron Jacob's shirt. haha.

Easter in Utah

Jeff mentioned last week that my Grandfather passed away 2 weeks ago. I flew out with the kids to Utah for the funeral. Since Jeff is doing a miserable rotation right now (Emergency Trauma Surgery) we figured we might as well stay in Utah for a little bit. 

I had to pack really quickly for this trip. I was doing laundry like a crazy person until 10 at night, packed up the suitcases, then left the next morning at 10 am. I packed lots of warm clothes just in case it was freezing in Utah. I was really grateful to find that it was nice and warm. In fact, my parent's lawn is greener than ours. What!?

Christine and Audrey playing in the dirt by the chicken coup. Christine has had so much fun playing with all her cousins. Her favorite cousin is Brian, because he wore a Micky Mouse t-shirt when they came out to our house a few weeks ago. Funny girl.

Christine's favorite part of Grandma's and Grandpa's house is the chickens. She loves going with Grandpa to check for eggs every day.

I didn't even realize when I was getting ready for this trip that we would be in Utah for Easter, so I didn't make ANY Easter preparations. So all the Easter treats I had picked up, Easter dress etc were all left at home. Luckily Grandma took care of that.

Christine had a great time going on an Easter egg hunt with her Grandpa.

The Easter bunny came this morning and brought Christine lots more candy than she would would have ever got at home, lucky girl! and I should add lucky mommy too because the Easter bunny brought me treats, including a Mrs. Cavanaugh's Mindy Mint egg.

February

I haven't been very good at updating our family blog, and I'm a bit behind. I'm actually in Utah at my parent's house right now. I was going through my Picasa web album to see if there were any pictures I could upload to our blog, when I found this post half written and never posted. So here you go, the month of February at the Hamaker's

February went by quickly. We spent a large portion of the month being sick. We all got to take turns going in to the doctor's office. The kids had ear infections, Christine developed a crazy rash as a reaction to the antibiotics. There was vomit in the middle of the night. It was pretty miserable. 

When everyone was healthy, we had fun playing outside. It's finally warm enough to play in the backyard again. The kids love running around.

Jacob has finally stopped trying to eat the grass.

At the end of February Jeff had a week of vacation. We tried our best to maximize our time with Jeff. Our big project was painting our armoire white. The armoire was a hand-me-down piece of furniture that I've always wanted to paint, but it's such a big project we could never tackle it in our tiny apartment. But now that we have a garage it was easy.

Do you notice what Christine is wearing? It's a surgical gown. haha! you see, when items are pulled out for a surgery but never used, even if they are never touched they are no longer considered sterile. So they are thrown away. The surgeons can rescue them from going in the trash, so Jeff brings us home things like surgical gowns that you would think could never be used. But Jeff is determined to find good uses for them.

For Valentines day Christine and I made Chicken Parmesan, with a delicious spinach artichoke fondue that we ate with a baguette and steamed broccoli.

I was afraid Jeff wouldn't get home early enough to enjoy our yummy valentine's meal, but luckily he got off early and was able to eat with us.

Jacob getting into trouble... like always.

Christine being loud... like always.