Isadora's 12 Month Visit

Today we ventured to the pediatrician's office for Isadora's 12 month visit.  We were spoiled at her last visit when she didn't need any shots.  Ugh.  Poor thing!

Somehow, this crazy babykins didn't even gain a pound the last 3 months, but she has grown so much!

Stats:
Height:  29.25 inches (55th percentile)
Weight:  19 pounds 14 ounces (29th percentile)
Head:  45.3 cm (57th percentile)

We wanted Isa to have her flu shot while we were there, but the flu shot is egg based.  Because the allergist told us to avoid eggs, we have to take her to the allergist's office to get the flu shot.  They will give her the shot in small doses in order to make sure she doesn't react to the shot.  Sooo, that's awesome.  :(

Other than that, Isadora is right on track!  She says "hi" which is adorable.  She pulls herself up on things and  is just starting to cruise.  She also will let go and stand there for a few seconds and fall.  She's a quick crawler and climbs stairs at the speed of light, but goes down stairs (or a stair) really ungracefully, but it doesn't even phase her.

Isadora is a great eater!  We're so bummed she can't eat dairy.  We had venison burgers tonight and she ate a 1/6th burger!  (Kirk and I had 1/3 lb burgers and split the rest into 2 for the kids).  We struggled to get Lincoln to even take a few bites of his.  I love that she'll try anything.

Loving this fall weather!  The kids had their 3 year and 1 year pictures this morning. It was so cold but they were troopers!  I'll post pictures when we get them.

Happy First Isadora!

I cannot  believe it has been a year since Isadora joined our family.

Today, Lincoln and I went to the outlets on a hunt for new tennies for him.  While there, he wanted to take a ride on one of these electric ride things they have there.  (Much like Sandy the horse at Meijer only Bert and Ernie in a fire truck or Bob the Builder or a space ship.  You get the idea.)  It brought me back to the day before Isa was born.  We brought Lincoln there for pizza and a ride(s) in an effort to ease the guilt I was feeling about having a second child.

Since then, our world has changed, no doubt.  However, it has been the most wonderful of changes.  Life with two kids is crazy busy; way busier than I ever expected.  I feel like we have no down time and I'm fairly certain I got more done around this place when I worked!  All this craziness, all the busyness, all the I-just-want-a-minute-to-myself moments are all worth it; every single one of them.

I can't help but think about what was going on every minute of my kid's birthdays the day they were born.  My favorite moment of the day Isadora was born was when I threatened to just go home because we were about 10-15 minutes late to the hospital because of horrible traffic.  As if just leaving is an option!  I laugh every single time I think of that.  As if Kirk could have been like, "Yep. You're right.  Totally not worth it.  Let's just go home."  That's totally me.  My poor husband.  :)

We had a great day yesterday filled with fun and family.  It's always so wonderful to have our family over to celebrate the kid's birthdays.  Even if Isadora had no idea what was going on and why there were so many people all up in her business, she showed no sign of it bothering her in the least.  She was such a trooper all day considering she hasn't been feeling well and she was so tired.

Isadora was blessed with so many wonderful new toys!  It's been fun seeing her checking everything out today and playing with all the new toys.  Pretty sure Lincoln is loving it, too.

I lost sleep over Isadora's cake.  I went to a couple different bakeries and people looked at me like I had 4 heads when I asked if they had a dairy free cake.  After a while, I just decided to order a cake for everyone else and make Isadora's.  I tried a few different cakes and frostings and wasn't happy with them.  I went to the grocery store and started reading labels.  Much to my surprise, the Duncan Hines yellow cake is dairy free!  And the Pillsbury MILK chocolate frosting is also dairy free!  PERFECT yet so wrong!  She wasn't quite as excited about the cake as Lincoln was at his birthday, but she liked it.  Actually, she liked the frosting.  Can't say I blame her.

A huge thank you to everyone who came by or was with us in spirit.  It was a perfect day - the rain even held out and were to hang in the garage most of the day (sounds high class, huh?).

Poor Is was whipped last night. Little thing was asleep within seconds of me putting her in bed.

Thanks again to everyone for taking time out of your busy schedules to be with us or send birthday wishes to Isadora.  What a great day!

Preschool

This whole first day of preschool thing should be a breeze for me.  Seriously, I've been taking Lincoln to day care for almost 3 years.  I've still been freaking out about preschool.  I know his teachers and they're fantastic.  There are a couple of kids in his class who he has been with since he was in the infant room.  He's so happy to be back with his friends, Alex and Aiden.

