December in Our Home

Isaac turned 2! We celebrated with a baseball party and Mexican food (duh).
Made some fun keepsake ornaments with the bean's profile & super easy Scrabble ornaments for anyone I could think of.
Ugly sweater Christmas party with the youth group. I'm usually so proud of my husband. *sigh*
Craig & Lindsay came to visit.
Flew to Virginia for Christmas with my family.
Took lots of goofy pictures of a goofy kid making goofy pictures. I do NOT know where he gets that.

September in our home

This month was busy and productive! The weather in Indiana couldn't make up its mind between summer and fall, so we danced in a little of each. It's the start of my favorite season of all and the end of a hectic summer.

Isaac kept us on our toes (pun intended)and ended up with his first(of many, I predict)cast. He literally woke up with a fractured ankle from getting his foot caught in his crib slats the night before. Who knew!? Of course, I graciously received the Mother of the Year award when I was convinced he was just making a big deal about his foot falling asleep. I mean, HOW can a child literally wake up with a broken bone when he was fine when you put him down? Well, if that doesn't give you a taste of my son's unpredictability, then I don't know what does.

He actually did surprisingly well on it, and was running around hours after getting the cast on. I put the leggings I made for his crawling stage last year to good use as a cover for his cast. It kept it clean(-er than it would've been without one) and was pretty cool, too! People in the stores and such kept telling me, "Did you know he's missing a shoe?" because they couldn't tell by the way he was walking that it was in a cast! Kids are adaptable, I tell ya.

The very same day Isaac got his cast on, he caught his first flu bug. I'm talking the diarrhea, vomiting, fever, no appetite, "my baby's dying and I don't know what to do" kind. I'm very thankful it was a weekend and Tim was home to help cuddle and clean up. Blech. Most pitiful sight I've ever laid eyes on, that little guy.

While we were at home snuggling a sick and limping little boy, Sarah ran away on a boat. We all hate her. I usually don't let her stand next to me from the months of March-September to avoid any racial assumptions people may have of the two of us. ;)

Once Isaac recovered from his "go big or go home!" weekend of glory and testing our parenting skills, we got back into our normal weekly routine of storytime at the public library. I decided to try moving him up to the 2-3's class and see how it went. Oh, my! He loved it! Structure, listening skills, motor development, themes...it was heaven for both of us. It's so great to have a quality library program for little ones. He learns the songs so quickly and sings them over and over at home or in the car. It's so fun to see him learn. Our refrigerator is filling up quickly with "art projects" that only a mother & daddy could really appreciate.


I mentioned the enormous amount of cupcakes that Sarah and I are making for the big wedding later in October for their brother. It's going to be a lovely fall wedding! We decided to showcase, er, practice some of our cupcake flavors for the couple's shower we hosted and let the bride and groom approve for themselves. Our red velvet and snickerdoodle cupcakes with dulce de leche frosting were a hit! *Sigh of relief.
Now, we have to master the piping and figure out how the heck to transport 200 cupcakes a few hours south. I may feel more pressure than the couple themselves for this big day. My two jobs: make, transport & display 200 cupcakes and get the ring bearer down the aisle. Dressed. Prayers appreciated.

We ended the month with some pretty fun "firsts" for all of us. Isaac got his first "real" haircut (i.e. that didn't involve Mom trying to sneak a few snips in the bath tub when he wasn't paying attention) and now looks five years older. Be still, my heart.

We also took the plunge(or leap of faith) and seriously, actually, this time for real, started the home buying process. If you know our area at all, it's the latter. We couldn't be happier about our choice and how the Lord worked out every single detail to make it happen. We haven't closed or anything yet, so I'll post pictures when it's official!

Happy Fall, Ya'll!

9 months

it wasn't my intention to let so much time slip by between posts. it never is. ah, well.

i always feel like i have to have a picture to start with in order to get my thoughts going. it's quite intimidating to me to sit at the computer and just...blog. i don't know where to start. and do you really want to hear random thoughts? or should i always have a "subject" to be writing about?

i've been trying to be really good about documenting isaac's milestones. problem is - i'm about 8 months late. better late than never, i suppose. we're well into month nine, one that i am discovering is full of independence, personality, and fun things like teething and first ear infections.

unfortunately, this is one of the very few good shots we got, since isaac was dealing with said ear infection at the time and was not happy that i kept removing the rocks from his mouth every ten seconds. too bad, kiddo. i'm not changing those diapers.

new every morning

it's funny how having a small child forces you to become a morning person. i say "forces" on purpose. i am not usually a morning person, except for Christmas mornings and such. little man usually rises in a pretty happy mood about 7am every day, usually singing to us or making bubbles through the monitor. tim and i usually wake up and giggle at him before we "rock, paper, scissors" to see who has to get him. usually, i lose. something about tim having trouble nursing...
it's scary how punctual the little booger can be about getting up in the morning. i really can't complain, since he's a very good sleeper and has been sleeping through the night successfully since about 8 weeks old. since i'm awakened by my tiny alarm clock and have to rise to the occasion of diaper duty, breakfast, and playtime all before 8am i try my best to do it joyfully and enjoy the mornings before i have to shove him out the door to catch a bus or argue over what i packed for lunch.

