Worlds greatest toy

Jakes new favorite thing lately has been helicopters. Several news and traffic helicopters can be seen in the evening and when we go out he gets excited every time we see one. He also asked me to draw him a helicopter several weeks ago. Since the helicopters I am most familiar with are military I started to draw him several models. He now can recognize Chinook, Kiowa, and Apache helicopters if you show it to him. We all went to target over the weekend to get a new wagon for Jake since someone stole it off the front porch. While there I came across a battery powered remote control helicopter. Mandy and the nanny don't fly it so Jake has to wait for me to come home to play with it and now his first words to me every night are helicopter and play. We both benefit since I still get to fly it most of the time while he chases after it. This video is actually the first time that Jake has shown any interest in flying it so maybe my days of piloting are over just when I was getting good at it.

Missing Mommy

Mandy has been gone at a conference in New Orleans since Sunday. So we are down to Jake Grandma Barb and Me. Overall Jake has done well but I can tell he is missing her. He has done several cute things to let me know that he missing her. Most mornings he has been climbing in bed with me around 5 AM and then falling asleep next to me. The picture above from this morning was pretty cute. Today my mom found him lying down on the futon in the office where Mandy likes to take naps with his Binky and blue blanket. She asked him what he is doing and he said " mommy takes nap here". He even took the phone from me tonight and told Mandy that he loved her. What can I say? Mandy is a wonderful mommy and wife and she is definitely missed when gone.

More Snowy pictures

I couldn't resist opsting a few more pictures of Jake in the snow from last weekend especially given how rare 3-4 inches of snow is in Atlanta. Jake woke up from his nap today with the eye gunk and cough. I hope this is just a minor cold. Grandma Barb is coming in tomorrow before Mandy leaves for New Orleans. I'll feel bad if he gets sick right before she gets here.

Flowers on Valentine's Day

Compared to where I was last year for Valentine's Day, waking up to the bouquet that Scott got for me this year was pretty amazing. Adam is here and helped him pick it out. You will notice that 10 years together has really made Scott very good at picking out what I like: roses, hydrangeas, square vase with silver bow...almost perfect combination for my taste. He also hand picked chocolates for me...all that were my favorites, which considering my pregnant state are very appreciated! Thank you so much, Scott! Happy Valentine's Day!

In stark contrast to the snow of the last 48 hours, is the presence of flowers outside, as well. Atlanta is USDA Zone 8, for those of you who care, and that means flowers in February for those that don't! It's amazing. Pansies grow all winter and below you will see a picture of our first crocuses of the year. It's not Hawaii, but it's also not DC or Minneapolis!

A Southern Blizzard

I have to say I have been jealous of my friends in Washington D.C. with the massive 4 feet of snow this past week. I figured being in Atlanta I would never get to have a snowball fight with Jake. Even when the weather forecasters called for 2-4 inches I still didn't beleive them. I have to say It was a lot of fun. There are a lot of nice sledding hills at the park and I was kind of bummed that I didn't have a sled for Jake. No worries though I found out a boogie board when not being used for surf can make do in a pinch. (I knew I didn't leave them all in Hawaii for reason.)

In other news we also had a new ultrasound today. Now I COULD tell everyone what we are having but instead I thought we could run this like the daily radiology unknown images we often had in medical school. Ill post the image and everyone gets to vote what they think it is. If you are reading this Frank there is a nice career in pathology waiting for you if you miss it.

Time Out

Grammie Kris was here for a couple days helping out this week. She got to see how much more articulate Jake is now even sice Christmas. When we moved to Atlanta we started using times outs to discipline Jake when he misbehaves. I remember watching James use them with Finn in Hawaii. So everytime he needs correction I try and copy James by being as serious and dramatic as possible. Sometimes I have to choke back laughter but so far it has worked pretty well and he now will run over to his "seat" and stay until his time is up. I had to take a picture recently becuase his face was so cute and sad at the same time. So thank you James for showing me how timeout is done, it will make the rest of this year much easier to deal with.

Below I placed another funny picture from Christmas. Jake loves dogs and Tucker was pretty good with him. He even let Jake ride him a few times. We skyped with Grandma Cuda a few days ago and he was more interested in seeing Tucker than anyone else

Indoor days

The weather is back to cold and rainy outside. I feel like I am back in Portland again with the amount of overcast, cold and rainy days we have had here. The locals say this is not usual but I am starting not to believe them. We played catch for a while today before nap time. Usually I throw the ball at him and it bounces off his head or chest and he says "Almost!!" But this time he started catching more of them so I got out the camera. Fortunately he seems to be a clutch performer and didn't get a case of nerves while the camera was rolling. Amazing how much like a little boy he has already become. When we moved to Atlanta he was still a baby.