The Christmas season is already here again! We love to kick off the season by getting our tree together as a family the day after Thanksgiving. It snowed a couple days before Thanksgiving, but no snow for our tree hunt.
We found one pretty quickly and got it tied up.
We always have pizza dip & other appetizers for lunch after we get back from getting the tree. And we watch Charlie Brown Christmas. It's just tradition.
As soon as we got out the ornaments, this little boy climbed in the empty box & started playing with the beads we left in there. It kept him occupied at least 20 minutes.
Leah & Andrew did pretty good at putting on their favorite ornaments. I didn't even have to move many! They were also careful about not putting breakable ones on the bottom where Jacob would mess with them. I had to help Abi a lot, but she did enjoy putting some on.
He managed to stay away from the tree most of the time until we were nearly done, then became curious with the balls on the bottom branches. He was careful at first, hesitantly touching them, then he started trying to pull them off. He still didn't mess with them as much as we had thought he would, and he hasn't broken any yet.
It was such a fun family day getting our house into the Christmas spirit. We must have watched most of our Christmas movies already and the kids are super excited about all the activities coming up to celebrate the holiday!
Andrew's Taekwando teacher hosted a "learning" tournament this past Saturday. This means that all students were invited to participate and everyone gets a medal. There was no real competition, just a chance to see what it was like to be in a tournament. Andrew really enjoyed himself and did a great job! He is starting to see the fun in his new sport, and maybe he will stick with it.
First he had to show his pattern for the judges. This is a series of kicks & punches he's been working on in class. They were supposed to give him feedback afterward, but there was some confusion & I don't think the kids that were judging were actually paying attention so he didn't get much.
Then he got to break a board. He's done this before, so he was excited. It took him less than 5 seconds & one kick.
Then he got to try sparring for the first time. I didn't even know what this was, really. He puts on all this gear, and then basically punches and kicks his opponent. The first one to land a hit above the waist, below the head, with correct form, gets a point. He actually competed against a girl that had also never done it before. He only lost 2 to 3. And he really seemed to enjoy doing it.
Then he got his medal. Easy, peasy, but a great confidence booster for him!
Jacob is learning so so much every day! It's sad to think about the fact that I no longer have a little baby. At 14 months he is 22 lbs., 3 oz. He only nurses in the morning and at night, and even then it is very short, sometimes not at all. Yet he still won't take milk from a cup. Only juice. And he gets really excited about juice. He loves food and will eat anything as long as he can feed it to himself. He says about 8 or 9 words, including "Mommy," "Daddy," "Abi," "baby" (which sounds the same as Abi), "wow!," "uh oh," and "no."
His favorite activities include throwing things, hitting things, getting into stuff and making messes out of it, and basically just destroying stuff. Right now his older siblings think its funny when he wrecks their block towers, but soon that will all end.
He loves to try to climb the stairs at home, and is pretty good, but not too sure about coming down.
He loves to be silly and put things on his head. And don't dare tell him not to put his hands on his hair while he's eating. Because he will do it. I'm convinced he now knows that when he puts his hands in his hair, it gets messy, so he has to take a bath. He loves to take baths. So he does it on purpose, just to take a bath. He will throw a tantrum when he has to get out of the bath.
He's great at sharing, especially his snacks and his paci. He will shove them in your mouth if you don't take them willingly.
Though he's taken a few steps here & there, on the 16th he officially became a walker. He is always so proud of himself when he goes more than a step or two, and it doesn't bother him at all to fall down. He's still walking fairly often, but crawls more regularly.
He still takes two naps a day right now, but we're working on molding them into one longer nap, because I think that's the reason he's getting up so early every morning. He doesn't need as much sleep during the day. Yet usually he's worn out by 10am, so he goes back to bed.
This box of cookie cutters is his new favorite while I'm cooking. He is usually the fussiest when I'm in the kitchen, because #1 I can't pay attention to him, and #2 he thinks it's time to eat so he's hungry. I do my best to keep him occupied with Cheerios or graham crackers, but by the time dinner's ready, he's just crying. I've learned he's most irritable at home, around me, just because he's bored. As long as he has something to entertain him, he does fine-- which is why he isn't at all irritable when we're out and around other people.
He's also figured out how to get out his own snacks from the snack closet.
Another favorite thing that Jacob does now is go with me to wake Abi up from naps. She's in a toddler bed, so he can climb right onto the bed with her. Usually he is saying her name "A-ee, A-ee" repeatedly as he sits right on her and starts to beat her head. If I tell him to be gentle, he will pucker his lips up and make a kissing noise. She doesn't mind it so much now, and I hope she always loves him as much as she does now!
Jacob had a 2nd MRI on Nov. 10th, and we had a follow-up visit with his team of doctors at UVM yesterday. The brain tumor has not grown and he's still developing normally and seizure-free on medications. This is all good, but the neurosurgeon tells us they will eventually have to remove the tumor. I'm not certain why she didn't tell us this last time, other than the fact that it would have just been too overwhelming at the time. She would like us to meet with another doctor at a different nearby hospital in NH, who specializes in neurosurgery for epilepsy. She wants his opinion on whether they should simply remove the tumor itself (a lumpectomy) or remove the entire portion of the brain around it as well, which apparently is a part of the brain that does nothing.
They are not so sure removing just the tumor would eliminate the cause of the seizures, but removing that part of the brain likely would. Apparently there aren't too many cases (at least in our area) where babies his age have a tumor in the location his is-- which is thankfully on the outside of the brain, rather than farther in, where it could more likely affect language development. So our doctor is pulling all the strings she can to find him the best and most specialized care. We have no idea when the surgery would be-- the seizures may have to come back or get worse before they decide to go ahead with it, or they could decide to be proactive so he doesn't have to face them again. Things are uncertain right now for little Jacob, and even though brain surgery is sometime in his future, we are not worried, because God holds him in His hand. And for now, Jacob is healthy and silly and fun-loving and just a happy guy.
There is nothing more fun as a kid than jumping in a huge pile of leaves. And when the kids saw all the leaves had fallen at church, they couldn't wait! Of course I had to take pictures the whole way!
