Three "firsts" in two days!

Yesterday we experienced two "firsts" for Isaac, and today we've experienced another one!

While my mom was visiting at our house yesterday afternoon, Isaac started to stick out his tongue while laughing at us. He was obviously using his newfound talent to generate a laugh from Granni (Betsy's mom) and Mommy. Of course, we provided those laughs, and he continued sticking his tongue out! It was so cute!

Also, while Steven was grilling out hamburgers last night, I held Isaac up so he could stand on the windowsill and watch his Daddy. Oreo, our oldest cat, came up and stood beside Isaac. Immediately, Isaac's hand went to Oreo's neck fur, and he started scratching the cat. Oreo loved it, and Isaac seemed to enjoy petting his kitty for the first time.

Also, today, Isaac cried when I took a toy from his tightly gripped fist to reposition it on his play mat. This was the first time he's cried when I've taken an object away. Of course, he always cries when Steven and I leave his room for naptime or bedtime. We think he is definitely a very social little boy who doesn't like to leave the fun of life and get his much needed sleep. After a few minutes of tears, though, he is usually off into dreamland. :)

"Daddy, I just love your glasses!"

These pictures tell the story...




What a cutie! However, since the glasses are now in danger, it might be time for new contacts for Daddy. :)

Four months old!

This past Friday, Isaac turned four months old (17 weeks)! Here are some pictures from our photo shoot:

"Mom, I'm watching Idol..."

Isaac's new trick - touching his toes!

Our comparison picture - he's outgrowing the Boppy pillow!

Our precious boy!

He is this happy *almost* all the time!


"I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth."
3 John 1:4

She's my little sis...

My only sibling, a little sister named Katherine Elaine (nicknamed Kati), is getting married! She and her boyfriend of three and a half years, Ray, got engaged this past January. They are planning to have their wedding in Summer 2009. I wanted to share a few of their gorgeous engagement pictures with my readers. I think they turned out great, and the two of them look like models! Kati will indeed be a beautiful bride, and we are praying for their marriage to be full of Christ's love, incredible joy, and true blessings from God! Enjoy!





These were taken by Huneycutt Photography.

Tiny hands make beautiful music...

Most of you know this already...but for the rest of my readership, I'll explain... Steven and I both love music. I grew up in a musical family where everyone sang with each other at family gatherings. Almost every time my mom's side of the family got together, we'd sing around the piano. I played a little piano and flute when I was younger, but now I mostly enjoy singing. Steven has always been musically inclined, and he has played the piano, woodwind, and brass instruments for most of his life (I have to brag - he was 1st chair alto saxophone in the NC All State band during high school). His first instrument was the piano, and his inspiration was seeing his sister Michelle play beautiful songs on the piano when he was a small child. In addition to the piano, sax, trumpet, clarinet, etc, he taught himself to play the guitar and drums about eight or nine years ago and has been developing his skills on them since then. Also, he loves singing, and these days his true passion is writing songs that are birthed from experiencing the presence of God in our lives.

Now that I've shared a little background, it'll make sense to say that our childrens' piano teacher will be their Daddy. In fact, Isaac had his first lesson this past weekend. Here are some pictures that I caught as Steven was explaining diminished and augmented chords... (well, maybe not exactly that...but at least he was explaining how to put your hands on the keys to make a sound!) Isaac actually played several notes himself and seemed to understand that by striking the note, it made a sound.

Growing so fast!

Our little man is now 16 weeks old! Next week, we'll be doing our four month photo shoot! It's a cliche, but time really does fly. A longtime friend shared this quote with me yesterday - "The days are long, but the years are short." I don't know who to attribute that quote to, but it is definitely true. I can't believe that this coming December, Steven and I will celebrate 10 years since he asked me to be his girlfriend! TEN YEARS!!! And they have ALL been incredible but certainly flown by too fast!

Anyway, before I start reminiscing... Isaac is such a wonderful part of our family and we truly thank God for blessing our lives with his presence. These days, he is babbling (we call it talking!) quite a bit, and this past week he has started blowing bubbles with his mouth. It is very cute! Sometimes, instead of "talking", he'll blow bubbles and spit to make a sound when he is trying to communicate with us. He also smiles all the time, or at least when he's not hungry or sleepy! He loves to suck on his hand, and in the past day or so, he has started to single out his thumb for sucking. We have tried to use a pacifier with him to no avail. He is not interested. Not only does he put his hands in his mouth, he is starting to put everything else in there too! He loves his "teething books", and he can chew on those for 30 minutes or more.

