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!

A Much Belated Thanksgiving and 11 Months

 I'm obviously quite behind in updating the blog.  The longer I've waited, the more challenging it's been to get back to it.  I'm going to try to catch up now, though.

Isaiah turned 11 months on Thanksgiving Day, so I'll combine these two posts together.  Unfortunately, I haven't been great about writing down things for the past couples of months, so some of these developments run together.  Shortly after 10 months, he started waving bye-bye consistently (with his hand facing him initially, which has now transitioned to a full-out wave with his whole arm).  He also started clapping when he's happy/excited/generally approves of something (especially food).  Around 11 months, he started standing without holding on to anything for a few seconds at a time.  He continued to eat nearly everything we sat in front of him, and meals became a lot easier as we could just fill his tray with food and let him feed himself with his fingers.  Here are a few pictures from 10/25-11/25/10:

Corban's (left) First Birthday Party (Stetson, Corban's cousin feeing Isaiah a block).  These boys were born within 2 months of each other and first met each other prenatally.

Hanging out with Brandon and Sarah for a UT football game



"Helping" with the Laundry



He started making this really cute "squinchy" face that looks exactly like a face Chris made as a kid.



Swinging at Overton Park

I had to work on Thanksgiving Day but got off around lunchtime.  After packing up, we headed to Waverly for Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, stepdad, siblings and their respective families.  It was the first time we had all three boys together since visiting Landon in the hospital.  It's funny how different their personalities are turning out to be...Isaiah likes to be the center of attention, Jude is very adventurous (he climbed the steps while we were there...Isaiah just stood at the bottom and watched him), and Landon is layed back and relaxed.  Clearly, we had a great deal to be thankful for this year.  God has blessed us tremendously!  Here are some pictures from Mom's house:

Visiting after Thanksgiving Dinner

Mawmaw and her Boys

Chatting with Jude

Mawmaw and her Boys II

So Thankful for my Men!



With all my Sibs, Sibs-in-Laws, and Nephews.  Frankie made it in too!



The Leckliders

The Littrells

Watching Jude climb the Stairs

I had the day after Thanksgiving off, so we met my Dad in Dickson for lunch before heading back to Memphis. 

Notice Isaiah still cramming a roll for the picture



With Pawpaw


A final few notes on thanksgiving...  The past 6 months have probably been the most challenging in my life, and it's been really easy to focus on the negative.  And to be completely honest, as I write this I realize I didn't really have a spirit of thanksgiving on the day set apart for that purpose.  As difficult as the long hours apart from my family and various other challenges have been, I have so very much to thank God for... an amazingly supportive and loving husband; a healthy, happy, precious son; a crazy, large, wonderful family; a great group of supportive friends and church family; the opportunity to puruse what I desire; etc etc etc.  Above all those things, though, I'm most thankful for a God who sees me for what I really am and loves me just the same, giving His only Son to make me His own.  THANK YOU!

Who's Who?

Okay, so I know it's probably not that hard to figure out who is who, but I thought it'd be fun to compare our baby pictures at similar ages:

10 Months

The month of October has really flown by, and yet again, we're at another monthly milestone.  I don't have a lot of updates for Isaiah this month...he's mostly just perfecting the skills he already has.  Once he decided to crawl, he took off pretty quickly.  The ladies at daycare joke that they used to have no trouble keeping up with him because he'd pretty much sit in the same spot playing, but now they're always having to call his name as he's disappearing under tables, etc.  When we're out of his comfort zone (i.e. home or daycare), though, he's still quite reserved and tends to just sit and look around at everything.  Chris is claiming this trait as his own, and I tend to agree.

I'm letting Isaiah eat table food for most meals now.  He still eats the baby food well, and we often opt for that because it's healthier than the take-out we pick up on some of our busiest nights.  I'm not really sure if I could say what his favorite food is--he eats almost all food really well, and it's definitely showing in his cheeks and thighs these days.

Isaiah really enjoys when we read to him, and his favorite book is "Where's Spot?" that Aunt Deda gave him.  It's a pop-up book, and he absolutely LOVES to open the little pop-ups and see what's behind them.  He likes to help turn the pages too.  I'm hoping we can continue to cultivate his love for books.  A few weeks ago, we made the decision to unhook the TV at home.  We've literally only turned it on once in the past 3 weeks, and that was to watch part of a UT football game.  We don't have anything in particular against TV, but it was consuming too much of our rare free time in the evenings, and it took that drastic a step for us to reallocate our time.

We went to the Fall Festival at our church this past Friday, October 22nd.  It was so warm that I had to wait until after sunset to even attempt putting on Isaiah's full giraffe costume.  Even then, we didn't keep it on long.  He only took a one-hour nap at daycare that day, and he was so exhausted, that he fell asleep mid-bite of his applesauce during dinner at the festival.  We enjoyed visting with friends and seeing their kiddos all dressed up.  We look forward to many Halloweens to come and the accompanying festivities.



We've had to make a really difficult decision recently.  One night last week I was home alone with Isaiah while Chris was at a meeting.  While I was sitting on the floor with him, he quickly crawled toward Frankie and grabbed some of Frankie's fur on a paw (which are very sensitive).  Before I could get there to pry his hands loose, Frankie snapped at him pretty fiercely and knocked him over.  Thankfully there was no serious harm after the fear subsided, but it really scared me, and I honestly expected to see blood when I went to grab Isaiah.  Frankie has always been jealous of Isaiah, though he's never been ugly to Isaiah directly.  He usually either ignores him or licks him sweetly.  Now that Isaiah is mobile, though, we feel that this situation is likely to repeat itself, and we'd never forgive ourselves if Isaiah was injured because we were too attached to Frankie to let him go.  We also feel that Frankie would probably benefit from being in a home where he can have more focused attention--let's face it, Frankie is a needy dog.  When we adopted him, we signed a contract saying if we ever came to a point where we couldn't keep him, we'd have to give him back to the rescue group.  We've contacted the director and she's in the process of trying to find Frankie a good home.  We love Frankie and he's been a good, loyal companion, but we know that in the end, this is the best decision for our family.

Happy Birthday Chris!

Chris turned 29 on October 11th, and we celebrated with burgers at Huey's and Muddy's delicious cupcakes for dessert.  We've both been working a lot lately, so we didn't have as much time as I would have liked to devote to his celebration, but it was a nice night together as a family.  I don't express this enough, but I am so blessed by Chris' presence in my life.  People have often asked in the past if it was tough to be married during medical school, and my answer is that it would have been impossible had I NOT been married to Chris.  He sacrifices and serves without complaint in more ways than I can enumerate, and I'm so thankful to God for bringing us together!  This is the eighth year we've celebrated his birthday together, and I pray that there will be many, many more to come.

Isaiah benefited from Daddy's birthday too--he got to try a tiny bit of burger and ate a good bit of my bun AFTER eating all of his baby food. That boy is a bottomless pit!! He was not too happy with us when we were indulging in our cupcakes at home, so I had to break out the Cheerios to appease his appetite. This is the picture of him after I let him have the Cheerios:

In other updates, Isaiah demonstrated his ability to crawl about a week ago--just a few days before his cousin, who happens to be 2 months younger :)  Even though he can crawl pretty well, he doesn't do it very much.  Chris and I still try to entice him to crawl by placing toys several feet away, but it rarely works out how we plan.  He's not super adventurous, and he's easily contented with playing in one spot with a few toys.  Now that I know he can crawl, I've decided it's a good thing that I'm not constantly having to chase after him and worry what he's getting into.  I'm sure my day will come, but for now, he's pretty easy to keep tabs on.  Here are some pictures of him pulling up and crawling...