Changes

Can I just say that I can't believe that my baby has turned two!? I can not believe that two years ago I was holding my little Isaac in my arms. What a change from then to now. I wish that I had the doctor stats but..... I haven't brought him in yet. I know I am horrible but it seems like there is always something to do.
So here is a little on Isaac and the stage that he is in.
1. What a different kid from his brother! He is much more snugly and attached to me the Lucas ever was. He loves to just come and snuggle on my lap and watch movies. He will randomly come up to me and lay his head down on my lap and say "Mommy!" He is sad when I leave and gets super excited when I come back. Makes my day I must say.
2. He is a talking machine. He is always catching us off guard when he talks to us. Maybe because Lucas was so delayed. He is always telling me to "Hold this!" and to "Help me!" and so on. I love it. He understands a lot too. The worst is when you are telling him to do something and he looks at you mischievously and then doesn't do it.
3. He can count to ten! I know he just turned two! You have to help him and he leaves out four sometimes but will get all the way up to "Ten!" He will randomly go through the house saying "One, Two, Three"
4. He is a very particular child. Hates having his clothes taken off to get changed. It is like mega melt down. But things turn out better once he realizes that you are going to put more clothes on him. He HATES having his sleeves pulled up. Like he screams "NO!" and then will commence to pull them down. I cringe a little when I see his sleeves after eating. Not pretty. If you cut up his sandwich or and food, he freaks out. Especially when he sees you do it.
5. He loves shoes. He is constantly bring his shoes up to me and saying "shoes" or "socks". He will wear anyone shoes it they are left around the house and I mean anyone.
6. He is not as into the out doors as his brother. He is just more content to hang out in the house with mom and shout at the other kids from the door.
7. He loves his big brother. They play together and always get in trouble together and is most of the times the scapegoat for his older brother. He is always copying Lucas. If Lucas is doing something, Isaac is doing that exact thing. He loves his cousins as well. Him and Grace are always playing together. Maybe because Grace has, as her preschool teacher told Crista, a 'mother hen complex' and Isaac is the only one she can boss around who will actually listen. She loves to pick him up and carry him, although I think they weigh about the same amount.
8. He loves animals, especially horses. However, he is leery about cows. Ever since he watch a Kipper show where a cow reaches over the fence to grab some grass out of the dog on the shows hand and Isaac screamed bloody murder, he hasn't really liked them. If he sees the Kipper show his eyes get big and he worriedly says "Cow?"
9. I took the guard rail off his bed a few days ago. He has already figured out how to climb through the slats in the bed so the rail was pretty useless. He has only fallen out once so that is positive. He has also been moved to a bigger car seat.
10. He loves babies. Sometimes a little too much. He was sitting on this poor 1 year old that the Memorial day picnic. I was a little mortified. But every time he sees a baby he is always pointing at them and saying "Baby!" Even if they are the same age as him.
11. He LOVED Halloween this year. He went as a monkey but of course, 10 minutes before we left, Lucas and Grace ripped off his tail. So he was whatever people thought, monkey or bear..... He loved going to houses and he was even trying to say "Trick or Treat" but it came out more as "Rick Reat" He got fistfuls of candy though because people thought he was too dang cute. Also because he insisted on picking out his own candy after they had already given him some.
12. He is definitely a groupie. Hates doing things by himself. I bought him a pass to go into this giant pumpkin blow up at the pumpkin store but he was the only one who could go and he scream at the top of his lungs when I tried to put him in there. I have a feeling though, if the other kids could have gone with them (which they so badly wanted to) he would have jumped around like crazy.
13. He is a little more emotional then Lucas was. He gets upset easily and I have such a hard time telling him "No". I will have to work on that!
Well, that is Isaac right now in a nutshell. I love him dearly and I am so grateful to have him as part of our family.

Isaac is 4 Months!

