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!