Team Swierczek

Snowed in!

2009-12-19T06:26:00.000-08:00

Way too long since the last post. We currently have about 9 inches of snow on the ground and it's scheduled to keep coming down like this for another 20 hours or so. Essentially snowed in until it stops and the plows come around, a sword fight broke out!

Happy 1 1/2 Birthday Jacob!

2009-09-22T19:01:00.001-07:00

Tiger says "growl"

2009-08-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

Fun With Dad

2009-08-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

25 things you may not have known about Jacob

2009-08-03T09:29:00.001-07:00

At roughly 16.5 months, Jacob is doing lots of new things:

He answers questions, although the answer to everything is "no". Example, "Jacob are you hungry?" "No", "Jacob, do you want to go get ice cream?" "No", "Jacob, are you tired?" "No". It's good that he knows that you are asking a question and that "No" is a response to a question, but he has no idea what you or he is saying. It's kind of entertaining, actually.
His vocabulary is expanding, including: mama, dada, no, nose, uh oh, oooooo (elephant noise), ooo ooo ooo (monkey noise), growl (tiger or lion or polar bear noise), dog, go, hi, ball (sounds like "gall"), and a few others.
His sign language has really come together. While not very extensive, he's a signing fool when it comes to "more" (usually in reference to food, but also for things that he wants: toys mostly), "up" (to be picked up), and "all done" (he's done eating and wants to get out of his high chair to go cause terror).
He understands some commands, such as "Go hug Porter." So he knows things like hug, kiss, Porter & Tootsie (our dogs), shoes, "be nice" and a few others.
He definitely knows his name.
He can help clean up his toys. He's taken to walking around the house with a Swiffer floor cleaning thing on a long pole. He is fascinated by all the wonderful things in the dish washer.
He can locate his nose and other people's noses. He also knows where is belly and toes are.
He loves playing games like peak-a-boo and hide-and-seek.
He gives high fives (though he's done this for awhile, he's gotten much better)
His walking has advanced to a slight run/jog.
He's a climber. He climbs fences. He's recently advanced enough to climb up onto the couch.
He's beginning to figure out doors, so we had to child proof those, which has also made it difficult for the rest of us to get around the house...sadly.
He LOVES to be read to. He made me read/sing him an "Old McDonald" book 4 times in about 30 minutes the other night. Every night before bed we always read a story. Last night, he was running around the house before bedtime and grabbed a book and climbed up on the rocking chair that we always read in, as if to say that he was ready for his story now. He seems to enjoy books nearly as much as toys.
He's great with the dogs for the most part. The dogs are even better with him. They take a lot of abuse from him sometimes as he's learning what's acceptable. We try to stay on top of things. Everyone is getting along great so far though.
On the unfortunate side of things, he seems to like to eat dog food. It's a battle to try to feed the dogs and keep him away from it. He's also taken to sticking his entire face in their water bowl, which is probably beyond unsanitary. Proof #947 that really likes water.
We've had some problems with him biting other kids at daycare, which is not good and somewhat embarassing for us. He's also been on the bitten end a few times. This seems to be occuring slightly less frequently, but it's happening way more than anyone would like. We're told this is something he'll grow out of, but we're trying to make some efforts to make sure that happens ASAP.
He likes to say "hi" and wave to strangers. Sometimes he waves "bye" to kids at daycare as he leaves.
He holds up cell phones, phones, remote controls, etc up to the side of his head (as if he were on the phone) and says "hi". He's been doing this for months, but he doesn't seem to get tired of it.
He LOVES to laugh. I'm pretty sure he spends his whole day either laughing, sleeping, crying and/or eating. Most of the time he is very happy. You can get him to crack up endlessly by making a new noise he hasn't heard yet or an old noise that he finds hilarious. "Poop" seems to be a classic. His new noise is "Ow". As in, when dad hits his head on something and says "Ow"...endless laughter and he repeats: "Ow, ow, ow, ow..."
He copies EVERYTHING. Kids are quite the little sponges. Who would have thought? The other day we are driving in the car and he starts to get upset. I'm sitting in front of him in the passager seat. To entertain him, I put his cup on my head. He thinks this is hilarious, and proceeds to take the cup and put it on his head. There's probably 20 times a day (on the days where I get to see him a lot...weekends) where I don't even realize he's paying attention to me, only to do something and then hear him repeating it or mimicing my actions. Luckily, no swearing yet, but you really need to watch yourself around him.
He blows his nose. This started a few weeks ago. We'd wipe his face off with something and he'd blow raspberries into it. He didn't understand how to blow his nose, but knew that you put this tissue over your face and then made a similar noise. In just the past few days, he's started to actually figure out blowing.
He plays a recorder.
He's extremely ticklish.
He loves vegetables, fruits (especially berries), pretty much any kind of junk food and lots of other stuff, but oddly seems to not be a huge fan of meat. Given the choice of many things in front of him, he'll usually pick around the meat. If it's just meat (or hot dogs) he'll usually eat it, but not always. We hope he outgrows this.
He's the best thing ever.

