Thursday: ball

Tonight Ben and I were going to play racquetball.  But all the courts were full.  We got there a little later than normal, but were still surprised at how busy the place was.  Especially since there is a snow storm...I would have expected people to stay home.

Anyway, we ended up playing a game of wally ball.  It was fun, and I didn't embarrass myself too badly.  (The people were pretty laid back, which usually makes it more fun.)  I just noticed that I have a large bruise on my thumb.  Oh well.

Wednesday: 13 months

It's Isaac's 13 month birthday!  So I have a lot of pictures.

With a monkey.  He's taken to wrestling with his monkeys...it's funny to watch.

I brought the walker upstairs and he has been using it a ton!  He's at just the right stage for it...he can't walk by himself, but he can turn it and walk holding onto it in any direction.

I feel like this is what most of the pictures looked like.  Zoom!!

And Ben got me donuts!!!! <3 p="">

Tuesday: haircut

On Sunday I finally gave Isaac his first haircut.  I've been saying that he needs one for about two months, but it has also seemed as though this is a momentous occasion that needs some fanfare.

Well, I just did it.  It went better than I expected.  And today someone noticed!

I took a picture of the hair instead of keeping it like I feel I was supposed to do.  But somehow I doubt that Isaac will care.  And I don't have a physical baby book for him, so I don't have a good place to put it.

Monday: OT

I am happy to announce that today I finished reading the Old Testament.

Phew.

I started about 4.5 years ago.  I was at a retreat and the speaker said that she reads through the Bible.  When she's done, she starts again.  Now, I know this isn't optimal for everyone, and even this weekend in church the pastor recommended against that (for most people.  There's a large context that I'm not going to explain.)  But I had been realizing that there were some parts of the Bible that I hadn't read.  But a "read the Bible in a year" wasn't really going to work for me either.  So I started at the beginning.  Sometimes I read quite a bit, sometimes I could barely make it through a chapter. (The minor prophets were hard.)  There were some periods were I didn't read at all.  But since my only goal was to keep going, I hit that goal.

Next...the New Testament!  Hopefully I'll report back before another 4.5 years have passed.

Friday: spoons

Isaac has been working on using a spoon.  First up was oatmeal.  It's nice because it doesn't fall off the spoon easily.  Then he did yogurt for the first time.  It is nice because it easily sticks to the spoon.  As you can see from the video, he's pretty good at getting the spoon in his mouth but hasn't mastered the scoop yet. The yogurt sticks to the bottom of the spoon.

 

And yes, he tends to put the spoon down between every bite.

Thursday: pictures continued

It turns out that while swiffering with a one year old is fun, he doesn't understand that we're trying to collect all the dirt in one place.  Isaac kept picking the swiffer up just enough to let the dirt escape.

We went outside again.  I needed to shovel the end of the driveway, but Isaac seems to enjoy going out too.

I was hoping that we'd also be able to make a snowman, but the snow wasn't sticky enough.  I made him some snowballs and we made a snow angel.

And...we had a lot of fun with Ben tonight.

Self-portrait

Wednesday: pictures

I realized that it's been a while since I added some pictures, so I tried to take some throughout the day.

It's been snowing!  We shoveled several inches again this morning and I expect we'll have to do it again tomorrow morning.

Lunch time...there are peas in the bowl which I had given Isaac while I finished making the rest of lunch.  It didn't help, he still didn't eat them.  He does like to squish them though.  Also on the menu: peanut butter on toast, peaches, and mozzarella cheese.

Isaac's upstairs play area

Another view of the play area...but here he's pointing at Flurry, who is always fun to chase.

He said Ooo a lot today.  Everything was so exciting.

Tuesday: racquetball

We all braved the cold and snow today to play racquetball.  It was open rball night and so we ended up playing with another person.  (We play 2v1 because I am not good enough to put up a fight in cutthroat.)  Anyway, we were pretty closely matched and it was fun.

Racquetball seems to have a lot of left handed players.  Of the last four people I've played with, three of them have been lefties.

I also shoveled the snow twice today, so I definitively got my exercise   It wasn't too deep either time though (average of maybe 2"), so it was still fast.

