Sweet, sweet babies

I knew when Gabi, Gabs, Gabi bear, came along that Jake would look big. I even tried to prepare myself for how big I thought he would look, but I didnt prepare myself for the fact that he looks like he has acromegaly! LOL. the kid is HUGE, he is THICK, he is a brick house! But he is so crazy cute and such a great imagination. He loves to play firefighter (wonder why?). He puts on his boots and his hat and pulls his imaginary alarm and he is off. Putting out fires in the house or rescuing his kitty cat, PIzza and his bear, Rupert from a tree.

My brother came into town to meet Gabi, but I think he and Jake had more fun "errufting" volcanoes

Some cute Gabi pics

A nice family photo

A family of four:

And yes..the diet starts in 2 days!

So far, so good

We have been home with Gabi for a couple days now and it seems to be going well. Jake is really doing fantastic with her. he loves to hold her and has lots of questions about her. He wants to know if she has teeth, if when she wakes up from napping she will be big enough to play, he wants to know about her "cord" and why she only eats milk which "is only a drink". Our first night was a little rough as expected but last night she slept in 3 hour blocks. we are hoping for the same tonight!

First Bath, big brother is a big helper!

Silly boy! Good thing Kurt used dry erase marker

I see definite similarities between jake and Gabi. here is a comparison. I see it mostly in the eyes and nose. Jake is the first pic, Gabi second. I think Jake is 2-3wks in this pic so he has filled out a little

Gabriella Kate

She is here! Gabriella Kate Detrick born 8/5/12 at 3:14pm 8.3lbs and 20.5 in My water broke at 3:30 am on the 5th but ended up having to be induced because I never went into labor by myself. I feel so blessed in life to have an amazing husband, wonderful family and 2 beautiful children.

An Expolosive birthday

Jake is 3! all he wanted for his third birthday was a volcano cake! he is obsessed with volcanoes. To make a long story short he can tell you about magma, lava, ash and steam, dormant volcanoes, extinct and active volcanoes. His favorite volcanoe is Mt. Vesuvius! Crazy... anyway, he wanted a chocolate volcano cake with a magma chamber, lava, ashe and steam. Mom and I delivered!

Jakes first look at his cake

here are a couple more pics from his bday!

Happy birthday sweet boy!

Moms Bday-- its all about the chocolate

For Mom's Birthday we made reservations at a chocolate cafe. There was an advertisment in the paper for a "chocolate tasting" and I thought what better way to celebrate. We had never been to this place so thought we would give it a try. We decided to have a light dinner of salad and make the chocolate tasting the main meal! We should NOT have eaten dinner! I figured at $15/person for the tasting we would get small slivers of things to try. I was wrong. we each had a choice of: flavored hot chocolate, piece of candy, piece of cake and fondue. However since there were 5 of us the owner brought out Fondue for 2 and 4 other deserts! So we had: 5 hot chocolates, 5 pieces of candy, 5 pieces of cake, chocolate fondue with fruit, banana split, an avalanche (icecream with brownie), waffle delight (2 belgian waffles with ice cream, bananas and stawberries with chocolate sauce and whip cream. We were is chocolate heaven! And I am proud to say we DEVOURED it! the hot chocolate decision:

the piece of candy and hot chocolate (1st course)

The cake:

Chocolate Avalanche

Wafflw Delight

Fondue and Banana Split

the Chocolate kiss

The Chocolate Overload!

OPeration Potty Training

I took an entire week off of work to hang out with the family and start getting some baby stuff/house stuff done. Then Kurt had an opportunity to go to a Firefighter conference (with work paying) so he left for Indianapolis for the week.

So I here I am, a week off work, just me and Jake, nothing to do. I thought I might as well give potty training a goood solid try! I want him to be trained by the time baby 2 comes and this was the perfect opportunity.

So far so good!

He spent 3 days naked or "maked" and now we have transitioned to big boy underwear.
He has loved being naked, what little boy doesnt? I have a lot of naked pics I am not going to post but will file away for later blackmailing!

We have not been out of the house/backyard for 5 days and I am starting to go a little crazy. We did take a 25 min walk around the neighborhood today and no accidents so we are going to try to run some errands tomorrow, maybe get some ice cream!

Jakes Potty Chart, gets a sticker every time he goes in the potty. this was day one, he has a LOT of stickers now!


The weather was perfect for the naked days! we played outside most of the day











Had to get creative with art projects, must keep child occupied!




Jake also got creative and decided the computer chair is now his perfect TV watching chair




Well-- I think he has it figured out!