The Jobe Family

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2011-12-05T10:30:00.007-05:00

...in the Jobe household! Last week we decorated the house, and yesterday the kids visited Santa; I'd say the Christmas season is officially in full swing. Thanks to online shopping (and a free Amazon Prime trial membership with free, 2-day shipping, yay!), I've got a great head start on gifts. Next on the list: ordering Christmas cards, decorating a gingerbread house and train, going to Andrew's school's Holiday Nights tomorrow evening, and baking...lots of baking. I love this time of year!! Crazy busy but fun! Here are some pictures. Hope you're enjoying December!

Birthday time!

2011-11-13T23:29:00.001-05:00

Photo slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Halloween

2011-11-10T11:11:00.003-05:00

The kids were SO excited for Halloween this year! They decided pretty early on that they would dress as Mario and Luigi (from the Super Mario Bros. video games). Well actually, initially they both wanted to be Luigi, but then I think Amelia convinced Andrew he should be Mario since he was shorter. Anyway, the costumes were very easy to make and came out looking great! Both kids had a great time trick-or-treating, and I was especially proud of them for actually saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" after receiving candy. I feel like once Halloween comes, the rest of the year goes in to overdrive; Amelia's birthday party is this weekend, her actual birthday is next week, then comes Thanksgiving, then Christmas, etc. Craziness! Now if you'll excuse me, I'd better get a head start on cleaning...

Chicago!

2011-10-10T14:29:00.004-04:00

We are thrilled that my parents recently moved to Evanston (just north of Chicago) after 13 years living in NYC. It's so nice to have them close enough--four hours away--that we can drive for a weekend visit! We did that this weekend. It just so happened that Michigan was playing Northwestern in Michigan's first away football game this season, so we figured we'd better see it! My parents (who cheered for Northwestern since my dad teaches there), Bryan and me, and our dear friends Martha and Chris West (who live in Wisconsin, not too far away) went to the game Saturday night. We had a blast! Michigan won (GO BLUE!) and we had such fun visiting. Sunday the family took the Metra to downtown Chicago to see the sights in Millennium Park. It is such a cool place, and it was beautiful with the fall colors! We all had a fun weekend, and look forward to visiting Chicago a lot over the years! Here are some pics of our weekend.

First Day of School

2011-09-07T09:24:00.004-04:00

Hallelujah! It finally came!!! I was honestly dreading having both kids at home all summer, not knowing how they'd get along with each other every day. Fortunately, they were pretty good and the summer flew by...until the last two weeks! I don't know how many times I've said "it is SO time for school to start" in the last two weeks. I think both kids were just tired of each other, tired of the house and ready for something different (and so was I)! This is a picture of my "school needs to start NOW" face, taken a couple weeks ago:
Today was the first "official" day of school (Amelia had a 1/2 day yesterday, but I was with her the whole time...more of an orientation); Amelia got to ride the bus with her buddy Kennedy, who's starting Kindergarten. They were both excited! After we got Amelia on the bus, I took Andrew to his first day of Preschool. He walked in like he owned the place! I'm so glad it was that easy with both kids. Now I'm sitting in my house, enjoying the sound of silence!!! Hooray for school!

I've had a bug...

2011-08-29T13:45:00.020-04:00

...the crafty/creative bug! I'm pretty sure this is partly due to the fact that I joined Pinterest, a virtual bulletin board where people can share their own collections of ideas. Several of the people I follow have do-it-yourself boards, and the creative juices just got flowing in me!

A couple weeks ago I made a cake for our friend Noah's first birthday. His parents call him "monkey," and asked me to design it based on Noah's room decor. Here's a picture of the inspiration: and here is the cake: The cake was delicious, and it turned out just how I'd pictured it. I love it when that happens! Then last week I went to a baby shower and decided to give the honoree some homemade, embellished burp cloths (cloth diapers with fabric and ribbon attached). They turned out really well, so I made some for my friend Anne's baby Lucy! Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of that project, so you'll just have to take my word for it that they were precious! On to the next craft...last night we had a preseason "tailgate" party (in quotes because we weren't actually using a tailgate...just a tailgate-style party) for our fellow Michigan football fans, so I decided to make some fun treats: football-shaped Oreo balls and Michigan football helmet cake balls! They were a big hit, and I was really happy with the way they turned out. Here's what the helmet looks like, for those of you who may not know the iconic winged helmet: and here are the cake balls and Oreo balls: This morning Bryan had to go out of town for a meeting, so I thought it would be fun to do a project with the kids. We peeled our broken crayons, broke the into small pieces, put them in a mini-muffin tin and melted them down to make rainbow crayon discs! I'd seen these several times over the years, but never tried it myself. It was a huge success! Peeling the paper off the crayons occupied us for about an hour, and Andrew loved that he was actually given permission to break something, ha! Both kids were so excited to watch the crayons melt in the oven, and thought it was the coolest thing when the rainbow crayons were done. They are indeed pretty cool! It's fun to be creative! I wonder what my next project will be?!

Don't faint!!

2011-08-04T13:56:00.005-04:00

I'm actually posting something!! I knew I'd been neglecting my blog this summer, but I didn't realize I hadn't posted anything in May, June or July! Yikes! Therefore, I'll do a quick update of what we've been up to for the last three months.

May

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit! We took them to the Toledo Zoo so they could ride the infamous zoo train (Andrew always talks about it!) with us. We loved having them here!
We celebrated our 10th anniversary! The whole family went on our biannual (every two years, right?) trip to Kauai, and Bryan and I had the treat of going to a different hotel for two nights to have a "real" getaway! The kids especially loved being in the pool this time.
Andrew finished up his first year at Teddy Bear Daycare. We attended parent night, where each class does a little performance; Andrew's class "sang" and "danced" (intentional quotes, people) to Who Let the Dogs Out, which Andrew happens to LOVE...however, he must've been shell-shocked by the large audience, as he just stood there staring the whole time. He did look stinkin' cute in his accessories, though!

June

Amelia finished Kindergarten! She had a wonderful school year and it's amazing to see how much she's grown physically and intellectually in the last nine months.
I had a great time helping host (and make a cake for!) my dear friend Anne's baby shower. It was such a fun event, and the cake was a hit!
We said a sad "see ya later" to our dear friends (and the kids' surrogate grandparents) Terry and Paula. We hate that we can't see them often anymore, but are so happy for them that they get to finally move back home, close to their kids, grands and great-grands!
Anne and I went to see Taylor Swift live in concert. It was a fun, girly time (after we almost missed it because of the crazy traffic and parking!). The funniest thing to me was seeing how many dads were most likely dragged there with their daughers!
Our cherry tree produced a gigantic load of cherries that we happily picked, used, and froze. Cherry preserves for Christmas!

July

We had dear friends in town for 4th of July weekend and went to the Greenfield Village Celebration of America concert. It was fantastic music provided by the Detroit Symphony, beautiful fireworks, and wonderful fellowship! We also had friends over for dinner for the 4th and cooked up a delicious spread, including a homemade cherry pie made with the cherries from our tree!
We had fun playing in the slip 'n' slide...Andrew's first time at it!
Our area had the hottest July in 135 years; we had highs above 95 (including one day at 100 with a heat index of 114) for a whole week, which NEVER happens in Michigan. Of course, our air conditioner decided to go out near the end of that week and we couldn't have it fixed for a couple days, so our good friends the Stecks graciously took us in and kept us cool until we could go back home. Thank the Lord for good friends!
My college roommate (and dear friend) Martha came to visit with her two kids while her husband and my husband were each working out of town for the week. The kids loved playing together, and it was so nice to have another mom to commiserate with! We try to make a point to see each other at least once a year, and we always treasure and look forward to those times.

So now (if you stuck with me) you're up to speed on our life. Not much earth-shattering has happened, but I can't believe the summer's almost over! The kids go back to school Sept. 6, so they've only got 4 1/2 more weeks of freedom, ha! Hope all is well with you and yours! Check out a slideshow of some pics of our summer below.

This digital slideshow generated with Smilebox

A Fancy Night

2011-04-30T16:34:00.004-04:00

A couple months ago at our Life Group, some of the girls and I started talking about Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding and whether we were going to watch. I knew I was going to, and several others were as well, so I decided to throw a royal wedding-watching tea party! We had it last night (we recorded everything so we could pick and choose which parts we wanted to watch) and it was fabulous!! We had tea, scones, cake balls, English cookies, chocolate-covered strawberries, nuts, chocolate, and even had a champagne toast! We all enjoyed watching the beautiful ceremony and commenting on the unique and daring hats the spectators wore. We also had fun playing a trivia game to see who knew the most about the Royal family, and voted on which party attendee had the best hat. Most of all, though, we enjoyed getting to dress up (dress code was Sunday best and a hat!) and have some girl time! I think we may not wait for another royal wedding to have our next tea party!

the spread

tables

table close-up

me!

lovely ladies in their lovely attire: Emily and Amanda...

...Julie (winner of best hat!)...

...Wendy (who won the trivia game and the prize: a $5 replica of Kate's ring!)...

...Joy...

...Becky's crazy hat...

...and Becky's real hat!

Thanks, ladies, for a fancy, fabulous time!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T19:04:00.009-04:00

Happy Easter from us! Even though Easter was really late this year, it seems like it kind of snuck up on me. Last Saturday we went to our church's egg hunt, which the kids LOVED, as you can see...

Cotton Candy

Egg roll! Amelia's broke...

But Andrew's didn't (well he did cheat a bit, ha)!

My purple bunny

Andrew only picked up blue eggs, for some reason. Hmmm.

Amelia had Friday off of school, so we dyed eggs! Both kids had a lot of fun watching the eggs change colors and decorating them with stickers.

lots of options for colors

Amelia's favorite...the purple one

Andrew's favorite...the "red" one

You know how when you're a kid, and even when you are an adult (before you have kids), there are things you say you'll never do to your kids? Well...one of those things for me was making my daughter sleep with her hair in sponge rollers. Every Saturday night (for church the next morning), my mom would roll my wet hair in sponge rollers while she watched M.A.S.H. and Fantasy Island. I hated sleeping in those things because they hurt!! The next morning my hair would be very cute and curly, but I decided that was something I wouldn't need to pass along. Fast forward to the present, and I have indeed sponge-rolled Amelia's hair. However, I think the few times I've done it, it's been in the morning for something later that day. So...guess what I ended up doing last night??

Ah...memories!! However, at least I participated in her pain (well, sort of):

But look at the results below...so cute! Oh, and Andrew's not bad himself. ;-)

Excited about the toys in their baskets

my beautiful girl

my handsome (goofy!) boy

I hope your Easter was as great as ours. We had a great day celebrating the resurrection! Blessings to you on this great day!

Signs of Spring

2011-04-12T14:18:00.005-04:00

Well, I just noticed that all of March went by with no post. Such was March! There wasn't a whole lot exciting going on last month, just our day-to-day stuff, and after looking at my picture folder for March, it's pretty sad...almost no pictures last month! Oops! I guess a late return to the blog is better than never, no?

I've said many times that I really like the weather here in Michigan...until about the end of February. By then, I'm just DONE with cold and snow, and I know there are still a good two months or so where it's not only a possibility, it's the likely forecast. Well now it's April, and things are looking up! Sunday it was 83 here (practically summer!) and everyone was out. Our Life Group meets Sunday nights; all the kids were playing outside and the adults enjoyed hanging out on the deck. It was such a great reminder that it does eventually get warm here! Of course those warm temps didn't last long, but at least we're warming up. This week I noticed some sure signs of spring!

Rain gear: it's been very wet here! By the way...
doesn't Andrew look a bit like the Gorton's fisherman?

A little windy, but still a great day for the park!

Buds on the lilacs!

Buds on the hydrangeas!

Fletcher is SO enjoying going outside to wiggle around in the grass.

For some of you it's probably been springy for a while, but please accept our very heartfelt greeting: happy spring!!

