I became hooked on a few of these over the last few months. I printed my first one to decorate my office with at Christmas. This Valentine's Day one will work perfect in the frame I already have saved at school :)

The blog is, http://craftily-ever-after.blogspot.com/ and her ideas are cute and explained in a way that it seems possible to recreate! Even more fun was that when I shared it on Facebook with a few friends, was to learn that they follow the blog too!

Stay home days...

It seems we've had quite a few recently we our two snowdays just before a three-day weekend. I love the lazy feel they have and how I was able to indulge in taking a nap the last two days. I love that Jakob gets to play in his room and read books. I love the time to not have to do anything... Even better is the snow in the forecast for later this week - this time of year is always quite unpredictable!

Apparently, without declaring such, I took the entire year and then some off from blogging. 2010 was completely without a single blog entry for the Adventures of Jakob. That could be quite misleading... maybe there were no adventures to report or to be had. Hardly. This is Jakob we live with ;0)



Jakob is now half way through his year of first grade! We discuss with great anticipation the events coming up in second grade. He's excited about receiving his first communion next year. We haven't really discussed reconciliation... I just might leave that one to his teacher and then randomly suggest little moments that might be great for his first confession - his ability to sass, not follow directions, leave his toys strewn about... I'm just kidding!



2010 was full of great adventures! We celebrated Grandma completing her last chemotherapy session for breast cancer diagnosed at Christmas of 2009. Jim was selected as Teacher of the Year for Frontier Middle School in Wentzville. I began a new job as an assistant principal intern at Duello Elementary School, which I love. We made two visits to Florida visiting with Grandma Jane and Tractor Bob and visit to New Mexico to celebrate Great-Grandma Schneider's 80th Birthday party. Jakob AND Great Grandma decided to each have pneumonia that weekend! I am happy to report that both followed their doctors directions and are as good as new! Jakob also broke his arm... the day before Halloween playing in a bounce house. As he tells the story, a fourth grader jumped on his arm. He broke both is radius and his ulna. His arm is also in great shape now and may have made for the biggest adventure of 2010!



As we approach the second half of January, we are excited to welcome February - one month closer to longer days and warmer sunshine!

5

Five.

Jakob is five years old today.

What a blessing he is and

how we love him so!

I've been reading more and more about how crummy high fructose corn syrup is. While I can't recall every nit-picky detail, I do recall it affects our liver differently than regular sugar and contributes more rapidly to a thicker midline... big surprise! Well I received this information today from my fellow health-savvy sister-in-law, who received it from a nutritionist in our community. This is what she had to share:

"I wanted to share some true and disturbing information with you. I'm also very disappointed, that as a clinical nutritionist, I have not discovered this information sooner. Less than two weeks ago, I was invited to have dinner with 25 doctors in the st. louis area that practice integrative medicine, and my jaw was on the floor the entire evening. What is happening in medicine and agriculture in america is SICK SICK SICK, and that is why we are so sick. Several of the doctors informed me that the way high fructose corn syrup is made is by injecting mercury into the corn plant. Apparantly this was mainstream and on the news just about 3 weeks ago. So, I've been doing some research and found it to be so true it's sick. They found that one in three products containing HFCS has mercury. Please share this with your friends and family.

The list of products that I'm including came right off of: www.webmd.comhere's the list: Quaker Oatmeal to Go Bars, Jack Daniel's BBQ Sauce3, Hershey's chocolate syrup, Kraft original BBQ sauce, Nutri-Grain strawberry cereal bars, Manwich Gold Sloppy Joe, Market pantry grape jelly, Smucker's strawberry jelly, Pop-Tarts frosted blueberry, Hunt's tomato ketchup, Wish-Bone western sweet & smooth dressing, coca-cola, yoplait strawberry yogurt, minute maid berry punch, yoo-hoo chocolate drink, nesquik chocolate milk, kemps fat free chocolate milk. Mercury exposure can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system."

Yikes! Well at least nothing I planned to eat for dinner is on this list.

Roller skating... we went and survived! As we left for the party today, Jim said "Who has a roller skating party for four year olds? I told him *S* was five now... and as I later found out even owns his own skates! After a few spills, Jakob was ready to throw the towel in, but I already strapped on my $3.50 rental pair and wasn't going to let him feel defeated that fast. In a manner so unlike me, I pulled his gripping hands away from the wall and put him on the rink far enough from the wall that he had no choice. By the end of the 2-1/2 hours the daredevil even tried to jump with his skates on. I'm not sure even a toothpick would have fit between the wheels and the floor, but nonetheless, I witnessed both skates coming off the ground and landing without injury. I was so proud of him! As you can see, we really enjoyed ourselves!

A Prairie Dog family we will be... Much to our complete and utter surprise, Jakob was accepted into the Immaculate Conception School family! The letter was beautiful and started out,

"After much thought, prayer, and discernment, we are happy to inform you that your child has been accepted in to the kindergarten program at Immaculate Conception Catholic School."

Later it states, "We hope that you will read this letter with a sense of thanksgiving to God and perhaps a sigh of relief. As you may understand, others will be receiving a letter that will cause disappointment and hurt. We hope that your sense of gratitude to God will also turn into a prayer of petition for those families whose children we were not able to accept into the program for the upcoming school year."

This is the part is why I keep saying, "I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED!" 136 families applied for 90 positions. Families with siblings took the first 55 positions. Jakob is one of only 35 children without a sibling already in attendance that will be going, and 46 families were turned away. This is a place that historically children are on the waiting list from birth... Jakob's time on the waiting list has been so brief, it would be obscene to actually say it outloud.

So happy, so excited, thrilled to be the mom of an aspiring Prairie Dog!