Jacob Thomas Selim

Jacob was born four years ago!  Jeremy likes to tell people it was an easy delivery because we got to the hospital at 9 something in the morning and Jacob was born at 11:30 ish. But, it was a crazy intense one! And it started long before we made it to the hospital! :)

 I am so glad he is our son and he is getting so big and so smart. He made his name out of train tracks, I only helped with the 'B'. 

His birthday was April 16th and it was a bit of a crazy day.  I performed a play for the first time in seven years at a nursing conference in Gilbert

 which is about 2 hours from here. My wonderful sister in law watched the boys for me. She lives only minutes from the hospital where we performed. It worked out perfectly. Thank you so Emily! This way I only had to leave the boys for the time I was at the performance rather than the four hour round trip plus the three hours I was at the hospital.  And Emily made Jacob's birthday fun for him.  We drove back and 

met up with  Jeremy and Andrew and had Taco Bell for dinner. Jacob wanted cheese roll-ups for his birthday. The birthday boy always get to pick what we have for dinner and this made it pretty easy for me. :) He even included it in the birthday wish list: I want a 5 button race cars, a dump truck, a cheese roll up, etc..

They also get to pick what kind of cake they have. At first,  Jacob wanted a circle cake with numbers like a clock and a dump truck in the middle. I managed to convince him that it might be more fun for it to be a big dump truck

cake instead.  Sometimes, convincing him of anything can be a hard job. He has very strong opinions and ideas!  He helped me do the food coloring for the icing and he helped with the black icing details.  He is a really great helper.  We sang him happy birthday and blew out each candle one by one. He told me that when you are four years old that you don't have to eat food anymore. When you are so many years you don't need dinner, you can just have candy and cake. :) He is so funny. 

We gave him a big dump truck and

 he loved it. He loved all his presents and Thank you so much to all his aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpa that gave him presents.  We met Lynne on Saturday at the half way point between us to continue the celebration. We watched Monsters vs Aliens and then went to Peter Piper Pizza for lunch. Everyone had a really fun day.

4 things I love about Jacob:

I love to talk to him - his logic gets him out of trouble all the time. I love the way he can explain himself and make me understand what is happening in his brain.

He loves his brothers. He is so good with Michael and loves to play with him and help him. He and Andrew are such close friends. They play together so well - most of the time!

He is a great helper. He tries to help me everyday. I can't make a meal without him      

pulling up his stool to watch and help. He throws away the dirty diapers outside and is pretty good at putting away his toys. 

He is so smart. He is a great counter and is learning to read. He is a pro with the computer games on PBS Kids. He is going to be really ready for Kindergarten.

Easter

We had a great Easter this year.  A little crazy, but still great. I had a rehearsal on Saturday morning and then Jeremy had a last minute meeting, so our great plans were pushed back. It still turned out to be a nice plastic egg hunt and dinner over at Emily's and then over to Lynne's for bedtime. We woke up on Easter and opened presents from Lynne. She gave the boys a movie and a book about Christ's life and resurrection. When Andrew opened the book he said, ' I got Jesus!' That is what Easter is all about, right? I am glad that we all can open that gift and be grateful for our Savior. 

This is a little silly, but I wanted all the boys to match on Easter. So, it took a bit of arranging to have three of everything, ties, shirts, pants, belts, etc for church.  But, I managed it by the time we left on Saturday. So, they were all dressed and ready to go and about to head into Lynne's family room to take pictures when Michael decided he wanted to stand out and be an individual. He had a crazy explosive diaper which thankfully only knocked the pants out of commission.  I did not have a back up pair of navy church pants for Michael or any suitable pants at all, but my ever prepared husband reminded me of the back up clothes we have in the car (we have a complete change of clothes in a big ziploc for each of the boys). It turned out Michael's emergency pants were a little casual, but served in a pinch.  I was a little disappointed about the now not quite matching outfits, but that is how life goes.  No great family picture this year, but I tried to include some so you could see their ties at least.

We decided that the Easter Bunny would come while we were away for church and we would do the secular parts of Easter after we had focused on the Resurrection and Atonement. So, the Easter Bunny left church for a bit to run home to Lynne's house and hide the baskets and eggs.  He did a great job hiding everything and then wrote a note for the boys trying to tie in the Easter egg hunt/Easter bunny with Christ and went outside to put it on her front door for them to find. Unfortunately, the door locked behind him with Lynne's house keys inside. Thankfully, he had his keys still with him and headed back to church.  Emily had a spare key to Lynne's house, so we only had to wait about 10 -15 minutes after we got back from church to make it in for the big hunt. Thanks again, Emily!  The boys had a great time and loved their baskets, thanks Lynne for all your contributions, and even Michael began to get it a little. He certainly understood there was chocolate in his basket and nothing, not even the foil wrappers were going to keep him from eating it. :) We had a wonderful Easter dinner and a fun time all weekend, even with the hiccups. 

We have been talking about Resurrection for a little while, leading up to Easter, reading the New Testament, etc.  We talked about how the spirit leaves the body, the body is buried or put in a tomb or cave like Jesus was and then later the body and spirit are brought back together and then Jesus went back to Heaven with his body.  Over the same period of time we have been talking about, Andrew and Jacob have found two little dead baby birds in our back yard. We have a great big Saguaro cactus that I am sure holds a myriad of nests.  So, we buried the baby birds and talked about how the spirit left the body, etc.  A day later Andrew comes in and says Heavenly Father must not like this baby bird, his body is still here, it is still in the ground.  Why isn't he up in Heaven? At least resurrection is a concept we are beginning to understand. I am grateful for Christ's sacrifice so that we can all be resurrected one day and live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again. Hopefully, He will like us. :) I know He will, even if we don't deserve it.

Random Pics

I decided to do the sixth picture of the sixth folder tag, but this computer doesn't store photos that way, so I am going to try to find 6 random pictures to post. :) Then, we had too many pictures, so I had to keep going. I think now there are 10 random pictures. :)