Isaac Turns TWO and Alli visits!!!

It is amazing how quickly the time flies...it seems like yesterday that I was home on maternity leave with Isaac and all of a sudden we are celebrating his SECOND birthday! I can't believe it, he is such a little boy and no longer our baby. He even started potty training -we have had the potty sitting in the bathroom for a little while now and he likes to sit on it for a little while every night, but we have only had a handful of successful missions. Starting last week he has asked to try every night and since we started the reward system (a chocolate chip for every success) we have been consistently successful! He's a little too smart for us though, he has figured out that all he has to do is sit down and let a few drops out and he gets a reward, so he has been breaking each bathroom trip into several "successful missions" to ensure he gets a few chips for each one!!

The birthday celebration started on Friday when Cesi and Grace (Lussa's mom) took Lussa and Isaac to lunch after their music class and got them a big piece of cake to share (it was Lussa's bday last week). Isaac cried when we sang happy birthday at the beginning of the week when my mom was here, so Cesi was determined to practice all day and by the time they got home Isaac was singing it to himself over and over (and over and over...). Great job Cesi!!

We started out the morning of his actual birthday with a special treat, Isaac helped me make a big mess in the kitchen in an attempt to make chocolate chip and banana birthday pancakes. The process of making the mess was much more fun for Isaac than eating the pancakes... oh well, one day we will get this child out of the single digit percentiles for weight!! (note - at his 2 year appointment, he finally reached the 5th percentile weighing in at 23.6 pounds) We then had several happy birthday calls on Oovoo - the one in the picture is with Jen, Max and Isaac's cousins who were the first to sing to him.

After that Bill finally returned from California on the red-eye to make sure he didn't miss any of Isaac's birthday (what a good daddy!) and he and Isaac went for their ritual Saturday morning coffee and muffin run. After that, Papa Rich and Mom-Mom arrived to spend the day and we all had a nice lunch before Isaac's nap.

Isaac napped for almost 3 hours (murphy's law) and we had to wake him up to get to his birthday party in time. He's usually pretty grumpy when we wake him, but all I had to do was mention that we were going to see Gymbo the clown and he perked right up. (case in point-- see the picture of him kissing Gymbo below - and note Lussa looking on jealously in the background!!) We managed to get out of the house in relatively short order and had a great time at his Gymboree birthday party.

Having just returned from California late on Saturday night, the Andersons were total troopers and made their way to DC just for the day on Sunday to make sure they could get to say happy birthday in person to Isaac. I have no idea how they were holding their heads up, but Isaac couldn't have been happier to see Grandma, Grandpa and Ray-Ray, and to get another round of happy birthday, more cake AND presents!!

Here's Isaac playing with some of his new presents -- sorry for all the naked pictures, Isaac insists on being naked to go on the potty, and then it takes a little while to convince him to get dressed again :)

Finally, we had such a great time with Aunt Alli who was here to visit from Thursday - Monday night. She was unbelievably helpful and patient jumping in to help me with Caitlin and Isaac while Bill was in California. The kids loved playing with her (well Caitlin loved sleeping on her, Isaac loved playing with her). She even slept in my room and got up with Caitlin and I several times throughout the night -- hopefully we didn't push her childbearing plans back too far :)
We had lots of fun with Alli, and were very sad when she went back to Colorado on Monday.

Grandma's visit - week 4

We had a great week with Grandma who came to help me out when Bill went back to work. We got lots of stuff done around the house and it was great to have an extra set of hands, especially during the 6-8pm time when Caitlin seems to be the fussiest and Isaac needs us the most for dinner/bath/bedtime. As much as we feel like grown-ups having two kids and all, there's nothing like having your mom around to take care of you...not sure how we'll juggle it all when we are on our own, but we'll figure it out...
Below are some cute pictures of our trips out to lunch, to the park, and just hanging around the house. We also ventured out with both kids to see Mr. Skip, a kids musician on the Hill, and met up with my VERY brave friend Genevieve who got both Charlie and Diego (who is only a week old!) out of the house all by herself - bravo!!

These are just some pictures we've taken through the week - an early morning photo capturing cuddle time with our family of four. Attempts to get pics of both me and Bill with the kids , and cute pics of Isaac and Caitlin...

Week Three - let the visitors begin!

It's been a busy week with lots of visitors coming to hang out with us. First my grandmother, uncle, aunt and cousins came on Saturday and spent a fun afternoon playing with Isaac and passing Caitlin around. She slept soundly through their entire visit, leaving them with the impression that she is a calm and easy baby - ha!! She woke up right as they were leaving and was up for hours reassuring us that our impression of her was in fact the correct one. She is definitely adorable and sweet and has moments of calm, but she is DEFINITELY not going to be a calm or easy baby. We have however begun to use some of the tricks we learned from Isaac to help her find her calmer self, and so far, I'd say we are evenly matched. Stay tuned...In any event, it was great to see them and we are so glad they made the trip from Philly.

My dad came in later Saturday evening for a quick overnight visit. Isaac was very happy to see Papa Rich, and we had a fun night and morning field trip to Gymboree before taking him back to the train station to head back to NY. It was our first trip as a family of four plus a guest in the Prius -- and it was enough to make us realize that the Prius is WAY TOO SMALL for us now!! It is a great car and we love it, but we are now in the market for an SUV (we are still staying strong against the mini-van for now, but I guess you can never say never...)

Finally, after Papa Rich left, we successfully put both kids down for a nap AT THE SAME TIME and were able to catch a nap for ourselves - huge victory! And then Rachael came to hang out for a couple of days to help me when Bill went back to work and before my mom arrived. It turned out to be a miracle that she came because I got a touch of a stomach flu and would NEVER have been able to make it through the days without her help. She came with me to Caitlin's pediatrician appointment on Monday -- she is almost 10 pounds! I made the doctor look up her percentile just so I could hear a number above the single digits (Isaac is still under the 5th!) and was thrilled to hear Caitlin is in the 93rd percentile! The way she's been eating, hopefully she'll keep it up!

Finally, Isaac is still having fun with Cesi and was very happy to have Lussa back from vacation. We got these cute pics from Cesi throughout the week...