Go Fish Guys!

On June 23 our family got to go see the GO FISH GUYS!!! and oh man did we have TONS of fun!!!

If you don't know who the Go Fish Guys are - you should go check out their website - click here. They are a trio of guys that sing crazy, fun, Christian songs for kids. To give you an idea, their newest album is called Party Like a Preschooler. The music is so upbeat and fun!! Isaiah and Levi love them! So we were so excited to hear that they were coming to my parents' church.

Isaiah was so excited when we got to the concert! We went plenty early and got really close, first/second row seats -- no one was in front of Isaiah's chair, but there was one row in front of the rest of us.

Before the concert, Daddy bought Isaiah and himself matching Go Fish Guys shirts! Isaiah will often go to his room now and come back with this shirt on top of whatever shirt he was wearing.

They let us in a little while before the show started, we got to walk up on stage!

For the first 15 minutes of the concert both boys just stared, wide-eyed at them.
This is how close we were to them! No zoom here!
Partway through the concert, the guys went out into the audience. How excited do you think Isaiah was about this next picture?!
That's right - they touched him! :) and sang right to him.
Throughout the concert we caught him doing crazy dances like this:
Levi would have been down there with him if he could have stood up! But instead he danced in our laps -- and then got really tired half way through!
When the concert was over, we made our way to the front of the line for autographs!
What a wonderful night! Isaiah still talks about it! "Member when we went to see the Go Fish Guys???" he'll ask. He listens to their CDs all of the time, and usually requests it to be the music he listens to while he is in bed (he sleeps with a CD on repeat all night long:)

We love the Go Fish Guys!!

Thank you Great-Grandma!

Mark's grandma told him that he could have the little tykes playhouse that she had at her house -- the same one that Mark used when he was a little boy. We were so excited because we knew our boys would love it.

This weekend we went to visit her and pick it up and she told us it was too old and broken. We were disappointed, but then she told us to go pick out a brand new one and she would buy it for us! How generous of her!

So we went and picked one out --- and the boys LOVE it.
Thank you Great Grandma Jo!

The box was a lot of fun too! :)

11 months old!

Levi James is 11 months old...how did that happen?

He's growing and changing so much these days. Here are some of his new things:

- He LOVES music. If he hears even a second of music he will start bouncing to it and smile.
- He now waves Hi and Bye and even says "bub byb" when waving bye sometimes.
- He loves his binky, but only when he wants it. Sometimes he will spot a binky across the room and crawl to it. Other times I will put the binky in his mouth (when I know he's really tired) and he will take it out and THROW it.
- He continues to be a really easy-going baby boy. He is really go with the flow and content.
- He likes to eat what everyone around him is eating. If he sees someone eatings something, he wants it too - and will sometimes even refuse baby food or his food.
- He is a good eater, too. He will chow down on mixed veggies, fruits, even hamburger pieces. He eats a lot of table food, but still eats babyfood often too. One of his favorites is cheese - especially sharing string cheese with his brother.
- He thinks giving high-5's are hiliarous and loves to give them. He will even give high-5's to pepole he doesn't know!
- He actually sleeps much better at night now - about a month ago, Mark and I decided enough was enough as far as him wanting to be in our bed all night long! So we let him cry it out in his crib - after just a few nights of crying for 20 minutes or so he goes down in his bed just fine! We turn on his little fish aquarium thing that plays music, rock for just a minute or two and lay him down and usually he goes right to sleep! He still gets up at least once during the night - but usually it is just once!! It's almost always 3:30 on the dot. I will feed him and put him back in HIS bed and he sleeps another 3 or 4 hours!
- He usually takes 2 or 3 naps per day. He is ready for his morning nap every day at 10:00. He starts getting a little fussy and I look at the clock and it is 10 and I know it's naptime. He usually sleeps for 45 minutes or so in the afternoon, and sometimes a late evening nap from 6-7ish.
-He loves to be naked! :) and he usually gets really happy when it's time to take off his clothes. We usually let him hang out in just his diaper for a little while.
- He's walking! Or at least taking steps!! On June 26 he took his first real steps (for Laura of course:). He walked a step and fell down, she put him back up and he walked 5 steps in a row and then 5 more again, and again! Since then he has taken lots of steps...usually just 4 or 5 in a row at the most. Sometimes he'll even stand up and start walking all on his own! He can stand up for a long time all by himself!

