Inspired

I started this blog to keep family and friends that aren't so close by in the loop of our lives, most especially in the know of Isaiah's changes and developments.  It's sort of become the online scrapbook or baby book for us, and as I'm quite behind in updating his actual baby book, it will be the source I use when trying to recall information from months back.  I also enjoy following others' blogs and their changing lives, and I've more recently begun following some amazing crafting blogs.  When I see what these people find time to do despite full lives with multiple children, I'm both amazed and inspired.  I told Chris yesterday I want to quit medicine and "craft" full-time.  He thinks I'd get bored...maybe, though I doubt it.  While I have no real plans to quit medicine (I figure I should at least get to Dermatology, right?), I would like to be more crafty/creative with my spare time...sounds nice, right?  Well, spare time can be hard to come by, but in the meantime, I wanted to share some of the blogs that inspire me so that you, in turn, might also be inspired...

First, I have to give a shout-out to my good friend, Trish, who left architecture to be a full-time Mom and managed to find time to start a sewing/embroidery business: http://critterbugandcricket.blogspot.com/

LOVE this one!  A lady a church turned told me about it, and I wish I had time to try every single project on here...  http://littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com/

A couple others I learned about from the last site:
http://www.howdoesshe.com/

http://www.makeandtakes.com/

There are more, but I'll save them for another day.

Here's a sample of what I can do when I have time and motivation:

Birth Stats:  I've made a couple of these for friends' baby gifts and framed them in an 8x10, but I just now got around to making one for Isaiah.  I'm no graphic artist and only have Microsoft Publisher to create them, but I wanted a modern twist on the traditional cross-stitch.

This is a really poor picture, but I'm trying to display the decoupaged letters and the homemade mobile above the crib.  I really enjoyed handcrafting items for Isaiah's nursery.

Recent Updates and Fun

Isaiah had his 12 month check-up this past week, and he weighed in at 25.9 lbs (80th%) and is 31.5 inches tall (90th%).  We just weaned him from the bottle to a sippy cup, and he really likes his whole milk.  He has taken 3-5 steps on three separate occasions this weekend, so he's definitely proven he can walk.  The funny thing is, he tends to do it when he's distracted and not really thinking about it.  He got a train push-toy for his birthday from Pawpaw and Mimi that he loves to push around the house, so he's quite mobile without walking on his own.  He'll be moving up to the 12-18month nursery at daycare in the next couple of weeks, so I have a feeling he'll really start walking when he's around all of those older toddlers.

He's become quite the ham for attention.  Lately, when we go out to eat, Isaiah will find someone sitting nearby and stare at them until they look back at him.  Once they do, he smiles really big and starts waving and pointing at them.  He'll continue to do that as long as they pay any attention to him and often even when they don't.  He's definitely a charmer, and it's so funny to watch. 

Here are some recent pictures:

Enjoying a beautiful Memphis snow--we got 3-4 inches

Visiting the Grizzly Bears at the Memphis Zoo

Isaiah loved watching the sea lions swim

Checking out a birthday gift from Mawmaw

What a life!  Kicking back with a nice sippy cup full of milk on his panda pillow pet :)

Black Bean Face--He's proud of having his own spoon to hold, though we're a ways from successfully keeping food on the spoon to get to his mouth.

One Year Photos and Looking Back

Newborn

3 Months

Six Months

Nine Months



Twelve Months

 You can see more of his twelve month pictures by clicking here to view our photographer's blog or by going on facebook to my profile.

Happy Birthday Isaiah!!

As you likely know, Isaiah turned one on Christmas day.  Naturally, it still hasn't quite sunken in that I have a one-year-old!  We chose the name "Isaiah" well in advance of his birth when his estimated due date was January 12, 2010.  We liked the sound of the name, but even more than that, we loved the meaning and hoped it would shape his life: "The LORD is salvation".  How beautiful, then, that this boy named for the prophet who foretold of Christ's birth was born on the day set apart to celebrate said birth.  We realize--as people frequently remind us--that we will have to be intentional about making Isaiah's birthday special and set apart from Christmas celebrations; yet we never want to lose the deeper, spiritual meaning and focus of Christmas as a day to celebrate Immanuel, "God with us".  Our solution this year (and likely most years to come), was to have his birthday party a week before the 25th.  We planned a month+ in advance, sent invitations to his friends and our family, etc, etc, etc.  The unfortunate turn of events, however, was that Isaiah came home from daycare 3 days before his party with viral gastroenteritis.  Thankfully, it was fairly short-lived, but the next day, Chris and I became ill.  Needless to say, we didn't feel that we should invite healthy babies and toddlers into our home and risk getting them sick as well, so we postponed the party for Jan 8th.

In the meantime, we did celebrate Isaiah's birthday with the Starnes family on Christmas evening.  I baked (from scratch!) a red velvet cake, and we let him open gifts from us and the Starnes'.  He didn't really dig into the cake like I expected, but instead pinched off the green decorating icing and ate it.  It was a nice, close family affair that we'll always have fond memories of.  Here are some pictures:



Looking serious in the birthday shirt made by our friend Tricia Cartner (critterbugandcricket.blogspot.com)

 

Homemade Red Velvet--not the prettiest thing to look at but it didn't taste too bad!

