Christmas

Here are some very belated Christmas pictures. Isak made out like a bandit and had more toys than he knew what to do with but he had a lot of fun opening them. Last year he just played with the wrapping paper so it was fun to see him actually participate.

My sister sent him some elmo slippers which happen to match my own (I've had mine for years, they're very warm). I think he loves them mostly because they spell ELMO on the side and he is currently obsessed with pointing out letters, although most of them are "A".

Kevin and I got him a little chair/rocker with a matching ottoman for him to sit in. He sits in it but so far he's mostly used it as a jumping pad and climbing tool.

Mostly I sat in my chair and took pictures while Isak ran around and screamed. It was fun having my mom here with us and Kevin had a lot of time off work so we had a lot of quality family time. And I had 2 people to wait on me and bring me food and tell me to go back and lay down. I have 3 weeks left of the bedrest thing and hopefully less if my doctor lets me off early for good behavior. I think I can make it.

Graduation

Kevin graduated with from Boise state this past weekend with his masters in accounting, techinically he was done back in august but the "official" ceremony wasn't until December. Since he has yet to walk at a college graduation, I forced him to take the morning off of work to walk. He wasn't exactly thrilled, but we all enjoyed watching him and I know that someday he will thank me. It was fun having our parents here and family, Isak spent the majority of the ceremony being chased around the arena by various relatives. I was even given special permission to attend by my doctor as long as I followed some of his provisions, like taking the elevator with all the elderly people in wheelchairs.

. Kevin and I were originally planning on heading out to Washington the day after Christmas to see our families but that has all changed due to the bedrest so Isak got to open a few of his presents early. Kevin's parents got him this awesome little ride on motorcycle that he absolutely loves. It hasn't taken him much to figure out how to open presents and he gets pretty excited. He's already taken to standing on the motorcycle and jumping off of it (no suprise) and will ride it from one end of our living room to the other.

Don't you love kevin's yellow hood? His "dress" also had these weird sleeves built in that could double as gloves, something that might come in handy given our crazy weather lately.

Baby Update

Well I haven't been the best at this lately but now I have something exciting to talk about and I have a reason to blog other than Isak. I had some contractions last night and this morning and went into my doctor..and didn't get to go home. I'm a little dilated and my cervix has shortened quite a bit so I earned myself a few days at the hospital (on the floor where I work...weird). And best of all I get to be on bedrest at home till 36 weeks, which at least is not the hospital. So this has been a crazy day for Kevin and I and a little scary at the same time. It is difficult when I work with this stuff all the time to have it happen to me and to not let my mind go wild with all the possibilities. So I have decided to focus on all the positive things that have and will come out of this experience.
1. I have a wonderful husband who holds the priesthood and was able to give me a blessing which has been a huge source of comfort.
2. I have great family who are rearranging all of their schedules so they can help me take care of isak while I'm on bedrest and Kevin is working.
3. Isak is too little to remember any of this and will likely have no long term issues from his mom not being able to chase him and pick him up for a month.
4. I now have time to learn lots of new stuff, how to knit, be crafty, read the classics, catch up on my tv shows
5. I no longer have to cook or worry about what is for dinner or go grocery shopping.
6. I no longer care if I get stretch marks or gain too much weight, none of that seems to matter right now. I just want a healthy baby.
7. I don't have to work for a month
8. I can catch up on my sleep.
9. Someday when this child is being really awful and ornery and I can remind them what I went through for them and hopefully spur some guilt in my favor.
10. I was stressed about getting everything done in time for christmas and now I have the best excuse! And I can still wrap presents while lying down and mix up cookie dough. So it will be okay.
11. And I almost forgot, I am especially grateful my doctor did not start my on magnesium sulfate which is literally the drug from you know where.

This past weekend we ran down to Utah for a quick trip to visit some friends before we had two babies to drag with us and before I get any larger. I also saw the lights on temple square for the first time which were beautiful, apparently they started putting them up in August.

We also made a trip to Ikea which was wonderful and I was able to pick up a few things for the house that I've been wanting for a while. I got this toy box for our front room which didn't look so big at the store but in my living room is huge. Isak can fit into it with all of his toys.

We stayed with Scott and Crystal who were nice enough to let us invade their house and have Isak drop a wooden reindeer on their baby's head. Aubrey and Isak played pretty well together and especially enjoyed tipping over the recliner together.

