Children's Laughter

I am so busy with Christmas cards, photos, and shopping. So I thought I would post a video.

I don't know how much I'll be on here in the next month, so I thought I would leave you with Isaac's laugh. I love the commercial with the child laughing and at the end it says laughter increases your life by 8 years. I just think laughter is the best thing. This is a typical end to our dinner with dad and son goofing around.

Merry Christmas if I don't get on here before then. We wish all our friends and family the best holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving. . . early!

This year Thanksgiving was spent with the Mosser family in HAWAII!! Yea!! I loved HI when we went 4 years ago and was so excited to go back. Go snorkeling, see fish, eat fresh fish, and visit family. We had a group of 7 adults to one little 16 month old, I think we can handle this.

I was excited to be near the ocean and in 85 degree weather, but had no expectations since we were bring along Isaac. I was mostly dreading the airplane, our layover/spend the night in Seattle, all our luggage, and did I mention the 6 hour plane ride! My philosophy is if I think the worst then really how much worse can it be. The positive side, we were over water and the Airlines could not land the plane due to a screaming baby. My little baby was the best kid on the plane. He was an angel. Took naps on every flight, loved watching the plane engines, and sat on our laps the entire time. OK on the way to HI we had maybe a 20 minutes flare up, it was my fault trying to get him to take a nap when clearly he did not want to. The portable DVD player was my lifesaver and a kid who does not really watch TV (too busy) he watched the animals on TV for an hour.

We finally landed in Maui at 1pm, got the car rental by 2pm, took Isaac to MacDonald's, and finally checked into our hotel by 3pm. This is 6pm our time and Isaac was exhausted. All he wanted to do was go to sleep. We let him take a little nap from 4-5pm. When he woke up he came down to see the ocean for the first time. I was thinking he was going to be a little catious. I'm starting to think this isn't in his vocabulary. He ran right in, good thing Grandma Sue and Doug were already wet and in the ocean water. He played until sunset and was ready for bed. This did mean he was up in the morning at 4:30am, too early!

Create Your Own

Here is a photo of the family Grandma Sue, Grandpa Dave, Uncle Jason, Aunt Nichole, Mom, Dad, and Isaac. Also, Great Uncle Doug joined us and we had so much fun together all week. Doug was our condo roommate.

On Sunday the whole family took a trip to Hana. This is a full day in the car, and yes poor Isaac did awesome once again. By 7pm that evening I was even getting tired of the car. We got some great pictures of the black sand beaches, seven sacred pools, and beautiful landscape.

Create Your Own

We had such a fun time. Here is just a list of some fun things we did while in HI. The women got a full morning of messages, heavenly experience - THANKS GUYS! We love you. We got to golf, boogie board, snorkel, visit the aquarium, see a luau, and play, play, play on the beach.

Here are a bunch of photos from the trip.

Create Your Own

These are kind of cheesy photos, but to get Isaac to smile at the camera hit or miss. I thought they were cute.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now back to the real world - cold 30 degrees.

I promise. . .

I promise I will write about our trip soon. Here is a photo from our room.

Happy Halloween & The Maze

So the weekend before Halloween we celebrated my brother's birthday and took the kids to the pumpkin patch/The Maze. They had a lot of fun going down the slide, riding the cow train, playing in the corn box, and watching the pig race. I should also mention that this was the windest day I can remember in Billings. I dislike the wind SOOOO much!

I didn't know what to make Isaac be for Halloween this year, so he was a hand-me-down pumpkin. A little small Gage wore this when he was 6 months old, but Isaac was still pretty cute. It is really nice that my parents let all the kids come into the business and go trick or treating. Although this year was the warmest Halloween I can remember at 60 degrees.

Isaac 15 month

So this is just going to be a combination of fun photos. Isaac went in for his 15 month appointment and doing great. 95% on everything. He now weighs in at 26# 12oz and 33" long. The thing that amazed me is he didn't cry after the first two shots, he looked like he was going to, but didn't. I think we have a toughie on our hands. The final shot he cried for about 10 seconds.

Last Saturday we went to the park to get some fall photos. I take photos as a part time job and photographing my child is the toughest job out of ALL my clients. Yes you might think these are great photos, but I had to crop in so far on these. All he wanted to do was run everywhere and he won't sit, not even for a minute.

After a tough couple of nights (1 year molars) Isaac came home in the best mood ever last night. He was so much fun and full of smiles. Now these pictures were taken with our little point and shoot camera. This camera has a red eye light on it, so Isaac knows when the photo is going to be taken. I taught him "cheese" so maybe I will get some photos of him outside. Soon the smile is going to get so fake and bad. I need to get all the cute pictures I can!

Look Daddy got his braces off . . . FINALLY! He looks so good.

Isaac loves our new roommate! Grandpa Dave is staying with us until they sell their home. We are so glad to have them move back. Last night Grandpa got to help with Isaac's hair cut.

Lastly I have to share a cute photo taken this morning of Isaac and Brinnley "twin cousins". They are so cute together and had fun playing for a couple of minutes before morning nap. I am so blessed to get to visit with my sister for 1.5 hours every Wednesday and Friday morning. It is nice to have some girl time. Yes this is when I usually clean my house or work on my photos. Girl time is something we can never get back, and it really is needed! Today we caught up on Grey's Anatomy. Love that show!

