Sick Baby = No Updates

Isaac has been super-snotty for about a week now.  The poor little thing wants only to sleep in someone’s arms and semi-upright so he can breathe.  Today, he fell asleep in his swing while I was in the shower, so I left him in the steamy bathroom.  I have the door open so I’ll hear him when he awakes.  Hey, don’t judge.  I’ve been holding him for most of the last 4 days.


He’s getting closer to crawling when he will let me put him down to play.  I have started crawling on the floor like a lunatic, which Isaac finds amusing.


This is the monthly picture with Blue Bear.  I took it a few days ago, but this is the first time I’ve had a chance to blog since then.  The bear is starting to look smaller!  I am sorry the picture is sideways.  I have no idea what’s going on with it – it’s the second time I’ve uploaded it because it was too large to fit on the screen the last time.  I’ve never had this problem before…





In other news, Todd finished all of the trimwork downstairs.  We are counting the stairs themselves as a separate entity.  :o)  He’ll finish those in a few days while he’s off at Christmas.  My dad is visiting us this weekend, so I am not sure whether Todd will have a chance to work on the trim then.  


Still Not Crawling…

… but ever closer.  I think Isaac will probably be crawling by this weekend.  He has started to get up on all four, and then rocks backwards and forwards with all of his might (it’s actually what woke me up yesterday, since he was doing it in his cosleeper and the whole thing was rocking)!  Now, he pushes way up on his hands and ends up pushing himself backwards.  While this doesn’t sound like he’s going in the right direction, he actually has stopped rolling to get around as of last night.  Up until last night, that’s how he’s gotten everywhere he’s gone.


Last night, he wanted a cup on the floor behind him.  He looked back over his shoulder, pushed himself back a couple of times, then spun around on his tummy and grabbed the cup.  It was pretty cool to watch him doing  some problem-solving all on his own.  Also, if you look in the background, you will notice there are baseboards in this video!


8 Months!

Isaac has reached the ripe old age of 8 months!  I didn’t even realize it was December until last night.  LOL


As a small nod to celebration, Isaac got to eat something sweet as his new food today.  I am not as adventurous as my friend Stephanie, who gave her little man a cupcake on his 6-month birthday.  Of course, Cash didn’t eat more than a bite of cupcake, but he also doesn’t have Isaac’s tummy issues…  I gave Isaac some apples!  He seemed to like them, though not as much as the green beans.  Weirdo.



Happy Birthday, Isaac!

Christmas Photos

I was trying to get a cute photo of Isaac for our holiday letter this year.  My friend, Candy, let us use her son, Henry’s, Santa outfit.  It’s too small for Henry and it was huge on Isaac.  Isaac was more cooperative during the photo session than I thought he would be and we had a usable photo within 10 minutes.  Thank goodness!  I had set up a little wagon with a sack of toys, and a few of his little toys in it.  He wanted to play with the toys…

And the leaves in the grass…

And then he wasn’t so sure about the hat…

But we did have fun playing with the idea of Christmas photos and we got one that I really like, so we’ll call it a win.

Green Beans

There are two different schools of thought on green beans between the adults in our house.


Todd will eat them now, but there’s a story from his youth that bears repeating.  When Todd grew up, there was a rule in there house that you had to meet as many veggies as you were old.  For example, a 3-year-old had to eat 3 green beans.  One night, as Todd was procrastinating eating his green beans, he looked at his dad and said, “Dad, what does ROT taste like?”


Green beans are, however, my favorite vegetable.  I love them.


What did Isaac think?


A "Peary" Good Eater

Sorry for the lack of recent posts.  There was something wrong with the computer and I couldn’t upload any photos or videos from the camera.  Todd messed with it this morning and it seems to be working now.  I didn’t think you’d care to read my posts without visual aids…  LOL


Isaac wasn’t quite sold on pears the first day he tried them, but by Day 3, he was quite a fan.  He ate every bit of his pears in short order.





Elisabeth’s (and Matt’s) baby girl, Bailey Ann, made her debut at 1:17 on Thursday morning.  She was 20 inches long and weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz.  By all accounts, she is *perfect*!!!  Congratulations to the new parents!

Not Much To Tell

…But I get calls from Nana if I don’t post anything for too long.  LOL



This was taken a couple of days ago when Isaac was feeling a little better.  He is normally very vocal, but is apparently camera-shy.  He seems to have a good day, then a bad day, then a good day with the sickies…  He feels a little warm to me today, but that could just be because my hands are little blocks of ice.  Thank God I live in Texas!  It’s in the 50’s and I am a popsicle.


Unfortunately, even though Isaac seems to be feeling better, I’ve gotten a cold.  I’m hopeful that it’s the same thing Isaac (and Todd) had.  Otherwise, I’m probably going to get the poor little guy sick again…  Today, in an attempt to get out of the house and not have to *do* anything, we went to another Baby Day showing of Harry Potter.  We went with our friend, Maureen, last week, but I loved it and decided to go again today.  Isaac mostly napped through the movie both times, which is wonderful when I’m the entertainment committee.


In other news, my cousin Elisabeth is being induced tomorrow and is already in the hospital this evening.  They are starting her on Cervidil tonight – this sounds a lot like how we got to meet our sweet Isaac nearly 8 months ago!  My thoughts and prayers are with her and her husband, Matt.  I hope things go very smoothly for them and little Miss Bailey makes an entrance sooner, rather than later.

