The Verhoeven's: Signing, and standing, and two more two more teeth-- Oh my!

Jacob has officially learned his first 'sign'! We've been working on sign language with Jacob since he was about 4 months old. Since about 6-7 months he has been able to understand the word when we sign it. For example, whenever it was time for Jacob to drink a bottle we would sign the word milk and he would get all excited and smile really big before screaming at us because we didn't move fast enough making it! We would also sign the word book before reading to him and he would wiggle all around and wave his arms around with a huge smile and squeal. He loves books and being read to!

Jacob's 7 month portrait. I'm not too crazy about it... maybe because he's in a rocking chair, and he looks like he's a big boy!

Anyway, if I haven't called you out of excitement yet, his fist sign was the word 'milk'! The origin of the sign milk comes from the actual motion of milking a cow. Basically you open and close your fist. He's not that consistent with it. But whenever he does sign the word it is during the correct time when he should be ready to eat. And if you do the sign back to him, he gets all excited! I'm trying to catch him on video doing it, but I have yet to be so lucky! At first I thought it was just coincidence, but he has done it in front of two other people, one of them being Mike. And like I said before, he only does it when he's ready for a bottle.

I was so shocked and excited the first time I saw it! After he signed the word a few more times, I was just in awe. My little baby boy is trying to communicate! He's so smart!! I read online that babies who are introduced to sign language can sign back their fist word as early as 8 months. So it's not unheard of.

Now we're trying to work a few more signs into his vocabulary. He's already been introduced to 'book', 'milk', 'eat', and 'all done'. Next we're going to teach him 'bath', 'sleep', 'mommy', and 'daddy'. We'll keep everyone updated on his progress!

Jacob's two top teeth have fully broken through. He's officially got four teeth-- two top and two bottom. You can't really see the top teeth yet when he smiles, but you will soon!

Also in big boy news, HE'S STANDING! For longer periods of time! He holds onto things to pull up to standing position and then he lets go! He'll also stand if you help him get into position. Here are a few videos of it:

Our Jacob tree has finally started to grow. I've been telling it that it's spring time, but for some reason it wasn't following the other trees lead by growing some green leaves. We pretty much thought it was dead considering Mike left the tree outside while he was in training in Baltimore and we had a freeze up here. When Mike returned home he brought the tree inside and left it inside until spring. We decide to transplant it to a bigger pot to give it some room to grow. After the transplant Adrian decided to pull the tree out by its roots and leave it on the back patio. I have no idea how long it was like that before I found and replanted it. After replanting I kept catching the stupid cats laying on top of it!

Considering all the tree had been through Mike and I were about to pretty much give up on it especially because it was almost June and there was still no new growth. I just kept watering it and hoping for the best. To my surprise, just as soon as Mike said he thought we should just give up, I walked outside and saw two tiny green sprouts! I was so happy! I had never been more excited about a plant before. This tree was just so special because it was planted in the same week Jacob was conceived.

The tree is officially a fighter, and has been through so much in just under two years. January 1, 2009 the tree will have officially turned 2 years old. Here is a picture of our tree the fist day it was planted, and what it looks like as of today.

Seeds planted January 1, 2007.

Here it is today: June 10, 2008. A year and a half later.

Top view. Look how big the leaves are getting!

Here are some other pictures from our "garden". I planted some basil seeds at the start of spring and they're flourishing! I also planted a bulb at the same time, and like the tree, it has just started growing. I can't even remember what I planted! I guess we'll see when and if the flower blooms!

Basil. Yes, this is growing in an old formula canister that I made into a pot. I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage.

Here is our bulb-- can't remember what kind...

Here is another formula canister that I transformed into a flower pot. This one is decorated and I have yet to plant any seeds in it!

Jacob had his first bubble bath the other day. We just used some of his baby soap, so the bubbles weren't very bubbly... We also colored the bath water red with a crayola bath tablet. It's non-toxic & it came with the octopus spout cover we bought (which Jacob tears down as soon as he gets into the bath tub! So much for safety....). Of course I had to take pictures... and a video to show you all!

The cool new spout cover that Jacob tears off. It's an octopus! Lindy recommended it, thanks Lindy!

Mom, doesn't this look just like one of my baby pictures in the tub??

