Isabelle is 7 months!

Uh oh, getting behind in the blogging!!

Our dear Isabelle Jean is 7 months now. Sitting up like a champ, fairly mobile (although not crawling) and VERY vocal about getting what she wants. Especially if that something is her getting picked up! She is pretty easy going as long as she isn't tired, and loves crackers and yogurt. She also loves her feet. I keep socks on her 99% of the time because she scratches herself with her toenails, but for that 1% of the time she can get to her feet, she chews them, plays with them....is a very happy girl. She wears 6m clothing although will be wearing 9month pajamas soon - my tall girl! No teeth (or signs of teeth) which I prefer at this time. :) She loves to watch her brother and pull his hair, and share in whatever game he is playing. She is especially adept at knocking over any block tower he might build too near to her. Happy 7 mo, Izzy!

John, lately

Man...a kid turns two and loses all his glory!  So, I wanted so share a bit about John these days so when I am much older and more forgetful, I have some history....

John is nearly 27 months.  He loves to sing, especially the ABC song, Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle, and many others. His favorite activities include playing "dance" (music party, everyone gets an instrument), doing puzzles, playing blocks/building blocks, and "painting" his Water Wow books.  He has several types of blocks and each type of block is a different game. With the giant legos, he builds birthday cakes and sings Happy Birthday. (Like every time.) With the large wooden square blocks, he plays "Dinosaurs taking a nap" in which we build a home for the dinosaurs and they each get 1 or more blankets and pillows and all get put down for a nap. Sometimes they also get fed some lunch.  With his normal "blocks" we build towers and normal block things, although lately a lot of couches for the dinosaurs if they aren't napping. And finally his ABC blocks he just likes discussing all the letters and pictures and putting them back away.  And THEN (I thought I was done) his animal Duplos set he got for his birthday, with those we build the different animals that were shown on the box.   Clean up happens a lot around here, obviously, although maybe not as much as I would like!

John is very specific about meals.  When given food in a bowl, he only wants a spoon to eat it. (I've really tried to convince him that a fork is more useful for some foods. He doesn't believe me.) Identical food on a plate? FORK.  Also, if given a divided plate, a unique food must be included in each section of the plate, otherwise he spends most of the meal pointing out the empty square and asking it to be filled. Luckily, he usually suggests peas. Unfortunately, he only eats like 3 of them.

John loves pointing out the alphabet wherever he sees it, and calls my Cal Poly shirt an "ABCD Shirt" because it has the "ABC's" on it. Same goes with anything else with letters.

John is a great big brother and loves to take care of Isabelle, bring her toys, and help her.  She in turn is very entertained watching him.  I've tried to encourage him to read the books he's memorized to her, or to help me read them to her.  He can usually finish most of the pages.  He still loves his books! His attention span is longer than I realize with longer books (sometimes longer than mine.) Despite memorizing books, he doesn't complain when some pages of the more annoying books might be skipped when trying to finish them just a *little* faster.

Isabelle at 6 months!

I'm going to have to add pictures in here later, I got a new phone and they're not available right now.

Isabelle Jean at 6 months - gosh we just adore this girl! She is nothing like her brother, who we are also quite fond of,  and I love their differences.  At her 6 m checkup she was just barely over 13lbs (2lbs smaller than her brother at that age) and 26 inches (1 inch longer than him!).

She still loves baths, her bouncer, and now also loves eating. If you don't feed her fast enough, she grunts and grunts for more.  She is a decent sleeper, 3 naps a day, and nighttime is...managable. She can sit up on her own, hold herself in a stand (if I help her get there), and likes to play John's piano and other musical toys.

Isabelle is 5 months!

Oh my little girl - you are so little and yet getting so big! Still not surpassing the 13 pound mark, I still tend to think of you as a newborn, even though you hold yourself up better and better each day. You can roll both directions and you love, love, love baths.  You are a busy girl, grabbing - quickly - whatever is nearby and you are content playing and rolling around with your toys for quite a while when you are in the right mood.  You have started going on blanket rides with your brother, which you enjoy very much.  You've also been to Disneyland this month, and you love to go for rides in the stroller.  You sleep pretty well for the most part, no complaints!  Oh and you are a great road tripper.  Good job Izzy!  (Or "Izzybelle" as John calls you.) 

John at 5 months here

"Janelle's Cake" Chocolate Frosting

I have the worst time finding this recipe card or my online file, so I'm stashing it here as well. You are welcome. This is the best chocolate frosting I know.

Ingredients (I double for a large cake)

5 Tbsp shortening
1/2 c cocoa
2 2/3c powdered sugar
1 1/3 tsp vanilla
6-7 Tbsp evaporated milk

Directions
Melt together shortening and cocoa. Add vanilla.

Stirn in about 1/3 of the powdered sugar at a time, with 1 Tbsp at a time of the evaporated milk, until desired consistency is reached.  (I thin it out with extra at the end to spread more easily.)

THE END.

Isabelle is 4 months!

Alright! Izzy girl is 4 months old! Time sure does fly.  The 3rd and 4th month have definitely been easier than the first two.  Isabelle is a darling tiny little gal.  She is very smiley, laughs when tickled, and loves to kick her feet.  When she sits in the back seat of the stroller, she can just barely reach the back of the front seat and spends a lot of energy kicking and kicking and kicking that seat. Luckily not hard enough yet that it bothers John, haha!!!

