bubbles

A few days ago Isaiah decided to dump his entire bottle (which was basically brand new) of shampoo/body soap into our bathtub. I never got around to cleaning it up. Tonight I decided to try and give Isaiah a bath with all the soap in it. Look what happened!

You can't really tell from the picture, but it is about 1 inch of water and 15 inches of bubbles...Isaiah thought it was really cool for about 10 seconds. Then he said, "wipe the bubbles off me mama." So I wiped them off (of his hands and arms) and of course he got more on him immediately, and he said, "wipe the bubbles off me mama." So I did. Then he said, "I'll get dressed now mama." So he clearly wanted out...we didn't have the fun I thought we would, but at least I got a couple cute pictures! Now I just have to figure out how to clean out the tub...I'll guess I'll leave that for another day! :)

Christmas Memories...

We had a fun filled week full of Christmas activities...and lots of family time!

On Christmas Eve at 3:00 is when our festivities started...we headed to church as our little family. This was unusual for us, for as long as I can remember we've gone to church with my parents on Christmas Eve, but this year it didn't work out to do that. We had our first family gathering at 6:00pm, so we decided to go to the early service. It was a beautiful service...
We had a little time in between church and our party, so we came home to have a snack and pack the car...
and we made it to our first party right on time...Mark's immediate family...Isaiah had TONS of fun at this party because his cousin Dakota who is 3 (who you've seen in other posts) was there...and he's a wild and crazy boy just like Isaiah...they were having so much fun running around the house playing together. There were lots of presents to open...Levi opened his first Christmas present ever.


















The 4 girls of the family got matching pink hooded sweatshirts... We ended up staying out pretty late (for Isaiah anyway) and so it was a little rough getting Isaiah to sleep, he was so overly tired, but we did it...














and then Mark and I got to bring out Isaiah's train table...the present I've been waiting to give him for months now! This table my dad and I made together (he did most of it!). I bought Isaiah some wooden train track and trains off Craig's List, mostly the real Thomas stuff!! and we set it all out on the table ready to surprise Isaiah.
Christmas morning came and Mark and I woke up before Isaiah and Levi (well, kind of, if you don't count the 3 or 4 times they had us up in the night!) and we had trouble waiting for them to open presents! Finally Isaiah woke up (at like 8:15) and we showed him his table...he thought it was pretty neat! Uncle Matthew stayed over so we all got to exchange gifts and watch Isaiah open his gifts from Great Grandma Mary and Grandma Michele (who live in Florida)...We then made muffins and got ready to head over to my parents house for Christmas with my mom, dad, sister, her husband, their daughter Liahna, Great Grandma Carol and Great Aunt Sharon. We had another fun time there...eating yummy food (ham, scalloped potatoes, corn, etc) and enjoying our family. Great Grandma Carol enjoyed holding little Levi for at least an hour, she rocked him to sleep and held him while he napped. Of course there were more presents to be opened!















Isaiah, Levi and Liahna got Grandma and Grandpa a Garden Stone that says We (heart) grandpa & grandma and 3 little hearts that have their names on it...It was nice to see everyone...










































and Liahna is getting so big! We ended the night playing Wii--mom, dad, Matthew, Mark, and me. The day was over, we had a great time...
















and here is Levi in his favorite thing ever...the rainforest jumperoo that my wonderful friend Shannon let us borrow... Thank you Shannon!!!

space ship...

Thursday was a fun day around here! Because of our case of the stomach flu on Tuesday, Jayda and Jonah hadn't been to our house in a whole week! Isaiah was so excited to have a friend come over and play and I was excited too because I missed them too! It's been a long time since I've gone a week without seeing them! So off the toddlers went to play with who knows what (not me!:) ) while I played with the babies. Until Levi fell asleep...in the bumbo chair.

Shortly after, Isaiah comes up to me and says, "please mama, can we please play with the spaceship?" I knew whatever the spaceship was, Isaiah wanted to play with it really bad--for he used please in the sentence twice! He is usually very good about saying thank you, but please he sometimes forgets...so twice meant something big! So I said, "Sure honey, we can play with the spaceship...what is the spaceship?" He brings me the box to a toy he was given for Christmas last year (yes, a whole year ago!! and no, we hadn't opened it yet) and gives it to me. So we go up to the play room and I open the toy and realize it is a lot bigger than I expected it to be...FINALLY I get it all put together and here it is:
Needless to say, Isaiah and Jayda had a complete blast in this toy... and since Thursday morning it has been Isaiah's favorite thing EVER. "Come play in my spaceship mama" or "Come play in my spaceship dada" have been the requests of Isaiah these past few days. It has been so much fun for all of us. Thursday night and Friday we spent lots of time upstairs playing all kinds of things in the spaceship. I'm not sure how Isaiah thought of this as a spaceship from the box, but what a creative idea, and a perfect one too!





































































I was able to get the little ones away from the spaceship long enough for a snack and a nap on Thursday afternoon, and I have to share the picture of them eating their snack just because it is so adorable...look at them looking at each other with such sweet friendship in their eyes.