I know I post videos of this kid all the time but really, what else do we have doing on at my house? At least this one is right side up. I apologize for his sagging pants and diaper, we seem to lose bits of clothing as the day progresses only to have him end up in his pajamas.

Okay so this past week has been a little crazy and I am tired so that equaled no blogging. Thanksgiving was great, my parents and brother were able to come up to our house and we had lots of fun and kevin and I enjoyed the extra sleep. Mark was able to come up for the whole week on his break and it was great having him around the house to lift heavy stuff...like Isak. Below is this lovely "italian" jello he made for the dinner, we've had it for years at thanksgiving but Mark now loves it even more because it resembles Italy's flag. Kevin and I ventured out for black friday which was a first for us and while entertaining, it was a little too crazy for me. My mom and I found some great deals on fabric though and I have enough stuff for multiple baby blankets which should keep me busy for a while.

Isak amazingly decided to keep this stocking hat on his head at random times , usually he refuses to wear hats and will rip them off as soon as he can feel one. Perhaps there is hope for this winter.

This is our first holiday season in our house and we were very excited to decorate and put up lights. Unfortunately the inflatable santa helicopter with rotating propellers was sold out at Lowe's, we were planning on mouting it to our roof, but maybe next year.

Isak LOVES christmas lights and was really excited for our lights and tree. Our neighbors have a teeter totter snowman lawn decoration and Isak is constantly trying to run to their yard and jump on it. I think he was pretty confused as to what Kevin and Mark were doing up on the roof and why he couldn't be up there as well.

I try to avoid pictures of myself on this thing at all costs but Mark took one of Isak and I over the break and I don't look like a beluga whale just yet so I thought I would share.

This little video is sideways (sorry) I keep forgetting my camera does that when I hold it a certain way and then I can't change it. Isak was being pretty funny tonight (we always think he's charming) and was hauling his rabbit around chatting. This is him trying to shove his rabbit in the fridge and talking randomly while doing it. There's tv in the background and kevin laughs really loud at the end because he didn't know what I was doing...but you get the idea.

18 MONTHS AND GROWING!

Isak turned 18 months today and started nursery. He is getting so big! This was him before church this morning, he actually stood still without grabbing the camera. He is such a nice little boy (most of the time) and since most of my blog is about him anyway, I will indulge myself and share a few things that I love about this kid.

1. He loves to play with his stuffed animals. His crib has about 10 animals in it on any given day and he will sit and chat with them when he wakes up and before he goes to sleep. If he finds anything furry or soft, he will rub his face on it like he has feelers.

2. He is very sensitive, if you raise your voice, even if its not at him, his face will crumple because he thinks he is in trouble. He is also very loving and will randomly kiss (lick) your face and give hugs which is my favorite.

3. He goes to bed and takes naps like a champ. We just lay him down and within a few minutes he is quiet and asleep. He put himself on a schedule and we just enforce it and it works really well. Unless of course he is teething then he wakes up randomly at multiple times during the night but luckily that doesn't happen very often.

4.His favorite activity is to look at pictures and videos of himself on the computer. He is kind of a narcissist.We go through this at least twice a day and usually he recognizes something on one of the videos and tries to either reenact it or starts laughing at it again. He really likes to watch videos of kevin when he is at work, he'll point at the screen and go, "dad!".
5. I love his gallop walk that he does when he is excited and how he thinks he his jumping when really he is just raising his leg with his hands up in the air. Its so fun to watch him learn new things, he is constantly suprising us.

This is a video of isak naming his body parts. We tried doing this multiple times over the past few days and I think he was getting sick of it so he is not very enthusiastic. It took some prodding and its sideways so I apologize but you get the idea, my child is a genius!

Fire

We turned on our fireplace this week, much to isak's delight. He loves the pilot light and the fire and makes lots of "ohhh" sounds when its on. He's also constantly asking us, "what's that?"so it has sparked his curiousity. He now knows what fire is and so we hope we never have a fire or else he will run right towards it rather than away. He is 18 months this week on sunday and starts nursery. I plan to do a post here in a little bit on all of the things he can do now, including a video of him naming all of various body parts. Everything else is going well, we are gearing up for thanksgiving next week at our house and I am very excited to get going with christmas decorating. This will be short as I agreed to go into work tonight at a last minutes notice because on call pay is just too tempting to pass up. I must be crazy from the pregnancy hormones because I haven't figured out when I'm going to sleep tomorrow. Perhaps when Isak takes his nap? Anyway, wish me luck!

