Tuesday: finishing up

It's only mid-April, but it seems as though all of my weekly activities are coming to an end.  Today was the last day of the Bible study at church.  This week is the last day of the class that I'm sitting in on.  Next week is the last week that I'm teaching.

It feels too early to be finishing these activities, and I've really enjoyed them.  They were a great reason to get out of the house.  The ladies in the Bible Study were great; we had a bunch of good discussions.  I know once it gets warmer Isaac and I can do more outside so that will help occupy our time, but I'm also a little nervous...it was nice being away from Isaac for a little bit and helped the days go by faster.

Or we'll find other things to do.  It's amazing how easy it sometimes is to fill the time.

Sunday: going to bed

A few weeks ago Isaac added to his bedtime routine (steps 2 and 6).  Here's how it normally goes...

1) Pray as a family.
2) Immediately after we say Amen, Isaac waves goodnight to Ben.  He keeps waving until we actually separate.
3) Bath. (This is optional.)
4) Put on pajamas.
5) Read two books: Bedtime Farm and The Going to Bed Book.
6) Immediately after the second one (or while still on the last page) Isaac starts pointing at the crib.
7) Tuck Isaac in and he goes to sleep.
8) I leave his room, amazed at how easily he normally goes down.  (I really am amazed every time.)

Today I messed up the pages on the second book and turned to the last one too early.  I went back a few pages, but by that time Isaac had started pointing to his crib.  I wasn't moving fast enough because he had to point and point and point before I got him in.

Saturday: audiobooks

Usually I watch a show on Netflix while sewing.  I don't always catch everything, and sometimes it slows down the sewing, but on the whole it worked pretty well.  However, I recently finished a series and was having a hard time finding something else to capture my attention (that Ben wouldn't be interested in either).  So I decided to try an audiobook.  I miss having something to look at, but that isn't really a big deal.  I do have to remember to stop it when I do anything on the computer though, as I can't concentrate on both at the same time.

Friday: more firsts

Today was the first day I've been thrown up on.

Isaac woke up and seemed to be doing great...or at least normal.  We were helping to wake Ben up when he came over to give me a hug and didn't let go.  So we just sat there for a little bit.  Then he got down and walked around long enough for me to get my contacts in before coming back for more comfort.  He wasn't moving, so obviously something was wrong.  This kid moves all the time.

He fell asleep and took a short nap.  When he woke up he was still out of it.  Then he threw up on me.  The good news is that a small dinner (he didn't want to eat my chicken tacos!) and no breakfast made the experience mostly just surprising and not too gross.

He started to perk up, so I gave him some Crispex.  He was taking forever to eat them, so I wheeled his highchair over to the window and let him watch the diving birds while finishing.  I think he enjoyed it.

After that he was pretty much fine for the rest of the day.  Phew.  I'm hoping it was just an upset tummy.

Also, since it has been raining all week the lake is higher than we've ever seen it.  Which I guess isn't saying much since we've only been here a year and last year there was a drought.  The (fake) bird in the picture is standing on some rocks that are usually well out of the water (about 6-8").

Thursday: open, out, in, close

Today Isaac had a grand old time opening this container, taking out whatever was in it, put the object back in, and closing the container.  Repeat for about thirty minutes.

Wednesday: spring cleaning

It has been a wonderful rainy week, Isaac was playing well by himself, and I was feeling in a cleaning mood. (A rare occurrence, so I thought I should take advantage of it.)

So I cleaned the laundry room.  There was lint all over and stuff piling up on the dryer.  It wasn't a super deep clean, but I did move the dryer so I could get under it.

It might be another year before it gets cleaned again.  I hope the room is happy; I am.

Tuesday: in rememberance

Today was the 11th anniversary of Mom's death.

I remembered her.  I thought about her more than normal.  I missed her.  I loved her.  But I wasn't overly sad today.  There are times were the grief still hits really hard.  Today was not one of those, and I decided that I was ok with that.

Monday: RIP balloon

We got a balloon in October when we went to a birthday party.  It headed to the basement, where it got played with a medium amount.  Yesterday it managed to come up the stairs and was played with a lot.  Today it shrank.  It must have been a very tiny leak because it took most of the day for the balloon to get to half its previous size, but shrink it did.

We'll miss you, green balloon.

Saturday: friends

Hanneke and Abby came over for dinner and to just hang out.  It was really nice to see them again.  (And they oohed and aahhed over Isaac. :)

Yeah, it was really nice to see them.