Mandrew's birthday

2011-02-21T15:05:00.004-05:00

Yes, you read correctly: Andrew's nickname (well at least what Bryan calls him) is "Mandrew." Mandrew just celebrated his third birthday this weekend. Time flies, and this little man is definitely no baby anymore! He is making great strides in potty training, doing very well staying in his big boy bed, and constantly amazes us with the things he says and does. We didn't do a "kid" birthday party for him (a bit overwhelming, I think) but we did our traditional family + friends birthday dinner at Red Robin. Andrew was SO excited to eat his ice cream! He also had a little celebration with his friends in his class at school. Here are some pictures!

Birthday treat: cupcake pops...my new favorite thing to make! Check out this book and this website for more info.

The finished product...cute and delicious! They were strawberry flavored, inside.

Andrew's party at school; his class painted the banner behind him!

Getting ready to sing, light and blow out the candles

Red Robin birthday sundae!

My valentines

2011-02-14T13:54:00.007-05:00

These three are my valentines, the most important three people in my life.

This goofy little guy brightens my day with his sweet spirit and frequent hugs. He always makes us laugh!

This girl is super-smart, loves her some hot chocolate, and is always eager to help out. I'm so proud of her!

This handsome fellow (with his loving wife) is a fantastic dad, the best friend in the world, and I love him more every day.

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm thankful for you three, and thankful for you, my friendly readers!

New Year, New Phase

2011-01-14T21:20:00.005-05:00

Happy New(ish) year! I hope all of you had a great holiday season and are back in the full swing of things. As much as I love the holidays, it is indeed nice to get back in to a regular routine! We got our Christmas decor put away amazingly early and quickly this year, and putting everything away (in addition to finding places for all our new, acquired gifts) really put me in the mood to go through everything, re-organize, and purge! We donated lots of old toys and clothes, recycled a T.V., threw away lots of trash, re-hung clothes in our closets on nice, slimline matching hangers (thanks to Abby for the gift!), and--put away the crib!

Andrew is now sleeping in a big boy (toddler) bed. I had been dreading the move to the toddler bed for a while, as I knew it'd be a whole transition process and my sleep might suffer. However, in order to seriously focus on potty training Andrew (who turns three next month), we had to first get him in to a bed that he could get out of, should he need to go! So, after all the company left, we took the crib down. Here is a picture of the kids saying "bye" to their old bed, and one of Andrew in the new bed!
I'm happy to say that after two full weeks in his bed, he's napping very well during the day. At night, he often wakes up once, comes in to our room, we take him right back, and he goes back to sleep. He's waking up pretty early (6:30 or 7 usually), but I'm pleased with how relatively smoothly it's going. Since we're getting this routine down now, I'm going to start tackling the potty training here in the next couple weeks. Wish me luck!!

Amelia also had a major event this week: she lost her first tooth! She was SO excited to show everyone her wiggly tooth (it was loose for a good 2-3 weeks), and even more excited when it came out. Now she tells everyone her mouth looks like a jack-o-lantern. I'll let you decide...

Amelia's still doing really well in school. Today her teacher told me she thinks Amelia's reading on about a 4th grade level! She's also the top of her (K-1) class in math. We are so proud of her, although we're going to have to decide what to do to keep her challenged and interested next year!

Not much else to report here. Like I said, we're just getting back in the swing of things and enjoying our life together! Here's one last picture from this week...lots of snow to play in. Have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T19:50:00.002-05:00

We hope you had a wonderful holiday with family and friends. We did! Love and Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

The Big Chill

2010-12-13T07:50:00.005-05:00

This past Saturday Bryan and I participated in a historic event! We were spectators at the Big Chill, an outdoor hockey game between Michigan and Michigan State. What made it historic was the venue and attendance: the hockey game was at the Big House (Michigan's football stadium) and the crowd was 113,411, making it the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game anywhere in the world. The Guinness Book of World Records was there to present a certificate and everything. Pretty cool...literally! It was COOOOOLD. We wore lots of layers and were well-prepared (well, except for my toes; I should've worn multiple pairs of socks!), but brrrr! Even though we're not big hockey fans, it was a really fun experience. Here are some pictures!

On the way to the game

Here we are!

Good seats!

Players take the ice

the record-setting crowd

Blowout win for Michigan!

An ice sculpture at the stadium of the Big Chill logo

Six years old!

2010-11-18T10:03:00.005-05:00

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD!!!
We have been busy bees around here celebrating Amelia's 6th birthday! Her birthday was Monday but we had birthday activities on three consecutive days (lucky girl). Here's what we did.

Sunday: Party with Amelia's friends at Jungle Java (an indoor playplace). She had 6 friends and their siblings there, plus the four of us, and all the kids' parents, which made for a full room! The kids had a great time playing, which meant I got to visit with the parents. Fun! For her cake, Amelia requested chocolate with strawberry frosting, which turned out to be very tasty. I found a recipe for strawberry buttercream on Martha Stewart's site which was divine! Amelia is really in to dogs and puppies these days, so that was the theme of her cake. We had Fletcher (our beagle) on top, Rosie (her build-a-bear dog, which looks like a bear) in the middle, and Beautiful (one of her Webkinz) on the bottom. I had a battle with the fondant and it ended up looking pretty horrendous, so I decided to put pawprints all over the cake to hide the mistakes. Thankfully, it worked! Here are a few pictures from the party.
We didn't open presents at the party (too much craziness!), so we packed them up and got in the car. By the time the party was over, it was 5:30, and our church Life Group had started at 5. Bryan said, "well I guess we're not going to Life Group, right? " I said, "I'd kind of like to go..." and Bryan replied, "Me too." Then Amelia piped up from the back seat: "I want to go to Life Group. I want to see my friends!" Bryan and I were both shocked and so happy that she would leave a big box full of un-opened presents in favor of spending time with her church friends! YAY!! Of course then Andrew (the little parrot) said "I go to small groot!!!" :-) After Life Group we went home, opened presents quickly and went to bed. Bryan had a conference to attend the next day, so he left for the airport late Sunday night.

Monday: Amelia's birthday! She got ready for school and was allowed to play with one toy when she was done, before we had to leave for the bus. She picked a Littlest Pet Shop toy, and walked around with it all morning saying things like "Mom. This is SO adorable. I didn't even see it had binoculars (it's a safari set)." and "Mom. This is SO adorable. I almost cried when I saw it, I was so happy. Like, I had tears in my eyes." Dramatic much, are we??? :-)

Anyway, Amelia went to school and I took Andrew to school, where he got to stay all day (he did really well)! Then I got a treat ready to take to school for Amelia's class: Cake balls (aka cake bites or cake truffles). If you've not heard of them, you MUST try them. Go to this link (Bakerella) and check out the cake bites and cake pops. They are delicious and so cute! Anyway, I worked on those with the help of a friend whose daughter is in Amelia's class and shares her birthday. The cake bites turned out really good and the kids loved them! After the school snack I took Amelia to the doctor for her yearly checkup (she's healthy and doing great). Then we picked up the things for her birthday dinner (she requested fish sticks, rice and peas, ha!) and picked up Andrew from school. It was a good birthday! Here is Amelia enjoying her birthday dinner and the present we gave her (a big box of Legos).
Tuesday: Pretty much a normal day! We had our last leg of birthday celebrating that night (since Bryan was out of town Monday and wouldn't be back until Tues. afternoon). We did our traditional birthday dinner at Red Robin with our close friends...16 of us in all! We had a great time eating, visiting, and eating more cake bites that I brought. They were a big hit again! In fact, we gave some to our waiters and they were spell-bound! So much so that we gave some to other staff at the restaurant and they were all coming over asking about them. It was hilarious to see what an effect those things had! We all got a good laugh over that. Here are some pictures from dinner.
So, as you can see, we've had a full last few days. Now, on to Thanksgiving! Have a happy week!

These shoes.

2010-10-26T20:54:00.004-04:00

I love these shoes. Let me tell you how I came to own them...it is a great tale of shopping triumph!
I was in Houston with Abby last month, and while we were killing time waiting to go to an event, we stopped in to Kohl's. I was wearing some black wedge sandals that I'd had for 5+ years and it was high time for them to be retired (they were pretty nasty)! I had $10 in Kohl's cash to spend (it's a great thing...if you don't know about it, check out kohls.com!), so I thought it'd be worth seeing if there were any cute, black wedge sandals I could get to replace the nasty ones...after all, they'd be at least $10 cheaper!

I saw these adorable ones, from Vera Wang's "Simply Vera" line (only at Kohl's) on a mannequin and thought I'd look for them in the shoe department so I could try them on. Well, I looked and looked, but couldn't find the sandals anywhere in the shoe department. Disappointed, I went back to the mannequin to admire the sandals again. Abby said, "why don't you see if those happen to be your size?" So I figured, why not? And....indeed, they were my size. Amazing! The price tag said $69.50, which is way more than I'd pay for these, but since everything is always on sale at Kohl's, and since I had my $10 off, I figured I'd take them up to the register and just see what the real price was. Well, I put the shoes up on the counter, told the sales lady that there wasn't a box because the only pair I could find was on display, and she rang them up...at...

$7.

Yes, you read that correctly, folks. $7. That's a 90% discount! Needless to say, I was speechless. My jaw dropped! I never find deals THAT great! The sales lady was cracking up at me; she said "I've never seen a reaction like that in the whole time I've worked here...and it was worth the wait!" I could not believe my luck, so I promptly paid in cash (kept the Kohl's cash for later!), and got out of there before there was a chance for it to all be a big, mean joke. YAY for bargains!
And yay for these shoes. :-)

Our trip to Wiard's

2010-10-19T13:22:00.005-04:00

Wiard's is an orchard and store about two miles from our house. Every weekend in October they have a giant "country fair" with lots of rides, games, and activities. We usually try to go to the fair once every fall; it's such a fun fall activity! We went to Wiard's last weekend and had a great time. We picked apples, roamed the pumpkin patch, rode "tractors," raced rubber ducks, and played on giant, inflatable things. :-) A good time was had by all, as you will see from the pictures!
Happy fall, everyone!!

What we've been up to.

2010-10-07T09:39:00.005-04:00

We have been busy, busy since I posted last! Here's what we've been up to:

Making a quilt with Ms. Paula

Visiting our hometown

Finally riding the school bus

Going apple picking with school

Having fun with Nana

Getting to see the fire truck

The fire truck is SO cool.

That's all for now!

First Day of School

2010-09-08T15:06:00.006-04:00

Yesterday was Andrew and Amelia's first day of school! Andrew started at Teddy Bear Daycare in the toddler class. He'll normally be going on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, but since we had to go with Amelia on her first day, Andrew got to start on Tuesday. He was SO excited to go, and his teachers said he did really well!

For Amelia's first day, we went with her to her school (Lincoln Multi-Age) for a parent-student Kindergarten orientation. We were there for just a couple hours, but they were action-packed! When we arrived at Ms. Hunter's classroom, we picked up a list of tasks we had to complete, including drawing yourself, printing your name, picking out a cubby, picking out a locker, reading a book and getting your picture taken by the teacher. The class was very crowded with the 24 kids and about half that many parents, but it was still fun. I think Amelia was a bit overwhelmed, but she was still excited.

This morning Andrew and I walked Amelia to her bus stop, where she got on the bus to ride to Kindergarten for her first (official) full day. As soon as the bus pulled up, I got all choked up and teary! I really didn't expect to be that emotional since she's been doing "school" for a few years now, but it just hit me! What a big girl. She will do so well and I can't wait to hear all about her first day when we get her from the bus this afternoon.

Time flies!!!!! Andrew goes from 8:30-12:30 and then takes a nap for most of the afternoon when he gets home, so I pretty much have all day MWF to do anything...or nothing. It feels very strange, but nice!

Amelia's exciting week

2010-08-15T14:17:00.006-04:00

Amelia had a pretty big week last week! She participated in "Safety Town," a week-long program (9-3 every day!) for entering kindergarteners to learn all about safety. There were visits from the police and fire department, EMTs with an ambulance, Louie the lightning bug (DTE Energy), a railroad safety group, the Red Cross, and others. Amelia had a great time and learned a lot! Here are a couple pictures from graduation.

pretty excited about something!

demonstrating what to do if an animal you don't know starts bothering you (stand like a tree and say "help!")