Mike

Dancing

2009-07-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since we've posted anything. We've been up to so much since our last post.

Courtney had her first real Mother's Day with Jacob (she was in the hospital last year). We made our second trip with Jacob to upstate NY over Memorial Day to see my parents. I have set a goal to run one race per month while the weather is warm enough and so far I've done 5k's in April and May and a 3.5 mile run in June. I've got my July race this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. We went up to NYC for my summer office party in June. It was our third time up to NYC with Jacob and it was a great weekend. Counting spring training, we're up to 10 baseball games this year (9 with Jacob).

We had to replace our air conditioner in May (at no small expense), but the new one is SO much nicer and we've always known that the last one was on its last legs.

Everything seems to be going well with our jobs, thankfully. Hopefully that continues. We know way too many people out of work and are keenly aware of how tough things are out there.

Although it's been a long time since we've updated the blog, we have been fairly good about keeping up the website, so there are tons of pictures there and more details on the past couple months.

Hope everyone has a Happy 4th! Go out and celebrate the birth of your nation by blowing up a small part of it (with fireworks). USA! USA! USA!

Mike

PS- What prompted me to finally post was that we've been taking some good video of Jacob as he becomes such a funny, happy little boy. The video shown here was Jacob dancing...at least his version. He's better than he shows here, but this was the best we could get on video. I still think it's pretty funny.

Walking!

2009-05-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

Jacob walks 11 steps!

Belated Easter post

2009-04-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in getting this up. Here's a short video of Jacob on his first Easter egg hunt a couple of weeks ago (4/12/09....Easter, obviously).

5 years

2009-04-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Five years ago yesterday, Courtney and I went to a baseball game (Cubs @ Pirates) with her friend, Amanda. It wasn't exactly a date at the time, but it sparked an interest that led to dating in the following days. I consider it to be our first date. The rest is history.

To celebrate, Courtney and I got a rare night out alone. Of course, we headed to a baseball game (Braves @ Nationals). The weather was cold and wet. The game was delayed an hour and we only stayed for about 5 innings. We needed to head home. It was, after all, a work night. Apparently we got really old over the past 5 years.

-Mike

Mike Turns 30!!!!

2009-03-17T16:26:00.001-07:00

For Mike's 30th birthday we went down to Florida to watch Spring Training Baseball! Click here for all the details.

Jacob had a grand ole time on the beach:

What I've been doing

2009-02-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to Sara, one of our dedicated readers who I know would appreciate an update : )

Jacob has been a busy man. Hence the lack of blogging I suppose (or I could be looking for excuses). I do feel like now that he is getting more and more mobile, that I am in constant "Mommy Mode", either running behind him to catch him when he falls or running behind him to clean up whatever mess he has somehow gotten himself into. So, as his one year birthday approaches, here is a list of what he can do:

-He climbs stairs at a super human rate of speed it seems

-He can hold his own bottle and has mastered the sippy cup (thanks Emmy for the Take-n-toss suggestion; they worked wonders)!

-He plays with a purpose and is recognizing cause and effect i.e. he can fit some shapes into his shape bucket thingy. You know what I am talking about, we all had one growing up I think

-He cruises like a champ all around the room and has taken one tiny step forward only to fall right on his face. No worries, he bounces right back with only a dazed look on his face like he doesn't understand what just happened.

