Isaiah's first pet.

Isaiah decided to spend his birthday money a couple weeks ago and purchase his very first pet!

 

 He picked out a "sucker" fish and 4 gold fish.

 He also picked out a glass bowl and a bridge for the fish to play around.

 He watched so patiently as the fish sat in their bag in the bowl.

 And was so interested as Mark took them out of the bag and put them into the bowl.

He checks on them and watches them -- but I must say he's not quite as interested as I'd like him to be anymore :) He is having a hard time figuring out names for them, but has commited to Ravis Bavis for the sucker fish and Slippers for the mostly white goldfish.

** well since I've started this post, 3 of the 4 goldfish have been moved from the fish bowl to the toilet bowl:(  I guess it was to be expected with 28 cent fish from Wal-Mart.  Isaiah really doesn't seem to mind, he's just happy that he has the two fish left.  And wouldn't you know it, the two fish that survived are the two fish that actually have names.  So, now we have Slipper and Ravis Bavis.  So we'll try to take extra good care of these last two fish and we'll just have to see if we are ready for more! :)  

*** and now that it's been about a month since I began this post, all 4 fish are gone, and Isaiah could care less! :)  We have a fishbowl full of water just sitting on the counter and truthfully Isaiah is just as happy with this.  I guess it was a good thought, but just reinforces the fact that Isaiah is not an animal person.  He really could care less if he sees a dog walking by the house (where as Levi gets all excited and waves excessively and says hi), he pays no attention to my dad's dog (Levi chases him around and plays with him), he didn't really care about Jayda's new puppy or kittens (Levi loved them all and screamed when we had to leave them, and asks to go see the kitties about twice a week!), really I can't think of a time that Isaiah was all that excited about an animal, except picking these fish out at the store.  Goes to show we are all different and that's good!

So I guess Isaiah's first pet experience was not successful, maybe we will try again in 10 years (or maybe he can try in 20 years when he's on his own! haha).

Warning ...

Remember my last post about Shutterfly and getting 50 free Christmas cards?  Well, I got my code and just ordered my cards!  If I post my selection on my blog then I get $25 gift card for my next purchase.  I can't pass that up, can I?  So, just a warning, if you want to be surprised by our Christmas card, skip over my next post!! :)

PS - Hopefully soon I'll be posting more about what's going on around here.  I maxed out my 1G of free space through blogger so I have to find the time to purchase more space...

Christmas Card 2010

Holly Frame Christmas Card

Get custom photo Christmas cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas Cards and Shutterfly.

I must admit I love Christmas cards.  I love the month of December and checking the mail every day hoping to get at least one Christmas card.  I love creating my own Christmas Cards and sending them to my friends and family.  I especially love to send photo cards.  For the past several years I've made a photo card with a family picture, but this gets harder (and better) as every year there are more and more options!

Have you checked out Shutterfly's designs this year?  (Shutterfly is one of my favorite online photo websites.  I've purchased several things off Shutterfly including four different photo books.  Their quality is unbeatable and they almost always have a sale that makes their price comparable or cheaper than the other sites I've found! Click here to check out their photo books)

Here are some of my favorite Shutterfly Christmas card designs this year:

Here is a link to view more cards from Shutterfly!  As you can tell I like the cards that say Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays! :)

I also love to give photo gifts as Christmas gifts!  I know how fun they are to have, but how much time they can take to make so I love to do this for my friends and family!  One fun project I did was to make a photo calendar - you can check those out here.

And do you know what else makes Shutterfly so great?  They are offering free Christmas Cards!  Head here for more details!

Liahna's 2!

Our little niece turned 2 years old on November 15!  She is such a little cutie pie! 

She definitely has her own personality and knows how to hold her own!  My boys are, well, boys rough and tough - she's learning to let them have it back!  You go girl! :)

Because of annoying work schedules (her husband works third shift, and my husband works second - why can't we all just have my schedule 8-1 four days a week! HAha.) we ended up having a little celebration at my parents house the Saturday before her birthday.  We gave her a bunch of art stuff (finger paint, play doh, crayons).  Notice the gift bag - my sister and I have passed this gift bag back in forth like 5 times :)  I think it started as a gift from a baby shower years ago! 

and my parents gave her a John Deere tractor!! 