Friday: cold

I still have my cold, but I think I'm slowly on the mend. This has been one of the worst colds that I've had in a long time. I went through two mostly full boxes of Kleenex, so we took an emergency trip to the store today. But at least my nose only needs to be blown about once an hour versus the once every fifteen minutes that it was last weekend.

Thursday: theme day - monkeys

Isaac has really been enjoying his monkeys (and he knows the word), so I thought today would be a good day for a monkey theme day.

He wore his monkey pjs.

After reading some monkey books, he took a nap with green monkey.  Then it was time to wake up and have lunch!  I hear monkeys like bananas, so he had some of that.  (Notice he's also wearing monkeys.)

Later in the afternoon I put on a movie about monkeys.  He was excited at the beginning, but it did not hold his attention at all.  However, the Curious George show that we watched while waiting for an oil change captured his attention very well.

Wednesday: curry and light

I made another batch of curry today.  It turned out nice and thick.  I don't know why.  Every batch seems to turn out so differently and (most of the time) I have no idea why.

Dad came over for the curry and then helped us replace the light in the office.  There was a fan/light combo that had spotlights for lights.  It meant that the lighting in the office was really bad.  So now we have a a nice diffuse light.  Hurray!

Tuesday: 15 months

Isaac turned 15 months a few days ago, but I just got the pictures today...


He's walking all over the place by himself, now, so I thought I'd try a new quilt shot...I like it.

He really likes pushing buttons and got on my lap to push the camera buttons.

And was then so sad when I made him pose again.

Back to being super cute!

Ben and I can tell that he's starting to understand a lot more, although talking is still pretty slow.  He probably has mama, dada, and something for kitty.  He's good at communicating through motions and noises though.  He's also started to fold his hands while we pray, put random objects up to his ear like a phone, and point to various body parts.  The problem is that he likes to point to his hair while he has dirty hands due to eating.

Monday: april fools, by Isaac

10:30pm, Sunday: Isaac wakes up really upset, but motions to Ben that he wants to be put back in his crib.
1:30am: Isaac wakes up really upset, but doesn't calm down with Amanda.  Back to the crib.
3:30am: Isaac wakes up really upseat, but calms down after ten minutes.
7:24am: Amanda wakes up and realizes that her alarm and her Backup Alarm (Isaac) didn't go off!!  She's late!
7:25am: Amanda double checks her clock, noticing that the alarm is on, the time is correct, and that the am/pm is correct.  She decides that this was part of Isaac's April Fool's joke since he has recently started playing with her clock.
7:42am: Amanda and Isaac head out the door, thanks to Ben's help
7:59am: Amanda gets to class with a minute to spare.

Sunday: happy Easter

He is Risen!  He is risen indeed!

We didn't go to church due to colds, but still had a family devotion time.

Thursday: cold

I got a cold today.  Just enough to make me annoyed and not feeling great.

I also got a new iron!  And some crackers.  I thought that I had purchased two boxes, but I cannot find them.

See...I'm a little loopy.

Tuesday: this and that

I remembered to go to work this morning. :)

Isaac carried around his sleeping buddies a bit today.  Sometimes he is more willing to give them hugs than me.

He also seemed a little bit under the weather this evening.  So we didn't go play racquetball.  It was one of those things were I wasn't sure he was feeling bad enough to cancel, but then it was a good choice.  After dinner and some medicine Isaac seemed much better.

Monday: coming home

We made it home.

Phew.

Isaac started with a rough time on the airplane...he wouldn't sit still.  We finally took off and so I gave him some baby food in a juicebox type container.  It was really clean the last two times we used it.

It was not clean this time.  But...Isaac finally contented himself by playing with the burp cloth I got out to blot things off.  And then Ben finally got him to sleep and he slept most of the way.

See all the orange?

Although Florida was really nice, it's also nice to be home.  Isaac and I took good naps this afternoon.  Flurry was happy to see all of us.

Too bad we have to go back to work tomorrow.  I'm really afraid I'm going to forget to set my alarm and Isaac will decide to sleep in.

More Florida

I got so into relaxing during Florida I didn't do a very good job of posting.  But here are a few more photos that were taken...

On the boat.

Besides going in the hot tub, Isaac's favorite activity was going in and out of the door.  Seriously.  He did it for hours whenever the door was open.  And it was really funny to watch, because in order to not hurt himself he had to take a giant step/crawl over the bottom.

And splashing.