-He has just started to go to bed without a bottle, hurray!

-He has 12 teeth and likes to actually have them brushed

-He tries to repeated what you say. For example, when I say, "uh oh", he'll either repeat the "uh" or the "oh" but not together. He also seems to repeat "all done" but it sounds more like "ah duh".

-He can wave bye-bye if he is in the mood

-He can do the "touchdown" sign although we haven't had much reason to practice this one lately

-He likes to feed himself cheerios but doesn't really like to touch anything else like bananas or pasta as I don't think he likes the texture of them

-He is definitely a "hit and run" cuddler. He'll come to you for cuddles and just as soon as he wanted them, he'll want down again to go and play

-He gives kisses however they are often off-target and are a slobbery mess

-He'll follow you all around the house as if he was saying, "What are you doing, what are you doing"?

-He lets his displeasure be known. He has seemed to catch on to minor temper tantrums and whining when he doesn't get what he wants. We are working on this by telling him no, and trying to distract him with something else.

-On the "no" note, when we say "no" to him he then shakes his head back and forth as if to say "no" himself. Rebelling this early doesn't seem to be a good sign.

-He loves the dogs and will "pet" them by hitting them lightly on the head instead of gently stroking. We're working on teaching him "Nice" as well.

I am sure there is MUCH more that I am missing as it seems he does something new everyday. I'll try to keep it updated and maybe add a running list in the margin to the left of the blog.

Stairs!

2009-01-12T16:15:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks, Jacob has been starting to discover stairs.

In our basement, we have 2 stairs up, then a landing, then 10 more stairs up, another landing, and then one more step onto the first floor. He's been doing the first couple steps up to the first landing and then starting to get up on the third step, before either losing interest or deciding it was too difficult.

Yesterday, we had our friends Clay and Heather over whose little girl, Ella, is about 8 months older than Jacob and seemingly way more advanced (as I suppose babies tend to be given the steep learning curve). Ella was all over the house, including up and down the stairs.

Apparently Jacob was watching. Tonight, Courtney left to go to the gym and Jacob was playing downstairs. When Courtney left to go upstairs, Jacob watched her walk away and wanted to follow. So that he did. Up to the first landing, before turning around and smiling at me to make sure I saw his accomplishment (he's always so proud of himself). Then he remembered his mission, Mission: Follow Mommy, who was now well out of sight. So up he went, and I got up and followed closely behind to guard against any mistakes, but never touching him. When he got his entire body up on the 4th stair (a new record) I called Courtney, who poked her head around the corner and provided all the encouragement he needed. 5 stairs, 6, 7, and so on all the way to the top!

His first 5k can't be far off.

Mike

New Local Reporting Tandem

2008-12-30T16:51:00.000-08:00

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season. Jacob certainly did. We think he has just about everything that Fisher Price makes now.....and he's working on Playskool.

The holidays have been very good, and very busy for us. We did Christmas at our house for the first time this year, which was really important to us as we try to start our own traditions for Jacob. Thankfully, all of our parents were still able to make it down at some point as well. Be sure to check out the website for a bunch of new pictures from the last week or so.

On Saturday, we did a little bit the DC tourist thing and went on a tour of the Capitol and then visited the Newseum. Both were really cool, especially with the Capitol's new visitor's center and the Newseum with a huge new location on Pennsylvania Avenue. While at the Newseum, Courtney and Jacob filmed their own live report from Nationals Park. Check out the video:

Ho, Ho, Ho!

2008-12-14T17:44:00.001-08:00

Jacob thought this was hilarious. Seriously, we got him to crack up at this all day. Maybe he was just in a really good mood, maybe we were just really funny that day. It'll be interesting to see if he'll still think this is funny tomorrow.

Mobility

2008-12-02T16:38:00.000-08:00

We are on the move people! By we, I of course mean Jacob! He has been SO close to actually crawling for over a month now and finally he put all the pieces together and is moving. Grant it, he only goes about 3-4 "steps" until he gives in and army crawls the rest of the way. Still though, he is moving and growing up so very very fast.