On Friday Isaac had his four month check up! According to the doctor we have a beautiful and healthy growing boy! Here are his measurements:

Weight: 18.3 lbs (96th percentile)
Height: 26 inches (85th percentile)
Head: 16 3/4 inches (60th percentile)

For a baby who was 2 weeks premature that ain't bad! What is crazy is Isaac is 100% breast fed. I must produce whole milk or something! We love our little man! He is becoming more and more of a chatter box. Always talking! A lady who watched him during 2nd and 3rd hour (Sean and I teach the 5 year olds in primary) said that Isaac wins the happiest and most smiley baby award. He is so calm and loving he only cries when he is hungry or ready to go to sleep and even then, it is more of a low whine. I love it when I wake up in the morning and he is just smiling away. Brings joy to my soul. I can't believe that I was ever worried about my next child. Boys are definitely a challenge but I am so blessed with such sweet and loving boys!

I love that he looks a little crazy in this picture!

Tomorrow we are blessing Isaac so be ready for some really cute pictures of Isaac in a white tuxedo I bought for him at a thrift store!

So, I know my resolution was to blog more often but with two kids, things get a little crazy. However, I have been better at bring my camera with me places to document things for the blog. I hope to get better though because Lucas does the funniest things that would make me so sad if I forgot! So here are the last two weeks activities.

Grandma invited Lucas over to help her paint flower pots. Lucas enjoyed it!


We took that time we were over there to take Isaac's pictures. Here is my personal favorite.

Grandma McCabe getting some holding time with the baby.

Grandpa McCabe snuggling with Isaac. I have a picture of me laying on my Grandpa Myers just like this, however, I was sucking my thumb and playing with his ear and a little bit older.

Now that we are not living in an apartment I was thrilled to realize that I could finally get a real tree! Sean's parents were so kind as to purchase one for us. Here was are out at Bachmans picking out the tree!

Getting it home and setting it up. To this day the tree stands a little crooked.


After letting the tree expand, we decided to decorate. Last year when all the Christmas decorations went on sale 75% off, I picked up a lot of stuff. Here is our first year using them. Lucas and daddy did the decorating and I was designated put the hook on the ornament person. Lucas loved decorating the tree and using the icicle ornaments as spears.

Isaac's first Chrismas! Just observing us decorate!


More decorations.


One of the traditions I would like our family to do is buy an ornament for each child, each year so that they will have enough ornaments to decorate their tree when they move out. Here is the ornament that Lucas chose.


Isaac's ornament that we chose for him.


Finished product! (Yes we know that is tilts but it smells so good!)


One of our favorite places to shop is a consignment store called Unique. We find lots of good stuff there. Well Sean found this life vest for Lucas when he goes swimming. Lucas thought it was a helmet and wears it on his head. He wore it all the way through the check out, out to the car and threw a fit when I wouldn't let him wear it into Target. He is such a funny kid!

One of the nice things about where we live now is we are literally 1 min away from the MN Zoo. We have a membership there so we decided to go to the Zoo. Here is Isaac all packed up and ready to go!

Lucas got to meet Santa at the Zoo and loved him! He kept going up to him and hugging him and trying to drag him by his hand over to the window (there are monkey's there). It was soooo cute and nice that they had Santa there because it is like 40.00 to have Lucas's picture with Santa at the mall! I am so excited to have a child who can start to understand the concept of Santa!

Lucas and daddy at the zoo!

One of my many craft projects. Here is the nursing cover I made for my cousin's wife.

So here are a couple of funny stories about Lucas that you might enjoy.

Having a new brother comes exposure to new things. I was really blessed to get a breast pump from my insurance completely free. So on occasion I pump so that I can leave and Isaac will be fed. Anyways, Lucas has been in the room while I have pumped. On day, when Sean got home, I was laying on the bed and Lucas was puttering around in our closet. Sean was sitting on the bed so he could see into half of the closet. All of a sudden Sean started to laugh. Inside of our closet hunched over and with two breast pump covers up to his chest was Lucas. The funnest thing was he was mimicing the sound that breast pumps make. Sean and I both wish that we had had a camera at that very moment!