Saturday: Florida

We've been having a good time down here relaxing. Isaac has spent quite a bit of time playing with the ducks in the pool. Although seen here in the big pool, we've often warmed up the hot tub and played in there. Isaac can walk on the seat and play with the ducks, and it seems to work a little bit better. And I don't get cold.



Today we also went on a boat ride to the Bubble room. They have delicious desserts!

Wednesday: made it

Today we made it to Florida! The plane ride wasn't terrible, but it was far from great. Isaac was tired but couldn't get comfortable to sleep for the first three-quarters of the trip.

But we made it! We played in the pool and ate some gelato and played with the ducks.

My quote of the day: "You didn't finish eating your breakfast banana so you can't eat your book."

Tuesday: hair and video games

Here's the conversation I had with Isaac this morning:

"Isaac, don't pull mom's hair."
Isaac points to his hair.
"Good job, that's your hair!
You can pull your hair."
Isaac points to his hair.
"Good job!  That's your hair.
But you can't pull mom's."

I'm not sure that I got the point across very effectively.

*********************************************************************
Isaac found a new video game to play.

(It's the baby monitor.  The screen lights up when he pushes some buttons and there are several buttons to push.  It was THE game of the afternoon.)

Monday: Last night

Last night was a little rough.  Isaac's been fighting a runny nose for a while now, and last night it just seemed to get the better of him.

Of course, I had a hard time falling to sleep in between.  And then I was almost asleep and I smelled something burning.  Instantly I was awake, and decided that nothing was burning...I had just had a dream smell.  But that was another 20 minutes before I could get to sleep again...periodically smelling the air, making sure that nothing was burning.  (Does anyone else ever have that?  It has happened to me a few times now...and it sure seems real.)

And the conversation of the day:
Amanda: "Isaac, your tag is sticking out of your pants."
Isaac: "WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
Isaac runs to Amanda for a hug.

Hi

Autumn and I say hi from outside the nursery door. It turns out that I have no apps for kids on my phone right now, but she is enjoying watching me type. What else shall we talk about right now? The wall we are looking at is purple. Autumn thinks the wall is blue. Her boots are pink, but she thinks they're green.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Friday: children's musuem

Today Isaac and I went with Dad and Landon to the children's museum in GR.  We had fun. :)  Isaac might still be a little young to get how to play with the stuff (correctly), but he's old enough to enjoy being in a new environment.  And he loved being able to walk around!  He kept walking in and out of a tree house that they had on the second floor.


Making a bridge out of Lincoln logs for the train.

Playing with what are basically giant building blocks.

Looking in a square mirror.

Balls!  This is the one that Isaac played with the best.

Thursday: uncles

Today we ended up with all of Ben's siblings and there was a big nerf gun war going on.  Well, as big of a war as you can get with two nerf guns and some babies running around.  Anyway, Travis was trying to get Jacob.  Ben got the gun from Travis.  Travis ran out into the open.  Jacob came out from his hiding place, and started aiming.

POW.

Ben got him in the shoulder.  The look on his face was hilarious since he completely wasn't expecting it.

The moral of the story: you've got to watch out for your uncles.

Wednesday: spring break

After never expecting a true spring break again, I'm happy to announce that I'm on spring break.  I had a class this morning...I'm sitting in on a class that I'm going to teach next semester on Excel and Access.  There's some stuff that I don't know, but nothing that I can't pick up.  And I'm really sitting in on the class just a few times to see how it is run.

I also had my Wednesday section of CAD this afternoon.  There's only 10 people, compared to Tuesday's 22, so it always feels a more laid back.

Isaac is still walking by himself all over the place.  We went to the library and he realized that he could bounce the metal bookends and that they would make a clanging noise.  After that I basically just skimmed for a few books that looked ok as I followed him around, trying to muffle the noise.

Tuesday: baby-adult

Kitty-cat.
Puppy-dog.
Bunny-rabbit.


Ok, I'm going to admit, this post suddenly derailed.  I was going to say how weird it is that so many animals are called by their baby-adult names, but you never hear of a baby-adult (for humans).  But then I could only think of three examples so maybe it isn't so weird that you never hear of baby-adults.

Monday: there he goes!

So...walking.  As you may remember, Isaac took his first solo steps about a month ago.  I had figured that it wouldn't be long before the walker was just a memory, but that didn't really happen.  In fact, there was about a week were he would only walk with the walker.  (I think it was due to teething.)  And even when he did walk, it was because Ben or I put him on his feet with a goal not too far away.

