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.

Monday: a year in review

I know I still need to do a post on Isaac's birthday, but it's the end of the year.  So here's a quick look at the year in review with a randomly chosen picture from each month.

January...Isaac and Mom hang out.

February...Isaac becomes a sock model

March...Isaac turns two months!  He looks a little scared about it.

April...Isaac eats a duck's face.

May...Tulip Time!

June...Isaac turns five months

July...Isaac really wants some mountain dew.

August...whoa, I managed to not get a picture with Isaac in it!  This is the tetris quilt that I made.

September...Isaac helped model the tetris quilt

October...sitting for one of the weekly pictures

November...having fun with Ben

December...opening a present

Well, it turns out that I took a lot of pictures of Isaac.  But, it's been a fun year!  Hopefully 2013 is as good as this past one.

Saturday: snowmobiles

We played with some snowmobiles today.




Isaac went on his first ride too!

Thursday: watermark

Today we went to an indoor water park. There weren't any slides gentle enough for Isaac to go down, but we went under a waterfall and on the lazy river a lot. Ben and I went on the big slides. :)



It tired Isaac out. I thought he was going to fall asleep, but then he saw one of the toys I had brought and perked up.

I also feel like we had a good time of communication at dinner. He ate the food I prepared for him (yay) and then I got out some left over fruit. He would eat some fruit and then would point at the fruit for more. After a while he stopped didn't point at the fruit and I knew he was done!

Wednesday: driving

Today we did quite a bit of driving. It was a little weird because I felt like I was in the middle range of speeds...usually i'm either faster or slower than most cars, but this time I was both passing and being passed a lot.

We also decided to take a slightly longer route and went through two exits
Looking for food. But the food ended up being too far away so we stopped for the cross traffic and immediately hopped back on the road.

Isaac slept for most of the drive, except for a half hour when he read his books.

Tuesday: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Today after church we got together with Ben's family for presents.

Waiting

Opening his first present

Isaac was really not all that interested in opening presents.  He kept crawling away towards the kitchen.  Unlike Scarlet, who was super excited about every present.  (I'll admit, that was much more fun to watch.)

Putting gifts together takes a while. : (

While a lot of the gifts were enjoyed (or will be enjoyed), Isaac really seemed to like his ballapalloza.  He wanted to be part of the action even while we were putting it together.

As a side note, Isaac only took a five minute nap between waking up and 3pm.  But he was doing rather well...as always I think the hustle and bustle energized him.  But I was ready for a nap by that point, so we took one together.

Monday: I scream

...you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!!

A long time ago we promised Dad that he could be the first one to give Isaac ice cream.  Since we won't see Dad and Pat on Isaac's birthday, today was ice cream day.

The first bite was surprising, but after he got over the cold he was excited for more!

Sunday: horse

Today was a pretty relaxing day.  We took some naps, talked, ate...good times.

We braved the crowds to go get some groceries at Meijer.  It was busy, but not quite as insane as I was afraid of.  We let Isaac ride Sandy, the penny horse, for the first time.

Image from Liz - there's a movie there too if you're really interested

Saturday: Christmases!!

Merry Christmas!

The day started out with a lot of attention for Isaac from Nathan and Liz.  Liz even put a little mohawk in Isaac's hair, although it is hard to see in the pictures.

After a delicious breakfast, it was time to open presents.  Here is Isaac opening his first Christmas present.  He's very happy with the book and showing it by saying "Ooo"

Then an extended family was over tonight.

Isaac was entertained through most of the party by playing with his new pig that he had received in the morning.

Friday: they made it

Nathan and Liz made it! We had a lovely dinner with them, Dad, and Aunt C. And we stayed up late(ish) talking. Three cheers for family!

Thursday: food and sewing machine

Isaac has suddenly become an incredibly picky eater.  His love of peas is gone.  He won't touch cubed cheese.  Carrots and eggs are pushed to the side immediately.  Pasta is a no-go.  Basically, about half his food options are suddenly not options anymore.

I've decided that Isaac should eat his food out of respect for his parents.  If there were only a few things that he didn't like that would be ok.  But to make Ben work for money, have me think about what to buy, go to the store, prep the food, think about what to feed him for a specific meal, and get it ready for him just so that he doesn't eat most of what I give him is unacceptable.

Also, my sewing machine just stopped working.  So much for the last minute finishing of my Christmas potholders.  I'm about to start taking it apart.  Hopefully I won't stay up too late if I can't easily find the cause. :p

edit: it's fixed.  phew.  It needed a good cleaning, but I'm not sure if that was the problem.  What I did discover is that there are a lot of screws attaching the plastic outer covering to the machine, but that the covering still wouldn't come off.  It seemed kind of mean to make me take out all those screws and not have it be worth my while.

Wednesday: oops

Ben and I were going to play racquetball tonight.  I got everything ready and got to the gym only to realize I had forgotten Ben's clothes.  Bother.  I was more mad at myself than I should have been.  And I knew that I was being a little crazy but couldn't help it.

The only good news is that we had to go near the gym anyway to drop off the car for some new tires.

Tuesday goals

Today's official goal was to go to Bible study.  Which I did.  (Although this week I didn't find it very interesting.  Usually we have a lot of interesting discussion, but it felt rather flat this week.)

The unofficial goals were water the plant, order tires, fold the laundry, clean the table, wrap a present, go to the store, send some emails, deal with some food, and make a phone call.  It felt like they were all top priority.  I got about half of them done.  (The easy half.)

I also went to the gym.  That's important, right?

And I helped Isaac put some of the Tupperware away.  He loves taking it out of the drawer so we're trying to  have him put it back in the drawer too.  But he had gotten more out than normal and it was taking so long to put away...so there is still some left.  Sometimes it seems like he understands that he is supposed to put it back in the drawer, and sometimes I think we're just lucky (or unlucky if he tries to play with it again.)