while we were in North Carolina on vacation with my family after my sister's wedding, i took advantage of those mornings. this particular morning, isaac rose before anyone else in the house had gotten up, including my dad who is usually an early riser himself. i claimed my 'wife of the year' award once again and let tim sleep in while i decided what to do to keep isaac occupied after his breakfast bowl was scraped clean.

um, hello. we are at the beach. i'm a big fan of the beach, but i love it mostly early in the morning and in the evenings. it's not as hot, the scenery is at its finest, and the only people out are the ones who respect the quiet time of the beach at that hour. i grabbed a beach towel and a burp rag (a regular accessory of mine at this point) and isaac and i headed to the beach by ourselves. in our pajamas. i can't even remember if i had shoes on.


it was probably my favorite memory of that vacation. i am reminded (by others and my own perspective) that all too soon i will wish i had these days back. the time isaac and i had out on the beach was priceless. i told him about the way the tide comes in and out in the mornings and evening. i showed him a fiddler crab who was brave enough to come out even in our presence. i let him feel the sand. we sat and watched the dogs play in the water down the beach and giggled about how they just plowed through the waves. we felt how warm the water was and stomped on the bubbles that it left on the sand.



i hope isaac realizes how much God was in that moment. out on the beach in the morning. just he and i. to watch him as he just took it all in. the familiar hush of the waves, the new sensations of the sand and waves. the time he and i praised God together, without saying a single thing. even though he didn't show excitement, he was peaceful in enjoying the beach God created for him to play on. what a special morning. i hope you can find peace, hope, and new beginnings in the mornings of your life. this specific morning in the outer banks with my son will be forever etched in my mind as the morning time stood still and i just enjoyed God.

a few random pictures

isaac's learning how to reach for everything in sight...with his hands and feet. he is a little monkey when he's on the floor and gets so excited when something is close enough to kick the heck out of.

this is my new sugar tin. behind it are the two remaining flour and tea canisters that survived my clumsy hands and didn't shatter all over the floor in a million, precious porcelain pieces. this set was from my bff a few Christmases back and they're from Williams Sonoma. they might be my favorite kitchen items, but only because i don't have a kitchenaid mixer. yet. :)if only the tea canister had been the victim, i might have a somewhat "small, but still makes sense" set of canisters.

these are the socks i tye-dyed for my class for field day. this year, each class had colors and we were decked out on field day in our green & yellow. i took pictures of tim helping me dye them in the sink, but failed to take pictures of the finished product. they were pretty cute, and the girls especially loved wearing them super tall like softball socks. we had one of the mothers make REALLY cute hair ties to match. yes, of course, i wore one.

this is a picture of isaac. just because. :)

isaac update

so i started back at work this week (more on that later). i only worked 3 1/2 days, and then i decided to call a sub and make it an early weekend. plus, isaac had a dr. appointment that i really wanted to be there for. he's four months tomorrow and is doing great! he is in the 50th percentile in both height and weight, an average joe i guess. i was surprised to see he weighed 15 lbs. exactly and is now 25 1/4 inches long. wow. has he really grown 6 inches since he was born? he flirted and laughed at Dr. R the whole time she was talking with me and even showed her how he can roll over. good boy *wink. he had a few shots, screamed profanities at everyone within earshot, snuggled his blanket and just glared at the nurses (and me) from his car seat until we left. the doctor said he was advanced in how much head control he has - nice job, bud. i don't know what that means other than he's not as wobbly as other kids. she said to go ahead and start him on stage 1 foods if we want, but i think since he's doing okay weight/health wise we may wait until the school year's over and he's closer to 6 months. since i had allergy/asthma problems as a kid and my sister is now fatally allergic to nuts, we're going to try and hold off as long as possible. we may try something light here and there just for kicks and giggles but deep inside something's already screaming at me saying, "no, if he starts eating solids that means he's growing up!" and we wouldn't want that.

i wanted to share this picture because it's probably the funniest thing i've ever seen. i guess it could be just my sense of humor or my growing love for my tiny tim, but every time the shirt gets stuck on his head, i just crack up. i mean, belly laughing, tears running down my face, by myself in a room and tim has no idea what i'm laughing at kind of funny. what made it better was the delight isaac had on his face for making me laugh so. he kept just turning his head back and forth like a curious little bird and was so proud of himself. tim ran to get the camera once he came in and found out what i was hee-hawing at. gosh, i hope he has my sense of humor. i see us both running around with our shirts stuck on our heads someday together and tim having NO idea what's so funny.