Catching up - and final birthday celebration!

Isaac has been having lots of fun with Ceci. Her mother Carmen works up the street and cares for Lussa (the cute blonde) and her cousin Gabby works around the corner and cares for Cole (the cutie with curls) so they all spend time together during the day - playing at the park, at each other's houses, and at the Family Room which is a cool indoor play area on the Hill where moms and nannies can take the babies to play. It gives Isaac the best of both worlds - he gets one-to-one care and to be on his schedule, and also gets lots of interaction with other people and other kids.

As a bonus, Ceci is teaching him Spanish. Here he is touching his cabeza (head) and playing peek-a-boo (that one is in English) -- and they are working on tummy and toes (currently he touches his head or covers his eyes when I say those, but maybe I'm butchering the translation? More work to be done on that front...) Other milestones include waving bye-bye and giving hugs on command (delicious!). On the eating front, we are regressing a bit - Isaac is taking his independence very seriously and refuses to eat anything but fruit, waffles, yogurt and turkey or chicken breast. On a brighter note Ceci is getting him to drink LOTS of (soy) milk - increased from 4 to 6 ounce bottles - which should go a long way to help pull him out of the first percentile for weight on our next visit (yup 99% of babies are bigger) - fingers crossed that we make it at least back to fifth!!

We took a road trip last weekend to NJ to see the Andersons' new house (which looks amazing!!) We had a great weekend, including the (fourth? fifth?) and final birthday celebration for Isaac. He got lots of fun new toys and books, and beautiful new clothes knit by Great Grandma-Josephine. He was happy to see the whole family and especially had lots of fun with Grandma who was kind enough to get up early with him both mornings and let us sleep late!

Finally a couple of cute pictures from the last few weeks - walking home from Eastern Market and playing in the toys at the Family Room.

The Sports Fan

We had a great weekend with visits from Grandma Gerri and Aunt Alli and Uncle Chad to celebrate Grandma's big birthday. Isaac got dressed up for the big Gators game on Saturday and even got to watch a few minutes of the game. He has a matching Gators jacket thanks to Alli and Chad, but it's still too big for the munchkin - so we improvised with an orange old navy shirt :)

On Sunday Isaac sported his fancy Giants gear, although he was in bed before the game started.

Isaac had lots of fun hanging around the house with the fam, and provided lots of entertainment kinda like a magic 8ball that's stuck. You can pretty much ask him anything (for example, "Isaac are the Gators/Giants going to win?") and he looks at you for a minute and says (as if he understood the question) "YEEAHHHH!!" We also took him shopping for some new clothes and fancy new sneakers (thanks Grandma!), and to the Family Room to play, and then to the zoo where he barely glanced at the goats and cows but thought the fan was hilarious, and played on the "pizza". Overall, a fun weekend!

Finally - one of the (many) benefits of Ceci is her iphone - she sends us videos of Isaac throughout the day which we love because it makes us feel like we are a part of his day and also gives us some reassurance that he's having fun. He's gotten more and more attached to us lately (which has brought some tears when we leave in the morning), and the videos of him talking and laughing ease our minds a lot.

The Beach

We just got back from a really great week at the beach. We went to Emerald Isle, NC - the southern Outer Banks. We managed to pack up and leave right after Isaac's birthday party on Saturday, driving 3 hours to Virginia Beach so we could break up the ride a little and stop and see Matt and Erin's new house. Even though they had a late night, they woke up and made us all breakfast before we hit the road- it was great to see them, and the house!

Isaac did pretty well on the long drive- he got a little ancy about 3 hours into it, so we stopped off and let him run around in the Walmart while we got some last minute beach-house supplies. We got there in time for sunset which gave us a few minutes to introduce Isaac to the ocean and sand. It's so funny to watch babies try to walk on sand - it definitely took him a day to figure it out. We also got to explore the house, which was perfect: right on the beach (close enough so we could sit on the beach and still be in baby-monitor range from the house), great deck with table and rocking chairs, and four bedrooms (two queens facing the water for the grown-ups, and two singles with enough room for the pack-n-plays for the babies). Isaac got his bedtime story from Bill in a rocking chair watching the sunset and the ocean, very enjoyable for both!!

