Note to Grandparents: Please let me know YOUR favorites so I can make prints and send them to you!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Jacobson Family Photos 2009
This year we got our family pictures taken by my friend Laura Morris (Laura Morris Photography of you're interested in her taking your pictures). It was a lot of fun and the girls did very well. If you want to see a more comprehensive collection of the pictures, please visit my facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#/album.php?aid=172220&id=524838447). These ones are my favorites. Enjoy!
Note to Grandparents: Please let me know YOUR favorites so I can make prints and send them to you!
Note to Grandparents: Please let me know YOUR favorites so I can make prints and send them to you!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Why Swiper the Fox is always welcome at our dinner table
Recently I have introduced Dora the Explorer to Evelynn and Eloise. Some of you who know of this show may ask why, why, WHY???? The reasons were simple at the time. First, it's on netflix, which makes it watchable since our DVD player got tragically broken by Eloise. Second, it's short, only 20 minutes long an episode, so I don't feel bad playing one while I get dinner prepped, or when I just need a short break from being mommy. Third, it does teach some good skills such as counting and preposition recognition (over, under, through, etc.) and also some Spanish, which is not critical to our situation but any knowledge is good right?
This show has become a huge favorite in our house. Evelynn knows most of the songs, if not all, and she loves interacting with the shows. Eloise has also gotten into the action, counting along with Boots and Dora and desperately trying to imitate the songs like her big sister. By far their favorite character is Swiper the Fox. At least once an episode the fox tries to sneak up on Dora and Boots and steal something that they are using to complete their mission. The line used (and frequently quoted by Evelynn) is "Do you hear that? It sounds like Swiper the Fox! That sneaky fox is always trying to steal our stuff!" In order to vanquish the fox's sneaky intentions, Dora and Boots, with the help of the audience, must shout "Swiper no swiping!" three times, which causes Swiper to reconsider his actions and run away since he's been discovered. As I mentioned before, this is the favorite part of the show for both Evelynn and Eloise, and it gets quoted often. Very often.
Some of you may be aware that Evelynn has a hard time eating her dinner. It's not that she doesn't like what we eat--she is a remarkably good eater and likes almost anything. The problem lies in the fact that it's incredibly difficult to make her stay in her chair and eat her dinner in a reasonable amount of time, like under 45 minutes. She plays this game where she takes 2 or 3 bites and claims she's full, has to go to the bathroom, needs to get something, needs and drink etc etc in order to get out of eating or delay the process. What ends up happening is me feeding her and making her eat until she's had enough that she won't ask me for food in the next 30 minutes. I hate dinner time because of this. We've tried a number of different things to help counteract this behavior. We've made the rule of if you get down from the table before dinner is over, you go straight to bed. This has worked well, and now she doesn't get down unless it's a dire emergency. We've tried setting a timer for her, with limited success since she has a limited concept of time. I've tried just loading her fork instead of feeding her, also with limited success. It's a very frustrating process that is relived every single night.
Now with all this background information out of the way, it's time to tell you how these two stories collide. Doug and I were trying to coax Evelynn into eating her dinner when she started quoting the Swiper the Fox dialogue. Doug then had a moment of genius. He claimed very excitedly that Evelynn better hurry or else Swiper was going to steal her dinner. Evelynn's eyes got really big. She exclaimed "OH NO!" very loudly, and then began to literally shovel food into her mouth as fast as she could. Doug and I stared in amazement. When she stopped to breathe, we coaxed her again by saying Swiper was still coming. She downed the rest of her meal. Total time of meal from beginning of Swiper warnings to the end: 4 minutes. By the end, Doug and I were laughing so hard it was getting hard to breathe. To my further amazement, Eloise got in on the actions exclaiming "Oh no, Swiper the F#@*!" (she has a hard time saying the word fox and it comes out very much like a cuss word) and also started to shove her mouth full of food. Upon Evelynn finishing her dinner, she jumped out of her chair and took the Dora position of one hand out in a stopping motion and began yelling in rapid succession with her mouth stuffed with food, "SWIPER NO SWIPING! SWIPER NO SWIPING! SWIPER NO SWIPING!" It was awesome. This trick has now worked three different times, and I will continue to use it until it no longer works, risks of indigestion be darned.