So if you're feeling like an adventure, come on over, Isaiah would love to give you a ride on the spaceship!

rolling over and shoes...

Last Saturday, on his four month birthday, Levi rolled over for the first time! Isaiah, Levi and I were just playing in Isaiah's room and I had Levi on his tummy. He was talking and giggling like usual and then all of a sudden...over he rolled! He's done it several times since and he is so cute doing it! I have yet to get a video of it, but when I do I'll try to post it! I have a hard time getting videos to load (anyone have any tips??).

Last night our family was playing upstairs in Isaiah's spaceship (more to come on that!) and we found Isaiah's first pair of shoes...so we decided to put them on Levi. Isn't he sweet?
Now here is a picture of Isaiah in them for the first time...how strange is it that he has the exact same shirt that Levi had on in the pictures above!!!

They look a lot alike, don't they?

playing catch with grandpa.

My dad usually makes a stop at our house after work on Thursdays; he's been doing this for a long time now. Our house is on the way home for him so it works out...We always look forward to Thursdays about 7 or 8...

Last night was no different, my dad stopped over and he and Isaiah started to play. Like I've said before, Isaiah is getting so good at talking in sentences and by now he is having full conversations. Here's the cute little conversation they had last night:

"I want to play catch," Isaiah said.

"How do you play catch?" asked grandpa.

"With a ball."

"Do you see a ball?"

"uh huh."

"Where?"

"Right here." as he points to the green ball in the picture above.

"Can we play catch with that ball?" asked grandpa.

"It's green," says Isaiah.

"Can we play catch with it?"

"yeah, it's breakable."

Isaiah's First Concert!!!

My friend LeAnna and her son Caiden (Isaiah's birthday buddy--they were born on the same day at the same hospital!) invited us to the Go Fish concert that was held last night at Gallagher Bluedorn. Mark, Isaiah and I went and we all had a blast!

If you've never heard of Go Fish, they are an upbeat Christan singing group that does a lot of accapella songs. They started singing for an "adult" audience, but recently starting singing more for children. At the concert they said they really felt the desire to start putting true values back in the hearts of young children and decided to put out some children's cds. Their most recent one is called "Party Like a Preschooler." Mark bought Isaiah a couple CDs, so I'm anxious to listen to them with him. We have a few of their CDs but they are the "adult" ones.

The concert we went to was a Christmas concert so lots of the music was Christmas songs. They were fun, but they did a little children's music section that was perfect for us! Isaiah was dancing and bouncing all around. He was so excited at one point he stuck out his arm really far and did the thumbs up sign (which is something daddy has been working on with him). It was just adorable. I really hope they come again this year and do an entire preschool concert. Let me know if you hear of it!!!
Here are the little ones excited to be at the concert: In our seats waiting for the show to start, you can tell Isaiah is really tired in this one...we had the stomach flu at our house Monday night...we almost didn't make it to the concert, but decided we could go out and have fun for a little while on Tuesday evening.
Wow, how cool are these guys??
Dancing to the music! (I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but you weren't supposed to use a flash, so I didn't want to take more than one try)...
Time to go home...it's way past bedtime! We ended up leaving the concert early, but Isaiah was ready to go home...

What a fun evening! I hope they come again soon, and in a few years when Levi will be old enough to go too!

we've been busy!

It's been awhile since I posted last! It seems like things have been extra busy around our house...I'm not really sure why, but that's okay. We've been having lots of fun. I'm going to try to think of a few cute stories to share about the past week...

I always read with Isaiah before bed time (and before nap time, exact same routine each time). We go into his room and sit right by the bookshelf and spend 15-30 minutes reading together and I get to give Isaiah a little undivided attention. When I'm ready to put him to bed, I always say, "one more story and then we have to go nigh night." Sometimes he'll pick the book right away other times he'll say, "you pick it mama." He is so used to it now that he knows when that book is done, I pick him up, he shuts off the light, and in the crib (yes--still a crib) he goes. Well, the other night, I said," one more story...which one would you like to read?" and take a look at the book he thought we needed to read before he went to bed...