Getting her Safety Town diploma from her teacher

Yesterday Amelia also finished her first session of swimming lessons at the county rec center. She LOVED being in the pool and did a great job! The pictures were taken from an observation deck behind a window, so please excuse the poor quality!

Kicking feet (she's the third one counter-clockwise from top)

Getting ready to jump in to the deep end

Showing the skills certificate!

Last but not least, our friends the Spiveys had their first baby on Tuesday, and Amelia couldn't wait to meet baby Noah! She was so excited to get to visit him and hold him. Here they are:

So sweet!

Amelia=excited about the baby...Andrew=excited about the apple juice. :-)

This week, Nana is coming on Tuesday (a week earlier than expected, yay!) so we're in for much more fun. It's hard to believe, but in just over three weeks Amelia and Andrew will both be in school! Where has the summer gone???

The Big House

2010-07-16T13:05:00.005-04:00

The Big House (University of Michigan's football stadium) has been under construction for a couple of years now. The stadium's press box was out of date and other parts needed renovation, AND they needed to add a bunch of luxury suites and club seats. ;-) Well, the work is finally done, and the Big House was open to the public for tours this week! Since everyone who comes to a football game has to pay full price for a ticket (regardless of age or size), our children will likely not go to any football games in the foreseeable future! We really wanted Amelia and Andrew to see the stadium (oh and we really wanted to sit in the luxury suites and pretend we had one), so we toured it on Wednesday. WOW, is it nice! We are really venturing into the realm of die-hard fan-dom after living here for eight years, and touring the Big House got us so excited about the start of football season! Let's hope the Maize and Blue have a big turn-around season and win a bunch of games. Go Blue!! Oh, and here are some pictures. :-)

Amelia poses with a fire hydrant outside the stadium

Andrew in the club seats

watching one of last year's football games on the big screen

The upper-level windows have a beautiful view of U of M and Ann Arbor

Go Blue!

Our Graduate

2010-06-11T14:39:00.003-04:00

Yesterday Amelia graduated from Pre-Kindergarten! We went to the ceremony (which was adorable) at school and watched as the kids walked in to the sounds of "Pomp and Circumstance," received their "diplomas," and enjoyed the special lunch the kids had prepared. I can hardly believe that in September we'll be putting Amelia on the school bus to head off to the beginning of her (many!) school years. Today was Amelia's last day at Teddy Bear Daycare, and it was bittersweet. She's had such a great time there over the last three years! She (and we) are very excited, though, to send her to Kindergarten in the fall. It'll definitely be an adjustment in many ways, but we fully expect her to do great things. Enough sentiment now! Here are pictures. :-)

the graduation announcement

Amelia with her teachers Miss Ashley and Miss Jonese

our little graduate!

Another video

2010-06-09T10:57:00.003-04:00

Here's a link to another cute video of Amelia: Amelia reads a book. Enjoy! Oh, and tomorrow is a big day for Amelia, so keep an eye out for another new post on Friday!

Parent Night

2010-05-24T19:21:00.005-04:00

Each year in May, Amelia's "school" (Teddy Bear Daycare) has parent night. On parent night each class, from infants up through Pre-Kindergarten, performs a song or skit for the parents. This is our third year attending, and each year has been so cute! This year's parent night was especially good for two reasons: 1) it was Amelia's last parent night there, as she'll be in Kindergarten in the fall, and 2) she had a big solo in her class skit! Here is a link to the video of Amelia's class skit (too big for blogger). Enjoy Amelia's Parent Night 2010!

Mother's Day Weekend

2010-05-10T12:04:00.008-04:00

A few weeks ago my Dad sent me an e-mail titled "Mother's Day shshshshshsh!" He wanted to surprise my mom and fly my family up to NYC for the weekend. Who can turn down a free trip, right?? So on Friday afternoon we hopped on a plane. When we got close to the apartment we texted Abby (who was in on it), and she came downstairs "to meet her friend for dinner," aka help us upstairs with our luggage. :-) We got upstairs and Abby went in to the apartment, saying "I forgot my Metro Card..." and Amelia and Andrew followed...and BOY was Mom surprised! She said "what are you doing here???" It was great fun to surprise her and she was so happy. Good planning, Dad, and thanks for having us! We had really nice (although windy) weather all weekend, hooray! On Friday night we had AWESOME BBQ at Daisy Mae's; Saturday, Mom, Abby and I had pedicures, then met the kids, Dad and Bryan in Central Park to enjoy the carousel, a playground, and to visit "the rock" where Bryan proposed to me. Sunday we enjoyed a fantastic service at church, then were treated to brunch at Bar Americain, one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. It was SO good! All in all it was a great Mother's Day and really nice to be able to spend it with my mom. Here are some pictures of the weekend!

Riding the carousel

TALL slide

No fear!

with Nana and Pops in Central Park

Being goofy

Our family on "the rock"

Pedicures!

Busy, busy, busy!

2010-05-03T10:37:00.007-04:00

Man, we've had a lot going on recently! We enjoyed a wonderful visit this weekend from Grandma and Grandpa Jobe. They came up to see Amelia's dance recital (part of the busy-ness!), go with us to Day out with Thomas, and just hang out. Also while they were here, we had the kids' pictures taken (finally!) and even got some with G'ma and G'pa. The pictures turned out beautifully, even though Andrew didn't want to cooperate and would only take pictures holding a football. Oh well! Such are Andrew's interests these days (anything involving a ball of any kind). Here are some pictures of our weekend events!

I was really sad to have to put makeup on Amelia...she looks so old! :-( Oh, and I am SO jealous of her super-long eyelashes. ;-)

flowers from her admirers!

the kids LOVED riding Thomas.

we had to take a picture of Emily and Emily!

check out Andrew's James tattoo...

...and Amelia's Percy!

we had so much fun!

Andrew-ese

2010-04-23T09:56:00.003-04:00

So, Andrew is just over two years old, and we can understand almost everything he says these days. However, some things take several tries before we get it right. See below:

Andrew (A.): "Mommy, I see graggle."
Me (M.): "You see what, bubby? Dragon?"
A.: "I see graggle."
M.: "gaggle?"
A.: "graggle."
M: "wagon?"
A.: "GRAGGLE!!"
M: "Oh, triangle! That's right, bud!"

We have several conversations per day like this. Here are a few other words we've interpreted.

Chee-wos=Cheerios
cuck=truck
fwok=fork (we are REALLY trying to work on this one, as it sounds like a nasty word and is rather embarrassing when he screams it across a restaurant in public)
nuk=milk (although he's recently overcome this one, and now says "mee-yulk")
beer=bear (this is kind of funny when he says, "mommy, BEER!!!" and really wants his stuffed animal)
ma-mi-nah=banana
fwahg=flag or frog (or sometimes it even sounds like fork)

Andrew also has a few signature phrases that we hear daily:

"Mommy, I be wiiiiiiite back."

"Where's Yeeya? School. Backback. Wuchbox. Where's Daddy? Dow-stairs. Office. Wer-king. Where's Te-tchuh (Fletcher)? Nuh-no! (don't know) Where's A-doo? Ri-HERE!!!"

"MommywatchTHOmas!"

"Wook, Mommy! Wook!"

"Bessya Mommy" (after a sneeze)

"Peek-oo Mommy" (Thank you Mommy)

"Mommy A-doo Petzohs." (literal translation: Mommy Andrew Pretzels.)

"Dess what, Mommy! Cow jumpedumpedumpedupmed duh MOON!" (somewhere along the way he became enamored with the phrase "cow jumped over the moon.")

I hope you've enjoyed your lesson in Andrew-ese!

Lazy blogger syndrome

2010-04-12T13:29:00.003-04:00

Well, I just realized I didn't post anything in March. I'll attribute that to "lazy blogger syndrome," which I'll claim is a side effect of the CRAZY pollen count here that's causing our allergies to go nuts. All of us have been stuffy-headed, runny-nosed, congested, coughing, watery-eyed messes for a while now! As gross as it is, though, I wouldn't trade the spring weather for anything. We got SO lucky in avoiding a bad winter this year, and we're actually having spring-like weather...in spring! What a concept! I was especially glad that we had gorgeous weather for Easter. Here are some pictures of that!It's like pulling teeth to get them both to look at the camera at the same time.

Andrew accepts a jellybean bribe

Having fun outside!

See all my eggs?

Amelia liked this one best.

Happy birthday, Andrew!

2010-02-22T13:40:00.003-05:00

Andrew turned the big "2" on Friday! We kept our celebrations pretty low-key (we didn't even get around to eating the birthday cake until Sunday afternoon!) but still had a fun weekend opening presents, eating with friends at Red Robin, playing with those presents, and eventually eating the cake. Amelia was about 30 times more excited for Andrew's birthday than he was (obviously he doesn't really get it yet), so it was a big weekend for her, too. Here are some pictures!

Inside the new ball pit

Plotting, I'm sure...

And this is what happens next!

We LOVE Thomas and Friends.

Yummy ice cream!Sesame Street school bus cake

Happy birthday, Andrew!

Snow fun

2010-02-11T08:41:00.004-05:00

Unlike some of our friends on the East Coast, we've not had too bad of a winter so far (and I'm not complaining)! We've really only had two "big" snows, and even those were under 8" (definitely not bad!). Anyway, the kids had fun playing in the snow we got yesterday. Enjoy the pics!

The Kiddos

2010-01-30T16:44:00.005-05:00

As promised, here are some recent pictures of the kids. They're both doing very well and keeping us either entertained or insane. ;-) Enjoy!

So sweet.

Isn't she looking so grown-up?

Such a little cheeseball.

Yes, this is Andrew in the dog's bed. He got in there by himself, I promise.

Little cutiesMy personal favorite. See, they do love each other!

New (?) Year, New Stuff

2010-01-27T09:25:00.004-05:00

Hello out there! I have been soooo lazy over the last couple months, and I figured I'd better have at least one post in January. I guess the year isn't really "new" anymore, but since this is the first blog of 2010 it can be new, right?

We've had lots of changes in the Jobe household in the last month or so. Most of them aren't really earth-shattering, but you get to hear about them anyway, ha! :-) The biggest change is one that most of you probably know about, but I haven't mentioned on the blog. NO, I AM NOT PREGNANT so don't think that. It's this: Bryan has a new job! His last job ended in October and he "involuntarily took some time off" from then until last week, so this is BIG news. The last quarter of the year was pretty stressful for us, to say the least; we are so thankful to our families for all their help and support, and to God for His faithfulness in bringing the right job at the right time (even though a little sooner would've been ok with us. ;-) Bryan had his orientation for his new job last week and he is so excited about it! The company is big, stable, well-respected, and they are very excited to have him, so we are very excited about it! So that's the big news. The rest of it is little stuff, but I have pictures of it.

With birthday and Christmas money we did a lot of re-organizing and re-arranging in our house! My birthday present was an additional shelf from IKEA (love that place!!) for all my craft stuff, replacing the yucky plastic drawer carts I had. I LOVE this shelf and desk! I've done several projects here already and look forward to several more! Here is a picture of the shelf, and the first project I did on it...a skirt for Amelia!

The next re-arrangement we did was to bring my desk upstairs; it had been downstairs when Bryan's office was upstairs, and since his office is downstairs now, it wasn't the best place for my desk. Anyway, we moved my desk up to the front hall. Not ideal, but it's functional! We then got inspired to re-arrange our bed, which exposed our large window (with really ugly mini-blinds and sheer curtains), which prompted us to get new Roman shades and curtains, which necessitated new throw pillows, which gave us the color to paint our bathroom (which had been sanded and ready to paint for...um...a year): "warm brownie." Whew! So here are pictures of our "new" bedroom and bathroom. We love it!
Also, I know I get excited about small stuff--hey, I'm easy to please--but if you'll notice, the curtains in the bedroom are exactly the same pattern as the new shower curtain. And I got them at two completely different stores. SO exciting! Anyway, that's all our new house stuff. I'll add some new kid pictures in a different post...too much in one day would overwhelm you, after the shock of seeing that I actually posted something!

