Rock on!

I know you've all been anxiously awaiting news of our latest arrival. The day has come! Our family is (for now) complete! Yes, I finally finished reupholstering my rocking chair!

I'll keep it short, but I'm thrilled to have it done--I have a place to sit and snuggle Zeke (and his brothers who climb on me whenever I sit down); the mess of various chair parts is out of Zeke's bedroom; the burden of a massive project that's been weighing me down for months is gone. Bruce is glad too, because he won't have to watch the kids any more for lengthy reupholstering sessions.

Thanks to Deanne for all her many hours spent helping me (especially as we undid and redid several sections). Thanks to my friend Marcina and her electric staple gun. Thanks especially to Mom, to Grandma and Grandpa Payne who had the chair before me, and to Great-Grandma Oldroyd who had the chair even before them.

Lonely snow fever

I don't remember much about last week--it's all a blur of stapling and unstapling as Deanne and I worked on reupholstering Grandma's old rocking chair. And as Bruce helped me recover the part we had to redo. We're getting close to done on that project--I hope.

Yesterday morning, Bruce left really early for Washington DC. I told myself if I could survive church and choir practice with the kids, the rest of the week would be easier. (I was wrong.) Church was hard but good, thanks to the help of some friends. We had less than half of our Christmastime choir attend our first practice after church. Hopefully a few more will come next week. At least the choir hosts made soup for everyone, and sent me home with some since Bruce is gone.

Today (I hope) was the hardedst part of Bruce's absence. Riley was up a few times in the night, and stayed up beginning about 5:45. By 6:30 he was cranky. By 8 he was a basketcase. He's a little sick, and seems to have a bit of a fever. The worst of it is that he doesn't even want me to hold and comfort him, which makes me feel helpless. He's just hysterically grumpy. A short nap and Tylenol helped, and he even came out to play in the snow for awhile. Mostly he was cheerful only if there was a movie on or if I was reading to him. Then he fell asleep in less than two minutes tonight. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow.

Zeke and Sammy are trying to cope with very little attention, and Sammy has been very helpful (except for when he's been a stubborn 4-year-old). I'm trying to keep Zeke from getting Riley's bug. Oh, and we got about 10 inches of snow today (not stopping until 3 or 4). Sammy was so happy when we left Riley watching a movie to go outside and shovel. I wasn't happy as this was my first time shoveling a REAL snowfall without Bruce's help. (Not counting shoveling a path up our street last week so I could get the van back to our house.) I was getting tired and was not quite halfway through when our kind next-door neighbor saw me and brought out her snowblower and 11-year old son. The three of us finished very quickly. I was so grateful. Luckily I made bread this morning and so we gave them a loaf.

That left me with time and energy to play in the snow with Sammy and Riley while Zeke obliged by napping inside. We needed the boost and had a lot of fun together. We've got moutains of snow everywhere thanks to the plows and all the shoveling--and I was even sinking in almost up to my waist in places. The snowflakes were huge today and the sun was shining just right, so Sammy and I got a close up look at snowflakes--the detail is incredible and it was sweet to see his excitement over their miniature perfection.

After hot chocolate, Riley got cranky again but we managed until bedtime. We're praying he feels better tomorrow so we can play with Tracen and Tyler. Then Wednesday Sammy will have preschool and Bruce will be home at night. After a day of quarantine and being snow-bound with no outside contact, we are excited for a bit of social activity! Hooray for tomorrow! Hooray for good health! Hooray for early bedtimes!

Blurt out the budget

We just got back from a little party at the "other" Jacobs (Dan & Deanne's) home, where Leah & Joel as well as cousin Scott and new wife Naomi and kids were also assembled. Aside from the half-hour hunt for Sammy's lost glasses (we found them), it was a lot of fun. The eight boys (all 4 and under) seemed to have a good time together, with not more than the usual violence and mayhem. Of course, Zeke and Tate didn't really add too much to the chaos, except for the occasional call for food. The adults had a good time talking and playing "Blurt" -- a game of definitions, which Dan won.


