Jacob 4.5

Jacob is 4 1/2 now.  He is still a mama's boy.  He likes to "cuddle."  He likes his blanket and his thumb.  He is very tender-hearted.  His eyes fill with tears at the drop of a hat.  He usually tries to be tough and hold his tears back.  He likes to help in the kitchen: 

This kid's weakness is sugar.  He will do about anything for it.  Since we spent this past semester studying the 10 Commandments at Cross Training, we joked that Jacob has broken almost all of them in order to get sugar.  Jacob had a mismatch/crazy hair day for preschool, but the funny thing is that he doesn't like to look funny, so we ended up having to put his hair back to normal before he would go to preschool: 

One thing that has really surprised me about Jacob recently is that he has started to take off on his reading.  I haven't been intentionally working on it, but I noticed him sounding out Bob books.  I thought maybe he had them memorized, so I bought the next set, and he was doing well with those too.  I think having a big sister in Kindergarten has been helping him learn along with her.  Hannah always says that she is "learning him" the things that she learned at school.  

Jacob finished his 2nd year of Thursday school in April.  He really loves Thursday school, and I love getting to run errands with just Aleah on Thursdays!  His teacher always writes a note about each child, and she commented on how attentive Jacob was to all of the Bible stories and said that he is very polite.

Grandma Teresa and the babies went with me to Thursday school graduation:

Jacob also went to our church preschool two days a week this year.  He really loved preschool and his teachers.  After the program was over, he couldn't stop crying because he was going to miss them so much.  Mrs. J said that he is very "bright, sweet, kind, and well behaved."  She said that she really thinks that he is ready for Kindergarten this fall, but he is not old enough.  That's ok because I'm not ready to give him up!  Next year I might just send him to Thursday school and work on preschool/kindergarten material at home since he's doing so well.  We need to keep encouraging him in his reading!

Silly song, the Tooty Ta:

Jacob with his buddy Weston:

He was proud of his medal and "diploma:"