Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Vertical Thinker


Isaac is 13 months old today!

He is our vertical thinker. His outlook on life is vertical, not horizontal. Whenever he enters a room, he looks around for things to climb on. He's not walking yet because he's mostly focused on crawling or creeping to his next climbing spot. I'm sure he'll be walking soon - it's naturally going to happen, but it's not too much of a concern to him at the moment. He prefers to spend his time climbing on the kitchen chairs and trying to get up on the kitchen table, climbing up any unattened step stool, emptying out drawers and toy bins so he can climb in them, and climbing up stairs. We've been teaching him how to go down stairs feet first on his belly, and he gets a kick out of that too. He likes to climb up on the ottoman then swing his feet around and slide off on his belly.

We get such a kick out if Isaac's view of the world!
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Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving Day Snuggles



We had a great Thanksgiving at Baubie's house in Atlanta. Isaac enjoyed a very rare moment of stillness and snuggles with Baubie, and that made her day! Noah had a lot of fun snuggling up with Mitzi and trying out her comfy dog bed. Both boys had a blast playing in Baubie's "little kitchen" and serving food and coffee to the family. We were so glad to see that Baubie's health is continuing to improve. It was a great Thanksgiving weekend!
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Friday, November 19, 2010

Sewer Man


Noah has re-discovered the tunnel and he is having so much fun with it. He first started out pretending he was the tunnel digger (he's been watching the tunnel digger machine in our neighborhood as it buries cables). That only lasted awhile, and now the tunnel has become the sewer. Noah announces, "Here comes the sewer man!" with great excitement and he goes into the tunnel to clean out the sewers. Sometimes he lays the tunnel on the ground and stays inside it for a while. I ask him what he's doing and he replies, "I'm fixing something in the sewer." It's certainly a game I never would have thought of myself!
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The Great Diaper Change Challenge


I'm getting quite the workout when I change Isaac's diaper these days. He's just too busy to be bothered with such trivial things. I usually have to force him to lay on his back by squeezing him in between my knees and power through the screaming and grunting (his, not mine). Once in a while, he wins and crawls away as fast as he can while laughing hysterically. Well, yesterday I had my camera near by, so I waited to see where he was planning on going. He was on top of his firetruck in an instant and made a valiant effort to get on the coffee table before the truck rolled away. Isaac, I apologize to you in advance if you ever find out I've put this picture on our blog. It's just too cute, I couldn't resist!
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Thursday, November 18, 2010

Counting Letters


Noah has developed a strong interest in spelling words and counting the letters in words. He loves it when I spell words out loud so he can count the letters on his fingers. He's memorized a few words and phrases, and one of his favorites is "I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U" It's very sweet to have him tell us he loves us by spelling it!!

We made an activity together where I wrote out all the names of his school friends, and he sorted them according to the number of letters that each name has. It's a great pre-reading skill. For instance, he knows that his friend Ethan starts with an "E" and has 5 letters, so when he sees that strip of paper, he instantly knows it spells Ethan's name. Friends' names are great first sight words!
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Two Cooks in the Kitchen


Matt and Noah make pancakes from scratch every Saturday morning - it's their tradition. Since it involves standing on a step stool, stirring, and time with Daddy, Isaac decided that he's old enough to help too!
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Pure Happiness


I love this picture of Noah. He was running into Matt's arms in Grammy and Yaya's field in Michigan. It's pure happiness.
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Our Climber


Isaac has been very busy working on his climbing skills. As you can see, he's pretty happy with himself! He's on the move all the time, and today he learned to get on and off of the little firetruck and climb in toy bins. Yesterday, I walked into the boy's bathroom to find Noah and Isaac standing on a step stool together, and they were both brushing their teeth!
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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Happy Birthday to Isaac!

Isaac had quite the first birthday!

His first party was with his family in Michigan, and his second was at home in North Carolina.


On the morning of his birthday, Isaac woke up in Grammy and Yaya's house in Michigan. He had so much fun playing with them during our 10-day stay, but we had to say good bye and start looking forward to seeing them again at Christmastime in Arizona.  Isaac then went on the second plane ride of his life.  Isaac has turned out to be a good flier!  He only struggled and fussed while he was trying to fall asleep, but other than that, he had fun looking out the window and playing peek-a-boo with the other passengers.  We arrived home and Isaac took another nap in his own crib, then it was time for dinner and our own birthday party!  Isaac had fun smooching the orange icing on his cupcake, and he even took a couple of bites.

We got ready to go trick-or-treating after our party, and Isaac had fun being a bear cub.  We opened presents the next night, and he had a great time playing with is new toys.  Actually, Noah had as much fun as Isaac did playing with the new toys - they were a hit!

Happy birthday to you, Isaac!
We love you!
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