painting the snow!!!

On Tuesday when the babies were taking their morning nap, Isaiah, Jayda and I took advantage of the mild day and went out to paint the snow!! I took an empty contact solution bottle and an empty jet dry bottle and filled them with water. I dropped in several drops of food coloring and outside we went. The kids thought it was pretty cool! They emptied several bottles all over the snow, we started with red and blue. Jayda's favorite color is purple so for the second round I made purple and then she really got into it. We ended up with blue, red, green and purple snow. It sure makes our yard look pretty! Hopefully the weather will warm up and we can do it again!

goodbye to Christmas 2008

We had our last family Christmas gathering on Saturday. Unfortunately Mark was gone for a conference, so it was just me and the little boys. We had a nice time! Isaiah loves to go to these extended family things because there are always LOTS and LOTS of kids! I think I counted 23 kids (under 12 or so)! Isaiah got to eat his first ever candy cane! He loved it and wanted more...I think he did end up sneaking a second one (thanks to Uncle Colten!).

Santa even came and brought all of the kids a present!! Isaiah sat on his lap for just a second, Levi was asleep so I didn't wake him up to meet Santa...There's always next year. Isaiah was in awe of Santa pretty much the entire time he was there. He sat and stared at him and then moved his chair really close to him and just watched his every move. Later Isaiah asked, "where's Santa?" I said, "Santa went home." Isaiah looked up at me and said, "No, Santa's on the mountain." I'm not sure where that came from, but I thought it was pretty funny.

Mark's grandma makes each of her great-grandkids a quilted blanket for their first Christmas. Levi got to open his at this gathering. It is really adorable, it is a zoo animals pattern that goes along with the one she made Isaiah. She also makes a pillow with their name embroidered on it. Didn't she do a great job? (Try to ignore the bright green square...I didn't want to post our last name!)

And one last picture...Dakota holding his baby cousin...

So it's official our Christmas 2008 is over... only 11 months until the next one!

is it spring yet?

Isaiah is getting really tired of being cooped up in the house all day long every day! He is ready to go to the park and play and run!! I've tried to get him to the playland at the mall as often as I can, and get together with other little ones so he can run and play with them, and have dance parties together...but it's just not the same as the park. A few days ago, it was sort of warmer outside than it's been (our thermometer in the backyard said 25, but I'm not sure how accurate that is), so Isaiah and I took advantage of it and went out to play (little Levi missed out, he slept through all the fun!).

We had a good time, we got out some toys, we shoveled with Isaiah's new shovel he got for Christmas, we threw snowballs at each other (Isaiah's FAVORITE snow activity!--see this post for why). But after about 15 minutes, Isaiah started to fuss and said, "my hands are cold mama." So we went inside bummed that it is still winter... but before we know it, spring will be here and look out...we'll be at the park ALL of the time!! (hopefully!)

Isaiah getting ready to play, he thinks his snow pants are really cool!
Isaiah with the toys.
Happy to be outside!

fun with the kids...

When I had Isaiah we went to the breastfeeding support group at Allen Hospital almost every week for several months. Each time we went several of the same new mommies were there each time too. After many of us went back to work, we weren't able to go to the group each week anymore so we decided to stay in touch on our own time... We've gotten together several times since our little ones (who are all now 2+ years old!) were born. In fact, several of us, like me, have a second baby already! We had a play date party on Friday morning, I think we all had a blast...we all made it through without too much whining or crying, but lots of happy talking, laughing and playing!


Levi grinning through his binky



We should have taken the group pictures a little sooner...this was at the very end when all the little ones were just about ready for nap time...but oh well...it makes it that much cuter, right?

yea hawkeyes!

On January 1 the Hawkeyes played in a bowl game (I have no clue which one), so my dad came over to watch the game...to play along, Isaiah, Levi and I wore our Hawkeye clothes too. It sounds like the Hawkeyes played a really good game and won, I think the final score was 31-10? Go Hawkeyes!

Here we ae waiting for the kick-off:
Daddy and his boys (Isaiah waving hi, he's figured out that smiling for the camera and saying cheese isn't all that fun anymore, so for the moment waiving at Isaiah and saying hi sometimes works, this time he decided to wave hi back:) :
Isaiah tired of the game:
Levi loving his daddy:

look what he did!

Mark called me at work on Wednesday and said, "I'm calling you with my right hand."

I said, "what?"

"I'm calling you with my right hand."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm feeding Levi and I'm calling you with my right hand!"

"oh?"

"yea, he's doing it himself!! He's holding his bottle all by himself!"

I am so happy Mark is here to see these milestones in Levi's life...It's so amazing to see the excitement and joy that our little boys bring to him. It makes me sad he missed these things with Isaiah, but he's here now and that's what counts.

Happy 2009!