Meet Eric

So - Jeremy and I were curled up on the couch watching a Christmas movie on Friday night - when at 10:15 pm our doorbell suddenly rings and is immediately followed by a loud knock. I jump up and look out the peep hole of the door. I see nothing. That makes me a little nervous. So I ask Jeremy to come over and open the door to see what is up.

Our first thought??

Jeremy: Maybe some one loves us and left us something yummy.

Kendra: I hope Isaac doesn't wake up. Why would someone ring our doorbell at 10:15 pm? Don't they realize that there is a BABY sleeping? (I actually have a small sign on my door next to the doorbell that says "Please Knock" because I have been frustrated by the doorbell so many times!).

Well - we open up the door and look down to the door mat to find.....

Eric. Our thoughts? Jeremy: It's too early for the 12 days of Christmas to be starting.
Kendra: Provo is full of weirdos.

The vase of water that holds Eric has a note on it that reads, "Thanks for adopting Eric. He really needed a home." Hmmm... random. We didn't exactly expect to open the door at 10:15 pm and find an abandoned goldfish waiting for us. Odd.

We didn't exactly know what to do with him. I mean - we hadn't exactly been planning on getting a goldfish anytime soon. We like goldfish but our collective experience with goldfish can be summed up in one word: death. So we talked about what to do... clever Jeremy suggested that we Ding Dong Ditch him to some one else - but we were too lazy to do that. Besides, we both felt bad for the little guy - we didn't want to cause psychological damage by instilling abandonment issues or anything like that. So... I guess that we have a goldfish now. And Isaac couldn't be happier. :)
He was so excited to wake up this morning and meet Eric. He has been talking and signing and pointing about that fish all day. So I guess that we are a happily expanding family. :)
The moral: You never know what you will find on your doorstep.

Thanksgiving 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were very blessed and had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

But I forgot to take pictures - oops!

We started the day off right - by watching the Macy's Day Parade while we ate breakfast. I love the Macy's Parade. It is so fun to watch - it is just tradition to me... it simply wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it. Anyway... around 10 am we headed out to spend the rest of the day (and spend the night) at Jeremy's Uncle Bruce and Aunt Stacey's home in Millville, Utah (just outside of Logan).

It is so nice to have some family in the area! Our immediate family is all far away in Arizona - so we feel so blessed and so lucky to have some of Jeremy's wonderful family close enough to enjoy the holiday with. I just realized today that we have actually spent 3 out of the last 4 Thanksgivings at Bruce & Stacey's home. I guess it is becoming a tradition! We love them and feel so welcome in their home - and we are so grateful for their generosity and hospitality towards us. They are so much fun to be with - and the food is FANTASTIC. Veggie trays, cranberry blue cheese ball with crackers, sparkling cider, smoked turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, homemade buttery rolls, fresh stuffing with veggies, gourmet salad with homemade sugar roasted pecans and fresh pomegranites, sweet potatoes, gravy, pretzel crusted cream cheese jello HEAVEN, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and banana cream pie... what's not to like????? No wonder we keep coming back. :)

Of course, our favorite part of the get together (in addition to the AMAZING food) is the GREAT conversations. This is the Amberson side of Jeremy's family... which means that we spend the ENTIRE day sitting and TALKING. We didn't watch movies or play games (although we had the best of intentions to) because we lost track of time and chatted the day and the night away. The Ambersons are known for having opinionated, heated, passionate, intense conversations. We covered the gamut of topics - what everyone was up to, big life decisions, movies, the gospel, politics, marriage, abortion, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, the millenium, socialism, how to become better people, parenting, insecurities, ambitions - and much MUCH much more. When I first married into Jeremy's family these conversations tended to overwhelm me a bit. I mean we are talking EASILY 6-8 hours straight of opinionated and heated (but still friendly!) debating. I am finally learning how to pipe in and contribute and how to listen and really appreciate everyone's diverse views. It's fun! And I am so glad that Jeremy comes from a family that really tries to talk about everything (nothing is taboo!) and communicate and be educated and understand each other's viewpoints respectfully. I love that about him!

Anyway... Isaac LOVED being in a new place and exploring everything possible! He loved the stairs and the cats and the kids and all of the people and the LOADS of attention that he received. He was simply grinning from ear to ear and toddling around the whole time we were there! During the Thanksgiving feast we asked him if he wanted any turkey and he proceeded to "flap his wings" - too cute. He was a big hit! But his "favorite" part of the trip was a walk that Jeremy and I went on with him just after the Thanksgiving feast. We took him outside and in rural Millville he was able to see horses and cows up close. He LOVED that and hasn't stopped signing and "talking" about horses since. Hmmm... he must be related to his cousin Ally. :) Here's the only picture I took... and it was right before we left this morning (we had to see the horses one more time).

