Pizza Night

Two people in particular (my Mom and Dad) have been telling me to post more pictures of Jesse, so in order to keep myself out of trouble, here are some more pictures.

We gave Jesse some pizza recently (in my defense it was pretty healthy as far as pizzas go--homemade with a whole wheat crust) and he really loved it. The funny thing is, as I looked over all these pictures, he isn't smiling in a single one. In fact, he looks very scared/upset/angry in them. I promise, he really did like the pizza and he made it very clear when he wanted more. You might notice that there is hardly any pizza to be seen on his tray--that is because he gobbled it up faster than we could put it on there.

In these last two pictures, he was actually pretty upset because he got a taste of pepperoni and this was NOT a pleasant experience for him.

Fun with Food

Jesse has become quite messy with his food. Here he is eating "tacos" (taco meat, cheddar cheese, avocado, and black beans) tonight. Needless to say, there were quite a few burps to be heard at the end of this meal. And a good bath and lots of scrubbing.

Fun in the Snow

After an unusually mild start to our winter here in Chicago, it has finally started getting cold and snowy. It snowed all day yesterday, and we woke up to really large flakes this morning. After lunch we went outside to the playground and let Jesse get down and play a little bit in the snow. Much to my surprise, he was actually pretty happy in it. I was expecting him to start screaming after sitting in it for 5 seconds, but he seemed quite intrigued by it. I'm looking forward to this time next year when he'll probably be asking us to take him outside to play in it.

Getting all bundled up is never the fun part of playing in the snow.

Especially when you have to put on so many layers that you can barely sit up (this picture was actually taken last night before we ventured out for dinner, but the same thing happened today and this time he toppled over).

But it's really exciting to see all the white, fluffy stuff.

It sure is cold when you try to eat it (thanks, Daddy, for offering).

Unfortunately, all my layers don't make it very easy to crawl around

.

But maybe if I get up on my knees I can start moving.

Daddy said that making snow angels would be fun. I beg to differ.

But going down a snowy slide was a blast!

Here's some video footage for the Grandparents. If you listen for it, you might hear Jesse saying "Brrr....Brrr..." at one point.

Knee Walking

Jesse's preferred method of transportation recently is moving sideways on his knees. It kind of looks like he's galloping on his knees.

Who Needs Sleep?

I should know by now that if it's taking nearly an hour for Jesse to fall asleep, then he's probably up to something. He didn't sound upset, but I just thought I'd take a peek and see if he looked like he was almost asleep. As soon as I poked my head in the door I could see that he was clearly not close to falling asleep. He was sitting up, and upon further investigation I could tell that he was not fully clothed. I hesitated to post these pictures because he looks so pitiful in them, but he only got upset when I ran out of the room to grab the camera. Poor guy. I had no clue he was capable of getting his arm out of his shirt.

He was so upset after all this happened that I rocked him until he fell asleep. Of course, he woke up when I laid him down, and the next time I went in there to check on him he was happily standing up and had this look on his face like "I think I just got out of my nap this morning". And yes, he did get out of his nap.

The Birthday Party

Monday morning we had Jesse's birthday party at our play group. It was lots of fun, although Jesse slept through the first half of it since we had his 12-month check-up at 8 A.M. and didn't get home until about half an hour before people came over.

It might be cheesy (and I know Jesse will never remember it), but I did a Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? theme for his party. It's not his favorite book to look at anymore, but for a while he really loved that book (probably something about all the different colors). This theme was easy, because it meant just using all the different colors represented by the animals in the book.

James helped me with this banner. I told him my idea for the banner the weekend before the party and he really wanted to help (fine by me because I'm terrible at making letters!).

Then I made lots of cupcakes and snacks, each one based off of a different animal in the book.

All the kids enjoyed playing. Jesse's new race-track was a big hit.

Here is most of our play group (minus two other mothers and their babies). It's tough to get a good picture with babies and toddlers, so we took several. Take note that Jesse is the only boy in his play group (and the two babies not pictured are also girls). I don't think he cares, though.


Here is kiss caught on camera...

First Bites of Cake

For anyone who is interested, here is a shortened video of Jesse's first cake-eating experience as he Skyped with his Grandmama and Granddad. I say shortened, because it takes a one-year-old quite a while to eat most of a cupcake, especially this one-year-old, who has to meticulously inspect every new thing that he eats. There were definitely lots of shudders and grimaces as he tested the frosting, but in the end he decided he liked it pretty well.

Birthday Cupcakes

To make a long story short, we had to postpone the party that we had planned to do with some of Jesse's play group buddies. My poor parents have gotten sick here, so we decided that I would just have the party at Jesse's play group on Monday.

Since James will be in class on Monday, we decided to go ahead and give Jesse his cupcake today. I found a very yummy recipe online for banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were a winner with him (that is, after he got over the foreign taste of the cream cheese frosting).

Skyping with Grandmama and Granddad while he ate his cupcake:

Come on, enough with the singing, let's eat...

Actually, I'm not so sure what I think about this...

Maybe a little frosting wouldn't hurt...

Maybe that wasn't such a good idea...

Nope, not a good idea at all. This is super sour...

Maybe it will taste better if Daddy feeds me some...

Yes, much better now...

Boy, this frosting sure is fun to play with.

Daddy, this stuff is good. You really need to try some, too.

But not you, Mama. You're in trouble.

Real big trouble. I'm not happy with you.

Just kidding. I love you, Mama. May I have some more tomorrow and every day after that?

Ahhh...sure is nice to get cleaned up and sit back and relax with a belly full of cake. Now let's Skype some more...