Yesterday I got to take Sammy & Riley to a "Super Reader" party with Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat. It was at the State Fairpark in Salt Lake City and was a lot more fun than I had expected. As soon as we got there I hustled the boys upstairs so we could get near the front of the line to take pictures with C.G. and TMITYH. In less than 5 minutes it was our turn to take pictures with these life-size celebrities of cartoon fame. Unfortunately, both Sammy and Riley were struck with an acute case of paralysis when our moment came, and they wouldn't take another step closer. So alas, I could only take their pictures with somebody else's kids (just to prove we were there). But we still got to see a cool magic show, which both boys loved and (get this) sat still through. We also saw some pretty cool jugglers, got to pose as astronauts, made paper helicopters and kaleidoscopes and lots of other fun stuff. After almost three hours, I practically had to drag them away. By this time Sammy had decided that he wanted another shot at C.G. and TMITYH but unfortunately they line for pictures with them had grown 10 times longer.


It was a good week for me at work because, much to my surprise and excitement, we beat our fundraising goal for CFC! It being my first year, and because we'd intentionally set the goal really high ($2,450,000), I didn't think we'd actually do it, especially since almost every federal agency had reported when the week began. But a few of them came in a lot higher than they'd said they would, so I was ecstatic to find out we'd done it.

Christy's spent many hours this week reupholstering the rocking chair she inherited from her grandma. It's her first time doing something like that, so it's caused her some grief along the way, but it's getting there. She might even get to use it before Zeke's done nursing for good...

Let's see, Christy also found out today that she has more budget than she thought for choir (she'd actually been told earlier that she had no budget), so she's pretty excited to get choir going again this year and has some great arrangements in store for us to sing.

I guess that's it for now. Next week at this time I'll be in Washington D.C. for the CFC Million Dollar Roundtable conference. Christy says I'm going just so I can get three interruption-free nights of sleep, and while I don't deny I'm looking forward to that part, that's not why I'm going! I'll take the camera along and see if I can get some interesting photos to post next week.

So long for now.

Snowy Pink Smiles

We've gotten through our first month with three children and we think we may survive the next few years!

Despite a lack of sleep and occasional grumpy outbursts, we're kind of keeping up with all three of our busy boys. Sammy and Riley still love Zeke and smother him with affection as often as possible. They had a great time this week sleeping over at Tracen and Tyler's house--our big New Year's Eve party. Their dinner that night consisted mostly of chips, then they went to bed and got to stay up talking and giggling. Finally, there was the excitement of waking up at an insanely early hour and realizing they were still with their cousins. Party couldn't have been better for the kids. (Bruce and I foolishly stayed up until midnight watching "Transformers" and regretted it all the next day.)

Zeke has rewarded us with a smile or two this week, and has begun to open his eyes and notice things. Today Uncle Dan got the biggest grin we've seen so far. And speaking of Zeke, the name is now completely official. Bruce blessed him in Sacrament Meeting today and it was really nice. (A ward member said Bruce passed the test because he took the baby "to give HIM a name and a blessing," not to give IT a name and a blessing.) Leah kindly wrote down everything for us. The things that stand out most to me were blessings of a long life; a strong body and mind and intellect, as well as humility; worthiness to serve a mission and joy in missionary work; being a peacemaker.

Bruce has enjoyed almost daily workouts of shoveling snow--this weekend's batch was particularly wet and heavy. We might have to invest in a better snowshovel.... At least he has something to use up his excess energy now that college football season is over.

I'm just happy to have Christmas decorations put away and to have Sammy back in preschool. (He's much happier with a little outside social activity now and then.) Now that I'm pretty much recovered from Zeke's birth, however, it's hard to get into the routine of cleaning, taking care of kids, and making dinner. I think I went at least three weeks without making a single meal. But to my credit, I've made several complete dinners this week. Boy, what an exciting and challenging life I lead, eh?

Life is great in a household of FOUR boys and me. I wear a lot of pink (subconscious habit, I think), and generally just enjoy being everyone's favorite. That must have something to do with all the cookies I bake.

Have a great week!

Jacobs Family Top 10 for 2007

And just like that, another Christmas has come and gone. It was a good one, though, thanks to an abundance of family, friends, food, and snow. (It's been a while since it actually snowed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, at least for our family. In Washington we were lucky if we saw snow once or twice all winter.) We wrote all about it on Wednesday. By Thursday all the family had gone home and we breathed a sigh -- not so much of relief, but of sadness to see it end.