A long day

I was upstairs cleaning this morning and I heard Isak playing in the laundry room. He plays in there a lot but this was the first time he had done this....

Yes, he had climbed into the dryer and was sitting there staring at me. He fit pretty well and had some room to spare. Luckily he can't shut the door on himself. I''ll have to remember this if I ever run out of towels.
Today was kind of a long day. It was rainy and cold so we couldn't go outside much and Isak was off his rocker. So we, (I), made cupcakes and Isak ran around like a crazy man and probably watched way too much pbs television. This was taken after his bath at the end of the day when he had covered himself in red jello and chocolate frosting. We are making progress with our "art" time, Isak now will color for a solid minute on the actual paper before coloring my carpet, throwing the crayons in all directions and yelling, and trying to color my fireplace screen. I think we will wait on the markers and watercolors.

McCall

Kevin has been traveling the past couple weeks for work and Isak and I decided to tag along this past week when he went up to McCall. We've never been and have heard about what a fun place it is to visit, lots of mountains and stuff to do. I came up on Tuesday after work and as luck would have it, hit a storm coming through the mountains. It was a little 2 lane road and covered with slush, ice and it was snowing. Luckily I had our jeep but since I put it in 4 wheel drive once a year I always forget how to do it correctly. We went about 25 miles an hour and with a lot of prayer and probably some divine intervetion, we made it out okay. It was very scary and of course when we came back and kevin was driving, the roads were dry.

Isak got his first real experience with snow and I think he liked it, he kept pointing and going "ohhhh". Sadly my camera is also broken so while it still takes pictures, I can't see them on my screen while I'm taking them so I have to use the little view finder and half the time I cut off half the picture. very frustrating.

The guy that was working with kevin grew up going to McCall all the time and was nice enough to give us a tour of the area. We even went and checked out the tamarack resort and saw what apparently a billion dollars can buy you. Apparently Andre Agassi is also building a house up there and we saw the beginnings of it which was pretty neat. Its a beautiful area, lots of moutains, trees, and a lake and many, many expensive cabins that are all currently for sale. There's a huge winter festival in january where people carve these ice sculptures that stay up for weeks on display. Anyway, maybe if we stick around boise and in many years if we have any extra money we'll get a cabin up there or con someone we know to buy one...

We had a pool and hot tub where we stayed and it was incredibly warm, it was like a big bath tub and Isak had a ton of fun. However, we've learned traveling with a toddler is much different than traveling with a baby. They don't sleep nearly as well. Isak is usually a great sleeper and can sleep just about anywhere. However, for some reason the pack in play in a dark bathroom didn't seem to cut it for the kid and he ended up sleeping with us for the night which was new experience. I think Isak slept great, kevin and I were both tired from getting rolled on and kicked every hour. And kevin awoke to Isak hugging and patting his head..at 630 am. So we decided to head back a little early so he could sleep the next night in his own bed.

Happy Halloween! Isak was a one eyed green monster, he was very furry and cute. He was also rather grumpy for the occasion so we cut out early on the trunk or treat and saw a couple neighbors before taking him home and putting him to bed. I think his favorite part of the whole night was discovering our next door neighbors have a cat that they let him pet. At the bottom of the post is a video of him playing in his green costume.

Nathan and Stephanie came up last weekend to visit and we had a lot of fun. We took Isak to a little corn maze/farm they have down the road from us and they had some goats he got to pet. We successfully kept his fingers from getting bitten, however, Isak did try to climb on top of the goat at one point but we rescued the poor goat.

Nathan and kevin as a farmer and his wife

Stephanie and I are due just 4 days apart. She is having a boy and we don't know what we're having but I have a feeling I am having a boy too which would be really fun to have cousins so close together. We took a prego picture together since I am too much of a chicken to take one by myself. Kevin and Nathan are also expecting......we're just carrying ours a little lower.

HAIRCUTS, SUPERMAN, AND FROG BOOTS

What a busy week this has been! Kathy came to visit to help out with Isak while I was suppose to go to some classes. There was a big mix up (apparently I need to check my junk e-mail at work more often) and I didnt get the right info in time so i didnt get to take the class. I'll have to do it in January which is okay except for poor Kathy had to drive all the way down here, but at least she got to hang out with Isak for a bit. And she bought him these awesome superman pajamas that also have a cape.

