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 :)

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...