This show has become a huge favorite in our house. Evelynn knows most of the songs, if not all, and she loves interacting with the shows. Eloise has also gotten into the action, counting along with Boots and Dora and desperately trying to imitate the songs like her big sister. By far their favorite character is Swiper the Fox. At least once an episode the fox tries to sneak up on Dora and Boots and steal something that they are using to complete their mission. The line used (and frequently quoted by Evelynn) is "Do you hear that? It sounds like Swiper the Fox! That sneaky fox is always trying to steal our stuff!" In order to vanquish the fox's sneaky intentions, Dora and Boots, with the help of the audience, must shout "Swiper no swiping!" three times, which causes Swiper to reconsider his actions and run away since he's been discovered. As I mentioned before, this is the favorite part of the show for both Evelynn and Eloise, and it gets quoted often. Very often.
Some of you may be aware that Evelynn has a hard time eating her dinner. It's not that she doesn't like what we eat--she is a remarkably good eater and likes almost anything. The problem lies in the fact that it's incredibly difficult to make her stay in her chair and eat her dinner in a reasonable amount of time, like under 45 minutes. She plays this game where she takes 2 or 3 bites and claims she's full, has to go to the bathroom, needs to get something, needs and drink etc etc in order to get out of eating or delay the process. What ends up happening is me feeding her and making her eat until she's had enough that she won't ask me for food in the next 30 minutes. I hate dinner time because of this. We've tried a number of different things to help counteract this behavior. We've made the rule of if you get down from the table before dinner is over, you go straight to bed. This has worked well, and now she doesn't get down unless it's a dire emergency. We've tried setting a timer for her, with limited success since she has a limited concept of time. I've tried just loading her fork instead of feeding her, also with limited success. It's a very frustrating process that is relived every single night.
Now with all this background information out of the way, it's time to tell you how these two stories collide. Doug and I were trying to coax Evelynn into eating her dinner when she started quoting the Swiper the Fox dialogue. Doug then had a moment of genius. He claimed very excitedly that Evelynn better hurry or else Swiper was going to steal her dinner. Evelynn's eyes got really big. She exclaimed "OH NO!" very loudly, and then began to literally shovel food into her mouth as fast as she could. Doug and I stared in amazement. When she stopped to breathe, we coaxed her again by saying Swiper was still coming. She downed the rest of her meal. Total time of meal from beginning of Swiper warnings to the end: 4 minutes. By the end, Doug and I were laughing so hard it was getting hard to breathe. To my further amazement, Eloise got in on the actions exclaiming "Oh no, Swiper the F#@*!" (she has a hard time saying the word fox and it comes out very much like a cuss word) and also started to shove her mouth full of food. Upon Evelynn finishing her dinner, she jumped out of her chair and took the Dora position of one hand out in a stopping motion and began yelling in rapid succession with her mouth stuffed with food, "SWIPER NO SWIPING! SWIPER NO SWIPING! SWIPER NO SWIPING!" It was awesome. This trick has now worked three different times, and I will continue to use it until it no longer works, risks of indigestion be darned.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Fall in Provo
Fall in Provo has had it's ups and downs. The week prior to Halloween was very very cold! It snowed in parts of Utah, thought Provo only got flurries. But it was very cold, highs in the 30s. Then the next week (aka this week) has had soaring temperatures in the 60's and even 70's! It's been beautiful. Some of these pictures are from before Halloween when we attended the Smile Center party (our dentist's office) at HeeHaw farms and corn maze. The second half is from yesterday when we went to the BYU duck pond in this lovely 70 degree weather. The warm weather has tricked our flowers in the front into blooming again, and has kept the beautiful fall foliage around longer than normal.
The girls got to go on a short wagon ride. We put Eloise on Evelynn's lap and told her to hold on tight and not let go the whole time. She took it very seriously, not even waving at us the whole time. And yes, all that winter gear was required and I wished we had brought more, because it was cold, and there was a nasty biting wind.
Evelynn loved this slide, but would not go down by herself, which meant that a parent had to take her. The expression on Doug's face explains a lot about this side. It was pretty bumpy and painful for a parent, especially with a 40 lbs kid on your lap. The child is sufficiently cushioned and so doesn't realize the agony the parent goes through on her behalf.
Hot chocolate saved the day! Literally!
On the horsey tire swing. I think this was the favorite part of the evening because...
...it got Eloise to smile in spite of the cold.
Walking the corn maze. We never did get to find the "real" way out. Evelynn tried to lead us for a while, and then we all got cold and grumpy and wanted to go home, so Daddy had to forge a way out for us. :)
This is the BYU duck pond one week later. Evelynn was wearing her sandals all day, but we decided tennis shoes would work better for the pond. Beautiful!
The rest of these are foliage pictures to show you the awesome fall colors we still have. It's been a roller coaster fall, that's for sure.
This one is an Evelynn original we took while waiting for daddy to get off work.