In honor of his first day of preschool, I asked Lincoln 20 questions.  I love his answers. (side note: these are supposed to be birthday questions, but since his birthday pretty much coincides with the start of school, I'm using it for school.)

1.  How old are you?  3
2.  Who is your best friend?  Aiden
3.  What is your favorite thing to do?  Go see Daniel
4.  What is your favorite color?  Blue
5.  What is your favorite food?  Pasta
6.  What do you like to do with your family?  Go to the beach
7.  What is your favorite toy?  Fire truck
8.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  A monster
9.  What makes you happy?  Fire truck
10. What makes you sad?  A cake (I asked him this question twice and it was his answer both times)
11. What is your favorite tv show to watch?  Fireman Sam
12. What is your favorite book?  The book about lions (I'd like to know who is reading this book to my son cause I'm not!)
13. What do you love to learn about? Fire truck
14. What was the best part of your birthday?  A dinosaurus cake
15. Where do you like to go?  Play at the playground
16. Who is your teacher? Ms. Carol
17. What is your favorite treat?  Strawberries
18. What do you think about before you fall asleep? Brushing my teeth
19. If you could meet someone famous who would it be?  Fireman Sam
20. What was your favorite birthday present? Cranky

So, there you have it.  Lincoln loves fire trucks and Fireman Sam.  :)

Our attempts at pictures this morning.  It's nearly impossible to get these two in a picture together.

My boys:

He was less excited to take a picture with me.  I'll take what I can get.  :)

My preschooler.

Lincoln was totally fine when I dropped him off this morning.  He took his shoes off and made himself at home.  He found Alex and Aiden right away.  I watched them all playing...silently.  Seriously: none of them said a word to each other, they just all were playing silently together.

Here's to the first of many first days of school.  Sigh.

So, wait, Lincoln is how old?

Three.  He's three.  Lincoln is three.

Holy freaking cow.  That was the quickest three years.  Ever.

Lincoln doesn't have a concept of tomorrow or yesterday.  He had no idea it was his birthday.  I heard him wake up in the morning and ran into his room.  When I told him it was his birthday, he was elated.  So excited.  I wish I could have gotten that moment on film.  He said: "it's my birthday?!" and threw his arms around my neck.  I will never forget that.  I'm tearing up just thinking about it now.

My poor attempt a picture of Lincoln and I.  My face cut off, a balloon in Lincoln's face.  Typical.

We gave Lincoln his gifts first thing in the morning.  He totally has gotten the hang of this gift opening thing since the last time he opened presents.

He couldn't be more excited about his Calvin Johnson jersey.

He was so excited for this truck!  I love the look of excitement on his face!

He even put Isa in the back.  That's love.

For the day, both of our parents came over and watched Isadora while Kirk and I took Lincoln out for the day.  We took him to Olga's for lunch.  He LOVES Olga's, especially the snackers, almond butter and cream of broccoli soup.

After Olga's we went to a playground in Brighton.  It was an awesome playground and huge!  It would have been way more fun were it not for the day care that was there.  There were a lot of older kids there making it hard for Lincoln to play.

Across from the playground is a candy store.  We stopped in and let Lincoln pick out a sucker.

We came back here after spending our day with Lincoln and he opened gifts.  We followed that up with cake and ice cream.  (yes, that's a 10 lb cake from Costco.)

I'm finding it so hard to believe Lincoln is three.  It has been so fun watching him become his own little person.  I admit I still can't quite figure out what type of sense of humor he's going to have, but he seems to be more of a follower than a leader.  He never ceases to amaze us with the kind things he says ("I love you so much, Mommy",  or, "you look beautiful, Mommy.").  And the funny things he says which are probably way funnier to us than they are to you, so I'll spare you those.

This next year is sure to fly by and I am going to enjoy  second.

And this picture of Isa just cause I love it.

Train Ride

A couple weeks ago was one of our favorite Howell festivals, Melon Fest.  It was bigger this year than it has been in years past, but fun nonetheless.

The highlight of Melon Fest was the train.  Lincoln loves all things trains (And planes.  And trucks...).  This year we decided to go out on a limb and take him on a train ride.  We have been searching for a mode of transportation where both of the kids will remain cool, calm and collected the whole time.  We thought the train was maybe the answer.  It wasn't.

The train ride was really fun for the first few minutes.

The ride was really cool.  It started at the train depot in downtown Howell and went a half hour north and then came back.  Lincoln loved the first little bit and even Isadora had a good time looking out the window.  After a little bit, the novelty wore off and both were itching to get the heck out off the train.

Overall, it was really cool to take Lincoln on a train, but I don't see any long train rides in our near future!