Merry Christmas from the Jobe kids!

2009-12-17T12:55:00.002-05:00

An Instant Classic

2009-12-07T20:43:00.006-05:00

This Sunday after church we went to visit Santa at our local mall. We'd prepped the kids for the visit and both were as excited as can be--Andrew kept saying, "see Santa! see Santa!" and Amelia was jumping up and down as we waited in line. Then it was our turn. I said, "Andrew, are you going to let Santa hold you on his lap?" "yeah! yeah! yeah!" "Ok..." So Amelia climbed up on the jolly old elf's lap, as excited as ever, and we set Andrew on Santa's knee... and Andrew instantly started screaming. Of course. So it wasn't all Andrew had expected. Needless to say, therefore, this year's picture with Santa is an instant classic.
The photographer kept snapping pictures, hoping to get one where our dear son was taking a breath from all the wailing, and the whole time Bryan and I were just laughing, saying, "it's fine...we think it's funny!" Then to each other: "does this make us bad parents??" Anyway, hope this little gem gets you in the Christmas spirit. Ho, ho, ho!

Amelia's Birthday, Part Deux

2009-11-23T00:23:00.004-05:00

So as you know, Amelia's birthday was last Sunday. However, for multiple reasons I decided to postpone her birthday party (with friends) until a week after her birthday. That party was today, and it turned out really well! We had six little girls (plus Amelia) and a parent for each. I think the girls had a good time playing games, decorating "magic" mirrors, having cake and taking turns dressing up as Snow White! Thanks to all for coming! Here are a few pictures from the party.

All the guestsPlaying the cleaning game
More cleaning game

Snow White and the 7 Dwarves Cake

Cake close-up

Happy birthday!

Huddled around for opening presents!

Happy Birthday, Amelia!

2009-11-16T12:12:00.002-05:00

I can not believe I have a five year-old child! Amelia turned five yesterday and had a great celebration. Aunt Abby, Nana and Pops got to be here for the weekend, which is always a treat! Amelia played lots of Wii with Abby. On Sunday, Daddy had the whole church sing "happy birthday" to Amelia (she loved it!), then after church we did our traditional birthday meal at Red Robin (yum). We came home and had birthday cake and presents to finish the day. Amelia was so excited all day, as she has been looking forward to her birthday for a LONG time! We are having a party for her friends this weekend with a Snow White theme. It should be fun! Here is a picture of Amelia with her birthday cake on her big day. I love this girl!

Fondant class

2009-11-13T10:34:00.004-05:00

I just finished my fondant class last night! I really enjoyed working with fondant; it really is like play-doh for grown-ups! Here's a picture of the cake I made for the "final project."
We also made little favor boxes in class, and while playing around with modeling something out of fondant I ended up with an elephant that I kind of fell in love with, so I attached him to the box. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but for now it's adorning my kitchen island.
Of course now with Amelia's birthday coming up this weekend, and my newly-acquired cake skills, the pressure's on to do something really cool for her cake. Oh, and did I mention her birthday party isn't until next weekend? So really I have to do two cool cakes. We'll see what happens.

Being sick STINKS!!!

2009-10-29T12:48:00.003-04:00

Well, the last few days have been pretty nasty. Sunday morning Amelia woke up with a fever and proceeded to get worse throughout the day. We did take the kids to trunk-or-treat for a little while Sunday night (against better judgment, I know), which was fun. Then Monday Amelia was really lethargic all day, feverish, coughing, etc. I didn't want to jump to conclusions but I was really worried we might have the flu! Amelia rested all day Monday and started feeling better Tuesday, thank goodness. However, Tuesday morning Andrew woke up with a fever and was very lethargic, so he went to the doctor. The doctor said he didn't think it was flu, but to watch him closely. Yesterday he started feeling better and today he seems fine (no fever!). Poor Amelia was coughing constantly yesterday afternoon and last night (not much sleep), so we took her to the doctor today. She doesn't have the flu either, but her asthma is acting up, so we have a prescription to pick up for her meds. Through all of this Bryan was sick for a couple days (he's fine now) and last night I started feeling gross. Being sick STINKS!!! We had planned to go to Arkansas today for Harding's homecoming weekend and to see family, but because of all our sickness we had to cancel the trip. Hopefully we'll be able to reschedule soon.

So, that's what we've been up to. Oh, and before all the sickness hit, I made a bunch of pajamas for Amelia. Here are some pictures of them, as well as a couple from trunk-or-treat. Here's hoping the sickness is almost gone from our house!!!

The Grand Finale!

2009-10-22T22:14:00.005-04:00

As I posted a few weeks ago, I've been taking cake decorating classes at a local JoAnn's store. Tonight we had our final class of Wilton course #2! During course 2 we made a BUNCH of different flowers, most using royal icing. It is definitely a different animal than buttercream! We saved all the flowers we made over the four weeks for the grand finale cake, which featured the basket-weave and the flowers (oh, and a couple birds). Without further ado, I present...my cake!
I've signed up for another class starting the first week in November: Fondant! I am really excited about learning to work with fondant, as I've never used it before. It seems like you can do so many different things with fondant, and I look forward to experimenting. I'll definitely keep posting pictures!

And the award goes to...

2009-10-12T11:39:00.003-04:00

...Amelia! She was chosen "Super Student of the Week" in her Pre-K class. This award is given by the teachers to a student who "makes good choices all week." Amelia got a certificate, and got to choose a prize out of the prize box (a little spinny top). She was quite proud of herself, and we were quite proud of her!Last week was fire safety week at Teddy Bear Daycare, and the students got up close and personal with a fire truck and firemen! Each student received her very own "Ypsilanti Township Fire Department" hat; it's already gotten a lot of wear, but not by Amelia...see below! Every time Andrew puts the hat on, he shakes his arms for a couple minutes. Who knows what that's about, but it's cute!

My Little Ponies: A New Musical by Amelia Jobe

2009-10-05T20:28:00.002-04:00

Enjoy this original song Amelia came up with today while playing. Broadway, here we come! ;-)

And so it begins...

2009-09-30T14:26:00.007-04:00

Last week, Bryan and I each reached a milestone; I became a soccer mom and Bryan became a coach of his kid's team! Amelia is playing soccer in the preschool-age league run by our township. The first practice/game was quite an experience (Bryan compared it to herding cats)! Amelia had a lot of fun playing, and even scored a goal! Bryan is a great coach and I think the kids will have a great experience being on his team.

Amelia also started pre-ballet and pre-tap class last week, so we're getting kind of busy (thus the title of this post)! She has really enjoyed class the last couple of weeks and informed us that she likes ballet better than tap "because the shoes are prettier. They're pink." So there you go! The class is closed to parents except for the first week of the month, so I'm looking forward to next Thursday when I get to see what she's actually learning. If I can video, I will!

Andrew, of course, is too little for much organized activity, but he's quite a trooper in tagging along and cheering (he can actually dribble the soccer ball quite well!). He has recently started saying a lot of words, including bus, tractor, truck, (do you see a theme here?), cracker (which sounds a lot like tractor), puppy, ducky,doggie...and that's all I can think of for now. Oh, and he calls Amelia "YaYa." I think that's pretty cute, myself. Hope all is well with everyone in the blogosphere! Enjoy the pictures!

Return from a break!

2009-09-14T09:31:00.009-04:00

Hello, readers! If you are reading this then you've been very faithful. :-) I've taken a break from blogging over the summer, but now that we're back in a routine, I figured I'd better get back to blogging!

We had a great summer, but we're glad it's fall! Amelia started school again last week, which we're ALL happy about. The Early K program we'd planned to send her to ended up falling through (thanks for pulling the funding, Michigan government), so she's staying where she's been and going to Pre-K every morning. There are two Pre-K classes this year, so she has a different teacher, which is nice and will give her a bit of a different experience. Her class is going to learn some French this year, which I'm excited about since I studied French in high school and college! It should be fun to practice! Amelia will also get to be present for music class at school this year, which I know she'll love. Here is a picture of her first day of school (it was raining, and Andrew wanted to be in the picture too!). Doesn't she look old? :-(

Of course the other reason we're glad it's fall is that college football is back; well I should say Michigan football is back! And BOY, IS IT BACK!!!!! We are pumped about the first two games, can you tell? :-) We have tickets to five home games this year so we will really get to get into the spirit. Here's a picture of us with our friends Anne and Ted Ledbetter after the first game.
And finally, I am taking a cake decorating class! It's the first course in a series of Wilton cake decorating classes offered at our local JoAnn Etc. and I'm really enjoying it! I'm really looking forward to taking a couple of the more advanced classes, but you have to take the 1st course as a pre-requisite. This is the cake I made for the first week's lesson, which was on using the star tip. Nothing spectacular, but it was tasty, and we ate it when we had friends over to watch UM's victory over the Irish! I'll post pictures of the cakes I do each week, so hopefully we'll see improvement!>Happy fall to everyone, and if you're reading, thanks for hanging in there!

We're back

2009-06-06T13:09:00.009-04:00

We're back from our wonderful, two-week vacation to Kauai, Hawaii. It was so nice to have two full weeks to be in such a beautiful, relaxing place with our family! The first week we spent on the north shore in Princeville at the Hanalei Bay Resort, where my parents have a timeshare. We enjoyed playing on the beach and in the pool, eating shave ice, watching birds (and the multitudes of chickens), and playing Wii when it rained. The second week we went to the south shore to spend time with extended family at the Mariott Waiohai Beach Club in Poipu. My Aunt Andrea and Uncle Cam Henderson have the timeshare there and used those priveliges to get three units--enough for my parents, Abby, the four of us, the four of them (my aunt and uncle, and my cousins Austin and Brittany), and my aunt Mary Ann--so we could have a little family reuniuon. It really was great to get to spend time with them! I haven't seen most of them in about seven years, so it really was a treat. We haven't spent much time on the south shore before, and we really enjoyed it over there! We also had a lot of pool and beach time there, as well as fierce card playing at night. :-)

The trip to Hawaii was VERY long and kind of stressful but we got there all in one piece, and the trip back was also very long but the kids slept almost the entire way, so it made it much better. We are so thankful we were able to have a great vacation, and as wonderful as it was, we are still glad to be home. Here's a couple pictures, and I've uploaded a whole album on facebook if you want to see more. They're also on kodakgallery but I can't get them to link at the moment! I'll work on that!

Amelia's art

2009-05-09T08:55:00.007-04:00

Amelia loves coloring in coloring books and drawing pictures with markers and crayons. The other day at school her class was talking about what they wanted to be when they grow up, and Amelia told me she wanted to be a mom and an artist. Sounds good to me! Another interesting thing is that lately she's been trying to sound out words and write them; here is an example below. She's written PRNSESAS (princesses), U "heart" I (I love) and Amelia (she obviously does this one right!). This translates to "Amelia loves princesses" in Amelian. I am quite proud of her since she spelled "prnsesas" on her own without asking for help. Good phonetics, Amelia! Oh, by the way, on the left is Amelia, then Cinderella, Snow White (with Grumpy and Dopey), and Sleeping Beauty. They're in front of a castle.
And here is a Mother's Day card Amelia drew for me at church last week. It cracked me up. Here is the front:
and here is the inside:
Happy Mother's Day, everyone...thanks for the meatballs! ;-)

Spring

2009-04-13T13:51:00.002-04:00

Spring is finally (I think) here to stay in Michigan. Hooray! Driving around in the past couple days I've seen daffodils and tulips all around, so that's a sure sign, right??? It's been so nice to have warm enough weather for the kids to be outside. They get cabin fever with it being cold for so long!

