pinku

Head over heels in love (aka nearly seven months of Jake)

I know everyone loves their kids, but I seriously had no idea how much I'd love being your mama, Jakey. You may question my love considering I skipped your five month blog update, but that's only because I'm a slacker and is totally not indicative of my love for you.

Jake in Fukuoka - five months and three days old (photo taken by the talented Martine Cotton)

So you will be turning seven months old next week. Seriously where did the time go? The theme for the last three months has been MOBILITY. We have a gamut of nicknames for you that have ranged from daddy's little fatty (that's when you were in the womb), attack dog (this was a game that dad played with you when you were a newborn - he would pretend you were an attack dog and then he would hold you and attack whoever was nearby....it was funny), j-dawg, roll dawg, crawl dawg, six dawg, jake scissorhands (I still use this one), SLOBBERdan milosevic (we don't think you are an evil dictator...it's just that you slobber a lot sometimes). Anyway I'm getting off track here, you are now officially mobile. What began with you rolling over at 12 weeks snowballed into you somehow moving to a different position than where we left you, to superman flying, to combat crawling, to rocking on your hands and knees....to crawling. You still sometimes fall down, but you get stronger everyday. We recently bought you a jumper and you LOVE it. You can see us from a standing level and you love staring at the pigs - sometimes you even laugh at them. You really give that jumper a run for its money - jumping up and down as hard as you can. It's hilarious and I've never seen you happier actually (although you are not smiling in the photo below).

Another big milestone has been the introduction of solid foods. We officially gave you your first meal just after your six month birthday - it was banana I think - but I did actually let you suck on some apple and carrot before then. We won't mention the time I let you suck on a piece of watermelon and you managed to gum a piece off, which you then seemed to choke on. Um, not my proudest parenting moment but I'm sure there will be many more of those but hopefully with no choking. You really love food by the way. So far you've tried banana, avocado, sweet potato, carrot, winter squash, pear etc.

Also during the last couple of months I've gone back to work and I miss you terribly. Luckily we still get to spend A LOT of time together and your dad is doing a fantastic job of your daytime parenting. Every Friday we meet up with our buddies (aka the ladies in your harem and their equally wonderful mothers). Last week we went to Yoyogi Park and you LOVED it. You loved looking at the strange little dog club gathering nearby, rubbing your hands in the dirt and just sitting up and laughing to entertain all of the ladies. It was fantastic!

Unfortunately another young lady in your harem will be leaving Japan in less than two months - sweet blue eyed Sienna and her fabbo mama, Kirsten. We'll miss you guys! Kirsten was able to capture a great moment between those two at the park.

Jake you light up both my life and your father's life and we adore you so much. We are so blessed to be able to watch you grow up although we wish you could stay this small a little longer. Thank you for choosing us as your parents.

Big hugs and kisses from mama and papa dawg OOXX

He's at it again

You guys remember this photo, right?!

Well unfortunately Jake's girlfriend (well one of them), Julia (pictured above) left Japan permanently to go and live in England. We'll really miss Julia and her mama, Marta. Before they left, we all met up and tried to take a group baby shot....but Jake had other ideas.

Julia doesn't look very impressed.

We finally did get a group shot with Jake's other girlfriend, Sienna (who's unfortunately leaving in July). The harem is dwindling.

Nectar

So Kim Hargreaves has finally released a book containing some of the most classic patterns from her website.

This is exciting.

Is it enough to get me back to knitting for myself? I don't know. After the almost instant gratification of baby knitting I'm not sure whether I have the patience to knit 'big' items anymore.

It's a little pricey at 16.95 pounds plus 5 pounds shipping, BUT there are 21 patterns and finally you don't need to buy the kits. That's pretty exciting.

You can view all of the patterns in the book HERE.

FO alert!

It's so nice to be knitting again. It may only be a small baby hat but we have to start somewhere. And who doesn't love a cute project that can be completed in a night. To find a project I, of course, went to my Ravelry page and checked my queue and found the Kiddie Cadet pattern. I immediately bought it and went to Yuzawaya on the way home from work and purchased some yarn.

Here is the result:

I made a few changes to the decreases on the top of the hat so it fit Jake's head better so it doesn't actually sit flat like in the pattern photos but it fits J's head perfectly. It's definitely a keeper. I've nearly finished my second one to give to a girlfriend who is due in July. Hope she likes it.

We also added one of Darin's Heroin Skateboard pins

view from top

view from the side

Oh and Jake is wearing one of my favourite purchases of late - a stylized freddie krueger tshirt. I am loving Japanese baby clothes!!

Boys

Jake turned six months old on Monday. We keep telling him to stop growing up but he just won't listen. I promise his six month birthday post is coming - when I have time to edit our latest photos. In the meantime, enjoy some great photography from our talented friend, Martine, who caught some great Jake moments at Hanami 2008 and in Nagasaki at Tyler's wedding.

Boys will be boys. Sandi and Jeff's boys wanted to hold Jake at Hanami and it wasn't long before they were using him to punch each other up. It was kind of hilarious and Jake didn't seem to mind one bit. It was a glimpse of what is to come. Oh my.

A sign of age

When we were in Kyushu recently for our friend, Tyler's wedding, we decided to travel to Fukuoka after the wedding since both Darin and I had never been. It's a lovely sized city - very Brisbane actually. Anyway we finally got around to doing something that I'd been wanting to do for a while. Purikura (Japanese photo booths) with Jake.

Wow, purikura machines have really changed since I was a high school student in Japan. We could barely keep up with the multitude of options available and what you see here is the final result. It made me feel old. I bet those 13 year old girls in line knew how to work those machines like nobody's business.

(click to see the larger image)

I personally love the I HEART ME one!! And Darin was excited to turn himself into a Panda. Oh and I loved being Snow White with my many Darin dwarves!!!