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Isaac is Six Months Old!

 

Six months! Half a year!

Have we known you forever or has it just been a blink of an eye?

At six months you are...
sitting up without any help for long stretches of time
finally rolling over from your back to belly if you put enough effort into it
overcome with happiness when Daddy comes home from work
completely in love with your brother
becoming more and more attached to Mommy
so strong that you have given Mommy bruises from your pinches
wearing summer clothes and we can see your cute chubby arms and legs
eating yogurt for breakfast, oatmeal and a fruit or veggie for dinner, and the occasional lunch too
knocking over block towers
banging on everything
blowing raspberries
finding your voice and singing "ahh ahh ahh" along with Noah when he sings
having fun playing with your paci
saying "ya ya ya" more and more
enjoying riding in your jogging stroller like a "big boy" right next to Noah
blossiming into the wonderful personality that God gave you

We love you, Isaac! We can't wait to see what the next month will bring!

First "Official" Haircut

Noah got his first "official" haircut today at Great Clips. I have been cutting his hair for two years now, and I decided it's time to turn it over to a professional! Noah went with Daddy and they had a great time on their boys-only outing. They also stopped by Best Buy because that's what boys do - they look at computer stuff while they're out!

I is for Isaac

 

Noah has been having a lot of fun writing "I"s lately. He always says "I is for baby Isaac" or "I is for Isaac" as he writes. Here's a few more pictures.

Bathtime Mohawk

 

Like Father, Like Son

We were quite surprised to see that Matt and Isaac were wearing the exact same shirts! We did not plan it, and we had never noticed that they even had similar shirts in their wardrobe until they were sitting together!

While Mommy's at Yoga...

...Daddy plays tennis in the driveway with the boys.

Week in the Life - Friday

We were mobile again on Friday, so it was time to go to Lowe's and buy flowers! Noah had fun helping choose the flowers, and Isaac had fun trying to pull all the flowers out of the pots. When we got home, Isaac took a two hour nap and Noah and I had plenty of time to plant flowers in pots for our front porch. It was a great way to spend the morning.

I decided that I'm not going to make a separate scrapbook of this week, although I'm happy that I learned a few new things about Photoshop this week when I was playing around with the idea. I'm planning to make a Blurb book of this blog instead. This blog currently has 340+ entries, so I think I'll make one book for each year, with each blog post having it's own page. I think it would be nice for us to have these photos and memories on paper so we can sit and turn the physical pages. I'm still trying to figure out how it would work if I also include all the photos from the Picasa Web Albums (the photos that you see when you click on a link). I guess I'll have to see how many pages each book will be and decide from there!

That's the end of the Week in the Life Challenge. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Week in the Life - Thursday

By Thursday it was starting to feel like a long week. Matt had an evening meeting on Monday and a horrific 2.5 hour commute home on Wednesday, and another evening meeting that night. I had planned on going out on a few errands and maybe even stopping for lunch with the boys in the car but realized I had left my wallet and cell phone in Matt's car, so we were stranded at home. We ended up passing the time after dinner by walking back to Jetton and swinging. The photo challenge gave me something else to focus on as the day went on, and I ended up getting some great shots of Noah and Isaac that I would have otherwise missed.

Week in the Life - Wednesday

On Wednesday, I kept experiencing deja vu and thinking that I had already taken many of these pictures before. But I just tried to remind myself that this is the point of the challenge: to document the routine of our week. Our week (just like everyone else's!) has many events that occur over and over again, so I just tried to keep the camera close.

I was really glad that I took the camera when we walked to Jetton park because it was Isaac's second time swinging in the swings there, and he loves it. I ususally don't think of bringing the camera to the park, so I'm glad I could catch it. I'll post the larger pictures soon. Noah also had a lot of fun throwing bread for the geese at our neighborhood pond while we were on our walk.

Future Album Cover

 

Doesn't this look like a great cover for Noah's first album?

Just for fun...

 

First Boat Ride of 2010

 

We went on our first boat ride of the season on Saturday, and it was also Isaac's first boat ride ever. The forecast called for a beautiful sunny day, so we headed out to Lake Norman. We were out on the boat by 10am, and it was still overcast, chilly and windy. We were hoping that it would become sunny and warm during our ride, but that didn't happen. It was still fun to be out in the boat, though. We ended up eating our lunch early and heading back to the marina because the wind didn't make us want to linger on the lake too long. When we pulled up to the marina in the morning, Noah said, "Where's my white boat?" We keep telling him it's really Chris's boat, but in Noah's mind, we own our own boat.

I just have to take a minute to love on* our baby Isaac. Take a look at him in the above picture. There he is, squeezed into an incredibly uncomfortable infant life jacket, his cheeks getting squeezed, and the wind was almost blowing his hat off. You wouldn't know it, though from the sparkle in his eyes and the smile that lights up his own face. He has such a bubbly personality, and combined with those edible cheeks, it's just too much.