Yesterday was Sunday so obviously we went to church. Lucas loves nursery. Lucas's Grandma Gordhamer (Sean's mom) was asked to sub in nursery for 2nd hour. During Relief Society she scooted in but had chalk all over the back of her black dress. When she came to sit down next to me I told her that she had chalk all over her back. She responded "Yes, I know. Lucas drew all over me with chalk. I just thought he was giving me a back massage!" I could not stop laughing!

My parents live in a four level split. You walk in there are stairs going to the upstairs, and next to those stairs going down to the family room and next to those stairs going to the basement. Well, Lucas was being watched by my parents and was being entertained with Grandpa McCabe in his work room which is in the basement. Jim has lots of lights in the basement and most of them are controlled by the light switch. Lucas, of course, found the light that was turned on by a pull string (the light is attached to the ceiling). I guess that I should preface this that Lucas has learned that when he needs to reach something he gets a chair and then can stand on it. Well, after discovering this light and feeling the need to pull the string Lucas went up two flights of stairs to the dining room where he knew there were chairs. He picked up this barrel like chair brought it to the stairs, pushed it down after which he followed to only push it down the stairs again. Then when he got it to the basement he picked it up, brought it over to the light and then had a grand old time pulling the string. Jim said he was downstairs when all this was happening and was trying to figure out what the loud banging noise was as something came flying down the stairs!

We love Lucas and love all the silly and at that moment, frustrating things that he does. Lately, Lucas has not wanted to go to bed. My mom says it is just a faze and all children go through it. Before we got a door knob cover it would take about an hour and a half of Lucas getting out of bed and us putting him back before he would go to sleep. Then, in the middle of the night we would find Lucas in our bed which the followed another half an hour of getting Lucas to fall asleep in his bed again. Thank goodness we finally got a door cover because it is very sad to have your child crying outside your door. However, he will lay down just outside his door so he can see through the door crack until he falls asleep. We have to go in there and put him in his bed or he will sleep on the hard wood floor.

Isaac is doing well. He is smiling now! That brings joy to my soul and sleep to my body (I am lacking it immensely!). When he is awake and smiling in the morning it helps me forget how little sleep I got that night. He is starting to coo as well which is fantastic. When we went to WIC this last Tuesday he was 11lbs 14oz and 22 1/2 inches long! He is a growing boy!

Freezer Cooking Day with Lucas and Isaac

So in efforts to become more frugal and fending off any temptation that I have to say "Let's just go and get dinner" I have decided to do what is know as freezer cooking. You basically cook massive amounts of food up and then freeze it all and take it out to eat when you need it. It is nice to just thaw and go. So Saturday while Sean was at the Bishop storehouse volunteering the boys and I set out to get some cooking done. While I was in the kitchen Lucas and Isaac were being very cute together so I decided to take some pictures. Here they are.

Brother laying together on the couch!

Gotta love the security blankets!
Smiles! When they fight I will show them this picture and say "See, you do love eachother!"

My loyal kitchen companion who always seemed to be laying right where I needed to stand. Kisses!

Almost 5 weeks old and getting so big

Lucas up on the chair (Grrrr) and showing me that the griddle is hot!2 batches of french toast to freeze. Which is my favorite breakfast food. 3 lbs of meat that I cooked for taco meat and spaghetti along with a batch of sloppy joesChicken Enchiladas Yum!2 batches of waffles made up and ready to be frozen.

I have a couple more meals to make up and freeze but unfortunately I ran out of time and materials but all in all it was a pretty successful day. Lucas did well entertaining himself and Isaac.... well did what most 4 week olds do, ate, slept and pooped! Hopefully when all is said and done I will have made enough food to last the whole month of December. We will see if we can stick to eating in instead of eating out. Keep your fingers crossed!