Oh - and just in case you are wondering what I look like now - at this point in life I am 31 weeks pregnant. Here's a picture at 31 weeks. I am feeling HUGE (and I am sure that our Thanksgiving feast didn't help matters). :) We are grateful for SO many blessing this year... it truly has been SO good to us. The top of the Thankful list...

1. God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ

2. Each other

3. Isaac

4. Our Miracle Baby Girl

5. All of our family and wonderful friends

6. Warm shelter and food aplenty

7. Health

8. Opportunities and choices in this life

9. The LAST year of law school

10. The future

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving Prep

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I LOVE it! I love the focus on gratitude and the festive feast and the time with family. I love that it marks the dawn of the Christmas season. Anyway, this year Thanksgiving really seemed to sneak up on me. I didn't do as much as I had wanted to in order to "gear" up for the holiday... but we did sneak in some fun.

First, we did our 2nd Annual "We're Thankful for..." sticky-note wall. Jeremy's favorite contribution: Corn syrup. My favorite contribution: Nap time. Isaac's only and repeated contribution: Ball. No surprise there!

Here's my little pilgrim.

Second, Isaac and I read Thanksgiving books and we learned LOTS of fun Fall and Thanksgiving songs that we sang throughout the month (thanks to our music playgroup). By the end of the month even Jeremy was singing along! Our hands-down favorite song is called, "Tommy the Turkey." And I don't want to forget it for next year - so here it is...

Tommy Turkey, he loves to dance

He shakes his tail feather when he has the chance

Tommy Turkey wants to dance with you.

So, get up on your feet. You can do it too.

(Stand up to dance at this point and follow the rest of the instructions!)

Shake your tail feathers. Shake 'em on down.

Flap your winds and turn around.

Gobble gobble, gobble. Strut your stuff.

Sit back down. Tommy said "Enough."

Isaac loves flapping his wings for this song, turning around, and then sitting down. He wanted to do it again and again (so we did!).

Third, since music playgroup was canceled the week of Thanksgiving - but we were going to be in town (and Jeremy was still going to be gone all day studying) we decided to host a little Thanksgiving party. I invited Isaac's buddies from our baby playgroup that we did last year. It was fun to see everyone again. The kids have grown so much!!

Anyway, we made the pilgrim hats and Isaac decorated this lovely turkey page with crayons and stickers and rick rack "feathers" all by himself (I just wrote his name at the bottom). I was so proud.

Also, Isaac and I made and decorated Thanksgiving sugar cookies to take to some friends and neighbors. I love making sugar cookies. He did great "helping" me this time around - but since he knew what was going on - he was really eager to eat his cookie. He did a pretty good job decorating it though.
And I decorated the rest of the cookies. I like decorating cookies - it's fun and relaxing and a little bit of an excuse for a creative outlet. I had been bummed that I didn't have a "Turkey" cookie cutter - but then I saw this idea online and I had to do it. You just use a hand cookie cutter and decorate it like a turkey. Fun!

Stickers and Shoes

When Isaac and I were getting a little bored the other day - I happened to pull out some stickers to play with... and they were a BIG hit! At least 15-20 minutes of fun. He really liked them... check out that impish grin. :)

And Isaac is becoming a big fan of shoes of all sizes. He has been carrying our shoes to us for a week or so... he puts them casually on top of our feet and then points and signs and BEGS to go outside. This last week he has started to learn to find his shoes for me when we are getting ready to go somewhere. And then - he learned how to walk around wearing Daddy's shoes. What a big boy! He learned that trick from his good friend Addie.
So - random side note. ** Isaac learned to say "da-da" at about 9 months. He said "da-da" or "daddy" and signed "daddy" at about 12 months (that was the first sign that he learned). BUT - for about the last month or so he has started calling Jeremy "ma-ma". It drives Jeremy crazy! Isaac will try to repeat practically anything that you say to him. So we would try and try to get him to say "Daddy". It went something like this...

Us: Say "Football"

Isaac: Football (or something similar)

Us: Say "Ready, Set, Go!"

Isaac: "Whedee, et, go!"

Us: Say "Daddy".