Monday: snow

We finally got some real snow.  Not a ton, but enough to cover everything.  We decided to do a quick shovel this morning and so dressed Isaac in his snowsuit to come out with us.  The thing is so bulky that he can't do much except sit, but that did make it easier to watch him.

And it's cold!

Sunday: alphaberry

Bee 1: R U A B?
Bee 2: I M A B.
Bee 1: I M KT, A B.
Bee 2: OK. EZ.
Bee 1: Y?
Bee 2: I C U R A B

How many conversations can you have by just saying letters of the alphabet?

Thursday: content

Isaac didn't nap well today (again).  It makes it hard for me to get a good nap when he does that, but oh well.  Even though he didn't have enough sleep he was really good at entertaining himself today...better than normal.  He went for over thirty minutes in the basement (without even going to the TV to push its buttons) and spent quite a bit of time upstairs playing by himself.

So I thought of a new creed...

"Don't interrupt a contently playing toddler."

I kind of wanted to because I was hungry for lunch, but decided it was more fun to quilt instead.

Wednesday: hmm

Hmm.  Nothing all that special happened today, although it was kind of busy.

I've decided to leave the toaster out on the counter instead of putting it away because I've been using it so much.  (I'll put it away when I want the kitchen to be extra clean, but will consider the kitchen clean even if it is out.)

I started to put a lamp together.

I felt smart and not smart during lab today.  (Sometimes that program is just crazy.)

I didn't take a nap but instead graded homework.  This was probably a smart move since Isaac didn't sleep very long anyway...that was a little annoying.

Tuesday: busy day

Tuesdays are our busy days.  We go to school first thing in the morning.  We go directly to Bible study.  Then in the evening we go to the gym.

After picking Isaac up from the assorted child care, especially from the babysitter at Hope, he is so happy to see me.  He gives the best hugs then.  It almost makes me want to leave him places just so that I can pick him up again.

Isaac fell asleep on my shoulder while I was walking to the car this evening.  I guess he played really hard today. :)

Monday: a quilt

I was taking pictures of a quilt and Isaac came over to get into the action.

The quilt was called "Adding Up Nicely" which is why there is a calculator.

I also went into the whirlpool at the gym today.  It was really nice.  I love hot water.

Interlude: 12 months

I finally got some 12 month pictures (although some of them are more like 12.5).  And they didn't all turn out great, but Isaac hasn't figured out how to sit still and smile yet.

While the large one is my favorite, the lower one with the hands is a close second.

Isaac has completely stopped doing the army crawl and only crawls on his hands and knees now.  He walks well if holding onto someone with both hands, and can walk while only holding on to one hand, but doesn't love to do that.  If we try to make him stand he will sometimes stand for a few second before sitting down.  Isaac also likes to dance.  It is often only with one hand, but it happens many times a day...in the store, to TV show theme songs, etc.

Isaac seems to understand more of what we say, but still hasn't spoken any words for sure.  He is a happy boy and likes to play with his toys.  He goes to other people easily, but is always very excited to see us when we come back to pick him up.  Eating is going a little better, although it might be because he has more food options and so I don't give him the things that he won't eat as often.

Friday: a disaster

Our house has been a disaster the last week.  I don't like it, but I'm also not willing to give up my "me" time in the evening to fix it.  It will have to at least be hidden this weekend as we have people coming over.  (But hopefully it will actually be cleaned up, not just hidden.)

Case in point...here are the boxes from the many packages we've received over the past week and a half.  We missed the last recycle day and it only comes every other week, so even the garage recycle was overflowing and didn't have room for more.  So they just got stacked up and made it harder to use the front door.

Thursday: elevator

Today I went in an elevator, turned 90 degrees (while going to the correct floor), and then got out. I don't think I've ever been in an elevator with doors like that.

Tuesday: teaching

Today was my first day of teaching!

It actually went a lot better than I was expecting.  My biggest problem was that there weren't enough computers (six of them were down).  I thought I was going to have just enough until two people showed up very late.  Bother.  I ended up putting them in a separate room...not ideal, but I figure it shows that I can be creative.  I would have had people work together but, like I said, they showed up very late.  I'm hoping more computers will be fixed by tomorrow.  Not everyone had the book either.  But enough people had it and were willing to share so that it worked.

