Author: Heather Walter

Visit from "Aunt" Chel

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My college roommate, Michele, has been with us for about the last 5 days.  We’ve had an awesome time together!  She got to meet Isaac for the first time.  (She also spent a great deal of time petting on Jackson, who was very smitten with her).


Chel spent lots of time playing with Isaac.  I am so glad she got to meet him!  I am so used to being Isaac’s only company during the day that it was a little challenging for me to realize that sometimes someone else can play with him or hold him, too.  I’m just used to being the one he relies on for everything most of the time.  It was good to have someone else entertain him a little:



After all, I’m not always a good influence:



Sunday, we all went to Six Flags.  It was the scene of this year’s National Instruments company picnic.  We had a great time!  Since there were 3 of us, we rotated who rode the coasters and who stayed with Isaac.  It worked out really well.  Isaac got to meet lots of Todd’s coworkers, and we got to see their little ones.  Michele was really a champ and seemed to have a lot of fun just holding Isaac and playing with him.



On the way home, we stopped at Freetail for some microbrews and a good dinner.  We joined our friends the Voosens.  Mo had fun keeping Isaac entertained while her little girl played with some of the “big kids.”


Isaac and Henry

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While I was typing about our Baby Mamas group, I should have included this cute picture of Isaac and his buddy, Henry.  Henry is about 2 weeks older than Isaac.  He’s in the 95th percentile, however, so he’s much bigger than Isaac is.

The boys are laying on Isaac’s favorite play mat.  It’s a Snoopy-themed quilt that Todd’s mom, Judy, made for Isaac.  It is just the right size for us when we get together with all of the boys.

Ergo Baby

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I apologize for the lack of posts over the last week or two.  We’ve been quite busy!  Last Wednesday, of course, our Baby Mamas group met.  Several people have asked me what we do when our group meets.  Basically, we chat, eat, nurse our baby boys, chat, watch the boys play, and chat.  Last week, we met at our house so we could show off the new floors!  Isaac wore himself out with his hosting duties:

Todd and I have been using a Baby Bjorn to carry Isaac around for extended periods of time.  This has been an awesome thing for us!  The weight limit on it, however, is 25 pounds.  It carries the weight of the baby across your shoulders.  This works fine for Todd, but as Isaac’s getting heavier, it’s much harder for me.  I borrowed an Ergo Baby Carrier from my friend Amanda.  I LOVE IT!

Last week, the other mommies decided to try it out, too.  Allison held Anderson:

Then Candy carried Henry:

The boys were all comfy and we had fun “playing.”  I used the Ergo this past weekend to carry Isaac around Six Flags for the NI company picnic on Sunday.  I have decided I am going to go buy my own carrier now.

Letter from the Prez

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My friend and fellow Baby Mama, Stephanie, told us several months ago that mail to the White House always gets a response.  She sent a birth announcement for her son Cash and got a nifty little card back.   I thought this was too good to be true, so I sent mailed Isaac’s birth announcement to President Obama back in August.  Today, we got a note back!  Regardless of your opinion of the president, (Dad), this is a great little memento for our son’s baby book.   The note has stamps of Barack and Michelle’s signatures, but the envelope was hand-addressed.



Stephanie said Michelle wrote hers, but mine looks like it was written by someone younger. I think Malia addressed Isaac’s envelope.


We have floors!

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After lots and lots of hard work on Todd’s part, I am happy to report that we have hardwood floors!  He finished them this morning by laying the remaining pieces in the pantry.  We calculated that we would need 800 square feet of wood.  We purchased 850 square feet.  We have 2 boxes, (44 square feet), left over.  Todd managed to create very little scrap!


The pantry floor:



Transition from kitchen to dining room:



We found a new base moulding at Lowe’s today and determined what we would like to do for our door frames downstairs.  Our house is coming together!  We have decided to go with a larger base moulding in order to cover the 1/2-inch gap between the edges of the hardwood and the walls.  The gap was left so the wood has room to expand and contract as necessary.  We
are hoping that the larger moulding will work out well so that we don’t have to use the quarter-round on top of the moulding.


Today, Todd began work on the downstairs bath. He got the door hung, so there will be some privacy.



We bought a new vanity today, as well. 



Isaac is officially a Walter now that he’s been to Lowe’s twice in one day. We originally had 3 bathroom vanity candidates. The first, and most viable, option was the vanity in the original half-bath. That one completely disintegrated when we moved it to the garage a few months ago. The other 2 were from the master bath. We needed to fill a 37″ wide space. One vanity was 32″ wide; the other was 39″. Back to Lowe’s!





Finally, the most amusing part of our day. I didn’t have a chance to get to HEB today, so we ordered Chinese for dinner. When the driver arrived, she said, “Wow! He was right! The other driver told me to check out your floors.” She mentioned that we were still on concrete the first time she came. Apparently, we order Chinese enough that our house is a topic of conversation. I’m not entirely sure I like what that implies about my cooking.

Happy Hour

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Isaac and I joined Todd at work on Friday for happy hour.  Our friends, Christian and Elke, are German and just moved to Austin from Munich a couple of years ago.  As you may know, there’s a little celebration in Bavaria right now; Oktoberfest.  Christian told us the happy hour was to celebrate the beginning of the Oktoberfest.  In reality, it was also an excuse to get a group together to let them know that he and his wife are expecting!  We had a really nice time and I even got to drink a bit of authentic German beer (but not much as Isaac is still nursing).  Isaac, as it turns out, is also a fan of German beer.  Or at least the bottles:



Dave and Judy, we’ll have him singing polka music and chicken dancing before you arrive!


Diaper Cake

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There was quite a bit of talk about this diaper cake, so I thought I’d post a picture of the final product.  I was bummed that I couldn’t find a lamb to put on top of the cake, but I think it was fine with just the bow.  Tica, the cake’s recipient, was happy, with it.  I had fun making this one.  It’s different from the ones I normally do.  This one is “cleaner” in that you don’t see all of the diapers at first glance.



I wrapped a blanket around the outside of the second layer, then pinned it so you could see the cute little frog and turtle on the blanket.  If you were to look down at the cake from above, you’d see the individual diapers in this layer.  The bottom layer is also covered by a blanket, but I laid the blanket over the whole layer because the diapers made a larger circle.  The top layer is a collection of burp cloths from the baby registry, wrapped in another burp cloth.

Not Crawling

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I tried to get a video of Isaac doing his pre-crawling activities.  I now have a sure-fire way to calm him down when he gets excited.  Try to get a video of it.  LOL  



I did take a few pictures of our cutie-pie over the last several days, even though I didn’t have a chance to update the blog.  I tried for a self-portrait:





Isaac attacked Sophie:

As the Hokies have lost the last 2 games, we decided to try to change our luck by changing Isaac’s outfit.  He is, after all, the center of the universe, so it should help.  It did!  The Hokies beat ECU today!  (Please ignore my outfit and wet hair)






My Favorite Weekday

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Wednesdays are my favorite.  I get to hang out with a bunch of other mommies and swap notes on what Isaac and the other babies are doing, how we’re all feeling, how much sleep we are/are not getting, etc.  It’s a lot of fun to watch all of the baby boys and see how they are all growing every week.  It’s also a really nice break from sitting at home and nursing alone.  Isaac and I also usually learn something new.  Yesterday, we learned that plastic water bottles are tasty!