All sugared out for one weekend

What a weird, new Thanksgiving! We spent the holiday in Pueblo at my sister Kari's house with her hubby and his parents, his brothers, my parents, my grandma, and my sister and her husband and baby. Whew, what a crowd! 17 people feasted on a 21-pound turkey, plus a little 8-pound turkey that looked like an overgrown chicken, plus LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of sides. We cooked our BUTTS off and the kitchen was about 200 degrees all day, but the end result was all finger-lickin' good :-d mmmmm!

The Gustavson part of the crew, though most of us ditched the maiden name. Here are Joe, Kirsta, and Patrick Jacobs; Jonathan and Kari Phelps; John and Linda (mom and dad) Gustavson; Grandma Gustavson; Brian, Elsha, and Kalena van de Boogaard

The saaaaaaad part about the holiday weekend was that it did not provide me much relief from one very picky 10-month old, who just decided last weekend that he cannot live without physical contact with his lovely mother at each and every waking moment. So he put on his saaaaad face as soon as I put him down, handed him to dad, stuck him in his high chair for meals, tried to get him to hug the relatives, or get 2 minutes to myself to go to the bathroom. He was NOT HAPPY. But perhaps he just needed extra comfort because in 2 days he got 2 new teeth! Which brings the grand total to 6 teeth, and exponentially increases my fear of getting bitten while nursing and further convincing me that relatives bring on new teeth, as he has only popped them while someone was visiting or being visited. Watch out, Christmas break! ..... I don't actually think the teeth are the culprit, but I can lie to myself pretty convincingly (and optimistically!)
All in all, though, we've had an AWESOME Thanksgiving break, we've had SO much fun visiting family, and we're not looking forward to returning back to the daily grind and a semi-normal diet :) Chillin' and digesting in the living room after the big meal

Patrick plays with (or wrestles) cousin Kalena

"Grandma" Gustavson - she's still mom to me! - plays with some of her very favorite people.

More Phun with Photos

Just because I like to mess around with photos waaaaaaay too late into the night... posting them was *almost* my excuse for my behavior. So I hope you enjoy :)

Shoes, glorious shoes!

Today Patrick turned 10 months old! Hooray for double-digits! This is a whole new phase of his life, as he will be in the double-digits of months up until 99 months, or 8 years and 3 months. That is a LONG TIME. Patrick didn't do much celebrating, but I did - in the form of sewing up a storm! With some fabric remnants I had laying around (I have BAGS of remnants, yet I still crave more....) I whipped up these shoes based on a pattern a friend sent me. Thanks, friend! The pattern can be yours, too, if you are willing to click HERE. Their features shoes are way cuter than mine, you'll see, because I cannot find my bag o' buttons to save my life. I sewed those cute button dinosaur eyes on and then the bag ran away, so I have no "flair" for PJ's kicks :( And also, his are plain, dark colors because a) he's learning to walk and they actually get dirty, and b) he was only in posession of brown shoes, which do not match any of his black outfits. Now that I have practical shoes, I can move on to brightly-colored, zany patterns that match absolutely none of his shirts. Hooray!

Photos

I can (and do) take hundreds of photos of Patrick, doing this or that, or just while we're wrestling around since he likes the camera so much. But professional photos? Not so many. In fact, none! Since he hasn't had ANY professional photos yet, why start now? We'll do it in January for his 1-year, but until then, let's keep with something more artistic and laid-back! And Rebecca Aycock, cute photographer extraordinaire, lent us her talents for an afternoon. Thanks again, Rebecca!

High-Centered

As I mentioned earlier, I just can't keep up with the new and interesting things Patrick does that have simply become a part of daily life. But THIS ONE is different - partly because we caught it as it was happening, on camera, and partly because it is terrifyingly awesome. He's done stairs for a while now, but Behold! He climbs! ....and then he gets high-centered on the arm rest. But fear not - he climbed it succesfully about 5 other times, and also got so good he no longer needed any assistance from me (except for getting down gracefully).

About last weekend....

Joe's parents came up to visit from Craig last weekend, and we had such a great time! Of course, our nuclear family has been having such a great time this week (not doing anything in particular, just having a great time enjoying what was left of the warm weather) that I haven't written about it...'til now. They came up Friday night and Joe was able to hang with them a while; I stayed home with Patrick, who was having a meltdown from sleepiness. Saturday morning they came over after breakfast and we talked and waited for Patrick to warm up to these "strangers," which he eventually did, and then some! He's quite shy when someone new is trying to be nice to him, but fortunately he gets over it quickly, and by the end of the day he was cuddeling and showing off new tricks, like taking steps by himself!

Patrick first official step came 2 weeks ago when my parents were visiting, and they even got to witness it! (Why did I not mention this before? Read on) I was surprised by how anticlimactic it was - it's not like he took off running, but it was definitely a step on his own! And nobody had a video camera waiting, there was no screams of joy afterwards, it was just "oh! That's new!" But then nothing for 2 weeks, until Joe's parents came, and then he took more steps all by himself. Maybe he's inspired by an audience? If that's the case, anyone want to hang out and be an audience? We could have him walking solo by the end of November. As it is, he is now standing unassisted and taking one or two steps unassisted, and it's scaring the daylights out of me. He's such a KID.

Cute li'l stories:
SO fatigued last night he fell asleep early without nursing, but then woke up an hour later with a rumbly belly and a wet diaper. I nursed first, then went to change his diaper. I'd gotten the diaper off off, but before I could put a new one on he rolled onto his stomach, naked butt in the air, and fell asleep on the carpet! You don't want to laugh out loud because you don't want to scare them, but it was almost impossible not to!

While I was cleaning up breakfast this morning Patrick got into the cupboard. He grabbed the bag of Pizza Goldfish and, standing unsupported, was working his two little hands to get the thing open. Much harder done than said, so instead he turns it upside down and shakes it til ALL the goldfish are on the floor, then he sits down in the middle of them and started snacking away. Facing the corner, totally in his own little goldfish world. It made me chuckle so much, I didn't even mind the mess!

My brother Eric is not allowed to read this post

Not that I don't love my brother Eric (I do!) but this post is about a particular present I made for his son, since we drew their names for Christmas. It's so cute, though, I wanted to show it off before I gift-wrapped it and gave it away, and I'm much too impatient to wait to post about it til after Christmas! Plus, what if someone wants to be a creative copycat? I couldn't deprive them of the pleasure. So now, Eric, STOP READING, unless you want to spoil the surprise for yourself.







I'll give you adequate space so you don't "accidentally" read it.










Is that enough?







My sister Elsha made a cute "taggies" pillow for her daughter, who likes to chew on the tags of the toys rather than play with the toy itself. In that spirit I thought, "hey! I could do that, too! But you know what would be more manly than a pillow? a DINOSAUR." And then I thought, "We have a number of stuffed animals and Patrick really doesn't play with any of them, OR their tags. But I still really want to make one." So I decided to make it as a gift. Here is my tagg-o-rrific Stegosaurus: