Jude is One!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET JUDE!!  We traveled to Mt. Juliet, TN last weekend to celebrate Jude's first birthday.  He had a "Baby Einstein" themed party that turned out so cute, and I think he had a great time.  The boys ruled the day--Jude, Isaiah, and Landon got to enjoy some quality time, and the only other baby there was Darren, a relative on Meagan's side, who is just a couple months older than Isaiah.

Once Jude got the taste of icing in his mouth, he dove right into the cake.  His hand was stained blue from the icing by the time Mom called it quits.  All of the cameras and attention really seemed to spur him on.  I wish I could say Isaiah was cheering him on, but he was more concerned with stuffing his own mouth.

Jude got lots of fun toys and cute clothes, and he was kind enough to let Isaiah "help" open them.  At one point, Isaiah found a silver bow on one of the packages, and went around to the adults in the circle offering it to each one individually and then immediately taking it back.  Hmmm... we'll have to work on that.

What the boys seemed to enjoy more than anything else was playing with the toys on this exer-saucer while Landon was jumping in it.  Many attempts were made to get a picture with all of them looking, but this is the best I could get:

One funny thing at the party is that when we first got there, I went and picked Landon up.  Isaiah immediately came over and wanted to see him.  I sat on the ground, and Isaiah kept hugging him tightly and laying his head on him.  It was so sweet and adorable until Isaiah opened his mouth and looked like he was about to take a bite out of Landon--sorry, we're teething!  Isaiah kept noticing Lindsay a lot and would walk to her with arms wide open, even when I was standing right next to her...that seems to be a trend, because he's been doing that a lot lately to our friend Emily.  He must like brunettes :)

Here's our attempt at a family picture, which is nearly impossible with these boys.  I'm not looking at the camera because I'm literally wrestling with Isaiah to keep him in my arms.

Weird sister coincidence: we both wore dark blue shirts with gray sweaters over them, skinny jeans, and boots.  We cracked up when we saw each other.  I like your style, sis ;)

Fourteen Months in February

Isaiah turned 14 months just a few days ago (25th), and it's been a month of important change...he's walking!!  Well, he's been walking for about 4 weeks now, but his ratio of walking to crawling is increasing more every day.  I think the major impetus was when he moved up to Nursery III (12-18mos) and all of the other kids were walking.  Talk about peer pressure!  It's been really fun to watch the process of him taking just a few baby steps to him walking circles around the house.  He's still fairly wobbly at times, especially when he's tired, but he's come a long way.

A few other cute things...  He LOVES the motion detector light for our security system--everytime we walk through the hall, he raises his hand up high to set it off and see the light flash.  He'd be happy to sit there all day, I think.  His car seat is now forward facing, and he jabbers a lot in the backseat now while pointing to things outside he couldn't see while rear-facing.  He does a funny little butt wiggle while sitting if he's happy or gets excited; quite cute.  We've been working on learning the names of body parts--nose, mouth, eyes...for a while he could get nose really consistently, but we haven't practiced as much the past couple of weeks so he's a bit rusty.

For Valentine's Day, his class had a party and they were supposed to wear red and white.  I sent him in this:

I had been debating whether to buy V'day cards to send to the kids at school from him, and I ended up deciding that they were too young to care.  The night before V'day, it dawned on me that the list of the kids' names in his class sent home a week earlier (entitiled "Nursery III Sweethearts") was for the sole purpose of addressing Valentine's cards.  I felt so stupid for not realizing it sooner that I rushed out to Walgreens (with all of the other procrastinors--the place was packed!) and bought a pack of Tonka truck cards.  I was relieved I had done so when he came home with a bag full of Valentines the next day.

We celebrated Valentine's by eating Carrabba's at home on V'day night (while Isaiah was taking a late nap), and then just the two of us went out to lunch to Paulette's the next day since I was off.  We've had to be creative to have dates without taking Isaiah along, so we've done a few daytime dates when I had a weekday off and Chris took a long lunch or part of the day off while Isaiah is at daycare.  Bright side: matinee ticket prices :)