But then this evening he decided to walk.  By himself, just for fun.  He went across the house and back, and then a few other times throughout the night.  He exhausted himself out.  Balancing is hard work.

(Hopefully it keeps up tomorrow!)
(Quote of the day: Isaac, don't bite the couch.)

Sunday: daylight savings

When Isaac woke up this morning, I looked at the clock and it said 5:45.  Ugg.  Before his wake-up time.  I made him wait 15 minutes hoping he'd go back to sleep, but he didn't.

Then I was looking at my I-pad after getting Isaac up, and it said 7:11.  Whoo-hoo!  It was time for breakfast!  I gained an hour.  Isaac may have thought he was waking up early, but really he remembered DST and got up at the right time.

In other news, I said the following today: "Isaac, don't lick the floor."  I'm sure it will be the first of many supposedly obvious things.

Cousins

Friday: nap

My to-do list feels like it is exploding. But housework is so boring. So today, after the gym, I took a nap instead of getting things done.

As always, I was in a better mood afterwards. I got a few things done, but was mostly happy to ignore it. :D

Thursday: groceries

We went to Meijer to get groceries today.  As we were walking in Isaac pointed to the horse several times.  I told him we had to wait until we had the groceries.

source

As we got groceries I felt that everything was on sale.  It was rather crazy, actually.  I ended up stocking the pantry a little bit since some of the deals were so good.

As we were checking out Isaac started pointing to the horse and making his excited noise again.  (We were pretty far away from Sandy at that point.  I was surprised that Isaac noticed the horse.)  We finally finished checking out and Isaac got his ride.  I'm sure it was all he was hoping for.

(Now I just need to make sure that I have pennies with me when we go to the store.  (The ride costs 1 cent.)  It's one of those things that it seems like you never run out of, but if I'm actually using them they might disappear quickly.)

Tuesday: OT 2x

Isaac and I made it through the Old Testament in his Bible today.

source

It's been interesting because each story is about eight to ten sentences long.  It gets the main point across, but skips over many of the details that the Bible has.  It makes me wonder how many details the Bible has left out that are not crucial but would still be interesting.  And how many stories got left out.

Interestingly, this is the one book that Isaac has a problem letting me read to him.  It started out fine, but recently he wants to hold it alone.  Usually I hold the books and he turns the pages (at least for once through the book), but for this book he just screams.  So while we've made it through the Old Testament, I'm not sure he's getting anything.  Oh well, I'll keep persevering.  And he likes holding it himself, so that's good at least.

Monday: 14 months

I took Isaac's 14 month pictures a few days ago.

Some with the quilt

(I know he looks really sad here, but I have limited pictures on his back.)

And that was the end of the photo shoot...

Isaac loves his walker so much that he has a hard time letting go.

Sunday: napping

Today Ben and I both napped longer than Isaac did.  Isaac slept for a short 30 minutes, Ben had a long 30 minutes, and I had 120 minutes.

While I'm ok with Isaac switching to only one nap per day (he's still on the fence), I'm not really ready for them to be that short.  I've decided that part of the reason babies sleep so much in the beginning is so the parents can slowly get used to having another child.

Saturday: Happy Birthday!

This afternoon we went to a surprise birthday party for Pat.  She was surprised!  And it was nice to see everyone.

Here's the woman of the hour and Isaac.

Friday: goal

One of my goals today was to not take a nap. I failed.

Flurry's goal was to take several naps and she succeeded.

Wednesday: Aldi's

I recently choose not to renew my Sam's club membership.  I'm not sure that I was saving a ton of money, especially by the time you add in the membership fee.  I didn't do a spreadsheet or anything so I'm not completely sure that this is true, but it was my gut feeling.

So I went to Aldi's today for the first time.  I was medium impressed.  They had a lot of the staples that I buy, but were missing several things too...and I'm not really sure that I want to go to two grocery stores to get all of my groceries every week.  I was really impressed with the speed at the checkout lane.  The prices also seemed good.

So my plan might be to go there when I just need a few things that are common food items and I'll get more used to it.  Then maybe I'll go more often, maybe I won't.

Oh, I also have this cute video of Isaac talking from two days ago.  I think he's been talking more, but it is hard to get it on video.

Tuesday: grading

Tonight was a marathon grading session.  The class I'm teaching is a half semester class, and the registrar's office doesn't give any extra time between the class ending and having grades due.  (One of the classes was actually scheduled to meet after grades were due...we got around it.)

