King of the Throne

We have been living the exciting life of potty-training around here the last little while. Isaac has done really well with it. I fear to write this now as I put Isaac down for his nap in underwear and not a diaper like I have been. He's been asleep for over 3 hours. Not sure what to expect. He's woken up with a dry diaper from all night and his naps the last several days so I figure why not?!? So far the only issue is that he's so stinking skinny there's only one brand of underwear that will stay on him. Why don't they just make regular 2T underwear instead of 2T/3T?!?!? What is the deal? Hopefully he'll continue doing well. It's great only have 1 in diapers! Hmm...as I sit here and write this Leah just filled-probably overfilled-her diaper. Lovely. Guess that ends this post!

Check out that cute little boy bum in REAL underwear!!

Sledding

Saturday was quite nice (almost 30°) so we went sledding at Jake's parents' house. Isaac thought it OK, Leah LOVED it. She laughed the whole way down the hill, then laughed most the way up the hill. At one point she managed to get her mitten off and was exploring the snow. The cold didn't seem to bother her. Isaac loves to play in the snow, but doesn't enjoy the fast ride down in the sled.

10 months

On the 11th Leah was 10 months. Holy smokes! Maybe it's because she was born so early in the year, but time is going by much more quickly it seems than it did when Isaac was this age.

Leah is MOVING! And into everything. EVERYTHING! And once she's into it, it is usually right into her mouth. I know this is the norm, but Isaac didn't crawl until he was almost 14 months and even then he rarely put anything in his mouth unless it was food that he liked. We've had to move so many things!
She is a happy, smiley baby. She still prefers Mommy, but is quite content with anyone especially if I'm out of sight.
She is not sleeping through the night. She did. Once. Jake can get her to sleep MUCH easier than I can-she has to be held and her bum patted to get to sleep. She's starting to prefer sleeping on her stomach.
Leah is attempting to keep up with Mr. Isaac, but he's a quick one so she's got some work to do. She loves to play with Isaac and his toys. One of her favorite things to do is to try and steal his cups when he's drinking from one.
She will eat anything-which is great at meal time, not so great when there's a speck of anything on the floor.
This girl is determined-she does not like being told no and usually just whines and then carries on with her mission. Favorite places to explore: under the desk, which requires her to crawl (and then get stuck) under the chair to unplug whatever she can before getting caught. The book shelf-thankfully, no books have been damaged (yet). The bells on the Christmas tree...and thanks to me and Jake skipping a day {or 2} watering it, it formed a new seal on the trunk and is D-R-Y and the needles are falling off all over the place! And lastly, behind the rocker in the family room where the laptop is stored. Even if we sit so our feet block the space between the chair and the couch she will ram her little head into us hoping we'll move. She'll keep going until we pick her up or move her!
Leah is still nursing ever 3-4 hours, but is becoming less and less dependent on me all the time.
She is a little stinker at times, but what a joy she brings to our home. She gives the best hugs and kisses and we couldn't love her more. I can't believe she's almost a year old!

Creating

After the foot of snow that was dumped on us last week we've been spending LOTS of time inside. To keep busy, we've been creating. Here's Isaac helping make {a million!} gingerbread cookies.


We also tried painting. Brushes and rollers are definitely his preferred application methods. Finger painting is not so much his forte. (Check out the neat little finger brush in the first picture!)

Bling

As noted in a previous post, Leah refuses to keep much of anything in her hair. She's finally letting me put a ponytail or pigtails in and usually leaves them alone. Nonetheless, we wanted her to always have a girly look. In comes the bling. We took her to Claire's the Saturday after Thanksgiving to get her ears pierced! We purposely went when there were two people there so we could do both ears at one time. Little did we know that under the age of 3 they have to do them one at a time because the kids are so wiggly. We decided to do it anyways. She cried. For 15 seconds. Then she was fine. And adorable. Plus bling.

*click the picture on the right to enlarge to see the saddest little tears ever!

And of course, we can't go to lower level of the mall without a ride on the train so here's Isaac in choo-choo heaven.

Tree Hunting

Every year we go tree hunting the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Last year the good trees were all taken! This year we found out the tree farm actually opens the weekend before Thanksgiving. That's when we went....we we lucky enough to have good weather and find a great tree. The kids visited Santa and Jake and his dad went back a week later and picked them up. Pretty painless and now our living room smells Oh-so-Christmasy!

Valley West Express

We braved the crowds tonight at the mall for the Santa parade and free trains rides. We stood in line for 45 minutes to save $1 (the regular cost of the train ride). Isaac and Kyler LOVED riding the train and I'm sure we'll be back to the mall several times this holiday season to ride the Valley West Express.

We did sticker snowmen while we waited.

Elmo and Cookie Monster made a quick appearance.

And Leah looking lovely as we waited.

Almost moving

Just for the sake of keeping a record, Leah pushed up onto her knees today AND rolled back to belly. While we were at the library. On the floor-on her own blanket. I will venture to say that by Christmas this little lady will be an official mover. :)

Piggy Tails

Leah's hair is growing, though I am anxious for it to get long enough to really do something with. This day I actually managed to get pig tails in...unfortunately they lasted all of 15 seconds after I took these pictures. Oh well...someday she'll have lots of hair to play with!

Leaves are Falling All Around

Although only about 5% of the leaves have fallen from our GIANT tree in the front yard, I raked a few up so the kids could have a photo-op. Enjoy!