Isaac: ma-ma

We would quiz him on all sorts of stuff and he would say all of his animal sounds and identify everything in the room that he could name... and then we would point at Jeremy and say "Who's that?" and he would say "ma-ma." Hilarious! Anyway, we got some great laughs out of this - until one morning this week when Isaac was getting fussy. I decided that it was going to be a long morning so I picked up the phone and said to Isaac, "Let's call our friends and see if they want to come and play with us." And Isaac stopped crying and looked at me and quite distinctly said, "Addie?" Jeremy and I stopped dead in our tracks and stared at him. "What????" Here we've been begging and pleading for this boy to say "Daddy" and out of the blue he decides to learn his friend's name "Addie" instead!!! We laughed and laughed about that one. Anyway, luckily later that day he started saying "Daddy" again (which - by the way he says distinctly differently than he says "Addie"). And now he is gradually getting better and better at referring to Jeremy as Daddy. It's just been a funny family inside joke for the last month or so.**

Bad Eater or BAD FEEDERS?

I can't even remember how long Isaac has been classified in my mind as a "difficult" or "picky" eater. Probably since we started feeding him solids! But it got progressively worse... he was ridiculously hard to feed! I HATED feeding him meals because it either meant putting him in front of the tv, him throwing food ALL over my house (creating a floor that had to be swept AND mopped multiple times a day), a battle to even get him to eat at ALL, a lot of screaming, food on my clothes for sure, and at least 10 toys on his tray to "distract" him (which got disgustingly covered in food so then they had to be washed and they were thrown on the floor constantly which meant that I spent all my time bending over and picking them back up!). I was exasperated with the ENTIRE situation... but I felt like there was no way out!

And then a darling friend was bold and kind enough to mention that maybe the problem was... me? WHAT? Could my "bad eater" really be the result of a "bad FEEDER"?

Yes - my friends - I am the problem!

I was so happy! If I was the problem - then maybe I could also be the solution. These poor first children... what we silly parents put them through.

What I realized was that I was consistent and concerted in my efforts to help Isaac have a healthy sleep pattern - but that I was not putting any consistency or effort into helping Isaac develop healthy eating patterns. S0 - upon making this realization - Jeremy and I sat down to develop an "Action Plan" (we do this for any Isaac issue so far - it helps us be thoughtful about the choices that we are making and then consistent in follow through - but it sounds so silly - I have "action plans" for all sorts of things).

We decided to...

1. Stop letting him drink his appetite away! He was drinking TONS of milk and juice from his sippy cup and it hadn't dawned on me how that was affecting his meals.

2. No more watching tv or playing with toys at meals or walking around during meal time. Meals and snacks are served in the high chair in the kitchen.

3. Set regular "times" for meals and snacks. We have breakfast when he wakes up, morning snack 2 hours later, lunch 1 1/2 to 2 hours later, afternoon snack when he wakes up, and dinner at 5:30 pm.

4. NO throwing his food. We made a list of 4 food categories (veggies, fruit, main "dish", and starch). He got a chance at one food from each category at each meal. Once he threw a food item it was taken completely off of his tray and put away. He lost the opportunity to eat that item. Essentially, 4 strikes and he would be out. At snack time he got 2 items of food. We based this decision on the reassurance that "hungry children will eat. They will not starve themselves." Instead of throwing, when we can tell that he is getting done with something we ask him to hand it to us.

5. No eating between meals and snack times. Once you choose not to eat at the designated time - then you have to wait until the next opportunity arises.

6. 1 sippy cup of milk at bedtime, 1 in the morning, and 1 before nap. NO more. Only water from his sippy cup with meals (so that he wouldn't drink his appetite away). I also give him a sippy cup of heavily diluted juice and water throughout the day still.

And that was that. We decided to stick to our new plan and see what happened.

Day 1 morning: A LOT of screaming and crying and throwing. A VERY hungry little boy. A lot of standing at the child-locked cupboard that held the crackers and screaming "cracker".

Day 1 afternoon: Oh my heavens... he ATE! He ate what we served him.

Within 3 days he was a completey changed child!! He is SO easy to feed now. Only extremely occasional throwing of food and no resistance about sitting in his high chair. When I say "Isaac it's time for a snack - he runs to the sink and is all ready for me to wash his hands. He folds his arms to pray before we eat. And he eats a wide variety of healthy foods.

WHAT???

I was the problem all along. Yes, indeed, we had a terrible, horrible, very bad case of a bad FEEDER. And now life is so much happier for both Jeremy and I and our great little EATER. I hope that I remember this parenting lesson for a LONG LONG time.