On Friday evening we drove down to Lehi for a get-together with a bunch of my old roommates and friends from college. It was fun to hang out and reminisce about the good times at BYU and see how well they're all doing now. A lot of them live down in Utah Valley but there were several families who were in town from out of state and we hadn't seen many of them since graduating. We didn't bring our camera but hopefully they'll email us some of the pictures that were taken.

Yesterday was pretty boring; we stayed home and cleaned the place up. But it's always nice to get the house back into order. One thing that has helped is that Christy's dad, brothers and I put together three sets of shelves for our food storage room downstairs, so we were able to get a lot of food out of our upstairs pantry.

And now, with 2007 just hours away from becoming history -- it's time to bring you.... (drumroll) the Top 10 Jacobs Family Moments for 2007! (Hey, where's everybody going? This is way more exciting than our pantry clean-out!)

10. Riley's non-emergencies. Our 2-year-old took us to the emergency room twice this year, both times at night after the Insta-care Clinic had closed (of course). The first time he dislocated his elbow, which the doctor fixed in two second flat after we waited around for an hour. The next time he attempted to O.D. on flouride toothpaste. It turned out he hadn't had near enough to cause permanent harm, but he complained of a tummy-ache and he got all the way to the parking lot before mom and dad, after calling Poison Control, determined he was fine (especially since he was singing in the parking lot by that time).

9. The family fights off vicious attack by man-eating rattlesnake at Kodachrome Basin State Park in southern Utah. Okay okay, so it was a baby rattlesnake that slithered under our picnic table but it still caused quite a stir!

8. Christy bakes an amazing red chile chocolate cake for her birthday. If you think a cake shouldn't be in the top 10, much less at number eight, then you obviously didn't have a bite of this cake!

7. Bruce fulfills a long-time ambition by making a movie. Yeah, it was our campaign video and it was just 7 minutes long, but it was fun to write, produce and help direct it. You can learn about being a 2-Minute CFC Hero by watching the movie at www.intermountaincfc.org (Dan, Christy and I have some cameos)

6. Mom and Dad Jacobs leave for the mission in Spain. So this wasn't really our moment, per se, but attending their farewell was one of the spiritual highs of the year, and getting to read about their experiences and see the amazing pictures they send back has been great. Thanks for the great example, Mom and Dad.

5. Riley gets potty-trained. Need we say more?

4. Sammy starts pre-school. This one was a great moment for him of course, but also great for Mom, who gets a 2.5 hour sanity check three times a week.

3. Family comes for Christmas. We got to spend Christmas and several days before and after with Christy's whole family. Having lived in Washington for six years, we seldom got to spend Christmas with family. Now we've had that blessing for two years in a row, with my family last year and Christy's this year. And we all got to hang out with Dan & Deanne and Leah & Joel for Christmas Eve this year. (See previous post).

2. Christy's Choir Christmas Program. Several months of preparation and hard work went into this one. Part of that work was convincing the bishop to allow the choir to run the program at all! During the performance the choir sang better than it ever had, and the music and message were terrific. I was really proud of Christy and really touched by the whole program. Some of you got to be there; for those who didn't, we wish you could have.

1. The arrival of Ezekiel (Zeke) Leo Jacobs on December 5th. Well, you knew this would be #1 by far. For all the details, see our letter from the day after. We'll get pictures up on this site soon.


We wish you all a happy 2008!

Christmas Letter 2007

Seasons Greetings! The year 2007 is nearly behind us, and the Jacobs family is happier, healthier, smarter and more talented than ever. Perhaps not as happy, healthy, smart or talented as your family, judging by the epistle in your homemade Christmas card that arrived on December 1^st… but at least we aim for full disclosure! SO, now that we have the Christmas letter pleasantries behind us, let’s get down to business here.

This year we’re pulling out all the stops (and clichés) to share something really intimate with you. Not as intimate, perhaps, as our near-naked newborn son tucked in a Christmas stocking (see card) but almost as good. Yes, we’ve decided to give you a front-row seat to the Jacobs family dinnertime ritual, with the play-by-play called by ESPN’s Dick Vitale. Take it away, Dickie.