* We've lived in the south for long enough now that I can correctly use "love on" in a sentence. However, it comes across better in writing. If I try to say it like a southerner it doesn't come across right. It sounds like I'm making fun of how people talk around here :-)

Here's some more boating pictures.

A Week in the Life: Tuesday

After weeding out the fuzzy and/or just plain bad pictures, I took 82 pictures today and 81 pictures yesterday. That's a lot of pictures for two days that were just typical days of life! Part of this week's challenge is to create a physical scrapbook of the pictures (if I do this, I'll only scrapbook the true highlights of each day, probably about 20-30 pictures), but I'm not sure if I'm going to do that or just leave them on the computer for now. I love the idea of making a Week in the Life scrapbook, but I'm not sure if it would be a great way to spend my limited free time or if it would just turn out to be a self-imposed source of stress. I'll see how I feel about it toward the end of the week.

Before I head to bed, I want to leave you with Noah's quote of the day for Tuesday: "Emma is eating baby's spit-up!" Yes, life during the day with a baby and a toddler and a dog can be interesting in a strange way.

A Week in the Life: Monday

I am participating in the Week in the Life scrapbooking challenge on www.aliedwards.com. We have always taken a lot of pictures, but I wanted to capture the routines of our week. That means that I took lots of pictures of things I wouldn't have otherwise thought of as significant - a dirty kitchen before I cleaned it up, a dishwasher full of clean dishes, and the boys in a shopping cart at Target.

This is a great exercise in appreciating the blessing of today and focusing on what makes today special. Some days I can get caught up in thinking that in a year when Isaac is walking we'll be able to do so much more, or won't it be nice when [fill in the blank]... In reality, a year from now when Isaac is walking and Noah is in pre-school and our schedule is busier, I'll look back on this time in our lives when Isaac was 5 months old and we spent a lot of time at home and wish we could have that simplicity again. So, I am making a point to enjoy these days when Noah is still a two-year-old and Isaac is still a five-month-old.

Pollen

 

Ugh! Pollen! It's allergy season here in North Carolina. Matt is taking Zyrtec daily and Noah has just begun taking Children's Zyrtec. I am wishing that Isaac and I could take something too! Oh well, it can't last forever, right?

The worst of the pollen storms seem to be over for the spring, so Matt power-washed the covered porch last weekend. Now that it's clean, it's nice to be able to spend time out there again, even if it does lead to a scratchy throat and watery eyes. Here's some more pictures.

Oh So Close!

 

Isaac first rolled over from his belly to his back when he was five and a half weeks old, and he has been rolling non-stop ever since then when he's placed on his belly. But, he is still working on rolling over from his back to his belly. He can twist himself into a backwards "C" and he twists his hips over, but he hasn't quite completed the movement to get himself all the way over on his belly. It's very entertaining to try to get him to roll over. Noah and I put all his toys on one side and try to tempt him to go over onto his belly. Isaac likes the game and twists himself up to see all the toys. He gets so close to fully rolling over that I think he considers the job done! Here's some more pictures.

"I can do it all by myself!"

 

 

Noah can do lots of great things all by himself these days. He has been using the potty for five months now, and he's quite the expert. To make things even better, he can now put his socks, undies and pants or shorts on without any help. That can make for some very cute outfits, like when his undies are on inside-out and backwards and his pants are on backwards at the same time. Remember the group Kris Kross? Noah is on a personal mission to bring backwards clothes back into style!

In this picture, Noah had dressed himself in Daddy's socks and shoes and Isaac's hat.

Exersaucer!

 

Isaac has been enjoying the exersaucer for about a month now. He loves it because he can control everything himself. He likes to spin around in the seat, survey the toy options, then "eat" all the circus animals. He is in the thick of teething, and we are looking every day to see if there are any bumps on his bottom gums. It's going to happen any day now!

It's That Time of Year Again!

 

Yeah! The spring weather is beautiful, which means that it's time to go for rides in the bike trailer. Daddy always takes Noah to the fire station, then they go on adventures around the neighborhood. The ultimate bike ride is one that ends up at Harris Teeter. Noah loves the Teeter and thinks it's perfectly normal to go to the grocery store every day to get free samples and a free balloon!

N-O-A-H

 

I am so excited to tell you that Noah wrote all the letters in his name today when we were playing with sidewalk chalk. He was so happy with himself that he clapped, jumped up and down and shouted "Yeah Noah!" I know it's really hard to see the letters in the first pictures, so I made a "cheat sheet" for you on the second picture. He's become so aware of letters lately, and he's pointing out the letters in signs that he sees, and he's starting to memorize some of his favorite stories and "read" the books to us. It's so amazing to watch him learn so fast!

I've Got Feet!

 

Now that the summer is warm and the socks are off, Isaac has been having so much fun with his feet! It's so fun to watch him lay on his back and hold his feet or ride in the car while holding his toes. It's a constant source of entertainment!

A Boy and His Dog

Lil' Drummer Boy

 

We happened to see this t-shirt at Old Navy the other day. It's like it was custom made for Noah! He was so excited about it and he couldn't wait to wear it.