Genevieve, Carlos and Charlie (aka Carlito) got there very late on Sunday night, so Isaac was very excited to see our housemates in the morning. The boys had a great time playing together, all week stealing toys from each other, throwing balls and banging pots and pans. They were on somewhat opposite nap schedules, but when they were both awake at the same time, it was a lot of fun to watch them. Isaac has recently begun saying yeah - in a really funny way, he drags it out and kind of sings it "yeeeaaaahhh" over and over. Contrarily, Charlie's newest word is no - and he scrunches up his face and says it repeatedly, even when he is actually in favor of what you're proposing - "nonononono" (very cute to watch). Shockingly, now that we're home, guess what Isaac has begun saying???

We had perfect weather almost the whole week, but the two storm systems that were nearby made the ocean a little too rough for the boys. Isaac went in with Bill one day, but we decided it wasn't the best idea given the big waves (plus he wasn't too thrilled with the salt water splashing him in the face). So it worked out perfectly that we brought Isaac's pool to the beach so the babies could swim - and they loved it (so did we!!). Every day we were there he got more and more comfortable in the water - by the 4th day he was even putting his face under water and splashing. Notwithstanding the rough ocean, Isaac loved the beach - once he got his "sand legs" we took lots of walks and he laughed at the seagulls and the dogs swimming in the ocean, he picked up and threw (and tried to eat) lots of seashells, he chased and ran from the waves, and played with and ate a lot of sand. We had a sun tent we borrowed from friends which was great for the 5 minutes at a time we could get him to stay in there...so it was a good thing he was very cooperative about me lathering him up with spf 70 several times a day, and keeping his sunshirt on at all times.

Given the perfect deck, the chef we brought with us (Bill), and the dearth of good restaurants, we ate most meals in, enjoying the ocean and drinking lots of wine (after the babies were asleep). We did venture out one night for Mexican (rated as the best restaurant on Emerald Isle - need we say more?) and while it started out fun (check out that margarita) the babies' patience for sitting still was very limited - contrary to the picture below, they did not stay in their highchairs and eat quietly for much longer than the time it took to take the picture! We ended up eating very quickly, and vowing to avoid dinners out from then on - a great decision in retrospect!

Finally, just some cute Isaac pictures from the week.

The ACTUAL birthday party

We finally had the official celebration for Isaac's first birthday on Saturday. The weather was ominous, but the clouds held out through the party, which was great, because we had no clue where we were going to fit 50 people in our house!! It worked out perfectly though, we set up the appetizers and cakes inside, along with a bunch of Isaac's toys, and the bbq, pool, slide and water table were outside - with people going in and out all afternoon. Speaking of cakes - you might think these were professional, but they were Karen & Gabe Kruse originals - and they were AMAZING! Only the Kruses would respond to a request for an "easy" cake with FOUR different cakes - a basketball, a soccer ball, a soccer field with players and goals, AND a #1 cake for Isaac - seriously, they looked awesome (and tasted good too!!) - what great friends!!

Bill manned the bbq (with some help from Isaac, who did try a few bites of a burger and loved it!) and the kids really seemed to enjoy Isaac's new swingset, his pool and his water table. At first the babies sat around the outside of the pool, but by the end they all went in for a while - as evidenced by Silas's pruned feet! Honestly though, it really was fun - 12 babies (how do we know 12 babies??) and lots of grown-ups and everyone seemed to have a good time - including Isaac who was loving watching everyone and sharing his toys.

When it came time for cake, Isaac seemed to remember his job from the dress rehearsal at daycare and went right in for a mouthful of icing! He seemed a little freaked out when everyone sang to him, but he did great and it was so cute to watch - I really cannot BELIEVE he's one!

After the party ended, we were lucky to have Grandma Sherry, Papa Rich, Mom-Mom and Aunt Rachael to help clean up and to help open all the great gifts Isaac got. He started playing immediately and wanted to play with everything at once!

No rest for the weary - after working tirelessly through the party - they made a great clean-up crew too!!

What a fun day!!