Anyway,  the final project was a toy car.  Most of them were really cool.  Some of them were amazing.  I wish I could show you some pictures, but I don't have permission.  But there were DeLoreans, gliding cars, dump trucks, hardware-mobiles, Hope cars, banana cars, drag cars, and your "normal" cars.  I had the students include a short paragraph with their car, mainly so that I'd know what part they imported, but that part turned out to be really interesting.  It was cool to see what they were thinking and really helped me grade better.  (For example, in one of them it wasn't that the person in the car was too small but that it was a monster truck.)

There are a few things that I'll change for the class again during the second half of the semester, but overall I thought it went really well.

Monday: a problem

Isaac had a problem today.

Two hands, two spoons, two bowls, but only one mouth.

Sunday: toys

Today I moved Isaac's toys from the main room upstairs into his bedroom.  I had them out before so that I could watch him, but now he is allowed to be without visual supervision a little more and I'm hoping it will be a little easier to keep everything clean.  Although I really expect that the toys will just migrate out of the room.

Note: He's not allowed out of sound supervision.  When he's too quiet he gets checked pretty quickly. :)

Friday: walking

Today I put my pedometer in Isaac's pocket.

The pocket on his leg.

Showing off that he is wearing a whale and playing with a whale

Now, the number is probably off.  The pedometer probably logs the number of steps that I carried him around.  (My guess is about 400 because we went on some odd errands and I carried him more than normal.)  It probably also logs each crawl as a step because it is based on the movement and doesn't care which direction it goes in.

At the end of the day, it said 4908.  It was a pretty good day of walking. :)  It helped that he took his walker and went from one side of the house to the other side and back to the first side and then back to the other side and then stopped in the bathroom and then to his bedroom and then back to the first side.  I watched him while I was sitting, exhausted from shoveling.  (As a side note, our driveway is shrinking.)  He can walk without the walker, but he can almost run with it.  And I'm not so worried that he will fall over backwards.

Thursday: dragging

I'm going to admit, today dragged.

Class today was just a time to work on projects.  So there were a few questions, but not a ton.  It was boring.  Then I forgot the library books to return to the library, so Isaac and I just went home.

I was excited to take a nap, but Isaac was determined not to.  I thought he should take a nap around 10:30am, but it took until 2:00pm.  I kept expecting him to be sleepy and so when he wasn't the day continued to drag.

Once we left for racquetball the day sped up.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little better.  If we can at least stay on a semi-normal schedule it would help.

Wednesday: a few pictures

As promised, I took a few pictures today.

He likes his chair, but rarely uses it as a chair.  I more often see him pushing against it like a football player practicing blocking.  But he wouldn't do it with the camera out.

He also likes his spools.  They're all over the place, but they're just right for his little hands.  So we're making a collection.

Tuesday: today

Today had its ups and downs.  I couldn't find several things that I wanted to use (although to be fair, they weren't really very important things).  Isaac seemed to be feeling weird.  Bible study was canceled.

But...it snowed most of the day.  Isaac slept a lot.  I got some quilting done.

Hmm.  I thought this would be a more exciting post.  But really, it is pretty boring.  It's my half birthday today.  I think I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow to post.

Monday: falling

Isaac is still walking, but hasn't learned how to fall well.  He often falls backwards but forgets to bend at the waist, so he bonks his head.

We've managed to limit it to about once a day, but it is still really sad each time it happens.  The only good thing is that I get some great hugs afterwards, but I'd rather forgo them.

Sunday: Dominion

Today we played online Dominion with our friends.  It was fun.  Nothing special to report I guess, though.  Isaac always goes to bed before it starts (unlike the other children) so it's a little sad that we don't get to show him off.

Doug won the first three games, but Ryan and I managed to beat him on the last game.

Saturday: feelings

Isaac is starting to figure out his feelings.  Yesterday and today the feeling he is learning about is frustration.  Frustration that his walker ran into a wall.  Frustration that the end table ran into the wall.  Frustration that I wouldn't pick him up.  Frustration that he had to wait for his food.

It's annoying, but I suppose part of growing up.

He also got to experience some happy feelings with Ben today though.  Notice that he even has his own controller.

Friday: aqua fit II

Today during aquarobics we were supposed to hold a Styrofoam noodle in front of us and then push it down while our arms were extended.

The noodle and I must have about the same buoyancy because I could not push it down without jumping on top of it.  I looked around and no one else seemed to be having any problems.  Maybe I was in water that was too deep.  I was laughing in the inside because I probably looked hilarious as I fought with the noodle while trying to keep my composure.