So I looked at the date of my last post and realized I've not posted anything for a month. I've been slacking! Actually, it's probably more like nothing all that interesting or new has been happening, so I haven't felt the need to share. :-) Anyway, hope everyone had a happy Easter yesterday. Below are a few pics of the kids. We were only able to get one picture of them together in their cute outfits before church, as Andrew fell asleep in the car on the way home from church and then had completely soaked his clothes by the time I got him up from his nap. Oh well! This one will do until I stage an "Easter" photo with them another day. Happy Spring!

An exciting update to an earlier post!

2009-03-13T09:25:00.003-04:00

Okay, so the earlier post was a long time ago last year, but still, those of you who've been reading this blog a while, you'll remember! I had been going back and forth about whether or not to send Amelia to Kindergarten in the fall (in Michigan, you have to be 5 by December 1st). Bryan and I had reached the decision that we'd wait a year since she'd be one of the youngest in her class, and we'd keep sending her to preschool (Pre-K) like we've been doing this year, but instead of sending her three days a week we'd send her every day, for a half-day. We were both happy with this situation (although the monthly cost would be substantially higher, not happy), and then....

...my friend Michelle told me that she'd been to the Kindergarten Roundup (for parents of incoming kindergarteners) for our local district and they were very excited about a new program they're starting up this fall: Early K! Basically, it's a program designed specifically for kids who turn 5 close to the kindergarten cutoff date (between July 1 and December 1). You "commit" to the program for two years; the first year, your child goes every day, for a half day, and the next year, your child's classmates and teacher "loop" (stay together) and go up to full-day kindergarten. The teachers can adapt the curriculum to provide extra help or more challenging material, based on the needs of the individual kids. Michelle knew our dilemma with kindergarten next year, and thought of me!

I am SO glad about this program! I immediately contacted the school for more information and spoke to the principal (who is very nice) and got Amelia set up for an appointment to register. Yay! So now Amelia will technically be going to Kindergarten, but it's a much better situation, and we'll basically be getting the same (actually a little better) thing we would've been getting at TBDC (Amelia's current school)...but for FREE!!! When I went by the school to pick up the information packet, Amelia went with me, and she was SO excited to see the new school (especially the playground). Every day since she's been saying "I'm a big girl and I get to go to Kindergarten soon!" We can't wait to hear more about this new deveopment and we'll give updates as we know them. I love it when things work out!

A Big Day

2009-02-20T11:12:00.006-05:00

Andrew turned one year old yesterday. I can hardly believe it! He is walking everywhere, getting into everything, cutting teeth, babbling up a storm, playing peek-a-boo, and keeping us entertained. Here is a "year in review" slideshow for you. Most of the pictures will be ones you've already seen if you follow the blog, but it's interesting to look at them in succesion.

Aha!

2009-01-31T11:03:00.003-05:00

We were finally able to get a video of Andrew walking. Enjoy!

11 months

2009-01-22T08:26:00.004-05:00

I realize it's a bit late to be saying "happy new year," so happy 2009! Since I last blogged, we had a wonderful Christmas with family, got about 12 inches of snow (not all at once, but that's how much is on the ground now), Andrew took his first steps, I turned 30, had dear friends visit from out of town, we got a new president, and Andrew turned 11 months old. That's a lot, if you ask me!

Andrew has never been in the snow, so I decided for his 11 month picture I'd put him in a snowsuit, take him outside and see what happened. He was less than thrilled, although I suspect most of that was due to the fact that he couldn't move with all that padding (think: kid from the move "Christmas Story" and see picture below). I haven't been able to catch Andrew walking on camera, and he really only does it a couple steps at a time (and that only when he doesn't realize he's doing it), so I thought some of him standing up would substitute fine. Thus the assortment of 11 month pictures below. Enjoy, and I hope your 2009 has started out wonderfully!

10 months and Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T16:13:00.005-05:00

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas week! Andrew turned 10 months old last week amid what I thought was a bad cold and turned out to be bronchiolitis and an ear infection. He is on medication and doing much better now, bless his heart, but please keep him in your prayers. Many blessings to you and yours this season! I'm thankful for each of you!

Our extra traveler: a pesky winter storm.

2008-12-18T08:00:00.006-05:00

two inches of ice on the rearview mirrors......on the hood...and the sheet of ice that came off our roof!

We finally got home yesterday from a great trip to Arkansas. What was supposed to be a relatively short, uncomplicated trip became longer and a little tricky when a major winter storm decided to hang directly over our travel route! So instead of us going part of the way back on Monday night and the rest of the way Tuesday (putting us home Tuesday afternoon), we went part of the way Monday night, part of the way Tuesday, and the rest of the way Wednesday morning, putting us home Wednesday afternoon. We are very thankful to be home safely! Most of the way on Tuesday we had about two inches of ice covering our car (see pictures below). At one point on Tuesday night Bryan had to pull over and chip the ice off the headlights because we couldn't see! Bryan and I have a joke that every year we inevitably have one trip that is just awful (trust me, it's happened for like five years in a row), and this year we hadn't had it yet so we had to squeeze it in before 2009! HA! Anyway, like I said we are very glad to be home safe and sound. Thanks to those of you who prayed for safe travel for us!

We did have a great visit in Arkansas. Check out my slideshow below for a review!

Why we love Amelia--a select few reasons :-)

2008-12-08T10:47:00.009-05:00

Amelia does "ta-da!" from her gymnastics class

Amelia never fails to entertain us. I often wonder to Bryan, "what did we laugh at before we had Amelia?" She always has something funny to say or an interesting perspective to share. Here are a few of her latest funnies, and a link to a great video.

1. At church we have a Children's Worship time during the sermon; it typically comes after the communion and offering. I usually give Amelia a dollar to put in the offering plate. Yesterday the plate went around faster than I realized and by the time it got to us, I hadn't given the dollar to Amelia yet, so I just put it in along with my check. Upset, she folded her arms and grumbled. Then came this exchange.

Amelia: "Now I can't go."
Me:"You can't go where?"
Amelia: "To Children's Worship."
Me: "Why not?"
Amelia: "Because I didn't put my dollars in."
Me: "Well Honey, you don't have to pay to go; you can still go."
Amelia: "Oh."

2. The other day I was on the computer, Bryan was working, and Andrew was down for a nap. Amelia really wanted someone to play with her. After telling her several times that I'd play with her as soon as I finished what I was doing, she said "but if no one plays with me, I won't be beautiful anymore." Not sure what that means, but at least she has self-confidence!

3. At school one day Amelia drew a picture of her family. As she was showing it to me I noticed there were only three people in it. She identified them as Mommy, Daddy and Amelia. I said, "where's Andrew and Fletcher?" To which she replied, "they're taking a nap." She certainly knows what goes on at our house!

4. Usually when I make dinner, Bryan does dishes. Last week, though, Bryan was putting up a new ceiling fan in our bedroom and wanted to get it done right away, so he went to work on it right after we ate. As I was about to start clearing the table and putting things away, Bryan called me into the room to help him. I'd been in there for several minutes when I heard Amelia humming to herself and heard water running. I peeked around the corner and saw that Amelia had gotten her stool out of the bathroom and, without being asked at all, had taken all our dishes to the sink, rinsed them off, and was putting them into the dishwasher. She'd also put away most of the food we had out (including the salt and pepper shakers, which were in the fridge--but hey, she was helping!!). I took this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXhY-_kiIko, most of it before she saw me. But it was so sweet that she wanted to help and did it all on her own, and we were so proud of her. She is such a great girl!

Nine Months

2008-11-20T13:11:00.003-05:00

Andrew turned nine months old yesterday. He's officially now been outside me as long as he was inside me! Weird! He is 28" tall and 21 pounds, 12 ounces, which despite what we'd think is only in the 50-75th percentile. I'm sure his chubby legs would break some records, though! I should take a picture of them sometime for those of you who haven't had the privelige to see them. :-) Anyway, here is his nine month picture.

Amelia's big weekend

2008-11-16T15:59:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Amelia turned four years old! I can hardly believe time has gone by so fast. Amelia's birthday weekend was quite full, starting on Friday morning:

Amelia got to take a special snack to her class (chocolate chip muffins--it was morning, so I couldn't really do cupcakes or anything)
Ms. Vicky, her Pre-K teacher, gave her a new book about Clifford the Big Red Dog; Amelia got to wear a birthday crown, and she got to come home with "Ted E.," her class mascot (the kids take turns taking him home each weekend and journaling about his adventures)
We celebrated early with a bunch of friends at Red Robin. I forgot my camera, which is really too bad because while the staff was singing their "happy birthday" song to Amelia, she had this look on her face the whole time like, "you are so out of tune." It was quite hilarious. Everyone (well our friends that is) came back to our house for cake afterwards.
Saturday morning Amelia opened presents from family. She began the morning by opening our door at 8:00 a.m. and saying, "Mom, it's my birthday..."
Three of Amelia's friends came over for Amelia's party, which was Disney Princess-themed. The girls enjoyed the cake (thanks, Sam's Club!) and playing with the presents they brought Amelia (ha!). Then, we all bundled up, strapped everyone into the car (thanks Matt and Jess for the loaner!) and went to...
...the Circus! Only one out of the four little girls had been to a circus before. All four had a great time.

It was a fun birthday weekend, and we were all pretty worn out when we got home last night. Amelia had a great time. Here are pictures from our weekend!

Happy 28th, Sister!

2008-11-04T11:58:00.004-05:00

This is a birthday shout-out to my sister Abby, who's touring the country. Happy birthday! We love you!

Halloween

2008-11-01T17:42:00.003-04:00

We had a great time last night taking the kids trick-or-treating. Andrew was pretty much just along for the ride, but he did great. The only annoying thing was that people kept saying, "Oh, I love his gnome costume!" Come on, people. He was riding around with Snow White. Really? A gnome? He was Dopey, just to clarify. Anyway, Amelia did great and enjoyed both getting and giving candy. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Odds and Ends

2008-10-29T21:12:00.006-04:00

Where has October gone? For that matter, where has September gone? I realized yesterday I hadn't posted Andrew's 8 month picture yet. Here it is:
Andrew is very busy these days and pulling up on everything, as you can see in the picture. He is quite a curious kid! I think he'll be walking before long. I'm trying to enjoy the last few days of limited mobility while I can. Time just seems to fly these days. We have had a very busy October between travel and other activities. When we were in Houston a couple weeks ago we visited a pumpkin patch, then visited our local orchard fair when we got back. Here are some favorite pictures:Sunday was our church's annual Trunk-or-Treat; Amelia dressed as Snow White and we dressed Andrew as Dopey, so I decided to go as the evil witch, complete with witch nose and
"poisoned" apple. I also had super-long red press-on fingernails, but by the time we actually go to the trunk-or-treating (there were games before) they'd all started breaking, so there's no nails in the picture. Oh well! Bryan considered doing a magic mirror costume, but we just didn't have the time to get it together. Here is a picture of us, and I'll post more of the kids after Halloween (I don't think my witch will be making a repeat appearance!).

A kid-free post (well, almost)

2008-10-07T15:17:00.004-04:00

I usually post things about the kids--how they're growing, changing, etc.--but I rarely post things about how or what Bryan and I are doing (we're fine, by the way :-) )! Well, I have experienced something fairly life-changing lately and I feel compelled to share!

I'm participating in a women's Bible study with a friend of mine (sponsored by her church). It's not just any study; it's a Beth Moore study. If you are a woman and have never done one of Beth's studies, YOU SHOULD. She is an incredibly gifted teacher and speaker and God always uses her material to speak to me in whatever season of life I'm in. This study (the sixth one I've done of Beth's) is called "A Woman's Heart: God's Dwelling Place;" it's a study of the tabernacle. Week two of the study focused on God's provision for the Israelites during their wandering in the wilderness, and here's what got me: God is a daily God. He wants us to come to Him every day for sustenance and a renewal of His mercies (Lamentations 3:22-23). Meeting with Him once a week for corporate worship, or a couple times a week in prayers before meals, won't cut it. The interesting thing is that several things in my life leading up to this week of study had been pointing to this very same idea, and when that happens I know God's trying to teach me something. What I'm learning this time is that in a lot of ways, I've been focusing on the future or a far-off goal instead of living for and paying attention to today. I'll give you some examples so you can see what I mean by "this is fairly life-changing."