Also today, his daycare told me that when she went in to the room to get him up from his nap, there he was standing and holding onto the rail of his crib. Just as soon as the crawling came, so did the interest in what else he could do and he's been trying to pull himself up on things at home too. He hasn't actually done it by himself but I can attribute to that without being to wrap his hands around something to pull on (like a crib rail) it's otherwise very tough. He can't pull up on his crib at home because we have a bumper and we also lowered his mattress. We are still one step, er crawl, ahead of him : )

And now, the evidence!

New Ventures

2008-11-30T17:54:00.000-08:00

Wow. We haven't blogged in a very long time. I am sure we have lost a few readers : (

Anyways, the reason we haven't blogged that much is because well, not too much has been going on (until the last few weeks or so and now we have a few topics to cover).

The first bit of news is that I have decided to finally take the plunge and start my own business! This business has been in the works (in my mind anyways) for quite some time now. I decided that the middle of a recession would be a great time to start up!

Therefor, A Sweet Soiree Events was born and I began my event planning business. We have a website and I have started the tedious process of all the legal non-sense to get the business licensed. This will be a very slow process as I need to develop a portfolio which will be coming along over the next year or so. Once that is complete and I have some more money to invest into the business, I have plans to begin actively recruiting clients, hopefully enough to make this a full-time venture. For right now though, we are starting slow and I am only accepting clients by referral. If you know of anyone needing assistance in planning any type of event, please visit my website at www.ASweetSoiree.com!

I appreciate everyone's loving encouragement and support thus far and I should have more business related announcements forthcoming once I hit some milestones.

Check back for some more updates on Thanksgiving and a recent trip to Richmond!

Cheers,
Court

Happy Halloween!!!

2008-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

From Jacob

Trying to crawl

2008-10-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

As you can see, Jacob still has a ways to go before he's crawling, but we're trying to help him figure it out.

Our Anniversary... 2 Years!

2008-10-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

We celebrated two years of marriage yesterday. Still going strong. Two items of note:

I'm pretty sure I have the best wife ever. For an anniversary present, she got me a banner that was hanging in Shea Stadium all this year (Shea's last). I didn't even know that they were selling this stuff, but on her own she came up with this idea, figured out how to make it happen, and then made it happen. Apparently, they are selling everything they can carry out of Shea. She knows me so well!

To celebrate, we went to the Original Steakhouse and Sports Theater. Normally, going to a sports bar for your anniversary might not be all that glamorous, but this was the restaurant where Courtney started going into labor almost exactly 7 months to the minute before our dinner last night. This was our first time back there since, to eat the dinner that we missed that night. We brought Jacob along this time as well. I had wanted to bring along the camera so that I could take an updated shot (Courtney and Jacob together) of this infamous picture of Courtney going into labor as we waited for our table, but alas, I forgot the camera at the last minute. By that look on her face, two years is a miracle.

-Mike

Laughter

2008-10-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

Jacob recently had one of my most favorite milestones; he laughed at something that was situationally funny. While we have been able to make him laugh for quite a bit by tickling him, the other day was a completely different story.

I was feeding Jacob dinner and as I cleaned up afterwards, accidently dropped his spoon right on top of his highchair tray. I immediately sayed, "UH OH". What followed was the most adorable noise I have ever heard; little baby giggles! So, while the neighbors probably though I was the crazy lady next door, I continued to drop the spoon and express my dismay while my little man laughed his little head off.

As soon as Mike walked in the door from work, of course he had to show him too!

Although we are terrible parents and did not get that moment on video, we did capture his tickle induced laughter for your viewing pleasure.

-Courtney

Baptism pics

2008-10-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Again, as promised, more baptism pics are on the website. Click here to view. Special thanks to the Godfather and his photographer.

My first 5k

2008-09-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

After getting my feet wet (with mixed results) with a 3.5 mile run in June, I decided (at the urging of Courtney) to try another race. On Saturday, I ran my first 5k.