Having fun!

Jacob with his bubble mohawk.

OK, now time to brag. Mike and I went to check on the progress of the construction of the house last weekend. Not much was done other than a septic tank being installed. After checking everything out we stopped by the outlet mall right down the street. It's literally about 10 minutes down the road. I wanted to grab Jacob some new sleepers from the Carter's outlet since he is growing out of his 6 months already! We ended up picking up a few sleepers for some great prices, considering they were Carter's brand. Then we stopped by the Children's Place outlet store. They had a $.99 sale rack, and I couldn't believe what they had on there! It was mostly winter clothes, but I have no problem shopping for the future, especially if it's a bargain. Anyway, to make a long story short, here's what I got for a total of $4.56 (before tax):

Fleece camo sweater, orange fleece football long sleeve shirt, footed sleeper, winter reversible brim hat, long sleeve football shirt, and cute pom pom winter hat.

My favorite find! This was originally $14.50 before it went on sale for $.99!

Just out of curiosity I added up the original price of the clothing and this is the total: $65.00! I saved $60.44!! You can't beat that! Not even at consignment shops, Goodwill, or the Salvation Army-- trust me I shop there all the time too!

All the clothes are between 12-18 months. By the time Jacob's that age it will be chilly out. I was just so excited, I had to share!

In other family news, Mike and I just celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. Yes, we made it a whole year! With many, many more to come!

We went out to dinner at Applebees (thanks to Mom & Dad Verhoeven & Grandma!). Of course the little man joined us, but we all had a VERY good time. Jacob was very well behaved and the food was great. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera with us. Jacob was dressed up very cute and I would have liked to have a picture of us together on our first year anniversary. :(

When we got home Mike and I made the daring decision to eat the top tier of our wedding cake! This wedding cake has traveled all the way from Florida to Tennessee in dry ice, then went straight into our freezer. We were very nervous, but to our surprise the cake wasn't half bad! It was still just weird to me, eating cake that was a year old so we just had a few fork-fulls. I did get pictures of this though!

As for gifts we decided to go traditional. For the first year of marriage you are supposed to exchange paper gifts. Mike bought be the book "Deceptively Delicious" for me. It's a book about adding vegetable purees to children food so they get the right amount of vegetables, without even knowing it! And I had one of Mike's favorite pictures of Jacob drawn by Darrell. It came out so much better than I had even imagined!

I couldn't believe how great a job Darrell did, THANKS DARRELL!! Can you believe this is hand drawn?

My newest crochet project came to me through inspiration! The inspiration was Jacob's shirt that reads: 'Mommy's little monster', and it has a little monster on it. I thought it would be really cute to make a hat to match it. A monster hat! The actual hat is a pattern, but I came up with the face! I'm not sure if I'm going to add little horns or not...

He wasn't in a modeling mood...

Also, I just bought this really cool wool at the Renaissance festival from a woman who shears who own sheep, spins it on a spinning wheel, and then dyes it! It is so beautiful & I just love the fact that it's handmade from scratch! Not sure what I'm going to do with this yet, maybe make a wool diaper soaker for Jacob, not sure...

A close up. Isn't it beautiful?

I also bought some brown undyed wool from her to make a diaper cover for Jacob, but it wasn't quite enough to finish, so I have to figure out what I'm going to do with it now.

I've decided to take up spinning! I bought a drop spindle, which is a very ancient way of spinning fiber into yarn. I'm trying to teach myself so it is a definite work-in-progress. I did come up with some yarn though! I am very proud of myself! I have black yarn and some multi-color yarn. None of it is really enough to make anything, it was really just for practice anyway. Hopefully soon I can perfect my skills and come up with some really pretty homespun yarn. I just need more time!!

My new drop spindle! I bought it at the Renaissance festival for $12.

A closer view of it.

My first handspun yarn!

Here it is worked up. It wasn't enough to make anything...

Here is some more yarn I made with different colors. Again, it wasn't enough to make anything.

This is what the wool roving looked like before I spun it into yarn!

I guess that's all for this week. For fun, here's some pictures from our wedding & of course some other cute pictures of Jacob, what everyone comes to see anyway!!

Lots of love,

Valerie, Mike, & Jakey