3 Weeks in Calgary!

Hello Everyone,

All is still going well here in the Turpin household!

Jakob is making himself more and more at home each day. Jakob has also really enjoyed a very social week meeting our friends /co-workers here in Calgary. We had Samantha O'Regan over with her 3 kids Lola (4 1/2), Oscar (3), and Clive (5 mths) the other day. They enjoyed Jakob, but were even more obsessed with the dogs (where they sleep, bathe, and poop) as they don't have pets. Samantha and I are hoping to get together weekly with other moms and kids. We also enjoyed dinner at Lance and Elizabeth's house. Most importantly, Jakob got to meet our Super Beagle Nanny, Catherine, who has watched the dogs and the house through the entire time we were in Russia (all 3 trips). She is a saint! She loved Jakob and even said she wants to take him home (I had to get that in writing as when there are days when he is testing me to the max, I'm going to be calling her and reminding her of this)!

I bought Jakob a swimsuit and sandals this week as Jakob and I will start a swim class on Friday. It was so cute to see him in the outfit...and see how amazed he was to have shoes on where he could see his toes! He just kept walking, pointing, and laughing at being able to see his toes as he had never had shoes like these!

I had a bit of a rough week later in the week as I got food poisoning this past Friday morning. I lost every possible fluid in my body over a short period and luckily, Wayne was able to take the morning off to be with Jakob as if I was not in the bathroom, I was in bed resting. I weighed myself after the whole 24 hour episode and I weigh 8 pounds less than when we got Jakob! I think 1/2 may have been from the episode and the other 1/2 just burning off energy from chasing him around (or I gave the weight to him)! Luckily, I'm back on my feet for the most part...food still does not appeal to me.

We also took Jakob to Nakiska today (ski resort about an hour away). We had lunch with Wayne and then Jakob and I played in the snow while Wayne skied and we later met him at home. Jakob was fascinated with the people skiing and especially enjoys the ski poles. He had one of Wayne's and was pretending to shovel snow (as he had seen Wayne do that morning because we had a big dump of snow overnight). When we finally took it off him so Wayne could ski, he went screaming and crying...pretty much got the attention over everyone there. We can't wait to get him on skis next ski season when he is a bit stronger (and 3).

We have had a major breakthrough with food lately in that before, Jakob would take anything and everything you would give him. Now, he is actually making choices. For example, he will go to the fridge and keep pointing, so you open it up and you say, "do you want cheese?" and he will say, "no"..."do you want yogurt?" and he will say, "dah" (still not quite saying yes yet). So basically, you stand there with the fridge open until you say something that he finds appetizing at the moment. Jakob will also actually stop eating when he is full or does not really like something...also a major breakthrough!

He also just started saying 2 word phrases in English! Before, he would just say "bye bye" or "mama" but now he says, "bye bye, mama!" He is learning more and more words each day and is definitely understanding virtually every word we say in English. We are using almost no Russian anymore with him, so he is really learning fast.

Jakob also has a good memory (as most kids this age do)...for example, we started singing the ABC's to him the other day in the living room and he immediately gets up, goes into the kitchen, and pushes the button on his Leap Frog fridge toy that sings the ABC's! He tries to do them along with the song, but is not quite there yet.

We hope everyone is doing well and we love getting the comments and emails!

Still counting the days until Nana Pam comes to visit....only 5 more days!

VIDEO - Jakob playing with snow in the house