Isaac's 3 month pics

A couple weeks ago, Mark L came over and shot some pictures of Isaac. He got some great shots! You can see all of them at
http://markleonardimaging.smugmug.com/gallery/8762683_XBWQY

Here are a few of my favorites





This one makes me laugh. The way their hands are makes them look like they are doing a rap or something.


I am in LOVE with this picture!


Isn't this so sweet?


Isaac fell asleep about 5 minutes after Mark got here. Of course! So, we thought we would get some sleepy baby shots.




I guess that was more than a few. :P

Another post!

Seems like we go in spurts with the picture taking. We'll take just a few over a couple week's span and then there will be a couple days where we take a ton. These past couple days we have taken a bunch, so I figured I better post them now.

Our garden is taking off like crazy!

Check out that zucchini plant!


Tomatoes, beans, lots of lettuce greens


Herbs, peas, carrots, etc, etc, etc - too much stuff to name!


Last night Alan made goat cheese-filled squash blossoms. They were so yummy!

The pretty flowers


The finished product


Jacob loved them, but then what kid doesn't like fried things with cheese


This picture just cracks me up! Alan caught him at the wrong moment and it looks like he is ready to barf.


Jacob snacking on some fresh green beans and carrots from the garden. We've been eating the beans like candy. They are so good!


Alan finished the chicken coop. Well, almost. He still has to add the nesting boxes, but since the ladies won't be laying until this fall, there isn't a huge hurry. I think he did an awesome job!

The raised up part is where they sleep at night. They seem to be escaping though. Alan thinks they stay there most of the night, but get antsy in the morning and find their way out. He added some perches in there, so maybe they will be more inclined to stay inside. During the day they hang out in the run and play on the ladder thingy. They like to lay under the coop part too. Its built like that so they have shade. Such a smart hubby I have!


The chicks aren't chicks anymore!


We put Isaac in the swing today and he seemed to enjoy it. I love his hair tuft blowing in the wind.


Jacob thought it was pretty cool that his baby brother was swinging next to him!


Isaac wearing Jacob's hat


Isaac loves the animals on his bouncy seat


The boys playing in the playroom. Isaac has figured out how to roll over both ways (tummy to back, back to tummy) and is everywhere. He started out on the rug, but quickly rolled off.

Napa Weekend

This past weekend we went to Napa for my friend Megan's wedding reception. We had a fabulous time! It was hard to get in the car and come home. Its nice to have all your meals prepared and fresh sheets and towels every day. I was spoiled! Now it is back to the reality of lots of loads of laundry, house cleaning and making meals again - with no fun trip to look forward to. A little depressing, I guess. But like I said, we had a wonderful time and it was nice to sleep in my own bed last night.

We drove up on Thursday, taking 9 hours to get there. The boys did SO well. Jacob was perfectly content to rest or read his books and Isaac took lots of naps and played with his crinkly cow toy. I was amazed that Jacob didn't whine once and the only time Isaac cried was when he was trying to go to sleep. He does that anyway, so it wasn't a huge surprise. The return trip went well too. Isaac had a meltdown about a half hour from home, but that isn't too bad when they were in their carseats all day long!

On Friday after breakfast we went to Frog's Leap Winery to do some wine tasting. We did a bit of research beforehand to find a kid-friendly winery. This place was great! We sat on couches on the wrap-around porch sipping our wine while Jacob had his box of organic juice and colored on some coloring sheets they gave him. After our wine tasting we explored their beautiful property. They have an amazing vegetable and fruit garden, tons of fruit trees, and gorgeous flowers. They also have lots of chickens and goats. The goats were so fun! I thought so, anyway. Jacob was a bit freaked by them.

Jacob and Alan doing some tasting


Isaac just HAD to wear his froggy bib to Frog's Leap!


I just love all these pretty daisies


This goat was the funniest! She startled me when I was standing by the fence. She jumped up and tapped me on the shoulder!


Getting some goat kisses


This is as close as Jacob would get to the goats


They also had a really cool koi/frog pond with blooming lily pads


I could have stayed there all day. It was just so peaceful and the weather was gorgeous.

Friday evening the Henrys were gracious enough to invite all of us out-of-towners to dinner at their house. Jacob had so much fun playing with all the toys Dave and Nancy have for their grandsons. Trucks, trucks and more trucks! He was in heaven!! He was having too much fun to even eat. Too bad for him because the food was delicious. He did dive into my cupcake, though and made a huge mess of both of us. :P

On Saturday morning we went to Scientopia, a science center for kids. Jacob had an absolute BLAST!