Isak in his awesome frog boots. We also decided it was time to cut Isak's hair because its been almost 6 months and he had started to look rather mullett like.

"Before Shot", combed to the side. kind of looks like little girl hair.

Kevin really wanted a mullett cut before we chopped it and I tried my best but it was pretty long.

Isak eating his pudding, after his haircut.

Right after his haircut. He did really well, he only cried when he dropped his sucker and realized no one was picking it up because it was covered in hair. The lady was nice enough to give him a second one. He just sat in my lap in a daze, eating his sucker which she cut his hair. He looks so much older to me now, Kevin said when he got home, he doesn't look like Isak anymore. It'll take us some getting use to, but he's still our cute little boy.

Tag! I'm It!

Tag! I'm It!

*Post the rules on your blog

*Write six random things about yourself
*Tag six-ish people at the end of your post
*Let each person know he/she has been tagged
*Let the tagger know when your entry is up
Six Random Things About Myself

#1 I'm scared of escalators (too many dateline specials)
#2 I have really long toes (Isak got them too)
#3 We want to adopt a kid after we're done having our own
#4 I'm beating Kevin and all of his little Othello friends in fantasy football.
#5 I use to be able to run really far for a really long time and hope to be able to again.
# 6 My son has been sleeping with his furry halloween costume for the past week

I tag whitney, susan, emily, crystal, vicki and whoever else feels like doing this tag.

Ear Infections, snow, and new coats

So I will go back to Friday morning, nice and early. 340 AM to be exact. Kevin and I were awoken by screeching coming from Isak's room. Not crying, not yelling, but squealing. Very loud squealing and the sounds of running feet along a crib mattress. Occasionally we would bursts of laughter in between the squealing. Yes, Isak was wide awake, apparently having a party in his crib with his stuffed animals in the middle of the night. This continued for about 15 minutes and we decided to ignore it in hopes that he would go back to sleep. It got quiet for about 10 minutes and then I started to hear whining. Isak hasn't woke up during the night in months so I decided to go check on him. He was fine, just apparently very awake. He went to back to sleep without too much trouble and woke up bright and early at his usual time.

My first thought was that he had an ear infection because he's had a cold for the past couple days and I couldn't figure out why else he would wake up like that. So using my "motherly instincts" that have been right maybe a handful of times, I took him to the doctor that morning. Well the kid actually was starting an ear infection in his left ear and we started him on some antibiotics. Can I begin to tell you how many times I thought this kid has had an ear infection and its just been teething? I felt bad he was sick but somewhat glad that perhaps after a year and a half I might be figuring something out. He's never had an ear infection and well never had any medicine but tylenol and seems to be loving the yummy tasting amoxicillin and sucks it down with no problem. Anyway, it was a very long day for my sick little boy and the above picture is him when we got home from the doctor. He was such a good boy and held tight to his bunny the whole time we were at the doctor. The doctor was trying to look in his ears and asked isak, "do you have kitties in your ears? where are the kitties?" Isak looked at me and said somthing like, dubba dub a duh? like, "what kitties, where are the kitties mom?". It was funny.


This was our little snowstorm we had here friday night. It only lasted a couple hours but the flakes were huge and we got a good inch or so.
Isak in his new winter coat. Its reversible and in boise state colors. Its pretty puffy and I think he has a hard time getting around in it but he's getting more mobile. It should keep him very warm this winter.

I love this little boy

This is Isak playing teletubbies on the computer, I think he likes it because they cheer for him. Its pretty funny to watch because he usually makes this face, and I think he was feeling tired when we took this. I love this kid.

Random Pictures

Today was a long day, kevin isn't home yet because he had to stay late so Isak and I toughed it out together. It actually wasn't that bad, I'm just used to being able hand him over in the evenings for a bit. The above is a preview of Isak's halloween costume. We had him try it on for lindsey when she came this past weekend.
Isak has taken to giving his stuffed animals "rides" on his lawn mower around the kitchen. This started after we started giving isak rides on his lawn mower. He's such a smart boy.
Isak and his beloved rabbit that was rescued yet again from the refridgerator.
I was wiping down some of our doors the other day and Isak started yelling and pointing at me. I gave him the dusting cloth and this is what he started doing. He proceeded to try to wipe down the front of the dishwasher, oven and cupboards. Hopefully he wants to be this helpful when he is older, this could be useful....