The girls got to go on a short wagon ride. We put Eloise on Evelynn's lap and told her to hold on tight and not let go the whole time. She took it very seriously, not even waving at us the whole time. And yes, all that winter gear was required and I wished we had brought more, because it was cold, and there was a nasty biting wind.
Evelynn loved this slide, but would not go down by herself, which meant that a parent had to take her. The expression on Doug's face explains a lot about this side. It was pretty bumpy and painful for a parent, especially with a 40 lbs kid on your lap. The child is sufficiently cushioned and so doesn't realize the agony the parent goes through on her behalf.
Hot chocolate saved the day! Literally!
On the horsey tire swing. I think this was the favorite part of the evening because...
...it got Eloise to smile in spite of the cold.
Walking the corn maze. We never did get to find the "real" way out. Evelynn tried to lead us for a while, and then we all got cold and grumpy and wanted to go home, so Daddy had to forge a way out for us. :)
This is the BYU duck pond one week later. Evelynn was wearing her sandals all day, but we decided tennis shoes would work better for the pond. Beautiful!
The rest of these are foliage pictures to show you the awesome fall colors we still have. It's been a roller coaster fall, that's for sure.
This one is an Evelynn original we took while waiting for daddy to get off work.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween Fun and old memories
Halloween this year turned into a VERY busy day. I was up early to go running with my friend Laura, which turned out to be a very great trial for me since I was so sore from aerobics the day before. Word to the wise, dance instructors know of more muscles you have never worked before than anyone else I know. I tried to keep up with her on Friday and ended up walking home with jelly arms and legs from the experience, which stiffened up in the night and made running an interesting experience.
After running, Laura (same friend) took our family pictures. I'm so excited to see how they turned out. We took them up at the Castle Amphitheater behind the mental hospital in Provo. We had to share the location with no fewer than 4 brides and 2 families taking pictures, but it was worth it. I had no idea how hard it would be to find warm outfits that also coordinated for our family. Most of the clothes the girls own are pink, or a shade of it, and I didn't want to go all pastel, but we did what we could. The girls did really well up until the last 15 minutes or so, but we solved that problem by picking some apples in the orchard they have their (all the apples go to waste, which is sad because it's a huge orchard) and so the last few pictures of just of the girls eating their apples, very content. :)
After naps we packed up the car and headed up to visit my Grandma Kartchner in Clearfield. It's hard to see her often because one, she lives far away (over and hour each way) and two, she does not live in a kid friendly house, at all. She never really has, but that's ok. All her grandkids are grown and I'm the only one with great grandkids, so she really doesn't have a need. It was a short visit, but well worth it. In fact, if anyone knows of a rental house near Salt Lake that is cheap and nice enough for an older lady to take care of, she is looking to move soon. Just let me know!
After Grandma's house, we trekked down to Dale and Marrianne's house in Highland to do our trick or treating. They have an awesome neighborhood for trick or treating and the girls had SO much fun. Evelynn was Tinkerbell and Eloise consented to put on the lion costume that Doug's mom had gotten, and they were both adorable. We only did two streets, but the girls got MORE than enough candy to satisfy them, and Doug and myself as well. In fact, they went to three houses that gave out king size candy bars. Nice huh? Trick or treating brought back so many memories of my trick or treating days. My brother Jesse and I would take a map of the neighborhood and map out our route, making sure we hit specific houses that gave away the good stuff. We would start right before dark and run, literally, to as many houses as we could in two hours. At the end of the night, we had an entire pillow case full of candy. My dad would drive behind us and let us empty our bags in the trunk of the car when they got too heavy. At the end of the night we would weigh our stash. Quite frequently we would hit about 20 lbs of candy. Jesse was the best at rationing, frequently having candy from Halloween that would last until Easter. Then one year my parent's instigated the three day rule. We had three days to eat as much candy as we wanted, and then all the rest of the candy got confiscated and trashed. The first year we did this, we all ate so much candy I don't know how we didn't go into sugar induced comas. But the next year, Jesse and I got smart. We ate candy solid for three days, but we also made up little stashes and hid them all over the house in our secret places. When we moved from St. Louis to Joplin, my parents, and us kids, were surprised to find random candy hid all over the basement storage. What fun memories!
This is right before the play group Halloween party. My girls were just TOO cute and I had to get some pictures. Cheeser Eloise!
Sweet girl Evelynn!