2009 Family Pictures

It was time for more family pictures! A good friend of mine, Cali, took these photos for us. Didn't she do a remarkable job?!? THANK YOU CALI!!

Signing and the Spoken Word

There's no turning back.

I am in love.

I'm hooked.

I love that my little boy can communicate with me. I love finding out what he is thinking about - what he is observing - what he wants - and what he is interested in.

I love that he is slowly learning how to talk and I love baby sign language!

Isaac's words:

mama, ball, football, cracker, fish, Jesus, cheese, puppy,

daddy, scriptures, car, crash, jump, uh-oh, no, yes, throw

Isaac's sounds:

meow, moo, oink, baa, quack, vroom - vroom, roar

Isaac's signs:

more, milk, food, juice, water, cracker, dog, hat, cat, bird, horse, frog, wash hands, shoes, sleep, all done, car, train, bus, bike, outside, boat, book, please, thank you, go on a walk, fish, daddy, throw, baby, pray, brush teeth, hot, potty, ball

Between all of these words (and of course the all important pointer finger) Isaac and I are starting to be able to communicate pretty well. And I LOVE that. I love getting to know him better and seeing his personality, interests, and opinions come out.

I have been AMAZED at the things that he observes and notices. I am stunned by what he is thinking about or seeing in his environment. For example, we will be reading a book and he is pointing out the dogs playing in the background or we are eating breakfast and he is fascinated by the hat on the Quaker Oats man or we are out shopping and he notices the poster with a bike on it - things that I hadn't even been aware of!

You know, baby sign language may be "trendy" and sure - they will learn to talk soon anyway so it's not a real "necessity" - but I LOVE it. I can't wait to work on baby sign language with all of my children and see their JOY as they learn to identify the vast world around them and as they gain the ability and the confidence to COMMUNICATE. Yep - I'm HOOKED.

Pregnancy, Preparations, and Practicing

At this point I am 30 weeks pregnant. Yay!

We are getting SO excited for our baby girl to arrive.

So... how is it going??

Well, I have been feeling good for the most part. I have had some Braxton Hicks here and there and I am definitely getting "bigger" - but no real complaints. I feel baby girl move a lot - which I LOVE. And I was actually diagnosed with borderline Gestational Diabetes this week - awesome - so I am trying to learn and follow that diet and eat healthy just as a "precaution".

It feels great to be in the Third Trimester and to know that we are getting closer and closer... but then another piece of me kind of freaks out and thinks, "Wait!! The third trimester?!? That's the last one... you're going to have a baby soon!! You have to get ready!"

So we are trying to start preparing ourselves and Isaac as much as possible for the upcoming birth of our baby.

My biggest concerns about the transition to 2 children are my own emotional and physical inadequacies - so I decided that I needed to do what I can now to prepare myself emotionally for a new baby. See - I want so badly to be a good mother to our 2 children - but let's be honest - I just am not the happiest camper on little to NO sleep - so I worry about that. I also worry about my patience (while I enjoy being a mother - I must confess that I don't actually love listening to babies scream and toddlers whine and throw tantrums). I worry about the logistics of it all - and of course, I worry about my sanity.

What have I been doing??? Well, I have been trying to "prepare" by asking and begging everyone and anyone that i know with 2 kids for advice, reading books about transitioning to 2 children, and keeping a motherhood journal. I read General Conference talks and scriptures about motherhood and journal all of my favorite quotes, thoughts, and insights. I guess I just feel like I need to do what I can now to strengthen and deepen my testimony and love for the divine role of motherhood - before entering another new challenging era of it. By doing these things I have started to feel my worries and anxieties decrease, and my excitement and love for my family increase. I am SO grateful to be a mother and I look forward to welcoming another beautiful baby into our home!

I have also been focusing on trying to prepare Isaac for the birth of his baby sister. I know that transitions can be rough on kids and even though he is young I want to do all that I can to help him through this. So - we have been talking about babies (he kisses my tummy when we ask him where our baby is), pointing out babies everywhere we see them, and checking out loads of books from the library about new babies and being a big brother. He LOVES these books. They are his absolute favorite to look at - he wants to read them over and over and over again. So, I am hoping that is a good sign. :) We practice being soft to pictures of babies - hopefully some of that will sink in! And we are also planning to give him a baby doll as part of his Christmas gift this year (which will be about 3-4 weeks before our baby is scheduled to arrive). And - most importantly - we have been trying to babysit for friends with little babies. It has been GREAT practice for all of us!!