I was able to answer all but one of the questions.  Keep in mind that I haven't really done much with any type of AutoCAD software before.  I've taken the class and fumbled my way around in it for a few things.  And I did the assignment ahead of time.  So I felt like I sounded as though I knew what I was doing. :)  And the one question I couldn't answer didn't impede the student's progress - it was just a random question.  And I have the answer now.

After Bible Study we came home and took a nap.  I finally got a picture of Isaac sleeping.  He usually sleeps with his butt in the air.  Often his legs are crossed, although not this time.

Monday: today

Nothing super special happened today.  I went into work for a little bit this morning and Isaac nicely let me get everything accomplished quite quickly.  We took a nap when we got home.  I've been working on taking fewer naps, but some days I just really want one.

Good night.

Sunday: random Isaac things

Isaac has started dancing.  It went from bouncing up when he heard music and down to doing a hand wave, gangster style.

Here's the slide!  He likes to sit on the top and look around.

He also played with magnets on the fridge for about 30 minutes while dinner was in the oven.  I was pretty impressed.

Interlude: more pictures

Here are various pictures that were emailed to me from vacation.

Doesn't this help visualize him eating the cupcake crumb by crumb?

Interlude: Isaac's birthday

About a week ago it was Isaac's birthday.  How time flies!  We did two small celebrations with him.

"It's time to get up!  It's my birthday!"  - at 6am.  He was sure he wanted to get up.

Birthday cupcakes and his alphaberry...it has lots of buttons to push.

 Eating the cupcake!

10 minutes later...half the cupcake is gone.

 20 minutes later...all of the cupcake is gone.  He ate it crumb by crumb.  Just to show off his pinching abilities.  Needless to say, everyone had left the table by the time he was done.

Another present!

This one makes fun noises too!

Saturday: not super exciting

Today was not really a super exciting day.  Isaac seemed extra tired (and/or a little sick).  Then we tried to go out for dinner.  The first restaurant had an hour wait.  The second had 25 minutes...that would have been on the edge, but since we were by ourselves we walked across the parking lot to Arbys.  I wasn't really excited about putting Isaac back in the car seat and trying another restaurant   He goes in the seat fine, but it is still a hassle.

Ben got my computer working after some weird issues.  I still need to download a few things, but it is also nice to start again with a clean slate.

Friday: this and that

Yay it's Friday!

I took some pictures of Isaac on his slide, but then Ben is building my new computer tonight and so I didn't get them off the camera. Things seem to be going mostly fine though, so that is exciting. I think he's done by now, but it was bed time for me.

Isaac had his one year well child visit. He's 18 lb 12 oz (12%) and 29" long (18%). So still small, but staying steady. Language skills are a little behind, but he still communicates with us and understands what we're saying (when it suits him) so the doctor wasn't worried. Actually, I haven't been worried either. Everything else looked good. Except that he got four shots.:(

The little snow that we had mostly melted today.

The Christmas decorations are almost all down. I get a little sad when taking down the lights. They're my favorite part.

Seriously, how go kitchens go from clean to complete disasters so quickly?!? It drives me nuts.

Interlude 2: the first year in pictures

So this video is far from perfect, but I don't really want to put any more time into it.  And it gets the point across...Isaac has grown!

The first half is taken from "far away" while the second half starts over with close ups.  Each picture is about 1.5 seconds long...when I was watching it on the blog it seemed to jump sometimes...it might be my internet connection. :(

Oh, and the pictures were taken once a week.

Tuesday: slide

Today Isaac enjoyed going down his slide.  I'd put him up there and catch him at the end (so he slid a short ways all by himself).  He'd give me a huge hug (i.e., thank goodness I survived) and point to the top again.

Interlude: Weeks 50-52

The last of the weekly pictures!  I'm going to try and do monthly ones from here on out (if I remember).  I'm also hoping to put a video together for the last year, but we'll see how that goes too...

Week 50

 Week 51

Week 52

Tuesday: Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  Ben and I were just relaxing at our computers and I noticed it was close to midnight.  Then it was 12:01.  We missed bringing in the new year.  Oh well.

Dad and Pat came over to celebrate Isaac's birthday and we went bowling.  It was a good day.