He is a very healthy boy, and we are looking forward to a good report from the doctor on his four month well visit. He does have severe eczema, so we have been working hard to manage that. Since his skin is very sensitive, we've been experimenting with different lotions, soaps, and clothing materials. So far, we've found some success with using a small amount of hydrocortisone cream and then lathering him up with Eucerin lotion twice a day. Apparently his skin is very itchy, so he scratches it with his little fingernails often. We are constantly working to help his skin heal up from each day's new scratches! And since he's sucking his hands, putting the mittens on him at this age is frustrating for him. Hopefully he'll grow out of this soon, but until then, we will keep doing our best to manage it.

I had mentioned a while back that I was going to be working with Isaac on a routine this month. He has been doing wonderfully so far! With the exception of a growth spurt that he had recently where he was eating every two hours, Isaac has gotten on a three hour eating routine. He begins the day around 7:30-7:45 when Steven gets him out of bed and changes his diaper. Here is what the rest of a typical day looks like (give or take 30-45 minutes):

8 AM - Isaac eats and then plays
9:30 AM - Isaac goes down for his morning nap
11 AM - Isaac eats and then plays again!
12:30 PM - Isaac goes down for his midday nap
2 PM - Isaac eats and then plays
3:30 PM - Isaac goes down for his afternoon nap
5 PM - Isaac eats and plays
7:30 PM - Isaac eats and then we get him ready for bed
8:30-9 PM - Bedtime!
2-3 AM - Wakes to eat... and I wake to feed... We are both very sleepy, and after the feeding we go back to bed! :)

Isaac sleeps well at night - only waking to eat in the early morning. Therefore, it would be considered that he "sleeps through the night" since that means sleeping for a stretch of 5-6 hours. During the day, his naps have been lasting between 30 minutes and an hour and a half. Sometimes, I believe he wakes after 30 minutes because his body is transitioning from light sleep to deep sleep, but he can't quite make the transition and put himself back to sleep. Sometimes he does, though, and we're quite proud of him for that!

Isaac is energetic and loves to play on his playmats, in his infant chair, and in his exersaucer! He bats his toys, grabs them, and kicks enthusiastically. He also talks to his toys. We try and take a walk each day, and he loves riding in the stroller. He is usually very quiet during our walks, taking in everything that he sees! Also, he loves going to Walmart! The high ceilings and colorful products keep him entertained long enough for me to buy groceries and even browse what I call the "get you to spend money" aisles. If you're a frequent Walmart shopper, you know what I mean! :)

Here are some pictures we've taken this past week:

Getting ready for a stroll...

During Isaac's first picnic; at Renaissance Park during Daddy's lunch break!

Playing on his playmat again! This was one I got at a yard sale for $4! And the yellow sun toy that he is reaching for was a gift from Aunt Michelle. He loves it!

Our little boy in his blue jeans...

"Your goodness is so great! You have stored up great blessings for those who honor you. You have done so much for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world."
Psalm 31:19

The backyard birdseed thief...

Welcome Spring (well, almost)! This beautiful weather has given me and most everyone I know "spring fever." Our little family has taken advantage of the 60 and 70 degree days to get outside and take Isaac for strolls, pull some weeds, and fill our bird feeders. My mom instilled in me a love for the birds and I grew up watching birds of all kinds eat from my parents' backyard bird feeders. Now that Steven and I have a backyard to call our own, we enjoy watching the birds as well. We have added one or two new bird feeders to our collection each spring, so we now have a couple feeding stations and a watering station. This past Saturday, we filled some of our feeders with finch food. Since then, we've seen chickadees, purple finches, goldfinches, woodpeckers, sparrows and wrens eating to their hearts' content. Yesterday, though, I saw the troublemaker, Mr Squirrel, for the first time of the season. I had hoped he wouldn't notice the food, like I hope every year, but again I was wrong. We've tried lots of things to deter him and his mischievous friends from eating the bird seed, but we've not had much success. I looked out our kitchen window yesterday afternoon and saw him hanging from the bird feeder smacking away. As much as it frustrates me, I always get a laugh when I see him hanging there, upside down, eating like there's no tomorrow. I grabbed my camera to take a picture of him, but when I came out on the deck, he scurried down the pole that holds the feeder. He then stopped to get a bite of something on the ground before leaving for the night. At that point, I was ready with the camera and got these pictures:


And here he is on our neighbor's fence, feeling safe since he is further away from me!