I'm not sure which kid liked it the most!  From the moment she got the gift until she left I think one of the three little ones were on it!  And much of the time, one kid was riding and another kid was pushing.  

Instead of cake, we had little mini cup cakes!  

Happy Birthday big girl!  

date afternoon.

It's been a few weeks now, maybe even a month, I can't remember for sure.  But Mark and I got to go out on a date one Sunday afternoon.  It was so nice.  We went to see the play Pyrates at our local Christian theatre.  It was a fun play with a great message. 

Before the show we stopped to take a picture of just the two of us, Mark was so excited, haha.  But was a good sport and even posed for a picture by himself! :)

 

Hopefully we'll make it to the Christmas play that they have next month too!  If you live in the area, I'd defintely recommend you go, in fact, let's make it a group date!!

quote of the day.

We were on our way home from Target, Isaiah and Levi were in the backseat drinking a Danimals smoothie (basically yogurt that's a little less thick - Isaiah LOVES them) and Isaiah says, "hey mommy!  I'm drinking my energy drink!!!" I say, "oh, is it good?"  Isaiah says, "I'm just pretending it's an energy drink silly."

Gotta love his imagination! 

first conference!

Mark and I went to Isaiah's first ever school conference this week.  I'm proud to say that he's doing GREAT!  Mrs. Knapp went over several things with us and was very positive about Isaiah and how much he's learned and grown since the beginning of the school year!  Here's a list of what we talked about (this is more for me to look back at in the spring and next year) but figured this is a good place to write it down!

* He is able to trace and write his name well except for the letter "s" however, he writes it in all capital letters.  She is hoping by the end of the school year he'll be able to completely write his first (maybe middle) and last name by himself without tracing it.

* He can recognize all capital letters except the V and most lower case letters except he missed v, y, q and I think one or two others.

* He could name the street, city and state portion of his address.  She encouraged us to help him learn the numbers in our address.  (the day of our conference I told him our full address and when I've asked him several times since he has said the full address including the numbers -- hopefully this will stick with him!)

* He does not know his phone number.  (No surprise, I've never EVER talked with him about our phone number)

* He has learned the rules of the classroom really well.  She stated that at the beginning of the school year she could easily tell that he was one of the younger kids in the classroom by his behavior (not listening as well, talking out of turn, learning about circle time, etc) but by now he is doing excellent. He is in a 4 and 5 year old classroom where you must be 4 by Sept 15 of the school year and Isaiah was 4 on Sept 11 so Isaiah and Caiden are the youngest in the class.  He does occasionally tune out and randomly comment to Caiden something completely off the subject - but this is totally normal and expected.

* Mrs. Knapp told us that Isaiah has a such a kind and loving spirit (which we knew :) and is always helping Caiden.  He likes to make sure Caiden has his folder turned in, his coat on, is sitting where he is supposed to. She says he is such a great friend to Caiden.  He also is very friendly and excited to play with the other kids in class.  (But Isaiah and Caiden are always right by each other)

* Back in the end of September they did a cutting exercise and Isaiah did well cutting 2 out of the 3 lines well.  She said she would like to see him continue working on his cutting, but since that activity he has really improved.  Part of his problem then (and now sometimes depending on his mood) is being patient and taking his time cutting.

* She was pleased with how far he could count, but when tested in class he counted upto 11.  Both Mark and I were surprised about this as he frequently counts much higher than this.  I'm sure he can count to 20.  Hopefully by the end of the year we can make it to 30!

* He can very easily count out different objects and when tested gave Mrs. Knapp the correct number of blocks when she asked him to.

* Mrs. Knapp said that he was a very smart boy and that academically he could easily go to kindergarten now and she's sure that socially he'd be ready by the fall!  This makes me happy, but we are almost certain that Isaiah will be attending another year of preschool and starting kindergarten just before he turns 6.  She thought this would be good for him too - his preschool offers a 5 afternoons class from 12:30-3 that I think we will check into in the spring.