1. For several years now I've wanted to lose a significant amount of weight (anywhere from 30-50 pounds, depending on what year it was!), but each time I've never been able to lose more than 10 or 15 pounds. I am working on losing weight again, and this time when I started the process, I started really thinking about why I'd never been able to accomplish my goal. What I realized was that I'd been focusing so much on the big number at the end, I'd not been able to be happy with my daily or weekly, smaller goals (met or unmet). Therefore, if I had a week where I didn't lose much or any weight, or if it was taking longer than I wanted, I got discouraged and just gave up. Now I realize that I didn't gain all that weight in a couple months, and it's going to take longer than that to lose it! Also, if I just focus on eating well today, each day, those daily choices will put me closer to my goal. By the way, I've been successful so far...to date I've lost 18.5 pounds! Woo hoo!

2. Amelia is getting to a point now where she occasionally throws tantrums and shows a nasty attitude. Hello, almost-4 year-old (I told you this was almost kid-free)! It is obviously a challenge to figure out the best way to handle these instances, as all kids are different and all punishments don't work across-the-board. My struggle with this phase has been my thinking, "if she's this bad now, what's it going to be like when she's a teenager?? She is going to hate me!" This may, of course, still turn out to be true, but in light of my new realization I've decided to pray every day that I'll make good parenting decisions for that day, and not focus on what might happen 10 years from now. It's also helped me to remember that the way I react to her is an example to her of how to act when she is upset or angry. If I yell at Amelia and stomp around when I'm upset with her, she's likely to react the same way when she's upset with me! Putting these into practice has helped me to be more loving and calm when dealing with her, and I can already tell that her reaction to me is changing.

3. I've been very involved in different ministries at our church for several years now, and I'm burned out. The details are complicated so I won't share all of them, but trust me when I tell you that at this point in time everything I'm doing, I have to keep doing. I've realized that I've been in a spiritual slump, so to speak, due to this burnout and some other factors, and I've gotten indifferent, negative, and bitter (though mostly not publicly). Unfortunately I can't say that these feelings are totally gone, but with my "Daily God" approach He's been teaching me to focus on the task at hand, and to focus on those I'm ministering to instead of myself. It's been much more joyful and I'm sure it's made me a whole lot more effective.

So how else am I responding to the "lightbulb moment" God's given me? Every day, in the morning (to start the day out right!) I'm praying that God will sustain me for that day, that I'll rely on Him only, and that He'll show Himself to me. I'm asking Him to help me be a good wife and mom...today. That He'll help me make good eating and exercise choices...today. That I'll be a good friend and example to others...today. That He'll forgive me when I sin...today. Like I said, this has really changed my perspective and, I think, changed my life. It's something I always knew, but just now took to heart. Maybe you'll consider doing it, too; live in today!
*check out these scriptures for reference: Matt. 6:11; Matt. 6:33-34; Lam. 3:22-23

NYC trip

2008-09-24T15:00:00.004-04:00

Last week I took the kids to NYC to visit my parents. This was Andrew's first trip to the Big Apple and he was pretty indifferent to it all! Amelia was able to enjoy some aspects of NY for the first time, though, including the Statue of Liberty (seen from the Staten Island Ferry), the Central Park Carousel, and an off-Broadway show (the Gazillion Bubble Show...exactly what it sounds like). She also had fun playing on the playground outside Nana and Pops' apartment building, riding on the bus and subway, and visiting American Girl Place (an early birthday present). Andrew celebrated his 7-month birthday in NY! He is well on his way to crawling; it'll happen any day now. He can also sit himself up from laying down, so it's time to lower the crib mattress. He is a very curious boy and so much fun! Below are some pictures from our trip.

Amelia and Pops ride the carousel

Andrew's first subway ride

7 months old...with the Statue of Liberty in the background (very small, over Nana's shoulder)

We enjoyed a tea party on Nana and Pops' patio with tea and kolaches that Amelia helped make.

Amelia loved the tea party!

Back to School

2008-09-05T15:07:00.002-04:00

Amelia's first day of Pre-KThis week Amelia moved up into the Pre-Kindergarten class at her school. I feel old. I can't believe she's already in Pre-K! She is very excited about her new class and teacher. She knows Ms. Vicky (she's seen her around school before) and almost all the kids in her class were also in her Preschool class at some point, so it's nice that there's not a ton of new stuff all at once. Anyway, the classroom activities are all much more school-prep-oriented than last year's, so it'll be fun to watch her learn. We are almost positive that we won't put her in kindergarten next year (she'll turn 5 on Nov. 15, 2009 and to enroll in kindergarten here, you have to be 5 by Dec. 1, so we could start her next year if we wanted), but it's still hard to believe the school years are already upon us. Those of you out there: what's your opinion on the age deadline? What do you see as the pros and cons of starting her in kindergarten next year or waiting a year? I've heard several people's opinions both ways, but I'm always interested to hear people's reasons. Thanks!

Six months

2008-08-20T15:31:00.007-04:00

Andrew had his half-birthday yesterday! He is growing up so fast and doing new things every day. He is now able to sit on his own and really wants to crawl, although thankfully he can't yet! He is also very adept at grabbing things, so we have to make sure and put everything out of his reach. I'm not sure exactly how much he weighs now (his 6-month checkup is next week) but I got on the scale with him last week and he was 19 pounds. Wow. Here is a funny series of his 6-month pictures.

Amelia continues to be quite the artist and have a flair for the dramatic. This week she decided that she didn't want Fletcher in her room, so she made a "no Fletchers allowed" sign for her door. Here it is:

Amelia was a little disappointed when I told her that Fletcher can't read, so it wouldn't be very effective, but oh well. At least she tried!! She cracks us up all the time. You might have noticed that she made her Fletcher anatomically correct by including a "bottom." I explained to her after she drew it that we probably shouldn't draw "bottoms" anymore! Ha! Gotta love an almost-4-year-old's mind!

How quickly things change...

2008-07-29T15:18:00.002-04:00

The last time I posted, I wrote that Andrew gets frustrated that he can't figure out how to get from his back to his tummy. Well, literally the next day he got it. Now the little guy is rolling all over the place! He's already gotten his head (almost) under the couch and his hand out the door (Amelia opened it). Let the trouble begin...and goodbye, freedom! :-(

Catch-up

2008-07-21T16:12:00.008-04:00

The first week in July was spent visiting family and friends in Arkansas. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed seeing everyone! Here are a few pictures from our visit. My Granddad with me and the kidsGrandma and Grandpa with A&AAndrew and (8 days older) cousin Brylee
All five Jobe Grandkids

Amelia was such a trouper in the car! She and her puppy headphones watched "The Incredibles" and "Cinderella" about a million times.

Lately Amelia has been really into playing with her dolls. Here are a couple of illustrations:
Andrew's latest update is that he is rolling over from his back to stomach regularly, but then can't figure out how to get back onto his back and gets really mad. His other new thing is that he's now eating solid food. He wasn't too sure about rice cereal but now that we've added applesauce, he's quite happy.

This year is flying by. I can't believe it's already practically halfway over!

Relief!

2008-06-27T08:06:00.002-04:00

We are relieved to report that Bryan is now (again) officially employed at a new company. He's doing the same thing, just for a different place and for more money (yea!). He'll still work from home, which we love, and also get an extra week of vacation, so we feel like this job is a great blessing, especially in light of the fear that we could not have one at all. Thanks for your prayers...they definitely worked!

A brand-new Amelia funny.

2008-06-20T19:04:00.002-04:00

Tonight Mom and Amelia were singing songs (Jesus Loves Me, etc.) and Amelia said, "let's sing the diaper one!" Mom and I were both puzzled, so I asked her if she could sing it for me. She said, "yeah, Jesus diaper all the children, all the children of the world!"

It's been a long, long time...

2008-06-20T13:36:00.004-04:00

...since I blogged, and I won't go into much detail, but it has been crazy around here. As of 5 pm today, Bryan will be unemployed until further notice (hopefully not that long, but up to 6 months). We're still unsure about a lot of things but know that whatever happens, God will take care of us and we'll be better for it. Keep us in your prayers!

In kid news, Andrew is four months old and doing great. He is getting really heavy in his carrier, so I'm hoping he sits up soon so I can quit carrying it into stores and such! He is trying to roll over and loves grabbing his toes and chewing on just about everything. Maybe he'll get some teeth soon! Amelia is loving the summer and playing outside with her friend next door. She also just got to spend the night at a friend's house and she and I had a playdate at another friend's. Her calendar is quite busy! :-) She continues to crack us up with the things she says. One of her latest funnies happened the other morning when I went to wake her up for school. I patted her and said, "Amelia, it's time to get up..." and she sat up straight and said, "I overslept!" I don't know why she got that idea but it was pretty cute. Here are some recent cute pictures of the kids.

Amelia is actually asleep in this picture!

Three months, and an important milestone!

2008-05-19T11:33:00.004-04:00

Today Andrew is three months old! Time really does fly by. I also can't believe that 2008 is almost halfway over...it seems like it just started! Anyway, Andrew also reached an important milestone this week: he is now sleeping through the night! Thank you, son! I've been putting him down between 11:30 and 12:30 and he's been sleeping until 6 am or so, which is pretty great as far as I'm concerned. Until now he's been sleeping in the bassinet in our room, but he's getting so big (and grabby!) that I figured he needed the space of his crib, so it works out well that he's sleeping well now at night. Here are a couple of his monthly pictures...in his crib! They were both so cute I couldn't choose just one. :-)

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-10T15:03:00.002-04:00

For your Mother's Day enjoyment, please read the following, which Amelia brought home for me from school.

"All About My Mom" (her answers are in bold and italics. Interesting how many of "mom's" favorite things are the same as Amelia's favorite things...)

Written by: Amelia Jobe

My mom's name is : Mommy
My mom is 7 years old
My mom loves: me and my baby Andrew
My mom's favorite job is: Dad
My mom's favorite book is: Thomas
My mom's favorite tv show is: Wonder Pets
My mom's favorite color is: gray
My mom's favorite food is: bread
My mom's favorite thing to do is: paint
My mom's best friend is: Gabriell
My mom's favorite present is: happy face toy
My mom loves me because: I play

Happy Mother's Day to all my mom friends and family!

My cute kids

2008-05-09T07:41:00.002-04:00

I just couldn't resist posting this picture of my cute kids!

Outside

2008-05-06T09:50:00.008-04:00

We have really enjoyed spending a lot of time outside in the last few weeks. Amelia helped me plant some flowers in the pots on our deck. She is a really good helper and loves using her own little shovel, rake and gloves!

My Aunt Andrea sent Amelia some egg-shaped sidewalk chalk at Easter, and Amelia has really been loving it. She decided to decorate the deck the other day:

The picture above is, as Amelia described it, "a smiling fish." I thought it was pretty good! We've also had some nice spring showers lately, and Amelia has relished them (although I think mostly she just likes being able to use her Thomas umbrella):

Andrew has joined us outside on most of our ventures, lounging in his carseat with the little umbrella part over him. He is such an easygoing baby! Here's the kids before one of our backyard ventures.

We are so thankful to be able to be playing outside! Thank you, God, for springtime!!

Spring...finally...I think

2008-04-21T12:53:00.005-04:00

We've finally gotten some fantastic weather in the last couple weeks, and this week it's supposed to be in the 70's every day! Woo hoo! I've boycotted winter for the last couple weeks and have been wearing flip flops. No more socks for me until September! :-) Here are a few cute pictures: 1. Guess who did this?? 2. If you didn't guess, here's the answer. :-) 3. My sweet kids 4. Enjoying the spring weather 5. Two months old...hard to believe!!