Little man's new adventure...

Isaac's newest toy is the ExerSaucer that I got at a yard sale last spring for $1. Yes, that's right! I only paid one dollar for this almost new toy; what a deal!!! I've been waiting until Isaac could hold his head up before I'd put him in it. On Monday, I pulled it out of the attic and cleaned it up in the hopes that he'd be able to enjoy it. He is still very small for the seat, so I put a rolled up towel behind him to keep him steady. The first time I put him in it, he immediately started playing with the toys. He's played in it a couple times this week and seems very intrigued!

For love of a couch

This past weekend, Steven, Isaac and I went to lunch at Azteca for our Saturday outing. Afterwards, we decided to stop by Sofa Express to look at couches for our bonus room. Since they are going out of business, we thought we might see some pretty good deals. Well, we found the couch we'd been wanting, and we were able to get a great deal on it IF we could pick it up from the warehouse within 24 hours, using our own truck and rope. "We have a truck!" I said. "We have some rope!" Steven chimed. "We'll take it!" After taking a break at home to feed Isaac, we headed out to get the couch. There were guys at the warehouse to help Steven get it on the truck, and then he tied it down with rope so it'd stay stable for the ride home. We made it home and pulled the couch off the truck into our garage with no problem.

We were going to leave it there for a day or so until Steven could get some help with getting it inside, but since we had just pulled it off the truck together, we thought we'd try getting it in the house ourselves. We put Isaac on a playmat in our den and started to work. Once we started, we realized that getting this seven foot long couch through the doorway wasn't going to be as easy as we'd thought! It took us about 30 minutes to just figure out how we'd get it through! However, we finally did and we worked together to move it into our entryway. But since it was stuck in our entryway, we couldn't just leave it there! We proceeded to push it forward and make our first attempt at getting it up our stairwell. This is where things started to get crazy. We ended up standing the couch on its end and trying to push it up the stairs, which was no small feat. I was on the top pulling, and Steven was on the bottom pushing, and I was beginning to ask "Why did we do this??!!" I think we were both silently thanking God for the kind and wonderful delivery guys we'd had to deliver furniture in the past. After two steps, Isaac started getting fussy and I knew it was time to feed him. Steven got him off his playmat and handed him to me over the couch! I said, "We're not just going to leave this couch like this, stuck in our stairwell overnight. Let's call Ray." So I did just that; I called my sister's fiance Ray and asked him if he could help us. He and Kati were at our house within minutes to help. I locked Isaac and myself in his bedroom where I nursed him and prayed that no one would get hurt (and our walls would remain relatively clear of scratches)! Now before I go on, some of you may be thinking, "Why would Steven have Betsy help him with the moving of a big couch? Isn't that a job for the guys?" Well, let me tell you, I was the one who wanted to help with moving the couch as much as I could. I said, "Come on, let's try to get it inside!" I actually surprised myself with how strong I was and the fact that I wasn't sore the next day. Do you think carrying around a 15 pound baby all day has strengthened my muscles or what??!

Anyway, Ray, Kati and Steven successfully pushed the couch up the stairs, down our hallway, and into our bonus room. I had finished nursing and put Isaac to bed by then, so I came out and rejoiced that no one had gotten hurt, the walls were still in tact, and we had a very comfy new couch in our bonus room! Before purchasing this couch, we only had a loveseat in our bonus room. That meant that if we wanted to invite anyone over to watch a movie, we only had seats for two people. Now, with the three-seater couch and our loveseat, we have seats for five people! YAY - party time! Thanks Ray and Kati! Thanks Sweetie! And thanks to my blog readers for staying with me through this story of willpower and human strength. I hope it has inspired you to new challenges... or to hire a delivery man.

Here is our new couch: (notice that it's the same color as spit-up, so we're good to go!)