I am so proud of him and how great he is doing!  His conference went really well and there were no surprises (except the counting maybe).  Great job Isaiah!

poor boy.

Isaiah managed to pick up the flu bug somewhere this past week.  Poor little boy.  He was up on Thursday and Saturday nights throwing up every hour or two and I don't think we can even count the number of trips he had to the bathroom on Saturday :( By Sunday he was feeling better, except he was so very tired.  In fact, so tired that this is what happened when Mark and Isaiah sat down to watch a little Sunday afternoon football.

Isaiah hasn't napped in MONTHS so I knew he was still not quite himself yet.  And Mark, no surprise that he fell asleep, but not because he was sick but because he had to work 6pm Saturday to 6am Sunday.  But we (thankfully) had an uneventful Sunday night and Isaiah has been just fine all day today!  Now let's just hope it isn't passed on to the rest of us!

Slumber Party!

Sweet little Jayda Violet turned 4 on October 31!  

It's hard to believe that it was already 2 years ago that they looked like this....

 To celebrate Jayda's birthday she had a slumber party!  I was really nervous -- Isaiah has never stayed over night anywhere but home or with my parents (except when he was 11 months old and Mark had just returned home from Iraq he spent a full weekend at Kammy's house).  And I'm pretty strict about going to bed on time and sticking to our same routine... but how could we not let him go?  So of course he went, had a blast and we've had no bedtime problems at home because of it!

From what Isaiah told me and the pictures that Laura shared with me, it looks like all the kids had so much fun!  They started outside with a pizza party!

And then inside for bingo, cake and presents!

Isaiah didn't have a sleeping bag to take with him and he really wanted to have one so when we were shopping for Jayda's birthday present, we decided to get one for him and one for Jayda.  I think they were both pretty excited about them!

Isaiah tried his out at home before the party...

Then they watched the Little Mermaid and the Tinkerbell movie and all snuggled up to sleep.

It sounds like they all did really good and slept from 10:30 to 6:30 or something like that.  I was impressed!  I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to host a slumber party with so many 3,4 and 5 year olds!

Levi and I dropped Isaiah off at the party and went home to have our own little party - just the two of us!  Levi was very upset most of the way home, he was so sad that Isaiah was gone.  But we made pizza and cookies so he got over it pretty quickly!:)

Happy Birthday Jayda Girl!

Thanks to the veteran's, especially ours!

Our family on one of the happiest days of our life, July 26, 2007 - Mark made it home safe and sound from Iraq!

Until 6 or 7 years ago, Veteran's Day meant nothing to me.  It was just another day where there wasn't mail, certain stores were closed, and you have to wonder if the garbage man is going to show up, but my life experiences have changed my view on this holiday (along with a million other things!).

For those of you who don't know, my husband enlisted in the Army in September of 1999 - the beginning of his senior year of high school.  He graduated a semester early and was shipped off to basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky in February of 2000 (if I remember the dates right, it may have been January).  From there he was sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas to spend 3 months training to be an Army Medic.  Because of hearing loss, he was unable to go full-time army as he had hoped, but was slotted with the Army National Guard.  A few years went by (we were married in August 2002) and his unit was deployed in May of 2003 to the Siani Peninsula on a base near Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt and close to Saudi Arabia.  He spent almost a year away from home.  In early 2005 (I can't remember exactly when) we were notified that his unit was going to Iraq and in October 2005 his unit left to train to go to war.  In March 2006 their training was complete and they arrived in Al Asad, Iraq to perform security for convoys transporting goods all across Iraq.   He was scheduled to come home in April 2007, but with the need for troops in Iraq his unit was notified in January 2007 that their deployment time had been extended.  He FINALLY made it home the very end of July 2007.  He made it through 22 months away from home.  His unit was deployed for the longest period of time out of any other unit in all branches of the military since World War II. After he came home they had to go through some regular physicals and medical screenings and the results showed that his hearing loss was much worse.  He went before a medical review board in the summer of 2009 where they decided to medically discharge him as he was no longer able to safely be a medic in the Army because of his great hearing loss (I think it's like 90% loss in his left ear). So on September 30, 2009, exactly 10 years to the day, he was out of the military.  He served our country proudly, giving up years of his life, missing the birth of his son, basically losing complete hearing in one ear, and so much more.  And he doesn't expect anything in return.  He is such a selfless soldier.