Halloween sisters
This is the only picture we have of Halloween trick or treating since we didn't bring our camera. Eloise was adorable because every time someone would say "Are you a lion?" she would roar in response. Both girls caught on to the concept of trick or treating very quickly. I mean, how hard is it to learn that if you swallow your fear, knock and a door and say three words to a complete stranger that they will give you candy, and mom says it's ok! Halloween may be the coolest day of the year, aside from Christmas. By the end of the night, Eloise would go to doors, give her little knock and then stand there saying "TREAT!" until the door opened. My sister Lori and I had such a good time taking them. Doug stayed at Dale's house using their shop to cut up wood for Eloise's Christmas present (sshhhh don't tell... he's making her a stool to use in the bathroom so she can reach the sink like Evelynn). What a great, very busy day! The best part was that because the girls went to bed an hour and a half later than normal, they slept an hour later this morning for day light savings. So they got up at 8:00, which was really 7:00 this morning, which was SO nice, instead of them waking up at 7:00 which was really 6:00 today. I wish they could do this ever year.
After running, Laura (same friend) took our family pictures. I'm so excited to see how they turned out. We took them up at the Castle Amphitheater behind the mental hospital in Provo. We had to share the location with no fewer than 4 brides and 2 families taking pictures, but it was worth it. I had no idea how hard it would be to find warm outfits that also coordinated for our family. Most of the clothes the girls own are pink, or a shade of it, and I didn't want to go all pastel, but we did what we could. The girls did really well up until the last 15 minutes or so, but we solved that problem by picking some apples in the orchard they have their (all the apples go to waste, which is sad because it's a huge orchard) and so the last few pictures of just of the girls eating their apples, very content. :)
After naps we packed up the car and headed up to visit my Grandma Kartchner in Clearfield. It's hard to see her often because one, she lives far away (over and hour each way) and two, she does not live in a kid friendly house, at all. She never really has, but that's ok. All her grandkids are grown and I'm the only one with great grandkids, so she really doesn't have a need. It was a short visit, but well worth it. In fact, if anyone knows of a rental house near Salt Lake that is cheap and nice enough for an older lady to take care of, she is looking to move soon. Just let me know!
After Grandma's house, we trekked down to Dale and Marrianne's house in Highland to do our trick or treating. They have an awesome neighborhood for trick or treating and the girls had SO much fun. Evelynn was Tinkerbell and Eloise consented to put on the lion costume that Doug's mom had gotten, and they were both adorable. We only did two streets, but the girls got MORE than enough candy to satisfy them, and Doug and myself as well. In fact, they went to three houses that gave out king size candy bars. Nice huh? Trick or treating brought back so many memories of my trick or treating days. My brother Jesse and I would take a map of the neighborhood and map out our route, making sure we hit specific houses that gave away the good stuff. We would start right before dark and run, literally, to as many houses as we could in two hours. At the end of the night, we had an entire pillow case full of candy. My dad would drive behind us and let us empty our bags in the trunk of the car when they got too heavy. At the end of the night we would weigh our stash. Quite frequently we would hit about 20 lbs of candy. Jesse was the best at rationing, frequently having candy from Halloween that would last until Easter. Then one year my parent's instigated the three day rule. We had three days to eat as much candy as we wanted, and then all the rest of the candy got confiscated and trashed. The first year we did this, we all ate so much candy I don't know how we didn't go into sugar induced comas. But the next year, Jesse and I got smart. We ate candy solid for three days, but we also made up little stashes and hid them all over the house in our secret places. When we moved from St. Louis to Joplin, my parents, and us kids, were surprised to find random candy hid all over the basement storage. What fun memories!
This is right before the play group Halloween party. My girls were just TOO cute and I had to get some pictures. Cheeser Eloise!
Sweet girl Evelynn!
Halloween sisters
This is the only picture we have of Halloween trick or treating since we didn't bring our camera. Eloise was adorable because every time someone would say "Are you a lion?" she would roar in response. Both girls caught on to the concept of trick or treating very quickly. I mean, how hard is it to learn that if you swallow your fear, knock and a door and say three words to a complete stranger that they will give you candy, and mom says it's ok! Halloween may be the coolest day of the year, aside from Christmas. By the end of the night, Eloise would go to doors, give her little knock and then stand there saying "TREAT!" until the door opened. My sister Lori and I had such a good time taking them. Doug stayed at Dale's house using their shop to cut up wood for Eloise's Christmas present (sshhhh don't tell... he's making her a stool to use in the bathroom so she can reach the sink like Evelynn). What a great, very busy day! The best part was that because the girls went to bed an hour and a half later than normal, they slept an hour later this morning for day light savings. So they got up at 8:00, which was really 7:00 this morning, which was SO nice, instead of them waking up at 7:00 which was really 6:00 today. I wish they could do this ever year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)