Still Snowing

It snowed all night long and the news said that Billings got around 20-30" of snow depending on the area of town. We shook off our trees three times during this storm to try and save the rest of the trees in our yard. Donovan is very sore and is having a hard time tonight lifting his arms in the air.

Finally by this afternoon the snow let up and we could enjoy the beautiful winter wonderland. So what to do on a snowy day. Donovan and I thought what a great 1st snow day for Isaac. Last winter he was still too little to enjoy the snow, and today it really was nice outside - 35 degrees and no wind. So we bundled him all up in his snow outfit, put on his boots, and headed outside.

Now Isaac is a demanding little guy and I think the snow frustrated him beyond belief because he hated every minute of this new adventure. He couldn't walk anywhere and just cried and cried. This whole snow outing probably lasted about 10 minutes MAX.

So I've decided that it really is too bad that Grandma and Grandpa are moving up from Arizona because I think Isaac could become a snow bird and live with them in the winters. He must take after me because I really could do without all this snow.

Hopefully everyone is staying warm!

SNOW

Yes I know. It is so dry, we need the moisture, it IS winter, on and on. I do love snow. Hey I live in Montana, we get snow. But I also like the natural progression of summer, beautiful fall, and THEN winter. Last night we got hit with a snow storm. This is great until. . .

. . . it destroys all our trees. I got up this morning to find that our beautiful aspen collapsed onto our deck. The pine tree next to it was killed by a porcupine and this was the only tree left between our yard and our neighbors. So I was determined to shake off some of the snow before I lost my apples trees. I didn't get many apples this year, but I'm hoping to get some next year for apple pie and apple crisp.

As I was shaking off the trees I noticed that the Russian Olive on the other side of our house pulled completely out of the ground, roots and all. So we lost two trees. Donovan thinks he may be able to save our aspen. I guess the trunk did not break, but it is bent pretty good. I think with the shallow root system, the Russian Olive is gone.

Yes it is beautiful, but I hate when this happens so soon and all the leaves are still on the trees. Well at least it doesn't last for long. We are supposed to be back into the 40-50s by mid-next week. Crazy Montana weather.

Build a Bear

My aunt and uncle from Alaska got me a gift card to go build my very own bear at Build a Bear. Usually we never see anyone at the store, but this last Saturday it was full of kids buying bears. I looked and looked at all the animals. My mom was thinking I would really like a cow, that is one sound I'm good at making. There were no cows, I mooed at a buffalo, but mom and aunt Nichole didn't like the buffalo. So we went with a Turtle. It is so soft and comes with a back pack I can hide stuff in. It really is cute. I'm so glad my aunt got to come with me to build my turtle.

My aunt stayed in line while I got to play with the computers. I liked this more then building my turtle. My aunt was also kind enough to wash my turtle for me. It turned out perfect.

Aunt Nichole and Uncle Jason thanks so much for the gift card and my new turtle "Aloha". I love it and will love it more each day.

Plus I'm so excited that my grandma and grandpa from Arizona are moving back to spend more time with me. YEA!!!

Labor Day Weekend

We went to Chinook to visit grandparents. It was a great visit seeing the Mosser family and catch up on family news. Isaac did awesome on the trip up to Chinook, slept great at night, and enjoyed playing with uncles, aunts, and great grandparents. I'm really glad we got to go to the park before the rain set in all day Sunday and Monday.

Yes, Isaac has no fear. He loves stairs and decided he was going to climb up this slide all by himself. Of course daddy was behind him the whole way.

Then right before we decided to leave, he found the water puddle. Oh boys!!

Great Grandma and I reading to Isaac before getting ready for bed. He loves books, and I think he loved all the attention from everyone.

All I wanted to get was some photographs of him at 14 months. He is so busy it is really hard. Donovan finally figured out what I was talking about when he tried to take some pictures of Isaac and I. Impossible! I think we got a couple good ones of him having fun.

play group

Play group has been so much fun this summer. It was enjoyable to get Isaac out and about at least 1 afternoon during the week. And it is enjoyable for me to get some mommy time with other moms. Now Isaac is a little on the busy side, so that part for me isn't enjoyable. But we had fun this summer and did different events each week. Our last event of the summer before teacher moms head back to work was go to the zoo.

Below is why I never take any photos of Isaac. He is constantly on the go. Look at how well behaved all the other kids are. Good thing my sister was there to help out.

I love this photo below. Brinnley found a friend. The girl is just talking away while the poor boy listens. It even starts at such an early age! They are cute though.

Vacuuming

Roomba. What a vacuum and if anyone is thinking about purchasing one, I would. During a nap I can put the Roomba in the living room while I'm vacuuming and mopping the kitchen. I received this gift from my parents earlier this year and thought "why do I need this, why" It takes 45 minutes to vacuum a living room where I can vacuum it in 10, why would I use this.

Now I love it! It vacuums in circles and does an amazing job. I leave it in my bedroom while we eat dinner and voila, vacuumed. And it gets under the beds, which I could never do with a large vacuum. I do love it, so if you are in a debate, get one! You can purchase them at Costco for a little cheaper.