The first time we babysat for a little newborn baby - Isaac freaked out! He cried whenever I held the baby, he tried to climb in my lap and be held INSTEAD of the baby, he cried for me when he was with Jeremy and out of my sight as well. Now - after 3-4 times "practicing" - he has made VAST improvements! He is excited when the baby arrives. He doesn't cry when Jeremy or I hold the baby. Instead, he brings toys and books from his toy shelves over to "show" the baby. He signs "baby" over and over again - but he is also fine going into another room to take his bath or get ready for bed. Last night Isaac went to bed when we were still babysitting a newborn baby. When he woke up this morning the very first thing he was doing was signing "baby" and searching every corner of our house to try to find the baby. Finally he got out his books about new babies and big brothers and read those instead. SO cute!!!

Anyway - the babysitting practice has been good for all 3 of us. We are SO excited for our new girl to join our family! It makes me look forward to being a mother of 2 and to watch our family grow. It should be a wonderful, challenging, exhausting, beautiful time. We can't wait!!!

By the way, if you have any other fun tips or ideas on how to prepare for a second baby (or survive the transition to 2 kids)- PLEASE leave me a comment or send me an email. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!!

Isaac's Antics

Isaac loves lots of things. He LOVES wearing hats. He LOVES going outside. He LOVES walking around in open spaces unrestrained. He LOVES anything and everything that is social. He LOVES new places. He really enjoys watching tv and would watch it probably as much as I would let him (which is currently one 30 minute Baby Signing Time video each day). He likes to walk around and explore. He likes shoes and is learning to bring us his shoes (and bring us our shoes when he wants to go somewhere). He is trying to learn to not get into the trash or touch electrical outlets (the only two real "no-nos" in our house) - but that is hard for him. He likes to look out the window. He likes to knock on doors. He likes to play with magnets on the fridge. Playing with my cell phone and talking on the loudspeaker to daddy is cool too. He loves eating snacks - fruit leathers, crackers, cheese, and raisins are at the top of his list. But he LOVES and begs for cookies. He loves pretty much anything new and out of the ordinary. He likes his sippy cups of juice and milk (still working on diluting the juice more and more to try to get him to take water). His binkies (all FIVE of them) are his naptime and bedtime buddies only. He goes to his nursery class on Sunday like a champ and he doesn't show any signs of stranger anxiety right now.

He is learning how to color with crayons - and that keeps his attention for 10 minutes or so - not bad (by the way, this picture was taken about 2 seconds before he turned around and colored on the wall -awesome). He likes to dance - which consists of moving his hips from side to side, clapping his hands, and bending his knees. He is obsessed with "jumping" and stomping his feet. He "jumps" by bending his knees as low as he can and then standing straight up again quickly. Yet his feet never leave the ground. He does this over and over again saying "jump" each time and looking super proud of himself. :) He likes to wash his hands and use hand sanitizer.
His all-time, hands-down FAVORITE is balls and bats. He carries around a small bat at least 80% of the day. The first thing he does in the morning is pull out ALL of his toy balls and then he plays with that all day long. If I didn't get other toys off of the toy shelf and encourage him to play with them - he would JUST play with balls all day long. It is ALL he cares about! He uses the bat in 2 ways - as a bat and as a golf club. He can hold the bat correctly (he always transfers it to his right hand and to the correct hold - even if it means putting down other toys and balls while he adjusts and then picking it all back up again). He can hit the balls off of a homemade "tee". He swings the bat to hit a ball as long as Jeremy or I is willing to pitch to him. AND - get this - he can actually pick up a ball with his left hand and then hit it out of his left hand with his right hand - sometimes he even tosses it with his left hand and swings with his right hand. I know, parents are easily impressed - but we definitely think that we have a GENIUS and a ball playing PRODIGY on our hands. :) Really, we just love him TONS and are completely smitten with his every action. We know - we are obsessed. :)
Did I mention that he likes hats??

Happy Birthday Uncle Mike!

We celebrated my brother's birthday. He just turned 23. So... yeah, my younger brother is getting old. Uh oh - what does that say about me? YIKES. Not only did he just have a birthday - but he is also ENGAGED to this beauty, Melanie, and we LOVE her. They got engaged in September and we are SO excited for her to join the family in December. Good pick Michael! We couldn't approve more. :) CONGRATS!!!