Trying to share icing with cousin Hallie

Finally, on January 8th, we had a larger party in Memphis at our church.  The theme was "Fun with Spot" from Isaiah's favorite book collection by Eric Hill.  Unfortunately, there is nothing in that theme sold ready-made in party decorations, so it required quite a bit of advanced planning and preparation.  Nevertheless, it was well worth it to have a character he recognizes and enjoys.  We had cupcakes and snacks.  We also had a junior sized bouncey ball pit that Isaiah absolutely loved.  He mostly sat there and let Daddy bounce him, but he enjoyed rolling around a good bit too.  He happened to get his first kiss in that ball pit as well (see below for details)!!  I think Isaiah really enjoyed himself, and we sure enjoyed the chance to celebrate his life with friends and family.  Here are pictures from his big day:



With Pawpaw and Jude



After destroying his cupcake

In the ball pit with Dakota Cartner (3 1/2).  She was so sweet and helpful with him in the ball pit.  We were enjoying watching them in there together, and at one point, they were both kind of lying side by side, and Isaiah swooped in for a kiss!!  It was so hilarious and precious!  I'm a bit jealous cause he's never kissed Mommy.  Definitely one for the baby book :) 

In terms of other developmental changes in his twelth month, he's standing for longer periods of time without holding anything, and he's taken a single step a few times.  One of the cutest things he started doing was reading to himself--he'll pick up one of his books (or ours, see below) and start flipping through the pages and talking with the intonation of reading what's on the page.  It's especially funny because the book is often upside down.  He says the single syllable "Dah" for his daddy, "mama" on occasion for me, "dahdah"' is byebye while waving.  He crawled up the steps at Mawmaw's house as previously mentioned.  He loves to dance (he has a funny booty dance he displayed at the party if I ever get around to uploading videos).  He loves going for rides in his new wagon (usually been around the circle in our house as it's cold out).  He's such a fun little guy, and we're so glad he's ours!

He discovered the bookshelf in the hall and found some of my textbooks that interested him--he seemed to favor this small one in particular.  See below for the title...

Hmmm...

 



Christmas 2010

Here are some pictures from decorating our house for Christmas.  We were worried that Isaiah would be so interested in the lights and ornaments of the tree, he would break something or hurt himself in the process of checking it out, so we opted for a mini tree this year that we could block off with a baby gate.  Surprisingly, he wasn't that interested in the tree at all.  In fact, his favorite Christmas decoration was the nativity set.  Hmmm...something about babies being born around this time :)

Our Mini Tree



Matching Family Stockings



I had several days off for Christmas, so we made the trip to Hickory.  We stayed at Dad's overnight on the way to break the trip up, so we celebrated Christmas with he and Marie that night.  Isaiah took his first step without holding on to anything that night but then went straight down to hands and knees to crawl.  We're hoping he'll repeat that more often in the coming days, but he's proven to us on many occasions that he will when he's good and ready.  I didn't get as many shots as I would have liked, but here are a few...

  

Stalking Gracie

Buddies

Once we got to NC, we enjoyed lots of quality time with the family, and Isaiah and Hallie got to know each other better.  (Great) Aunt Peggy came over for Christmas Eve dinner.  We did our own little family gift exchange Christmas morning and I made pancakes for my boys (Isaiah's first and he loved them...I'm sure the syrup helped!).  We had brunch with Chris' parents, Melissa, Jason, Hallie, Richie, and Aunt Anne.  We had planned to drive to Lexington, NC for Christmas with the Starnes side of the family that evening, but we got so much snow that we opted to stay put.  We exchanged gifts with his immediate family that night and then celebrated Isaiah's birthday (will post separately).  We had to head back on the 26th, but thankfully most of the roads were clear enough for passage by then. 

This was a very bittersweet Christmas with Chris' family as his cousin and friend, Liz Helms, was in the hospital during this time.  She went home to be with the Lord on December 28th.  Liz was one of the spunkiest, most courageous people I've ever known, and we will all sorely miss her.  Visiting Hickory will never be the same, especially for Chris who grew up with Liz and shares so many memories with her.  We're thankful for the life she lived and the blessing of knowing her for as long as we did.

Four Generations: Chris, Ginger (Grandmom), Isaiah, and Great Aunt Peggy

Christmas Morning

Finishing up Christmas Pancakes

If you're thinking this doesn't look good, you're right.  It started with a couple of gentle love pats, and then Isaiah got brave and put more force behind it.  Sorry Hallie!

We drove back to Murfreesboro on the 26th and spent another night at Dad's.  Can you tell who the favorite uncle is...

Jared with step nephew and niece, Bailey and Taylor

We headed on to Waverly on the 27th and celebrated with Mom, Aubrey, Austin, Jared, and Mom's friend Debbie.  Jordan, Meagan, and Jude had planned to come, but poor little Jude was sick and they couldn't make it.  At Thanksgiving Isaiah watched Jude climb the stairs but wouldn't try it himself, this time he went straight to the stairs and did funny little dances on the way up.  A couple of times he bent over and looked back at us through his legs--so funny.  I got some of it on video, but somehow I missed getting it on camera.

Did you notice the theme of pictures with this billy goat puppet?  It sings one of the silly songs from The Sound of Music, and he loves it!  Actually, we all thought it was pretty hilarious.

We headed back home on the 28th to return to work on the 29th.  We really enjoyed our time with family, and though it was truly Isaiah's second Christmas, in most respects, it felt like his first and we treated it as such.  It's so crazy to think that this time last year we were speeding down the interstate to get back to Memphis late Christmas Eve/early Christmas morning after my water broke at Mom's house.  It was totally and undeniably worth it!