I am amazed by him and so many others, and the sacrifices that our soldiers go through in order to keep our country safe.  They give up so many things both big and little that the average civilian takes for granted.  The sacrfices come not only during deployments, but with every day life.  (I can't even count the number of times that Mark and I have had something planned and we had to cancel or rearrange it because something came up for the army).  So, I would like to say thank you to all those who have and are serving our country (and to the families at home, who serve our country too).  Your sacrifices do not go unnoticed.

Happy Veteran's Day.

Isaiah and Levi's first phone conversation

Isaiah went with my parents to visit my grandma in Ames.  They called to check in and Isaiah and Levi had their first ever phone conversation (I think).  They have very, very rarely ever been apart other than when Isaiah is at school or when they are each in their own Sunday School class. Here's how the conversation went...(I could only hear Levi's end of the conversation).

Hi Zay-ya.

Hi Zay-ya.

I wan play with you (I want to play with you).

Zay-ya.

I play with you.

Hi Zay-ya. 

*** They had to hang up. ***

Let's go get him.

I call Zay-ya.  You play on put-ter (computer).

*** We called them back. ***

Hello Zay-ya???? 

Hello.  

I wan to play with Zay-ya. 

I'm Superman.  (pointing to his Superman costume that he's wearing again:)

HE'S TALKING TO ME!! 

It's daddy!!!

(Me - is it grandpa?)

Yeah!  I play with Zay-ya.

I hear Go Fish Guys. 

Zay-ya?  I play with Zay-ya?

Hi Grandpa.  

Mommy, he's talking to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bye grandpa, bye grandpa, bye grandpa

Hi Zay-ya.  

I'm talking.  

Hi Zay-ya.  

No talkin to grandpa, no talkin to grandpa.  No talking to Zay-ya.  

*** They hung up on him! ***

Levi threw a fit because no one was talking to him on the phone.  We called LeAnna but Levi had to leave her a message.  Then we called Kammy and interrupted her dinner (sorry!) and they had a 10 minute conversation. Finally we called Isaiah back...

Hi Zay-ya. 

Hi.

Hi.

I'm talking. 

It's me.  It's me.

It's me.  

Bye.

And he handed the phone to me.  

:)

A walk in the park.

My dad took the boys and I on a walk in Hartman Reserve the other day.  It was one of the days where the wind was supposed to be going 50 miles per hour or something like that.  We hadn't been outside all day so I knew the boys would love it regardless of what the wind was doing.  When we got to the trails, it really was hardly windy at all. 

Isaiah was so excited to be outside that he was RUNNING all around.  He kept going so far ahead that we couldn't see him. 

 Levi was equally excited to be outside, but expressed his excitement in a completely different way.  He was walking slowly behind us with a stick in hand singing "hakuna matata" over and over and over and over and over and over and over. (you know, the song from the Lion King).

 I thought that it was so cute that Isaiah and my dad both had on their vests.  Isaiah almost always refuses to wear this vest (or any coat for that matter), but was willing to keep it on during this walk.

 There is just something sweet about watching little boys throw sticks and rocks into the water :)  They could have stayed here for hours.  But we gave them a few minutes and said it was time to move on!

Happy Fall!!!

Halloween 2010

We had a fun-filled, busy Halloween weekend this year! It blows my mind that it's already come and gone and Thanksgiving is just 3 weeks away!  Where does the time go?  

Our Halloween weekend started on Thursday morning when we carved pumpkins together as a family!  Well, actually it started Wednesday night at 8:15pm in the freezing cold, windy, darkness in front of Hy Vee -- the kids and I were out picking our pumpkins -- not quite the pumpkin farm, but we just didn't make it there this year!  Our family time together is very limited because of Mark and my work schedules and we knew we would have a short window of time to carve the pumpkins Thursday morning so I wanted to make sure we were ready to go Thursday morning.  Wednesday night we had stuff at church that didn't get over until later than expected so, oh well.  We survived! 

