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!

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!