Happy Halloween

Our little monkey would like to wish everyone a Happy Halloween 2009. We hope you had a fun and safe evening together with your family!

Dressed up and ready to go!

Jacob and cousin Andrew (dressed as a doctor).

Andrew teaching Jacob the ropes about his first trick or treat (we only went to the neighbor's house).

The Burri.

Jacob riding a pony at Hallow Him (we decided to forgo traditional trick or treating and go to our church sponsored children's event).

Family Worship

For those of you who don't know, we have a family gathering each night before Jacob goes to bed for what we refer to as "Family Worship." We had a wonderful speaker come to our church last year who taught on this subject and Chris and I took away some fantastic ideas.

Each night, we get Jacob ready for bed and then we read a story from the Bible (right now his storybook Bible), pray, and sing songs together as a family. Jacob knows this is the routine and I think he looks forward to it each day. I know I do!

In the last few weeks, he has really started to grow in the family worship department. He is more attentive to the stories, sits still, has learned to fold his hands and stay quiet during prayer, and is starting to hum or do the hand motions for some of the songs we sing.

I don't know what it is, but I think a little toddler with chubby hands folded, getting ready to pray to God, is the most adorable thing on this earth. So............I had to snap a few photos. :-)

Getting ready to fold hands to pray....

Hands are folded and sitting still. Ready for Daddy to pray...

Doing the hand motions for "Deep and Wide." This is one of Jacob's current favorites for praise songs!

Beautiful Day in the Bluegrass

We have had two absolutely gorgeous days in the Bluegrass State this week. I've been trying to be sure to give Jacob plenty of "play outside" time since I know these days are numbered! I decided to snap a few shots of our big boy playing with his dump trucks (which he refers to as "schoesh"...don't know why, but that is what he calls trucks). He had so much fun loading them up with loads of leaves and driving them around!!

We hope you have been blessed with some gorgeous autumn days where you are, too!

Loading up leaves to take for a drive....

Driving the "shipment" away. Load is all full!

The SUPER big dump truck. This one is too heavy for Jacob to even carry!

I couldn't resist this one. Jacob is showing me the "ma-mow" and "wee-wee!" The obsession never ends!

I Love You!

Yesterday I popped my head into Jacob's room to tell him good-bye. He was just waking up and I was getting ready to head out for work.

When I walked in, he rolled over in his bed and gave me the sweetest whispered, "hi!" I told him good morning and reached into his crib to give him a few love pats. I whispered back, "Mommy has to go to work, but I hope you have a good day with MawMaw (that is his current choice of name for Grandmama)." I then said to my boy in a sing song voice, "Mommy loves you!" and started to walk out of the room.

I looked back at him in his sweet little bed as I was leaving the room and right after I'd finished saying I love you, my sweet little boy released his cherished "B", took his little chubby hand and covered his mouth to blow me a kiss and said "bye-bye mama."

Oh, sweet little Jacob, mommy loves you too! Mommy loves you very, very much!

1-2-3 JUMP!

Jacob's little friend, Ella, has been jumping for months now. She is hilarious. She says, "1,2,3 CHUP!" When she first learned to jump, she was "chupping" all the time.

I found it so cute and endearing I wanted Jacob to learn how to "chup" too. So we would ask him to jump.

A few months ago, when asked, he would kind of dance and run in place, knowing his feet needed to leave the ground and that his body should move around to jump. No jumping....

Then yesterday I asked him to jump again. "1,2,3, JUMP!" And instead of dancing around and giggling, our little man.....

........ squatted his knees deep to the ground......

...... and.....

..... swung his arms way back......

......and.....

......propelled his chubby little arms forward........

.....and.....

.....straightened his knees.....

...... and...............

didn't jump.

He's done this several times now and I just know it is only a matter of days before we will have a little jumping bean on our hands.

But I'll be darned, I think this is the super cutest thing in the world, and a wee part of me hopes he never learns how to jump.

Imagination!

I've been waiting for this to start. I wasn't sure where on the developmental spectrum it would fall, so I honestly had no idea when to expect its arrival. But is is here.

Pretend play has begun at our house!

Jacob started pretend play this weekend. He has this set of stacking cups (a hand me down from nephews) that he has just loved since he was about 5 months old. He has gotten more pleasure out of these silly cups... Anyhow, I digress. This weekend he had his stacking cups out and that's when I saw it. My baby boy played pretend!!

He pretended that his cups were full of "mull" (milk in Jacob-ese) and he was drinking out of them and after he got done slurping, he'd say, "ah!" (you know, that ah sound we make after a nice refreshing big gulp of something).

Then he decided pretend play would be even more fun if mommy were to get involved. So he brought his cups full of "mull" over to mommy so she could slurp away and say, "ah."

I know, I know...I am a crazy mom who gets super excited over nothing, but pretend play seems like such a huge step to "Big-Boy-dom!"

*Sigh* Yet more signs our baby isn't a baby any longer!

Didl-Didl-Didl

Didl-didl-didl (all one word)! This is the expression Jacob has for "Yes! What you are asking me is what I want!" For example:

• Mommy: "Jacob, do you want to eat breakfast?"
• Jacob: "No."
• Mommy: "Do you want your cup of milk?"
• Jacob: "Didl-didl-didl!"

Jacob and I have started doing morning devotions together (really short ones with a quick little prayer). This morning when he woke up he seemed more interested in breakfast first, rather than devotions, so I started to feed him and brought the devotional book out to the kitchen table. I figured if I ended up not having time, we could ask Grandma Burris to do them with him.

When I brought the book out to the table, Jacob saw it and pointed to it. I asked him if he wanted to have quiet time with God with Mommy before she left for work. His response, "Didl-didl-didl!" Then I asked him if he wanted to pray. His response, "Didl-didl- didl!" He then proceeded to fold his sweet, chubby, dimple knuckled hands and continued to say, "didl-didl-didl!"

I am so blessed by our son and his interest in the Gospel and his desire to obey his mommy and daddy. Pray that his hunger for God's word would follow him through life and that he would one day have his heart pierced with the need for a Savior! Pray that these sweet, tender moments of devotions we share today would one day translate into God's word being tucked into his heart for his lifetime. Pray that Chris and I would know how to raise him to love Jesus!