Craziness

2008-04-09T10:06:00.005-04:00

The last couple weeks around here have been crazy! Our good friends Matt and Jessica got married on the 29th of March, and Bryan, Amelia, and I were all in the wedding, so the week before that was very busy and full of activity. The wedding was beautiful and we all had a lot of fun! Here's a picture of all of us at the wedding, and one of Amelia in her flower girl dress with her new boyfriend Liam (one of the ring bearers and Jessica's nephew):

It took us several days to recover from the wedding busy-ness and being tired from it all. Then last Thursday night, Andrew and I flew to Oklahoma City for my sister's graduate recital (she is graduating with her master's degree in musical theater next month--go Abby!). We had a great time visiting Abby in OKC and got to see lots of family from both sides that I hadn't seen in a very long time. I also got to see some college friends and even a friend from high school (both were at her recital). It was one huge reunion! Here are some pictures from this weekend:

We got home on Sunday night and then woke up Monday morning to Andrew coughing and wheezing a lot. I took him to the doctor and just as a precaution, she sent us to the hospital for a chest x-ray and an RSV test. The x-ray came back normal but we're still waiting on the RSV test result. Andrew started doing better yesterday (not so sleepy and wheezy) and is better still today, but we still haven't found out for sure whether he just has a cold or RSV. Keep him in your prayers! Here is a picture of him in some cute overalls, and a piece of artwork from Amelia which I found very impressive. I'm hoping our craziness is winding down for a while!

One month

2008-03-20T15:47:00.008-04:00

Andrew is one month (and one day) old! He's really changed a lot in the last four weeks. It's especially noticeable as far as his weight is concerned; he's up to 10 pounds 2 ounces! I can definitely tell by my sore arms and back! He's got a little cold but hopefully it'll pass soon. It's hard to stay healthy with a sister who coughs in your face every day!

I'm stealing a page from my friend Martha's book; every week of her daughter Nora's life, she's taken a picture of Nora with a sign that says "I am _weeks old today!" It's been really fun to see her progress each week (she posts the pictures on her blog). I don't know that I can be diligent enough to do one each week, but I thought it would be fun to do this for Andrew for each month. Here's the first picture!We've had meals brought to us every other night for the last 10 days from our church family, which has been awesome! Even though I love to cook, it's been nice to not have to think about what's for dinner. People (especially at church) have also given us lots of gifts for Andrew, and a lot of those people have given gifts to Amelia too, so she's not left out. She is eating this up, of course!

One of my friends from Ladies' class had a toy kitchen that belonged to her daughter (who's now in high school). Cindy had told me a while back that she'd love to pass this on to Amelia, so Amelia played with it at Cindy's house the other day and then it came home with us. It has been really funny watching Amelia play in her kitchen! She puts on her little apron and chef hat and looks so cute (see picture below)! The funniest part of all of it, however, is the cash register. It has a little scanner that makes noise when you touch it to something, so as you can imagine, we've "bought" everything in the house with Amelia's cash register. Here's the best part: after you "buy" something, she says, "Thank you for shopping with us!" Ha! One too many trips to Kroger, I guess!

Pictures and stories

2008-03-06T09:55:00.002-05:00

Well, we're starting week three and everything is still going well! At Andrew's two-week checkup he weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, so he's back up past his birthweight and growing like a weed! He's had a couple of rough nights this week but last night was much better. Unfortunately, he has a stuffy nose, so that's no fun for any of us, but hopefully it'll pass quickly. Here are a couple pictures from this week. It's amazing to me how different he looks already!

In Amelia news: Amelia is really exercising her imagination these days. Tuesday when she came home from school, she decided she needed to have a birthday party for Humu (a stuffed fish she has). She then cleaned out her whole toy/book shelf and toy box to set up the party. Below is a picture of the guests at the party.

Amelia is quite the little mommy, both to her dolls and to Andrew, who she still calls "my baby." Here you can see her swinging her doll just like her little brother.

Even though it's March, we're still getting pounded with snow (welcome to the frozen north!). Yesterday Amelia went outside to help Bryan shovel the driveway (her idea, not ours...we promise); here is a picture of her getup.

One final bit of Amelia story: last week when I was about to nurse Andrew, Amelia was standing by and observing. She promptly sat down on the couch, pulled up her shirt, reached out her arms, and said "baby brother wants to drink milk from my tummy!" Needless to say, Mom and I got quite tickled! Have a great week!

One week old

2008-02-27T09:02:00.007-05:00

It's hard to believe, but Andrew is already one week old! He is doing wonderfully and continuing to grow, sleep, and eat well. I feel really blessed that we've been able to make a smooth transition to being home and having two kids! Amelia is adjusting incredibly well. She loves her brother and is constantly wanting to help do things and see how he's doing. I'm feeling really good and having only minor pain from my surgery. In fact, I've been feeling so good that I think I've overdone it a couple days and then been really sore the next day! It's really easy to just fall back into my regular routine and forget that I need rest! Here are some recent pictures…enjoy!

And the pics keep comin'

2008-02-21T18:08:00.004-05:00

Everyone is still doing wonderfully (well, my "bed" is next to a window, and I have been really cold, but I know I'm not the person everyone is worried about). We'll be going home tomorrow as planned, and Andrew will start Spring practice for the Wolverines in just a few short weeks. You can check out his new site at http://www.andrewforheisman.com. No better time to start than the present, right?

Here's more pics...

Bryan (and fam)

(how many of you actually tried clicking on the site?)

Andrew Ryan Jobe

2008-02-20T15:30:00.004-05:00

Andrew was born yesterday morning, February 19th, at 8:57am weighing 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 inches long. Emily and Andrew are both doing great, and expect to go home Friday. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.

More info to come soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy the pictures.
And as you can tell from the pictures, Amelia is very excited to have her baby brother (NOT named "Fergus") here.

Bryan, Emily, Amelia, Andrew (and Fletcher)

Five days to go

2008-02-14T10:52:00.003-05:00

It's really hard to believe that this pregnancy is almost over. It has really flown by for me! I had my last doctor's appointment yesterday and everything looks good. The doctor just gave me an overview of what would happen during the surgery and recovery period, and I had to sign some papers acknowledging the risks associated with surgery. Bryan asked me on the way home whether I was nervous, and I guess I am, a little. I'm not nervous about something going wrong or complications or anything, I think it's more like nervious anticipation since I know when I'm going in and what they're going to do. It's really different than my birth experience with Amelia so it'll be interesting!

So, this weekend we're going to get the house cleaned up and stocked with food and things. I'm also going to try to sleep as much as possible, as this'll be my last chance to do so for quite a while! Bryan's parents are coming up on Monday and will be here to take care of Amelia and see the baby. They'll be here about a week, and then next Saturday my mom will come up for a couple weeks. The last weekend of her stay, my dad will come up and then Mom and Dad will go home together.

The plan for baby day is this; on Tuesday I'll have to be at the hospital at 6:30 am (yikes) and they'll monitor me and get me ready for the surgery, then at 8:30 they'll begin the procedure. Not long after that, we'll have a baby boy! I'll probably be in the OR about an hour and then we'll go to a recovery room for a couple hours, then our private room. I'll be in the hospital until Thursday or Friday, depending on how things go and what we want to do. We'll post updates and pictures as soon as we can...hopefully from the hospital! Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers, and please continue to pray for us this weekend that everything goes well. Next time....baby pictures!

Doctor's appointment

2008-01-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

I went yesterday for my first of the weekly doctor's appointments. Everything looks and sounds good! I was 36 weeks on Monday and the doctor said I was measuring at 37 or 38 weeks. She also checked me and said I'm dilated to "3 and then some." Very interesting since I haven't felt any contractions! So of course the doctor said, "oh, well you may have this baby early!" But I am definitely not getting my hopes up; with Amelia I was dilated to 5 for two weeks and she still came a week late! I'm counting on the 19th and if he comes before that, it'll be a great surprise. Anyway, things are still going well. I'm definitely feeling more tired now and I'm having a much harder time sleeping (my back's been hurting some too), but that just comes with the territory, I think. We'll keep you posted...not long now!

My long week

2008-01-28T17:44:00.000-05:00

This week Bryan is gone the whole week (Sun.-Thurs. morning in Philadelphia for a work thing, then Thurs. afternoon -Sun. afternoon in Arkansas for fun). Yikes. It is really hard having enough energy--with 3 weeks left until baby comes--to keep up with Amelia, especially at her age and stage! She is great, don't get me wrong, but it can be very trying to deal with her when my back is hurting and I am so sleepy I can barely stay awake! Fortunately we have a few little outings scheduled this week to break things up a bit, but please say a little prayer for me that I'll make it through this week without going nuts! :-) Thanks!

Baby's room

2008-01-23T10:02:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of the baby's room. The majority of the bedding was made by Abby (a million thank yous!). I helped on the quilt (hanging on the wall), made the bedskirt, basket liners, and valance for the window. I just have to finish the sheets (they'll match the basket liners), and then when we decide what baby's name will be, we'll put it in wooden letters on the wall above the crib. Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out!

What? A new post????

2008-01-20T01:13:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know I haven't written anything in about a month! I'm sorry, readers! We had my family here for Christmas; my sister was here until the 5th of January and we were really busy the whole time. Then I was really sick until about two days ago (coughing a lot and such), so it's been rough! Anyway, we had a great Christmas and hope all of you did, too.

I actually didn't take a whole lot of pictures during Christmas...too much was going on! My sister Abby is a great seamstress and she sewed up a storm while she was here. She made the baby's crib bedding, Amelia's flower girl dress for our friend's wedding, and bustled the friend's wedding dress. They all turned out great! I still have a couple things to finish for the baby's room before I post pictures, so stay tuned for that. However, I do have pictures of Amelia's new room, which Abby and I did most of. It is indeed VERY pink but Amelia loves it and I think it turned out really cute. See pictures below!

On the baby front, things are going well. He is still moving quite a bit and growing well! I have my next appointment on the 29th and then I'll go every week following. I think from this point on they'll check my progress to see how things are coming along. I don't anticipate delivering before my scheduled c-section (Feb. 19th) since it's scheduled at 39 weeks, but who knows? I'm not counting on going early! We still haven't decided on a name, so we'll have to do that soon. It's hard to believe we only have four weeks left. Time has really flown with this one!

One last note: Amelia has discovered the knock-knock joke. Her jokes go something like this:

(Amelia) "Knock knock."

(Mom) "Who's there?"

(Amelia) "Rice."

(Mom) "Rice who?"

(Amelia--long pause as she looks around the room)..."Table!"

Then she will repeat the joke with "Orange....zipper!" or some such randomness. Three year-olds do have some crazy sense of humor! So, hopefully now that I'm on the mend I'll be better about keeping this up-to-date. I'll have lots of pictures to share in the coming weeks, for sure.

Baby Jobe's birthday...

2007-12-17T12:04:00.001-05:00

...will be Tuesday, February 19, unless he decides to come earlier! I just scheduled my C-section this morning. They'll start the surgery at 8:30, so shortly thereafter we'll have our little boy! Several people have asked if we've decided on a name yet, and the answer is....sort of. We have a name we both like, but there are still a couple others that could be contenders. We probably won't decide for sure until he's born, and unfortunately for everyone else, you won't find out until then anyway (we like to keep it a secret!). Everything with baby is going well. I heard his strong, steady heartbeat this morning and so far I'm still feeling pretty good other than some occasional lower back pain. Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers! These last 9 weeks are going to fly!

Christmas Pictures

2007-12-08T22:47:00.001-05:00

We just took our annual Christmas card picture, and came out with several really good ones. I wanted to get my big belly in the picture so little baby Jobe could be recognized! We didn't end up going with either one of these but I thought they were worth posting. :-)

This one cracks me up because we were telling Amelia to kiss the baby, and it ended up looking like Bryan and I were squashing her in between our tummies!

Happy Jobes!

