Ho Ho Ho

I know, I know, this picture melts your heart. It does ours as well. In his best "where's waldo" impression, Jacob blends in with the presents. Best present we've ever had!

Things are going great here in Phoenix. It's about 65 and sunny, and the Pugh family is starting to assemble for a Christmas season full of little boys, and lots of toys.

So far it has been just Jacob and his cousin Parker who are both awaiting their first Christmas. The other two cousins, Samuel and Colby, will be in town soon.


Here are Parker and Jacob with their Ya-Ya.
While Jacob and Parker await their first visit from Santa, we find ourselves looking back on a fantastic year. Thank you all for your love and support of our little boy in 2008. We couldn't imagine our lives without yall!

We are thinking of all those we love around the country. Stay warm and Merry Christmas!

OK, one more picture-present for ya.


See ya in '09!

8 Months

Here's a breakdown of our smiley 8 month old.

The Likes:

-Jacob still adores being in his birthday suit, especially if a bath is part of the plan. He even crawls to the bathroom and waits for us when he feels ready for a bath.

-He loves to stand, thrust his little hips, and wildly bounce in his crib.

-Jacob loves to put things into his mouth, the grosser the better. Things such as shoes, his own band-aid, noses, toes- I think you all get the point.

-Little boy loves gumming on the crusty part of bread and rice cakes- and he loves rubbing the gooey mess into the carpet. It not only tastes better but it's more fun all around that way (ha!).

-Where there's a camera, there's a smiling and posing Jacob. Honestly, there's no use in trying to get a profile of this guy because when he hears the camera turn on he's fast to seek it out and smile.

-Jacob loves making friends with both kids and adults. He loves to laugh at kids- who doesn't? And he loves to catch an adults eye and just watch them until they smile then smile or laugh with them.

The Dislikes:

-Our 'little' one is realizing that being told "no" typically isn't pleasant and is beginning to emphatically respond to hearing the word. (And on occassion this distracts him to the point of ceasing the undesired behavior.)

-In just the past week, Jacob has really begun to express his dislike for being put into his carseat or stroller as opposed to in our arms or free to play. Fortunately, he tends to chill-out after the initial transition...at least while in the stroller...

His true dislikes are really just the typical -whines about getting his face or noise wiped, wants his mom/dad in crowds, can't handle loud and abrupt feelings toward sporting event- kind of things. He's just really a typical mobile baby who loves to interact, mimic those around him, and today, sport dennis the menace hair.

He has two teeth which he tends to hide with his tongue but that he uses to mash up his avocado, apple, or sweet potato chunks and little bits of peeled grapes. He still accepts pureed foods, but not usually for a ful meal of foods.

I can't think of much else to include about this guy, but he is growing like a weed- and we think he's growing up more than out for the first time since he was about 2 weeks old! Needless to say, he's a cutie who brightens up each of our days adn we're so fortunate that he's in our lives!!!

Soo sleeeepy

The title of this post is not so much to indicate daniel and my usual state, but rather Jacob's new "hobby". But first, here's the back story:
Recently, I've been really working on keeping Jacob awake during his before bed nursing so that he's put into his crib awake and thus connects the dots on how to independently fall asleep. After a few minutes of crying and yelling at us from his crib, he tends to go silent. We give him about 5 solid minutes of silence before we check that he's actually sleeping, covered, etc. This is when we discover his newest hobby: sleeping in the sitting position. He either so badly wants to prove to us that he isn't tired or he just doesn't want to miss a thing (or he just underestimates his exhaustion level). It's absolutely hilarious because he jerks himself upright over and over again- similar to the head jerk we all experience(d) during those really boring classes.
And yes, I got it on camera. Because it was just so funny and I was home alone and needed to show Daniel. And now we need to share it!
Aside from the sleeping while sitting thing, Jacob is up to his usual trying-to-be-a-toddler antics:) We'll update more in just a few short days when he turns 8 months old!

Here are more beach shots as promised!





As you can see, all Jacob wants to do these days is walk around. He even wakes up in the middle of the night hoping to get led around the apt by his arms. For him crawling is okay, but nothing beats the upright movement.



We thought the cold sand would bother him, but he loved sticking his feet in it and eventually his hands, too.

Mmmmm. Here he has some remnants at the very corners of his mouth of the delicious san he devoured (-I couldn't stand seeing his mouth full of grit, so you only get the aftermath. sorry!)

And this picture was the evening after we got back home. You'd think after a day of walking at the beach, playing in the sand, and hanging out with his friend Tavin, Jacob would want to take it easy. No way! Jacob wanted to cruise around on all furniture and objects at his eye level- so he did. And we just think this shirt (for 12-18 month olds- big baby!) is too "Berkeley" for words.

Beach Bound

We made an afternoon trip to the coast today and dipped our toes in Ocean Beach. After just a 30 minute jaunt through San Francisco, we arrived at our destination and Jacob was thrilled to see something other than the apartment and nearby parks.

Despite the frigid temperature, Jacob actually seemed to enjoy getting his feet wet and getting to 'walk' around with the sand between his toes. He also seemed to love the feeling of sand in his hands and taste of sand in his mouth. When I caught the little guy shoveling sand into his mouth, he wasn't upset by the taste or texture of sand, only the interruption I caused by attempting to remove the particles from his mouth and face.

These are our wonderful neighbors and friends, Sarah and Tavin, who helped make the beach outing a good time. Both little guys were troopers and some cute pictures were taken by many.

There are some more pictures to add, but the blog is being difficult and won't add them at the moment. I'll attempt again soon so stay tuned.

"Who needs sleep, well you're never gonna get it..."

Here we are with a 7 1/2 month old who puts newborn babies to shame for wakefulnes during the night. No kidding at all. For the past two nights, Jacob has woken not just every 1 1/2 hours, but there's also a 2-hour block in the middle of the night where he just wakes up to stand, jump, kick, and babble in his crib. It'd be cute if it were during the day....but it isn't.

Any suggestions? Truly, we really could all use more than 1 1/2 hours of sleep at a time! (And then he won't nap because he's too happy and wants to touch, taste, pull himself up on everything!)

We're of the belief that because he's pulling himself up with no trouble and picking up speed with his crawling, that the boy just can't sleep due to excitement about mobility. That and intense teething (which we're pretty sure is a huge culprit in the not sleeping issue). He's working on getting his second tooth. That's right, tooth #2 because his first one cut through during this past week! (The front bottom two) We often ask ourselves where our baby has gone cause this boy is some kind of little kid now. He's babbling all the time mainly with the 'baba', 'mama', ocassionally a 'dada' sound, and responds with vocal glee (and sounds similar) to "yay" and "hi".

Just wanted to post the most recent developments...but we feel like at his current rate of growing up, he'll probably be conversing with us next week while riding his bicycle. Or maybe sleeping every once and awhile. That'd be nice......

For now, enjoy pictures of Jacob with his grandma (and corn cob) and grandpa along with an updated video of his crawling.

Crawling bebe!

So, tonight Jacob made his way across the floor on his hands and knees. We're gonna call it crawling though he looked like a wiggly worm. As he gets the hang of it, I'm curious to see what his crawl progresses to....but needless to say, things are certainly about to change around here with a crawling babe! Here's some footage of his worn-out efforts to get to the technology at hand: the laptop.