Isabelle can roll from tummy to back but usually doesn't bother with it.  She weighs  11lbs 3 oz and is 24.5 inches.  She loves to play with her toys.  She goes to sleep pretty easily (thank you, Amazon, for shipping a white noise machine in less than 24 hours!) but currently most naps are only about an hour. Then she's up for 1-2 hours and then back to bed again.  Nighttime she does pretty well, depending on the time she falls asleep for the night but usually only one wakeup.  Although the last couple nights she was a little feverish and cranky so she slept with me.  With John, I never even considered co-sleeping. With Isabelle...well, suddenly sleep is very important. And I read a statistic that co-sleeping is safer than falling asleep with your baby on the couch (which is what happened with John instead), so, bed it is.  I'm definitely trying to get her to sleep in her bed tonight! Last night I was just ready for bed before she was, so it was easier to snuggle her to sleep than listen to her wrestle out of her swaddle in her bed and then cry about losing the pacifier.

Isabelle loves the water, baths and the 1 warm pool she's been in, and is a pretty great traveller so far, thankfully!  And now onto pictures...

amazing upside down baby

To compare kids, as everyone should [not] do, here's John's 4 month post.

TWO TWO TWO!!!

I've been drafting this in my mind for a couple weeks, yay, our boy John is finally 2!!!  Crazy, I tell you!  I wanted to document what he is like at this age so I can read back and remember later...the last 6 months have been an incredibly fun age.  The last 2 months or so have been a verbal explosion and his constant (and I do mean constant) chatter is far more recognizable.

Favorite mispronunciations currently: Nilk (Milk), Mamy (Amy), SooSoo (Swimsuit and also swimming) um...I have more so I'll come back and edit this part later.
Favorite Toys: anything food/kitchen, most things that play music, pianos, and increasing interest in both cars and blocks, especially blocks made to be ramps for cars.
Obsessions that have come and gone: Plush toys. From November-May, it was plush everything, his "Friends" as I'm sure many (devoted) readers saw on IG and FB.  Lately? Doesn't touch them except the 2 he sleeps with.  Also, he's currently less interested in books, but I think I need to hide the ones he is bored of and get out new ones so they are all fresh again.
Favorite Foods: Yogurt, Yogurt, cheese, yogurt, milk, yogurt, and noodles. And crackers. And yogurt. And smoothies. Meat we have to force him to eat, usually fresh veggies also (although he still gets a lot of those via pouches.)
Favorite activities: playing outside, going to the park, taking a bath, making a lot of noise.
Sleep: Decent to good, finally after the last month being a big sleep regression with tons of crying at bedtime and skipping daytime naps.
2nd Birthday: Non-eventful.  We barely squeaked out birthday muffins, hats, and party favors at Zach's insistence (for which I am grateful!) He LOVED getting "Happy Birthday" sung to him all day long. We do have a party coming up for him with his church pals next weekend, so I am doing *something.*
Weight: 24lbs-ish. Height: Not sure, checkup on Friday to find out.

In case you missed them - here's a little summary of John so far.

2 months worth of pictures (not really)

Time is flying by around here!  I realize if I don't blog about what is going on, I'll never remember it. Even with baby calendars.  I reread John's early months and realize tons of things I've forgotten. So maybe I can catch myself (and you) up on things.

1) Bubble guns are super cool. I don't know why we didn't really do the bubble scene much, but we got some and John thought they were amazing.  Now he really doesn't care and just pours the bubbles from one container to the next. But look at the joy on this face!  Note: It was an extremely cool June gloom week, full of low temps and rain...hence, long sleeves. Crazy So Cal weather.  Izzy chilled on the back porch in her chair and then took a nap. I guess bubbles aren't her thing.

2. On Memorial Day, we went to a you-pick blueberry farm with Zach's parents who were visiting. Isabelle did wonderfully, nursing than napping in a carrier.  (Perfect age to to on outings with her!) John "picked" berries from all of our baskets and in general ruined his appetite for lunch.  We all had a blast though!

3. Sibling Love...only if someone is there to take a picture.

4. 1 Month picture and a photobomb by big brother.

5. 2 month picture and a phototomb by big brother. (are you sensing a pattern here?)

At least he is loving about it!

6. We've had an amazingly fun long weekend. First we went to the beach (not pictured) and then for the 4th we went to a local high school with a bunch of church families.  John made several attempts to hula hoop and the video demonstrates his success.

Isabelle is doing really well, more alert and very smiley.  She still has lots of hair and is generally all around adorable.  John is talking more and more every day, even a few sentences.  My favorite though is when he is excited and says, "Alright, blocks!" (or whatever he wanted.)

New and Improved!

...meaning, a blog with pictures. I have had a heck of a time getting camera pics to the blog. Browser problems.

So I'm typing one handed, holding a stirring baby, while reminding a coloring toddler that crayons aren't for noses or eating.  That boy loooooves to color and it keeps him in his high chair, contained, so who am I to complain?

Onto pictures of course.  Just a few random ones.

I love my babies reading early. If she is awake and John isnt stealing the book.

Adjusting is...some days getting along ok, some days barely functional with the support of Sesame Street and chocolate.

John is exploding verbally.  He says sooo many more words now, and always knows what he wants.  We've had some tantrums but he loves his Izzy, or at least getting his picture taken while holding her...except when we actually hired a photographer.  In addition to coloring. he plays chalk outside and loves to sing along -and dance - to his musical dog Scout.  Still working on the videos of that.

Izzy is growing like a weed and sleeping all the time mostly.  She likes her pacifier and usually sleeps well at night too.  She enjoys car rides and being worn.

Zach has just wrapped a crew job on a movie which kept him extremely busy.  He has a different gig next week.

I'm living feeding to feeding (2:13 since last feed) and trying to feed myself and maybe bathe too. While this time is very tough, I know it will be more fun later.