I said,"Okay." and started to read it, we got about 5 words in and he flipped though the book to see that there were no pictures (as he's done many times) and he agreed to read a different one...You may be wondering what book that is, and why it's in Isaiah's collection of books...it is the Grimm's fairy tales book that he was given as a gift, yes he's a little too young and I should put it up, but I haven't...:)

Speaking of stories...I recently got out the Christmas books that I had tucked away. Isaiah loves them! He always says, "another Christmas one mama" so we've read the 5 or 6 Christmas books each time for the past week or so. He especially likes the "Elmo's twelve days of Christmas" one...in fact he has had me read (or should I say sing) this one to him at least 2 times per reading session since we got it out... unfortunately one night it got lost and we didn't get to read it :) but don't worry we found it! The first night we were reading this book we got to this page:

I read the page "Four Monsters Calling." (Three French Friends, Two Yummy Cookies, and a red monster up in a tree--no, I didn't even have to look at the book to remember the words!:) ) and turned the page to read on, and Isaiah looked at me for a second and then back at the book and then turned the page back to the "Four Monsters Calling." and looks up at me and says, "That's not a monster." and points to Elmo, "That's not a monster," and points to the monster on the far right. "That's not a monster," and points to the monster in the middle. "That's a monster!!!!!" he says and points to the monster with horns. Ha ha it was so funny. Apparently in Isaiah's mind you have to have horns to be a monster. I tried to explain that Elmo was a monster, a nice monster, but he didn't really get it.

Well, I've got more to share, but want to get this posted, so check back, maybe I'll be able to post some more soon!

us.

Saturday night we had our military dine out for Mark's National Guard Unit... We had a good time, it was nice to see some of the other "army wives" that I haven't seen in quite a while (thank goodness!) These were the ladies that I saw at least once a month throughout Mark's deployment to Iraq. Now those meetings are minimal (thank goodness!) and we just see each other at the big family events (the summer picnic and the Christmas party--thank goodness!). It's not that I don't like to see these ladies...or that I don't like them...but really the only thing we have in common is that our husbands are soldiers...and it's hard to associate them with anything but the sadness of your soldier being gone...

We decided to sneak out after the meal and take advantage of our time just the two of us...so we went to The OP to watch the UNI game.

Check out the fun we had:

our crazy game.

So Isaiah got this really fun sander toy (I have no idea what type of tool it really is) for his birthday (Thanks Austin and Kammy!). He's pretty much all boy so he loves tools... so it was perfect... but Isaiah's found a better use for it...

He's always loves to run around our house, grandma's house, or any other house we go to...in fact it doesn't have to be a house, he loves to run around Wal-Mart if he sneaks out of the cart, he loves to run around church, pretty much where ever he is, he likes to run around...

So our really crazy game we play was made up by Isaiah...and it's a combination of his cool sander toy and running around... Isaiah likes to find the sander (which has a button to make noises and make the gray part spin around) and come and get you and say "I'm going to get you." and wait until you start running around... you run all around until you finally let him catch you...and he "gets you" with the tool and then he starts running and you do it again. Then he'll hand you the toy and say, "come get me, mama (or dada, or whoever)." And expect you to do the same thing...you end up chasing each other all around the house while holding the sander out in front of you trying to use it to catch them and "get" them. He thinks this is the most fun thing to do ever!

Now once in awhile there is a variation to the game, the other person gets the Elmo drill (which also makes noises and spins around) and each person runs around trying to catch the other one...and "get" them by making the toy spin around while touching them.

Isaiah LOVES this...tonight Daddy and Isaiah were playing the chase game (with just the sander toy...which to Isaiah is called "thing.")...and it was so cute... Isaiah lost the sander somehow while chasing daddy and runs out to Mark and says, "Do you have the thing?" How incredible is it that he is asking questions like that when he plays?

Okay so I know our game is crazy (weird), but we have lots of fun and laughs playing it...you should come over and play it with us! :)

go Hawkeyes!

Isaiah is such a good helper...He likes to help me change Levi's diaper and get him dressed...The other morning we decided to put on Levi's Hawkeye outfit. Isaiah then decided that he wanted to wear his Hawkeye outfit too...so I had two adorable little Hawkeye fans (until Levi pooped through his outfit at Lauras...and then pooped through the spare outfit...and had to borrow one of Jonah's --Thanks Laura!)

I didn't really get a really good picture of them together...but boy did we have fun trying! Aren't they sweet?

cute, chubby baby boy!

Levi is such a fun baby! He loves to smile and laugh! His little giggle is the most adorable thing you'd ever see! I thought I'd share a few fun pictures of little Levi...isn't he the cutest?