We are so lucky and blessed to have him! We love you Levi James!

Trip to the Strawberry Farm!

I like going to the strawberry farm to pick strawberries. I remember going with my family when I was little and the yummy strawberry shakes that we ate when we got home...

I knew Isaiah would like to go out to the farm this year so I really wanted to go as a family - plus Mark had never picked strawberries before so I wanted him to experience it! I've gone several times in the last few years, I'm not sure how Mark missed it (oh yeah, he was in Iraq--haha!).

Here we all are (minus my mom who is taking the picture), excited to start picking!

And here are a few more pictures of our fun afternoon at the farm...

I think this next picture is so sweet :) If you look closely you can see a blue port-a-potty in the background and Mark and Isaiah walking back from it...this was Isaiah's first experience in a port-a-potty -- and he LOVED it! He thought the big hole for his potty was cool! HA HA

Mark was really funny while he was picking... He went really fast and made it this far away from us. I expected him to come back with a huge basket full, but his was much less full than mine :) He tried to pick only the BIG and really red ones...

After the picking was done, Isaiah got to see the farm animals - turkeys, chickens, roosters, and bunnies. He was so interested in them and couldn't take his eyes off of them. He really didn't want to leave...but it was already WAY PAST nap time so we had to go. One of these days I'm going to get him to the petting zoo!

Of course we went home and made strawberry shakes - YUMMY!!

On a mission : Day 7 : Stay DRY!

A long time ago, I set a goal for Isaiah -- to be potty trained by the time he turned three. Isaiah's third birthday is creeping up on us way too quickly!

For many, many months now, anyone who knows Isaiah, knows he is ready to be potty trained. He is fully aware of the potty, he is not scared of it, in fact, likes to go on it...but he just hasn't been ready to give up the control (I think) of being potty trained. He has gone on the potty countless times (and gotten countless pieces of candy which we called a "special treat" for going) and many different places - our house, grandma and grandpa's house, McDonald's, the park, he really was doing good at going regularly on the potty until one day he said to me, "I don't want to go on the potty." And that was that, and he really didn't want to try or have anything to do with the potty.

We continued to remind him just about every time we changed his diaper that "big boys go on the potty" or "we wouldn't have to change your diaper if you went on the potty" because he absolutely hates getting a poopy diaper changed.

He really just didn't care about any of the potty talk until Saturday morning (July 4 - yes right after the swim diaper incident). As I was changing him out of his wet jammies and getting him ready for the day he said, "I don't want to wear a diaper." I thought - okay - we've done the undies thing before, and almost every time he peed in it within an hour or so, but we really didn't have big plans for the day so why not give it a go since he wants to...

7 days later ....

he's stayed DRY all day every day with just TWO accidents...can you believe it, I can't!!!

He's continued to wear a diaper for naps and bed - he is anxious to take them off when he wakes up and each of the 7 days except one he's been dry when he woke up from his nap! The one time he wasn't, he was poopy. A few mornings he has been dry, but mostly he's been a little wet (oh well - we'll get there!).

We've been very consistent about asking him if he has to go potty every half hour or so and usually he'll say no. But every time there is a change of activity (it's time for lunch, nap, to go outside, to go somewhere, etc) we have to go potty first. Just about every time he gets on the potty he goes.

I am so proud of him, and he knows it. He is so proud of himself and I'm so happy for him. I've caught him saying to himself, "my mommy is proud of me, my grandma is proud of me." I'm not sure he knows what proud means, but I know he knows it is really great.

A few days ago, our family went to the store to let Isaiah pick out some brand new underwear because he is doing so good at staying dry. I'm sure you can guess which ones he picked -- spiderman. (I still don't get his obsession with him) He almost went for the Diego ones, but then had to have spiderman.