Holiday Tag

2007-12-03T18:37:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Holiday edition of getting to know your friends.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Definitely wrapping paper; I usually get several different prints so I can wrap each family member's gifts in his/her own paper. This makes it much easier to find everyone's gifts.
2. Real tree or artificial? We have two artificial ones, although I really like the smell of a real one.
3. When do you put up the tree? Never, ever until after Thanksgiving. This year we put it up the day after.
4. When do you take the tree down? Usually the first week in January.
5. Do you like eggnog? Oh yes...the light kind.
6. What about Fruitcake? Not really, but I like Billie Haske's fruitcake cookies!
7. Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmm...I'm not sure. I guess that means I liked everything!
8. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, a Willow Tree Angel one. I really like it!
9. Hardest person to buy for? My dad and Bryan's parents.
10. Easiest person to buy for? My sister
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Well this one wasn't really the worst, but it was funny: One year when Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage, I really wanted one. We went to see the mall Santa and when it was my turn, he asked me if I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid. For some reason, it embarrassed (maybe annoyed?) me that he knew what I wanted, so I said, "no, I just want a big doll." So I got a big doll, and was duly disappointed. Moral of the story: if Santa guesses right, go with it.
12. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Mail them.
13. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story, although I love most all Christmas movies.
14. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually not until after Thanksgiving, and I get stressed out about it. But...this year I am already all done! Hooray!
15. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Hmmm...probably, although I can't remember for sure.
16. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? sausage cheese balls, gumdrop cookies
17. Clear lights or colored on the tree? clear lights on the "pretty" tree upstairs, multicolored ones on the "family" tree downstairs
18. Favorite Christmas song? too hard to pick! I am fond of Michael Buble's Christmas CD, Manheim Steamroller's CDs, and, of course, the Smith Family Singers Christmas CDs. Oh yeah.
19. Travel for Christmas or stay at home? Usually we travel either on Christmas or Thanksgiving. This year we stayed for T'giving and we're staying for Christmas, but my family is coming up for Christmas.
20. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? yes
21. Angel on the tree top or a star? Upstairs, lots of bows and stuff; downstairs, a star
22. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning.
23. What is the one present you want most this year? This year, nothing in particular is sticking out to me.
24. Most annoying thing about this time of year? How early places start putting out Christmas stuff...before Halloween. Seriously, people.
25. What I love most about Christmas? It's cheesy, but the Christmas spirit everyone has, and just the festive atmosphere about it all

Happy Birthday, Amelia!

2007-11-20T14:47:00.001-05:00

This week, Amelia turned three years old. I can hardly believe I have a child that old...time really does fly! I've come to the conclusion, though, that in the future I need to associate Halloween with Amelia's birthday, because by the time it's over, her birthday is only two weeks away! This led to me being a slacker this year, losing track of time and forgetting to plan a party in advance. Unfortunately for her, Thanksgiving is the week after her birthday, so we can't really do a party the week after, so if she has a party this year, it'll be in December. Yikes! I haven't made a cake for her yet, but I will...that way I won't feel so bad. Fortunately, she's still so small, she doesn't really get the concept of timing, so I'm sure a birthday celebration at any time of the year will be fine with her. :-) Below are some pictures from our birthday celebration (we had some friends out with us to Red Robin) and various presents. Not pictured are a set of instruments (triangle, bells, and tambourine) which she loves, from the Parkers, several cards, and a couple of movies (Cinderella from the Hortons and a princess movie from Mom and Dad). She had quite the haul!

Amelia with Cranky, from Aunt Abby
the new Thomas umbrella (from Mom and Dad)
The bicycle (from Grandma and Grandpa)
Strawberry Shortcake (from Uncle Kent, Aunt Cara, Derek and Austin)
Matching outfits for Amelia and Bitty Baby (from Nana and Pops)
everyone at Red Robin sings to Amelia
a Snow White dress (fromthe Perrys)
the Dora big sister house (from Matt and Jessica)
having a tea party (from Mom and Dad)

Amelia and her tri-colored friend...

2007-11-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a short photo slideshow documenting Amelia and Fletcher's relationship to this point. We've got some great pictures over the last 3 years, so we thought it would be good to put them together in some way...enjoy! (it's about 6 minutes long and has music)

Trunk-or-Treat and Halloween

2007-11-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

Our church's annual Trunk-or-Treat party was Sunday night, and this year our Life Group decided to go dressed as Star Wars characters. It was pretty cool...we had Star Wars music playing, and Yoda had fog coming out from him! Amelia really had fun at Trunk-or-Treat, especially when we found the other little princesses.

Our Life Group

Bryan as Darth Maul and our friend Matt as Chewbacca

Me as Padme Amidala right after she's had Luke and Leia (the two dolls)

Amy Jo as a Jedi and Lance as Yoda (our preacher and his wife!)

Amelia as Cinderella

Jasmine, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

Amelia with her friend Caleb, dressed as Mike Hart (Go Blue!)

Amelia poses with her Cinderella doll

Amelia ventures down our sidewalk to trick-or-treat (Daddy was right behind her!)

Weekend in NYC

2007-10-27T23:46:00.000-04:00

We just got back from a weekend in NYC . It had been a while since Amelia and I were up there to see my parents, and Bryan had some business meetings, so we combined the trip. Actually, the main reason we chose this particular time to go was that I really wanted to see a certain limited-run play on Broadway, but more about that in a moment. Here are some highlights from our trip.

First, Amelia was thrilled to find that there are different toys at Nana and Pops' house! I had forgotten that my mom had kept several of my old Barbie dolls and their various outfits. It was quite a trip down memory lane for me to see those dolls, and it was really weird to me that my daughter was playing with me, with my dolls. Anyway, Amelia also immensly enjoyed playing with the Strawberry Shortcake figurines we used to have. In case you're wondering, by the way, you can still faintly smell their individual scents!

Mom and Dad had to teach lessons all three days we were there, so that meant I had to keep Amelia occupied (see toy story above)! However, she did manage to escape every so often to charm Pops' students and impress them with her impressions of their vocal warm-ups. She even treated a few to some choreography to accompany their arias! I should've gotten video of this...it was pretty funny.

In planning for our trip, I'd done some research on fun kid stuff to do in the city, and one of the main things I wanted to do was go to Central Park. However, as Murphy's Law would have it, it rained every day we were there and cleared up beautifully just as we got in the car to go to the airport. So, the only day we ventured out much was to go right across the street to the playground, which was a great outlet for Amelia to run around and yell a lot! She didn't know what she was missing with Central Park anyway, so to her the playground was pretty cool.

While we were there we did enjoy an outing to New Jersey; we had dinner at Rich and Linda Spivey's house (our good friend Matt's parents' place), which is palatial to say the least! We had a great time visiting with them and drooling over their amazing place. Amelia especially enjoyed playing with the assortment of rubber duckies and chasing their cat, Sam.

The bad part about our trip (aside from the yucky weather) was that Bryan was really sick the whole time with flu-like symptoms. He barely had a voice starting Thursday night, and by Friday night he had a fever and awful chills. Fortunately I think he's on the mend, but it sure is no fun to be sick, especially when you're not at home and when you're on vacation. Amelia also had a cough, but I think hers is just a little cold and she'll be fine. Thankfully, we have some time to rest now that we're back at home.

So I've saved the best for last! I mentioned at the beginning of the post that I'd wanted to come during October because of a limited-run play on Broadway. For those of you that don't know, I'm a big fan of the TV show "Alias" and especially its star, Jennifer Garner. I'd heard from various sources that she was going to be in a Broadway revival of "Cyrano de Bergerac" with Kevin Kline playing the title role, and so I thought, wow, it would be awesome to go to that! Then I thought, well, why couldn't we go to that? After all, my parents do live in New York, and Bryan has a lot of clients in the area, so we could do a business/pleasure trip (and get one-third of it paid for, thanks to Omnicare). So I mentioned it to my mom, and both of us did a little research and found out when it opened (Oct. 12 in previews). I wanted to catch it toward the beginning of the run to make sure all the original cast would be performing, so that's why we chose this weekend--not the first week, but not too late--and we got the tickets for Bryan, me, and my parents (all of whom are also big Alias fans) to go. So....Friday night we saw the performance, which was really great. Kevin Kline is brilliant and natural as Cyrano, and Jennifer Garner is a heartfelt, sweet Roxane. We thoroughly enjoyed the play, and afterwards we waited by the stage door to see who we could see. So see below...

Yes, friends, that is me with Jennifer Garner. Woo hoo! She was very gracious to all the fans outside the stage door and patiently signed lots of autographs, took lots of pictures, and was sweet and thankful to the audience for coming. It was a really cool experience for all of us to get to meet her. I told Bryan that this trip, and the tickets to the play, were my early birthday present, so thanks for my present, Bryan! It was a really great birthday and a good trip.

Fletcher

2007-10-17T09:55:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, my family didn't have a dog (at least not until I was in sixth grade, and we got a Scottish Terrier, which was completely the wrong dog for our family, and only kept him about a year) and I envied kids who had a trusty old dog in the family. I always knew that when I had my own place, I'd want a dog.

Fortunately, Bryan is a dog person too, and right after we got married he REALLY wanted a dog. As impractical as I knew it was, I caved and we got Baxter, a very feisty little beagle. Sadly, we had to put him to sleep due to an accident after we'd only had him nine months or so . We were absolutely crushed! Baxter died the week we were moving up to Michigan, and we were going to be in an apartment there, so we knew we couldn't get another dog right away.

After we'd lived in Michigan almost a year, we found our house (with a fenced-in yard, of course) and knew we were ready for another beagle, so we did some searching around and found beagle puppies about an hour away. We got Fletcher when he was about two months old, and we've had him ever since! Here is what he looked like as a puppy:

Anyway, we've had Fletcher for four and a half years now, and as goofy as it is, he's a member of our family. He is a super laid-back dog who sleeps most of the day and barks or eats in his free time. One of the greatest things about him is how wonderful he is with Amelia. Since the day we brought her home from the hospital, he's been her buddy. He lets her pull on his ears and tail, play with his food bowl, and chase him around. She, of course, loves this, and I think he secretly doesn't mind the attention. I could probably put together a whole photo album of pictures we've taken of the two of them together, and I may do it some day. They are quite a pair to watch. Here's their latest couple of pics:

Amelia likes to lay down by Fletcher exactly the way he's laying. My favorite thing about this one is how they're the same size! And this next one is really sweet:

So now you know a little about Fletcher. He's crazy, but we love him. Beagles can live to be 15 or 16 years old, so it's possible that I could be 40 and still have this dog. Pretty wild...and I don't really want to think about what it would be like any other way!

Joining the rest of the world

2007-10-13T09:48:00.000-04:00

So...we finally decided to join the rest of the world in creating a blog for our family news! We've enjoyed friends' and family's blogs so much, and we thought this would be a good, easy way to give small updates on Amelia's funny stuff, baby news, etc.

First, here are pictures from our 20 week ultrasound:

1)A face-front view of Baby Jobe.

2)Baby's footprint pressing against the camera.

3)It is, indeed, a boy...look right above the word "boy."

4)Baby's profile.

And now for Amelia's latest funnies:

1)The other day I was calling for Amelia and discovered her in Bryan's office with the door closed. When I went in, she was seated at the computer; I asked her to come with me to the living room and she replied, "Um, sorry, I'm preparing for my meeting." Wow.

2)Amelia and I were outside playing on the deck. She started pulling on a lounge chair we have, and I asked her what she was doing. She said, "I need to bask in the sun!" For those of you who haven't read the book Olivia (by Ian Falconer), check it out. You'll get some insight in to Amelia's mind!

3)Amelia has a plastic bath book that we've read about a million times. It has three double-page spreads, each spread with an animal name, a cartoon picture of it, and a real-life picture. The animals represented are dog, cat, and cow. Amelia is doing quite well with her letters these days, and with lots of repetition and memorization, she can now spell these three words, usually like this: "c-o-w. Cow!" etc. Yesterday, all three of us were eating lunch when we asked Amelia to spell her three words. She obliged and did so perfectly, then decided to branch out: "g-a-t. Mommy!" Nice.

Hopefully Bryan and I will keep this updated often! Check back later for more family fun!