It was right here in town, so it's not like I needed to go out of my way. It wasn't a huge race, just 128 people finished, but I think I ended up liking that about it. I had three goals going in:

finish without walking
run 10 minute miles or better
beat at least 10 people (I really didn't want to be last)

I finished without walking and ran a 31:09 (slightly slower than 10 minute miles, but close enough for my tastes).

I came in last in my age group (20-29). I was 10 out of 10. The #9 guy beat me by more than 2.5 minutes. Though really, I was also the old man of the group. I beat a 31 yr old guy by about 10 seconds and I beat a 30 yr old guy by more than a minute in the next age group up.

There was a really old guy who looked like he could barely walk, but he stayed just ahead of me the entire race. I was kind of demoralized that I could never catch him. He was 74. Actually, all three guys that were 70+ beat me. I came in 55 of 67 guys though, so I did beat >10 guys.

I would have come in 30 of 61 women. I would have been 6 of 15 in the women's group of my age. So combined, I came in like 15th of 24 people in my age group. Sure, I only beat women, but that's not all that bad.

Overall, I came in 84 of 128. I beat 44 people. I'm okay with that for my first 5k. In fact, I am so okay with that, that I think I am going to try to run a couple more this fall. Though we'll see how that goes.

Mike

6 month pictures

2008-09-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

As promised, we were able to get some the pictures that we had professionally taken up on the website. These are soft copies that they gave us to preview, not the pictures that we bought scanned, so they have the stupid logo thing over them to make you buy from them rather than printing, but this was a lot easier and good enough quality. I didn't put all of them up. To see some of the better ones, you'll have to stop by the house. We can't show you everything or else no one will ever come to visit!

Jacob's half birthday

2008-09-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Jacob's half birthday. Six months has just flown by and been some of the happiest of our lives. Coincidentally, he is also up to six teeth. This fact impressed the doctor yesterday during his routine visit for some shots. She said that she couldn't ever remember seeing a baby with that many teeth at this age. I guess that's a good thing? He's up to 22 pounds now, which keeps him in the 95th percentile. He's in the 75th percentile for height, down slightly from his last visit.

To celebrate his half birthday, I picked up some cupcakes on my way home from work. For half a year, he got half a cupcake, of which we allowed him to eat about a finger full. He seemed to really enjoy it....not eating it so much, but playing with it definitely. As you can see from the picture at left, he's also been eating Cheerios. He had a few from Courtney's bowl over the weekend, and yesterday we caught him picking them up and eating them all on his own. Very exciting stuff.

After our little "party," Courtney left for the gym and Jacob and I had ourselves a little "guys tonight in." I can't understand how this baby is so happy all the time. Sure, he has his moments, but they seem to be becoming fewer and farther in between. Instead, he fills his day with playing and laughing (he's been laughing for a few weeks now. He started giggling a couple months ago. The laughs started right around the time we discovered him to be extremely ticklish) and flirting with women (he loves to smile at women when we are out) and smiling and just being a really happy baby. Between him and Porter (fast becoming one of Jacob's best friends), it's hard to get too upset about anything anymore when you are surrounded by a baby and dog thrilled to be around you every waking moment. So we had a great time playing and laughing last night....just the guys. Then he went right to sleep when I put him down without crying at all. Such a great baby. Could Courtney and I really be responsible for this?

Last weekend, our family came into town for Jacob's baptism. He also got his first haircut and his "6 month pictures" taken. I've posted pics from some of these events on the website, but we still need to get our hands on some of the better pics from the baptism and perhaps scan and post some of the professional photos we got...that might take some time, but I'll be sure to let everyone know when those are up.

Mike

We're back!

2008-09-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Needless to say, we've had some issues with the WordPress blog. After switching formats earlier this year, things didn't exactly go as planned and now no one seems to be able to tell us where our old blog went. It just disappeared and no one wants to take responsibility. It looks like we are never going to find it, which is disappointing to us, but we can't let this slow us down any longer.

If you've been following the pictures on the website, we've been up to an awful lot over the past few months. We'll try to come up with some form of update for everyone ASAP. Going forward, be sure to check back here often as your new way to keep up with all the goings on for Team Swierczek.

Mike

PS- Sorry to keep switching up the blog on everyone.