The boys were so, so, so, excited to carve the pumpkins.  They could hardly wait for Mark to wake up so we could do it (remember he works until 2am and has to be up most mornings by 7:30 so when I'm home we try to let him sleep until at least 10).  Well, I finally gave in and let them wake him up around 9:30 and we immediately started our project.  

Levi REFUSED to touch the pumpkin insides at all...

   

And Isaiah really didn't want to either, so he hardly helped.

And I'm just not good with a knife - so Mark ended up carving the pumpkins while I separated the pumpkin seeds and the kids were off playing somewhere... until the pumpkins were done.   As a way to keep the kids entertained Thursday before it was time, we had looked online for pumpkin ideas and Isaiah picked out a scary face and Levi picked out a kitty.  So that's what we got.  Mark did a great job!

Thursday night the YMCA had their annual Halloween Party.  We went last year and had a lot of fun so when a friend from work reminded me about it, we were sure to attend.  For the past month or so Isaiah has been saying that he was going to be a ninja for Halloween, well that Thursday he decided that he should go as a dragon slayer (we have a costume that is red with a dragon on it that came with a sword so we've called it the dragon slayer even though I'm not so sure Isaiah knows what that really means) and he thought that Levi should go in our dragon costume -- I didn't think that would be such a good idea!  But Levi had his own opinion, he wouldn't dress up as anything but Superman.  So when Isaiah found out that Levi was going to be Superman, he wanted to be Superman too.  Thank goodness we have 2 sets of Superman jammies that have capes on them! I must say, they looked so cute together.

I invited my mom to come along with us, and thankfully she did!  The boys were both in all different directions at the party, so excited!  Because we got to the party right as it started, we hardly had to wait in line for any of the fun games they had for the kids to play.

They had a few cute little projects for the kids to do too --  banana halves with mini chocolate chips to make ghosts and apple slices, peanut butter and marshmallows to make monster teeth.  Isaiah had fun with them - Levi, on the other hand, just ate a few apple slices.

We ran into Abby (my friend who reminded me of the party) and Isaiah's friend Erika.

The party started to get crowded and the kids had made it through most of the games -- and so we decided to sneak away.  We found a martial arts class where the kids were learning to use nun-chucks.  They both sat completely still and watched for several minutes.

Then we found a place to burn some energy.  Erika came to join in with the fun, so the kids ran for awhile and then it was time to head home.

Saturday Levi decided that he wanted to be Superman again, so he was.

And Sunday was the big day!  I had asked Isaiah what he was going to dress up for trick-or-treating and he looks at me and says, "I'm going to be a ninja, silly."  :)  I knew Isaiah would be too excited to wait for 6pm to go trick-or-treating, so we went to the mall to participate in their event at 3.  (Thank goodness for church in the morning and then lunch to occupy Isaiah or we may never have made it until 3pm!)  Levi wanted to be Superman again so here we are - a scary man, a witch, a ninja and Superman.

We made a stop at Mark's parents and then to my parents and then it was time...finally!  We went to the houses around my parents neighborhood.  After a handful of houses, Levi was saying, "let's go home."  But Isaiah wanted to keep going, and Levi has been extra clingy lately and didn't want to go home unless I was, so he lasted 20 minutes or so and then Isaiah decided that he was done too.

We went back to my parents house and the boys had fun passing out candy with my mom.

   At 7:30 Isaiah says, "okay, I'm reading to go trick-or-treating again."  Levi wanting to stick with me, wanted to come too, so the boys, my dad and I hurried back out. Isaiah said he wanted to go to every house.  So we went down another block and made it just a couple houses around the corner and he was done again.  We walked by several houses with their lights on, but Isaiah said he just wanted to keep walking home.

 We then made it home and got ready for bed.  Whew!  Happy Halloween!