Even Isaac had fun hanging out on the mats


This was a huge 'sandbox' filled with this weird blue/green stuff that the kids could dig in. Jacob loved it and so did I because he could dig and dig and not get dirty. :D



The wedding reception was on Saturday evening and we all had a great time. There were lots of kids Jacob's age and even though he was too shy to play with them, he did have a lot of fun playing with all the toys.

I'm not sure what he is pointing at here, but it must have been pretty important


He especially loved dancing


He was in awe at the fact that the music was coming from the people. He is used to hearing music come from a radio. Guess we need to bring him to see more live music.


Megan, the boys and me. It was a hot night and this was taken at the end of the evening after the boys and I had melted. Don't we look lovely?


In spite of the heat, it was a great night. The food was yummy bbq and for dessert we had ice cream. Lots of ice cream. I had way too much ice cream. Jacob wasn't interested in it at first, until mine was almost gone. Then he decided he wanted more so we got him a scoop of strawberry and the ice cream people convinced me (without much arm twisting, I might add) that I needed to try one of the ice cream sandwiches. It was SO good and even though all that ice cream gave me a tummy ache, I didn't care.

What a great vacation! It was just what I needed. :D
Thank you to the Henrys for inviting us and showing us such a great time.
Congrats to Scott and Megan, the happy couple. We had so much fun celebrating with you!

Slacker

It has been brought to my attention that I have been a slacker in regards to my blogging. I didn't realize it had been over 2 weeks since my last post. OOPS! So, here are a few pictures taken over those 2 weeks.

Jacob loves wearing our shoes. Here he has on Alan's sandals, even on the correct feet!


We have been going to the Saturday morning farmer's market and getting some really yummy stuff. Jacob wanted to play with the carrot tops so here he is waving it around.


Sometimes Isaac just doesn't want to sleep in his crib or pack-n-play so I let him nap on the boys' couch. He used to nap in the swing, but we had to say 'bye-bye' to it after I found him hanging half-way out of it one day. Yikes!


My mom brought over some left-over flowers from a graduation and Jacob wanted to smell them. He loves 'flowees' as he calls them. :P


Isaac likes to play with toys now and Jacob loves bringing him things to play with.


There. That catches me up on pictures. Next up is a post about our weekend in Napa. :D

Sickness Strikes Again

Jacob has the stomach flu again. He was just about to start drinking his milk this morning when he thew up and has a few times since. Fortunately he hadn't eaten anything so there wasn't much and he hasn't thrown up in a while, so maybe this won't be as bad as last time. My poor little guy! This explains why he was so tired yesterday. After he got up in the morning he went and rested on his couch for a bit. Then he fell asleep during Boot Camp and took a 4 hour nap in the afternoon. I thought maybe it was just a growth spurt (he has also been eating a lot), or the 3 teeth he is getting in or the fact that he didn't nap on Wednesday. Guess he was just on the verge of sickness. We have been washing our hands constantly trying to not spread the germies to Isaac. I hope nobody else gets it!

As I am writing this, he seems to be feeling a little better. He is up off the couch and is in his playing quietly in his playroom. He plays for a few minutes, then goes and lays on his couch, so I know he still is feeling a little icky. He hasn't asked for anything to eat yet and I am going to just take that very slowly when he does.

This week Isaac turned 3 months! We were supposed to have his pictures taken this afternoon, but that will have to be postponed until the germies leave the house.
Isaac is such a happy little guy! He is always smiling and laughing. He is quite the talker too. I can't imagine where he gets that from (wink, wink). He sleeps much better at night, not nearly as much thrashing and gurgling. He even gives me 3-4 hour stretches between feedings. Now if I could just get him to nap for more than 30-40 minutes at a time in his bed. :P He sleeps wonderfully in his swing, but I don't want him to sleep exclusively in there because there will come a day when he is too big for it. Then what??

I took this picture last week. I just couldn't resist capturing all that squishiness. Look at those thigh rolls!


Jacob loves putting on our shoes. The other day I heard clomp, clomp, clomp and saw that he was wearing both of Alan's sandals and walking around the house in them.

Weekend stories

Another weekend almost over. Boo!

Friday we had an interesting Baby Boot Camp class. Before class I was sitting on a picnic bench nursing Isaac when I heard this bzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzz sound really close to my ear. I turn my head and am eye to eye with a hummingbird! We figured it must have been attracted to my colorful nursing cover. Yikes! Then we were all doing some arm exercises using our stretchy bands on a wrought iron fence when (no, I didn't break another band!) this lady drives by and yells (rather nastily) to not ruin her bushes. Yeah, like we were going to trample her bushes - in front of our children! We're there twice a week and her bushes are still intact. Whatever, lady. During our cool down this couple came and starting ripping out the park's bamboo and stripping the leaves off. We thought that was rather brazen. I found out later that they were using them to knock down oranges from the park's trees. Pretty sure that is a no-no. Never a dull moment at Boot Camp!