Dick: Ba-boom, baby! I’m sitting tableside with the Jacobs tonight and it looks like Mom has cooked up another delicious and nutritious dinner! How does she do it!? Didn’t this beautiful woman give birth to her third, yes third, son just one week ago? And here come the oldest two now. Dad is shepherding them into the bathroom to wash their hands. Oh! They just executed a textbook scatter move to avoid hand-washing. But it looks like Dad’s got ’em cornered. I’m telling you, this man has the size and weight advantage and he’s not afraid to use it, baby! One under each arm—look at the determination on his face!

OK, hands are washed and they’re sitting down for the meal. Here comes the blessing… and Sammy jumps off his chair! He’s off to the races… but no! Brilliantly corralled by Mom, and I’ll tell you what, she had the foresight to strap Riley into his booster chair first to prevent another scatter play. This woman’s seen it all, folks. Oops, boys are fighting over who gets to say the blessing again. Let’s see how Mom & Dad handle this one. Yes, Sammy admits he said it at lunchtime, and he’s, he’s… calming down. Whew! This 4-and-a-half-year-old is really showing signs of maturity lately… maybe it’s the preschool class. He wows his teacher every day with his reading and phonics skills!

Dinner is served. Dad dishes up Sammy’s chicken casserole while Mom helps Riley. And Sammy’s off his chair again! There he goes! He’s off to the potty races folks. Boy, you get that body sitting still for five seconds and look what happens. Now Sammy’s back. He goes for the rolls---ooh! Rejected by Mom! No bread until you’ve tasted your casserole, young man! Meanwhile Riley uses the distraction to tip his chair backward—denied by Mom again! But good try. This is one almost 3-year-old whose competitive fire is only matched by his vocabulary! Was that an adverb he just threw out there like a champ? Maybe, but what do I know, I’m a sports broadcaster…

And now timeout is called by baby Ezekiel (Zeke, baby!) who just pulled a hat trick by interrupting dinner for the third straight night. Kid’s got moxie, I tell you! And check the stats on this little guy: 7 lbs 13 oz, 21-inch vertical, with a head like a beach ball! Good thing he was born a week early! OK, Mom plugs him with a binkie and we’re back into action! Sammy and Riley still refuse to try the casserole… uh-oh baby, this one could go the distance! Mom and Dad are busting out all the moves: bribery, super-heroes and villains, cajoling, begging, pleading... Did Dad just threaten a college tuition blackout? Yes! Will it work…? No! Would you look at the recalcitrance on those angelic faces! The sheer defiance! Their lips are sealed tighter than Daddy’s wallet, and they COULD—GO—ALL—THE—WAY until bedtime!

But no! Christy pulls out the last-resort: dessert! We’re headed to overtime with double-chocolate-chip cookies! (Would you believe Bruce made them?) She and Dad are eating them in front of the kids… The boys are eyeballing the treats, now looking back at dinner. I don’t know, I think their will is crumbling… and they’re eating! Whoa! And just like that, dinner is devoured in unbelievable time and it’s all over but the face wiping. Another thriller! This has been Dick Vitale, and I’m out!

Thank you, Dick. And thank you, bewildered reader, for your love and friendship, and for braving yet another year of the Jacobs Family Christmas Letter. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful, prosperous, and of course, Happy New Year!

Marshmallow Battle Royale

Our week has been go-go-go, and the weekend was even busier, but now that Christmas is in the rear-view mirror I thought we should catch you up on what’s been happening. Christy’s mom, Luana, flew in on Saturday the 15^th, which allowed me to go back to work and focus on final Christmas shopping (Christy’s shopping had been wrapped up for weeks). It’s been a slower pace at work lately, so it leaves me with flexibility in getting other things done as well. However, I’m happy to say that the CFC campaign has raised more than we did last year ($2.3 million), although we might come up a little shy of our goal ($2,450,000). Still, I don’t feel too bad about that because I pushed for us to set a very ambitious goal and we won’t be too far short of it I believe. That’s all I will bore you with regarding work.

On Thursday Dec. 20^th we had quite a snowstorm here. It started about 3:30 p.m. and by the time I got home around 5 p.m. we already had about 4-5 inches. Sammy had a preschool Christmas performance that night, which Christy and Luana attended but unfortunately I had to attend traffic school because I’d been cited for making an improper left-hand turn in Ogden (I didn’t turn into the closest lane). It’s just a good thing that Ogden doesn’t have any crime or safety issues so its police force can spend so much time at the end of each month issuing tickets to meet their “performance standard” a.k.a. quota. By the way, the officer teaching traffic school openly admitted there is a quota and that most of the policemen hate it. Luckily it had stopped snowing while I was there so everyone made it home that night without incident.

