Finals week

The last two weeks of every quarter are always stressful. Brent is studying hard and taking 12+ tests, and I always feel like I have so many things that I need to finish before break. I was able to finish one of those last night, which is making Gingerbread Men cookies! They are one of my favorite things my mother did growing up. Her recipe is the best, so flavorful, soft and chewy. So this year she got me the cutters so I could do my own batch! After some trial and error, I got my men ready! 

Frosting them is a lot of work! Luckily for me, Brent's cousin was in town and stayed the night with us. Wendy kept me company and helped me to finish my men! It is so fun to have company at our house. I love the frantic hour before they come where I accomplish a crazy amount of cleaning. 

Isaac is teething again. He now has three top teeth coming in and it makes him miserable. I am nothing more than a zombie during the days after waking up with him all night. 

Because of the break we will be very busy the next month. So my blog posts with be scattered, if there are any at all until January. Merry Christmas everyone! 

Thanksgiving

Brent, Isaac and I had a blast going up to Washington, Brent's old stomping grounds, for Thanksgiving. What is so great is that all of Brent's family lives so close to each other. First off, sweet Adelle showed up in the dress my mom made her for our wedding. It used to hit the ground! It was adorable. Her and her cousin Kate turned into Isaac's little moms the entire time. 

 We had a lot of fun cousin time, and the only parts I recorded with pictures are the bath scenes. Seriously, it was so cute how every night when Isaac had his bath his cousin Gage wanted to bathe too. He is such a funny kid, this was the most normal expression he took out of all my pictures.

Isaac got his first top tooth while we were on vacation. We were also sleeping in the same room as him, and he was not about to miss out on sleeping in our bed. He was a horrible sleeper while we were there and just wanted to sleep between us. One night, Brent and I accidentally pushed our air mattress against the heater...and it popped. So we slept on the floor, with Isaac crawling around all over me until he fell asleep. It was a long, long, long, night. 

 The best part of the trip was seeing everyone interact with Isaac. He is such a fun kid and he loved all the attention. Everyone was so good to him! I love getting to know my in-laws better too. I feel like each time we visit I relax more and be more like myself. I enjoyed long talks with Brent's twin at night, and with his cousins, aunts, and parents. I stayed two days extra after Brent went home so they could be with Isaac longer. It was hard to fly home by myself, Isaac can be a heavy and busy little guy.

When we got back home, it was Christmas time! Brent and I tried to decorate when Isaac was awake, but he was so mad he couldn't grab the ornaments and lights that we had to wait till he was asleep. My mom made him this sweet nativity that is 'Isaac proof'. He loves to play with it and eat the sheep.

Isaac is now a big boy in the tub! We are major trouble because all he wants to do is stand up. He loves playing in the water though! He is growing up so fast. Too fast for me! He is getting two more teeth as I speak and will only eat food if he can feed himself. He loves asparagus, bell peppers, bananas, and curry.

One of my favorite things about living in California is the friends we have made. We had dinner at our friends on Sunday and they treat Isaac so good. Their little girl is two and in love with Isaac. In the last year I have really come to realize the importance of having the right friends. You really become who you hang out with. 

Art Retreat

Sorry no post yesterday, Isaac has been sick since Sunday night and frankly, blogging was last on my list of survival activities. 

This has been a fun last week! I really pulled out my inner artist. I made a Halloween sign...after Halloween. But hey, I finished it, and it will be great for next year. It was so difficult to get Isaac to cooperate with the paint. He is so ticklish so painting his feet really set him off.

My other project is painting baby animals for Isaac's room. I saw this long canvas and knew I needed to do a giraffe. I'm so happy with how it turned out!

Also, we have family about 40 minutes away from us. They have saved us so much by giving us everything we have needed for Isaac. So, since we don't have much to offer them, I decided to take their oldest for a weekend retreat. She loves art so I pumped tons of art lessons and projects into her! It was exhausting to do it with Isaac crawling around, but we got some fun art in.

Now, for lots of Isaac entertainment:

Crawler on the loose!

I totally called it, Isaac is crawling now! Nothing is safe anymore, that's for sure. It's so fun to have him underfoot while I cook and to see him explore the world on his own.

This week a friend took pictures for us to use in our Christmas card. While I will not be posting any spoilers, I will post some fun pictures Brent took on the sidelines.

I'm so excited to send out Christmas cards for the first time. 

Isaac has been eating and sleeping HORRIBLY since he started crawling. I'm up every 1-2 hours with him EVERY night. I am so exhausted, he wasn't this bad even as a newborn! I'm trying really hard to be positive about it, so I enjoy his cuddles all night long, even if I'm half asleep. Naps are iffy, and usually involve lots of screaming. When he does fall asleep, this is his new pose. I don't know how that is comfortable, but to each his own. 

At Garin park! It was a beautiful day on Saturday. It has started getting cold...and I'm such a Califonian now because 'cold' is 63-68 degrees. But Saturday was nice when we were out!

"Quite taking pictures mom!"

Halloween

This has been a fun week! Isaac has become pretty mobile, and I would bet good money that he will be crawling by the end of this week. He is so close right now, but mostly he moves his bum around to different sitting positions. It's so nice now that he can move around because he is happier to be left on his own. 

Brent has been doing well in school. Last quarter he took his first round of National Board exams. We found out of Monday that he passed! It is a huge relief, and I'm so proud of him. He studied for several  hours every day, and I'm so glad we don't have to do it over again.  

Brent and I used to be really good at sending pictures to family, but we've been lacking. So we made Isaac hand turkeys which turned out to be very difficult. We're lucky we got even one good handprint. 

 Isaac is VERY good at sitting up on his own now. Which means nap time takes forever because I have to go back in every 3-5 minutes and lay him back down. Sometimes I find him in funny positions, and this one cracked me up.

I love going to the park with friends. California has some very nice parks, and luckily the best ones are really close to us! 

We have several elderly women in our court that are the sweetest people. They love to sit out on their porches and talk. Isaac recently stole one of their hearts, Sharon, because he will smile at her now. When he meets new people he usually just stares them down. But now that he's warmed up to her he is all smiles. So she brought by a halloween gift for him, which was so sweet of her.

And now for lots of cute pictures of Isaac, I'm not ashamed to admit I'm obsessed with my child. 

All dressed up for our farmers market

Seeing if pumpkin tastes good

Our church put on a giant Trunk-or-Treat activity Halloween night. It was really fun with games and yummy food.

 Brent's pumpkin is of an atlas bone (aka the top bone in your neck). He is such a nerd, so everything in our life revolves around chiropractic. 

Our Halloween breakfast. Brent came up with this idea all on his own! 

Isaac and I go on at least two walks a day around our neighborhood. He loves being outside, can you tell?