Anyway - we make it a point to remind Isaiah each morning of his mission - To Stay Dry. and boy he is doing it!! What a big boy.

I guess everyone is right - it will just happen one day when he is ready - no need to push it!

what are you doing?

Last night Isaiah found an old wallet of mine that had a bunch of old papers in it. He was pulling each piece out and putting them all over the floor.

I asked Isaiah, "what are you doing?"

his response, "checking my e-mail."

Ha ha :)

the last few weeks -- in pictures.

It seems like these past few weeks - or maybe even the entire month of June has just flown by. We've been busy doing lots of fun things and time has just kept on moving! I have lots of posts that I could share with you to describe all of our fun, but because it looks like July is going to be just as fun as June, I'm going to share our fun in this one post full of pictures...

Isaiah and I met Kammy and Austin at the pool (Thanks Laura for watching Levi!)
Isaiah road his bike to the park! This was his first adventure outside the driveway on his bike. He did so good! He listened, watched for cars, and left his helmet on the whole time. When we got to the park he didn't even want to get off his bike -- he wanted to ride around the parking lot. We had fun learning about arrows that were painted on the parking lot.
Levi has been eating lots and lots of table foods. He's almost to the point that he won't eat baby food. He likes to eat what we are eating!
A night or two we've gone out geocaching... One of the treaures was hidden at UNI...my dad got a picture of Isaiah in front of the campanile. Looks like a pretty professional pose, huh?
Our church had vacation Bible School this month and Mark and I volunteered each night. I was in the nursery so I got to play with the babies and be with Levi. Isaiah came to play each time before it started.
My friend LeAnna had a conference she needed to go to for work, so I got to watch Caiden one day a few weeks ago. Caiden is Isaiah's birthday buddy (born on the same day at the same hospital! - the only two born that day there!). Isaiah, Jayda and Caiden had a lot of fun together. Especially eating lunch at the little picnic table and then jumping around on the porch.
We've had several days in the water...I've posted about just a few, but there's been LOTS more. Caiden even came over to play with us in the sprinkler one day.
Isaiah, Levi and I went to the Sturgis Falls parade. Isaiah LOVED it. I really wasn't sure if he would want to sit and watch things go by or not, but when the parade was over after 2 hours, Isaiah said, "what are they doing? why are they putting their chairs away?" I told him the parade was over and he said, "no it's not. It's not over, I want to watch more." Isaiah's favorite part of the parade was the motorcycles...and Levi LOVED seeing the bands. Every time they would come close enough that we could hear, he would raise his hands and start dancing. The people around us thought he was pretty cute! (So did I!). We also went to Sturgis Falls to walk around and see the people. Isaiah got to pick whatever he wanted to lunch -- he picked a HUGE corn dog!
Our friends Shannon, Dan and Anna were in Cedar Falls for Sturgis Falls so we got to see them a few times. I like it when they are here! This time they brought their brand new kitten Milo. Isaiah and Levi got to meet him - I'm pretty sure it was the first time either of them had held a kitten or cat.
I usually have Levi in the bathroom with me when I'm getting ready for the day. So far it has been no big deal, he'd just find something to play with or sit and "talk" to me... not any more... he found the toilet paper...ha ha ha
and also in the bathroom, Isaiah found my lip gloss! He looks good in pink, huh? silly boy.
Levi's been working on some more teeth! The bottom front two have been popped through for quite awhile now, but the top front two popped in and are quite a ways in. He's also working on the next two on top... he's had some rough nights, but he's been a trooper through it all.
When Isaiah goes to bed, sometimes Mark and I will go downstairs and watch a little TV before we go to bed. Levi will usually come down with us and eat and sometimes get so relaxed that he falls asleep too... one night he fell asleep like this...
by the way - don't look too closely at his jammys in this picture - Mark put them on and didn't realize the top was a onsie until after the pants were on :) ha ha .