Christy’s brother John flew into town on Friday, and the rest of her family came the next day. I picked him up at the airport after having dinner with Uncle Bill, Scott and their family at Rodizio’s Grill in Salt Lake – Uncle Bill’s treat – since Scott was getting married the next day. On Saturday afternoon I drove down to the 5-Star Ranch south of Provo with Dan and Deanne to see the wedding, which was a lot of fun. Scott’s new wife is a spunky woman, so I see this marriage working out pretty well. Christy had her family Christmas party that evening, so she couldn’t make it – but Dan and Deanne dropped me off at their party in SLC on the way home. I came just in time for our family’s part in the program – we sang a Christmas song Luana wrote called “Once Upon a Silent Night.” I say “we” sang the song but in actuality it was Sammy, who stood on a chair, grabbed the microphone and belted it, word-for-word and with perfect pitch, at the top of his voice. There is no such thing as stage fright for that boy.

By the time we left I was on pins and needles because BYU was in the middle of their Las Vegas Bowl game vs. UCLA. We had set up the VCR to record it, and after getting home and making sure the game was over, we rewound the tape and started watching. Dan had listened to most of it on the radio but he stopped listening with about 1 minute left, so even he didn’t know the outcome. As most of you know, BYU blocked a 28-yard field goal with 3 seconds left in the game to preserve a 17-16 victory. They also ensured that yet another year of my life was taken from me thanks to another gut-wrenching, hand-wringing, nail-biting, down-to-the-last-second game.

Sunday brought our ward choir's Christmas program in Sacrament meeting. Christy is our ward choir director and, despite her self-critique, did a wonderful job in preparing the choir. The music was terrific and the choir sang better during the performance than it ever had in practice. For me it was a spiritual highlight of the year, although admittedly some of that was probably due to the fact that we didn't have to wrestle with two children throughout the meeting. Music is often my favorite part of worship.

Fast-forward to Christmas Eve. We all headed over to Dan & Deanne’s house, during yet another snowstorm, at about 5 p.m. and enjoyed a delicious meal of New Mexico tamales, posole (Deanne did a terrific job on that one!) and afterwards, Ris Krem – and yes, that should be capitalized along with all proper nouns. We exchanged a few gifts for the boys, but far and away the most entertaining thing were Deanne’s gifts: 8 homemade mini-marshmallow blow-guns made of PVC pipe. For the next 20 minutes chaos reigned supreme as marshmallow pellets whizzed through the air and many a casualty was incurred, thanks mostly to the aiming prowess of Tracen and his surprisingly powerful lungs. I guess all that pretend webbing and lasering has paid off for him. Dan actually got a marshmallow going with enough velocity that it stuck permanently to the wall… and rumor has it that more than one of the little white bullets were extricated some our underclothing that evening. Oh, but I nearly forgot to mention that before “Mini Iwo Jima” we had a nice Christmas program in which we re-enacted the Savior’s birth with a nice Christmas program in which the boys fought over which costume they got to wear. Sammy got to be the angel but was chagrined when we had to reprimand him for pulling a gun on the shepherds. He defended the action by claiming it was “a gun that shoots stars.” Well, we tried.

Christmas Day was great, of course. Riley got a mini-kitchen, which thrilled him to no end. Sammy received a kid’s digital camera and by the end of the day he’d snapped more pictures than I have in my lifetime and nearly drained all the battery power. But I’m sure there are some Pulitzer-prize winning photographs of our carpet, the TV and Grandma’s chin in there. Santa brought me a carry-on suitcase and Christy got me a Shop Vac – both things that I’d wanted. Christy received Crème Brule bowls, perfume and the Dan-in-Real-Life movie soundtrack on CD. And of course there was tons of chocolate, stollen toast and other goodies. That evening we dined on a delicious ham, fresh orange rolls and topped it off with carrot pudding and coconut cream pie for dessert. We also had some fun playing outside in the snow.

So you see, it's been a great week -- made even better of course by having Christy's family here to share it with us. There is nothing like being with family for the holidays. I wish we could have seen more of you, but I'm sure we'll have that chance in Christmases yet to come.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!