Baby Jake

But not the one you're thinking!  Back in the days when we were involved in the Young Marrieds group at our church (which now seem so long ago), we had some great friends named Wade and Wendi Holmes.  Unfortunately for us, Wade and Wendi moved to Arlington, and then Houston.  While that's great for them, it's a bummer for us b/c they are wonderful people and we always enjoy their friendship and company.  They were recently in town, and Chez and Cody were nice enough to host a few friends over for dinner so we can all catch up.  There's a lot of catching up to do b/c the Holmes' now have a baby boy who turns one in June!  Our Jake was super excited to meet a baby named Jake.  He loved being able to say he was the oldest.  Here are the two handsome Jakes...

 Jake has always been good with younger children (at least until he gets bored, then goes off to find something else more entertaining), and Jake was no exception.  Here he is ready him a book...

 Here are the Mommies and kiddos: Kathrine and London, Jake and me, Wendi and Jake, Chez and Eliza...

It was a great night to catch up with the Holmes and hang out with good friends!

Silly Bath Fun

Two Christmases ago, cousin Tracy put bath paints in Jake's stocking.  At the time, he was too young to really appreciate them or play much with them, so we put them them away for awhile.  Well, Jake recently discovered them and he is definitely at a great age now to appreciate and enjoy all the fun they have to offer.  These pictures don't really do justice to how much "paint" covered him.  I love this first picture.  Such a michevious look...

I decided that the cuteness of this full body picture of head to toe body paint outweighed the chance of anyone thinking it too risque.  Those deoderant looking tubes are the body paint.  You can tell Jake definitely had fun with them...

Easter 2012

Forgive me for my tardiness, but I'm committed to doing my best to catch up. We rotate our Easter holidays between our families, and 2012 was a Lawson Easter.  We got one quick day with C^5 (Chad, Cassy, Cohen, Channing, and Campbell), but it was a fun day.  We headed to the zoo to check out some animals...

Such handsome boys!

Channing and Jake feeding some goats

C^5 headed to the lake, but we had plenty of Easter fun for ourselves...

Easter's not Easter without some egg dyeing

Jake was very proud of his eggs!

Here's the egg dyeing team of 2012!

We also headed to a neighborhood church who hosted Eggstravaganza 2012!  They had bouncy houses and serveral activities for the kids.  They even had the Easter bunny, but Jake was not at all interested in taking a picture with that big bunny.  He was interested in some crafts, though...

And doing a little egg hunting...

He also had his own personal egg hunt at Big T and Nana's house.  There were lots of goodies to be found!  Here's Jake making the same face as this crazy egg...

OOhhh, what's inside this one?

Here's one last one of Easter morning and Jake checking out all his Easter basket goodies.  I forgot to get a Easter dressy picture, oh well, you'll just have to trust me that Jake looked as handsome as ever!

First Family Camping

I'm proud to say we went on our first family camping trip.  We've been camping once before with Jake, but like our past married camping experiences, we were with a group of friends and definitely relied on others for supplies, planning, etc.  We love short-term (1 night, maybe 2) camping and knew Jake would love it too, so it was time to give it a try.  We camped Easter night, after heading back from Gainesville, so we chose Lake Whitney as our location.  It was great!! We did have a bit of a rough start b/c a storm blew through right as Jake and Kevin were putting up the tent and I was headed to town.  Fortunately, it cleared out completely in 45 minutes and we enjoyed the rest of our trip.  Our site was super close to the lake which is the perfect place for a little boy to throw lots and lots of rocks...

 Here's Jake looking out at the lake and throwing his rocks...

 We also brought all the supplies so Jake could try S'mores for the very first time.  We were having some issues with our fire temporarily, so it was more like a marshmallow, chocolate sandwich, but he definitely didn't mind...

 Here's a pictures taken next to our tent.  There were lots of bluebonnets and a beautiful sunset...

 The boys and their rocks...

 We are also a family who likes to hike.  Jake loves being outdoors and he also likes the wonderful, creative stories Daddy begins and the entire family adds to while hiking.  We hiked around the shore of the lake near our sight, and the following morning we headed to a designated hiking trail.  It was tons of fun (and even a little cool, as you can tell by our attire).

 It was important to get pictures of everyone!  A great perk to camping on Easter Sunday night is that we practically had the place to ourselves.  We saw a total of 3 other sites filled.  It felt like our own private State Park.  The only downside is that there was no on around to get a family picture.

 Here's a funny story to end our camping trip.  Our plan was to pack everything up and head out so we could grab lunch out before heading back home.  Just as we were taking down the tent and loading up, a nice elderly man in a neighboring RV came by to chat.  Boy, did he love to talk!  He was super nice, but it was just bad timing.  At one point, Jake pulls at me and says, "Mommy, I'm ready to go." I replied, "Yes, honey, we'll leave in just a little bit as soon as we finish talking."  Well, five minutes later, I notice Jake head to the car, open the door and climb in.  Within minutes, he looked like this...

I've never seen him initiate his own nap.  I guess a great fun-filled day of family camping can really tire a guy out!

For a Great Smile

Jake had his first dental visit in March.  It was great timing b/c he had just learned about the dentist at school and we tried our best to prep him at home.  He was a trooper and behaved perfectly.  I was so proud of him!  I definitely was the crazy mom who brought her camera into the dental office, but now I won't forget this.  The pictures are backwards, so the last picture is actually the first I took.  The look on his face is classic.  It's like he's thinking, "What are you doing to me?  and Why are you taking pictures?"

He had to wear these super cool glasses so the light wasn't too bright in his eyes...

Bowling

First off, I have to say I am technically challenged.  So, now that Blogger has updated to make it more user friendly, basically that just means now I have no idea what I'm doing.  I'm really struggling getting the pictures where I want them, so for a while my blog is probably going to look a little chaotic.  I'll do my best.

Birthday parties allow for all sorts of new adventures.  Plus, you usually get to eat yummy cake, so who can beat that?  Jake was invited to a bowling/putt-putt party at Main Event, so he experienced his first time bowling.  Here's a little look...

Good Friends

Here's Jake with two of his good friends, Chloe and Sophia.  He's teaching them a little bit about sports!