Friday Jacob wore his baseball cap to class and then during lunch and then he wanted to keep it on for his nap. I made sure to bring the camera with me when I went up to get him in case he still had it on.
Sure enough!


Saturday morning we all headed downtown to check out the new farmers' market. We should have gotten there earlier because many vendors were close to being sold out. We did snag some strawberries, avocados, nectarines and cucumbers. Super yummy! One of the cucumber varieties is an Armenian cucumber. It is long, skinny, ridged and chartreuse. Can't wait to try it!

Saturday afternoon Jacob, Isaac and I played upstairs for a while. Jacob likes to play in his sock and hat drawer. He always finds a cool hat to wear around. Saturday he chose a knit cap that my cousin Amy made for him. So silly! Isaac and I were sitting in the rocking chair and Jacob pulled his sock monkey out of his crib and gave it to Isaac. Then he pulled out his blankie and covered Isaac with it. So sweet! He wanted to come up on my lap too, so we all cuddled for a while. I wish Alan had been around with the camera!

While we were upstairs playing, Alan was working hard on the chicken coop. Its looking good! We'll be moving the chickens out there as soon as he is finished. They are getting a little crowded in their box!



Later that afternoon we went to Karla W's birthday party at Yucaipa Community Park. It was chilly! I bundled the boys up, but didn't bring a jacket for myself. I was desperate so I used one of Isaac's receiving blankets as a shawl. I looked awesome! Jacob had a fun time playing with balloons, eating cake and taking a whack at the piñata.

This afternoon after naps we all played outside for a while and took lots of pictures.
Isaac likes kicking around on his blanket


So serious!


The chickens enjoyed playing in their playpen and Jacob had fun watching them. He is getting more and more brave.


I like how you can just see Jacob's eyes over the chickens. Aren't they getting big? They are all feathers now, hardly any fluff left!


I realized there were no pictures of me with my chicks, so here I am with Lily


Taking a little snooze in Mommy's lap

Crazy Day

Now for those of you in the midwest, a little thunderstorm is no big thing, but here it is a rare occasion and it makes the day a little wacky. When I looked out the window this morning and saw drops on the porch, my first thought was 'Why did Alan spray the porch?' Guess my mind wasn't completely clear yet! Then I looked at the cars and noticed they were wet and realized that it was raining. By the time we had to leave for Boot Camp, the rain had stopped so we headed off. Once we got to the park though, things weren't looking good. There was loud thunder and lightning that looked really close. We were trying to decide whether to have class when it started raining pretty hard. That decided it! So instead of exercising this morning, we went to Target and the Post Office. I was hoping to not see anyone I knew since I was in my ugly workout clothes, but of course that is almost impossible at Target! On my way to Target I saw that there as a fire on the mountain and I am assuming it was set by lightning. Yikes. Glad I wasn't running around with my huge metal stroller. :P

When we got home Jacob was like a wild banshee! I put Homer outside so Jacob wouldn't torment him, but Homer was going wild and jumping up on the sliding glass door because thunder freaks him out. I let him indoors, but put him in the bathroom while I nursed Isaac so Jacob wouldn't pester the poor dog while I couldn't supervise. Surprisingly, Homer walked right in. Guess he was ready to escape the crazy boy! When Jacob and I were going upstairs, Homer practically knocked us over to get up there (there's a safety gate so he can't come and go as he pleases). Homer hasn't been upstairs in months, so I'm not sure why he was so desperate to go up there. I can only guess that he was trying to escape the thunder. he didn't want to come down either. I had to beg and plead him to come down the stairs. Weird.

Of course Jacob wouldn't nap this afternoon. The rule is that if you don't nap, you have to rest a little, so we laid on the couch and watched a cartoon. He obviously needed a nap because I just looked over and saw this. Hee Hee


So anyway, that has been our day. Guess the thunder and lightning makes everyone a little crazy (at least toddlers and dogs).



This picture was taken yesterday at Boot Camp. On Tuesdays, there is always a little activity planned for the kids while we do our cool down. Yesterday was water painting, which is just taking a paint brush and 'painting' the sidewalk with water. The kids had a blast and stayed clean. Whoo hoo for that!


On Sunday a friend of ours gave Jacob some tractors that her son no longer uses. He LOVES them! When he walks into the living room and sees them he says 'Whoa!' and runs over to them. Its so funny! Thanks, Charlee!