And how does Isaac feel about being outside in November? See for yourself...

Halloween

Leah was a bear and Isaac was a train conductor. We borrowed the bows from Leah's Build-a-Bear to make it clear she was a girl. Despite Isaac's incredible sadness in this picture, he had a great night. (It's the only picture I have of him, my parents and Jake's parents have more, but I have yet to get them). We went to my parents' house for dinner and then to Jake's parents' house for pictures and treats. We didn't do any door-to-door trick-or-treating (there's a lot of hyphens in this post!!) since Isaac is still so young and shy. We still ended up with plenty of candy! We weren't able to go to trunk or treat at the church because it was the same night as our beggars night. Maybe next year!
P.S.-thanks to the Breits for letting us borrow the train hat!

9 Months

Today Leah is 9 months old. Wow! She is such a blessing in our lives, and we can't imagine life without her. Here's a few pictures from our attempted photo shoot....

Leah is SO close to crawling-she certainly wants to, just hasn't quite figured it out yet. However, she can now move from one side of the room the other through a combined effort of scooting and rolling from her belly to her back-she isn't rolling back to belly yet. If she sees something she wants, she will attempt to get it.
She has 6 teeth-no new ones this month.
She loves to smile for the camera (usually...).
She can wave and play peek-a-boo.
Mommy is her favorite, but she will usually be happy being held or entertained by about anyone; she is very friendly and rarely shy.
Food is her friend-she'll eat just about anything, though she prefers to feed herself instead of being spoonfed. Leah can also drink from a sippy cup and enjoys water and juice of all flavors.
Sleep is not her friend-at least not for long periods of time. If she sleeps for more than 5 hours straight it's a good night. She also has been putting herself to sleep about half the time lately-she fusses/cries for 5-10 minutes and she's out. This isn't my choosing, but sometimes she doesn't want to be nursed or rocked to sleep.
She refuses to wear headbands, bows, etc. on her head. If you see her with one on or in a picture, it's a rarity.
She has the chunkiest thighs in the history of fat baby legs.
Leah is quite the talker and says dadadadadadadadada all day long.
She is our peanut and we LOVE her!

Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans and those currently serving our country! Both my dad and Jake's dad served in the military-thanks, Dads!

Love This!

Photo Tinks by WiddlyTinks.com

Rather than attempting a pumpkin patch with 25 people again this year, Jake's parents planted pumpkin seeds at their house. We had a pumpkin day and even had rides on the tractor and roasted marshmallows for s'mores in the bonfire. Here's some pictures from our day!





I decided we'd decorate rather than carve pumpkins this year. Here's Isaac's little mummy pumpkin. He did help {a little}. It took me all of 90 seconds to whip this baby out. No mess, no stinky pumpkin guts, and no impatient 2 year-old. We'll save the knives for another year!

Fall Crafting, Decorating, and Baking

I'm usually not a HUGE crafter, but now that I have a little corner of my own in our family room to do what I want, I've been a little more adventurous this year. My creations thus far:

This is a wreath made from paper. Find the directions here. I wish I would have used more paper, used a white styrofoam wreath instead of a green one (because the white ones are softer) and, most importantly, followed the advice to use a thimble-my thumb and finger hurt for days!


Pumpkins made from paper. I also found the directions for this online somewhere, but I didn't save the link. If you're interested, let me know-it's super easy!


The top of my entertainment center decorated. The "Fall" picture frames idea is from here-good ol' dollar store was a great help in this decorating adventure. I think everything here cost less than $20 total.


This one I get to take all the credit for. It started as a wedding gift for a friend, but it turned out so hideous that I scraped it all off and made this instead. I bought the letters that say "trick" like 3 years ago-they were in a set that came with the whole alphabet. Unfortunately, there was only one of each letter. It took me days (literally) to think up a word that didn't have a double letter and that each letter had a different pattern. As it was, I had to make a new "i" for this one. I have to say I really like the way it turned out.


Lastly, are these not the cutest little spider guys ever? Found the directions here-they were a little time consuming, but totally cute in the end. (I'm assuming they were tasty, I didn't eat any since I'm not such a fan of chocolate cake...I know, I know!).

Jake and I made one more treat that I know we took pictures of. Not sure what happened to them....I'll have to see if I can find them before I post about them.

Pumpkin Patch (on second thought)

Last Friday we went with my parents to an apple orchard that also had pumpkins. We thought it was one that had a corn pool (like a sand box but with feed corn instead of sand). To our disappointment, we got there to find it was only an apple orchard (not even one where you could pick your own) with a bunch of pumpkins in the grass that were already picked. Hmm...not so much fun for our little guy. So we made a split-second decision and headed up to Cambridge (about 30 minutes from Des Moines) to Center Grove Orchard. It was GREAT! They had a ton of stuff to do: goats, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other animals to feed; a minature 3 little pigs village (with a house made of straw, one made of sticks, and one made of bricks); a GIANT corn pool with slides into it (of which Isaac was NOT a fan, hence there aren't any pictures!); rubber duck races, a giant slide, hay maze, corn maze, apple sling shot (which, sadly, wasn't open that night), and a jumping pillow (Isaac was also not a fan of that, click here to see what it is-SO cool!). Our only complaint was that it was quite chilly-otherwise we would have had even more fun! We will definitely be visiting there next fall!