Thanksgiving 2010

Let’s just say that today did not go at all as planned.  We *thought* we were going to spend the morning at home and then head over to dinner at the Stolpes’ house around 2:00.  However, Isaac woke up with a fever this morning (I knew he slept too well last night!).  His temperature hovered at around 101 degrees all day.  Poor little guy.  He wanted someone to hold him at all times and wanted to sleep most of the day.  It worked out alright for us.  We had most of the fixin’s in the pantry, so Todd went out to get turkey to complete the meal.  We had turkey, dressing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and gravy.  It was a darn good dinner; if I do say so myself.  The green bean casserole was the trickiest part.  It had to be dairy-free.  So I used Golden Mushroom soup instead of the standard Cream of Mushroom.  That should have been the biggest change to the recipe.  It wasn’t.  After I’d started to put the food together, I realized that I didn’t have any more plain rice milk – only chocolate and vanilla.  I had used the last 2 cups of plain milk to make (also dairy-free) potato soup last night!  Oh no!!!  The solution?  Mix some of the potato soup in with the Golden Mushroom in order to thicken up the sauce for the casserole.  It wasn’t all bad, actually.  I’m not saying it would be my first choice, but…



We also had a bit of a surreal experience this morning.  I was afraid of going stir crazy because Isaac wanted to be constantly held, he was tired, and I wasn’t sure how fussy he was going to be as the day wore on.  I suggested we go for a walk as a chance to get out of the house a bit.  Isaac is generally calmer outside and I thought he’d be less restless on a walk.  As we left the house, it was 76.8 degrees.  I had on a tank top and jeans and even suggested to Todd that he trade his jeans for a pair of shorts before we left.  There were some dark clouds overhead, but we figured we’d walk the 1.5 miles quickly enough that it wouldn’t be a problem.  For those of you familiar with our neighborhood, we walked out across the bridge behind the house and through the wooded area into the next section of our neighborhood.  We’d only gone about a block after the woods ended (less than 1/2 mile from the house), when the wind started to pick up.  As we walked into the headwind, there was a sudden cold burst of air.  It lasted maybe 3 seconds or so.  It was odd – like that feeling when you’re swimming in a lake and hit a sudden cold spot.  Then it was gone just as quickly.  Roughly 20 seconds later, another cold wave of air washed over us.  This one just kept going and it was really cold!  The wind never warmed up again.  We actually only took a few more steps before deciding to turn around and go home the way we’d come.  We were gone less than 20 minutes.  I checked the temps when we returned home.  It was 63.2 degrees!  WOW!!!  It isn’t every day that you get to feel the temperature drop almost 15 degrees in as many minutes!  It’s now in the 40’s outside and is supposed to get into the 30’s tonight.  We have freeze warnings in effect for tomorrow evening.  It finally feels more like Thanksgiving weather, though, and Todd lit a wonderful fire in the fireplace for us this evening.


I hope Isaac enjoyed his first Thanksgiving with us.  Todd and I certainly did.  Even if it wasn’t what we had planned, it was one of the best ones I think I’ve had!  It was a reminder to be thankful for our family and the chance to spend the day together.  Todd took a break from his many projects and we got some good, quality family time today.


Now, for the part you really wanted, a video of Isaac.  It’s a couple of days old, but he really didn’t do anything you’d want to see on video today.




Settling In…Still

Last week, we got a little more settled into the house.  Isaac “helped” me unpack a few more boxes in the master bedroom.  There are only a couple of boxes left in the master, then we get to move on to the much more challenging guest room.  I am donating to Goodwill every couple of weeks as I clear out more things that we haven’t seen/used/needed in over a year…


Before the Funksgiving festivities started on Saturday, Todd got the pot racks hung in the pantry and we were finally able to clear the floor and counter space of pots, pans, and lids.  Hooray!
I have been asking for a picnic table for a few months now.  Especially with the cooler weather rolling in, I’d like to be able to eat dinner, and maybe even a few lunches, outside.  I was thinking we would buy one, but Todd, of course, had other ideas.  He found instructions to make an 8′ long table.

One of the next steps will be baby-proofing.  Isaac is more mobile every day!  It’s a good thing Todd has a 4-day weekend coming up because I think we’re going to need it to make the house a little safer for the mini-man.

Boys, Boys, Boys!

Yesterday Isaac and I hosted our friends.  We had a great visit with Allison and Anderson, Candy and Henry, Valeria and Nico, and Stephanie and Cash.  This group is the original group of mommas and babies that started meeting back in May.  My, what a long way we’ve come in a short amount of time!  Nico and Anderson can crawl anywhere they want now and Anderson even took a few steps for us yesterday!  At one point, I put Isaac in his ExerSaucer so I could work on lunch for the mommies.  When I got back, Nico and Anderson had joined in on the fun.  Henry was not to be left out, so we have a little video of all of the boys playing around the toy.  Isaac is, of course, in the middle of the toy.  From the left are Nico, Anderson, and Henry.  Cash hadn’t arrived yet when we captured this quick moment of fun.

Our gatherings have gotten much louder over the months.  Now that the boys are more mobile and more chatty, we are a much noisier group!  We also finish far fewer sentences – we’ll start to talk about something and then get distracted when one of the boys moves to close to another or steals someone else’s toy.  It’s a much livelier group!  I am so glad we can look forward to this each week!