It's fun to have them close by and to get to hang out with them and have them over for Sunday dinners and hear all about school and jobs and wedding plans. We also love the occasional free babysitting (thanks!). And it is especially wonderful to have them close by on special occasions - like birthdays! My brother doesn't go for the traditional cake and ice cream desserts - so I made him a big pumpkin chocolate chip cookie (his favorite). We simply hung out and chatted and it was a wonderful relaxing (yummy) evening.

Happy Birthday Michael and Happy Engagement too!!

Halloween 2009

Saturday was a beautiful day and an another day full of festivities for our little monkey.
In the morning I woke up craving hashbrowns, eggs, sausage, and cinnamon rolls - so we decided to enjoy a big family breakfast. After breakfast Isaac and I headed to the Stake Primary Halloween Party (kids in nursery were also invited to attend). He had a great time seeing all of the kids in their costume, marching in a costume parade, trick-or-treating from different booths, and decorating a cupcake.

Mmmmm.... this is yummy!

He did a pretty good job decorating it on his own. At least some candy ended up on the cupcake - right?

But his favorite part of the activity was walking around playing with some balloons. He loves balloons - after all, they are like balls!

After the Halloween party Isaac ate lunch and took a nice long nap. While he was sleeping Jeremy and I had time to relax and cook our traditional dinner in a pumpkin (sorry - no pictures of that). After dinner, we took Isaac trick-or-treating at the freshman dorms at BYU. The Freshman dorms offer trick-or-treating to families in the area from 4-6 pm and we thought that sounded perfect! Isaac LOVED knocking on all of the doors.

And the freshman girls just gushed all over him. He got loads of smiles and waves and all the attention and candy that a cute little monkey could ever dream of!

Just out and about... trick-or-treating.

We only went to a few dorm buildings - but enough to enjoy the experience

of it all. Isaac LOVED it! We came home and let him eat a roll of Smarties (a BIG treat for this kid) and just played as a family until bedtime. We sang and danced and cuddled and wrestled and ran around and played ball. It was the perfect end to a great day. After Isaac went to bed Jeremy and I watched a movie and enjoyed yummy caramel apple crisp. The holidays are SO fun with Isaac. I can't wait for more Halloween fun next year!

Sugar Cookies!

I love the tradition of making sugar cookies for pretty much EVERY holiday. I have always loved it! It is so fun and festive to me to cut out the cookies in different shapes and then use creativity to decorate them in all sorts of fun ways and then give them away to friends and neighbors (and eat them too!). So - even though Isaac is just barely 16 months old... I thought we would give it a try WITH him and see how he did making some Halloween sugar cookies.
He really enjoyed it! He's never played with playdough yet - so this was a whole new experience for him. I scooted him up to the table and gave him his own little amount of dough. Then I showed him how to pat it down and handed him a few cookie cutters. He thought that was great! He did eat a little bit of the dough (but luckily I decided to substitute a milk/oil combo for the egg so that I didn't have to stress about the raw egg issue). He was especially excited when Jeremy rolled up his ball of dough and handed it to him so that he could "start over" and play more with it - because all of a sudden the dough became a BALL.
See that joy! Right after this picture he threw it across the room. :) After the cookies were baked I let Isaac give decorating a try. I iced his pumpkin with orange frosting and handed it to him - and then I demonstrated each step along the way. He really tried to follow what I was doing - I was very impressed. The cookie ended up as a beautiful modern art piece (much like most of Jeremy's cookies :) with mini m&ms and chocolate sprinkles on it.

He was showing it to me and then randomly put his finger in his mouth and boy did his face light up! He hadn't yet realized how yummy this new game was! He kicked his legs and signed "cookie" and "more" over and over again. So we let him loose with the cookie he had created...

This was the end result. Not too bad.

"I have something on my face? Where???"

Yay for yummy sugar cookies, holidays, time together with just our little family, and yay for the beginning of wonderful family traditions!

Library Storytime

On Friday we went to a Halloween themed story time at our local library. All of the kids were invited to wear their costumes and participate in a mini costume parade. Isaac loved it! We sang Halloween songs (like "Old MacDonald Had a Haunted House") and saw a puppet show about trick-or-treating and listened to a story about a pumpkin. Here's Isaac intently watching the puppet show...

Since we live close to the library Isaac and I head over there at least 2-3 times a week. We go to story time and then spend the rest of our time walking around, waving and smiling at people, and looking at books. We both enjoy it. And we are always finding and checking out new books.

It was fun to celebrate Halloween with our library friends. :)