Teh Weblog

By popular demand…

Auntie Laurel holding newborn Abby [Small] [Large]

Threes Company on the couch [Small] [Large]

Isaac watches Abby [Small] [Large]

Abigail in her Mother’s Day outfit [Small] [Large]

Isaac in his ballpit [Small] [Large]

Isaac in the wheelbarrow [Small] [Large]

Isaac running out of steam while crawling into his bed [Small] [Large]

Nikki’ll be by for the news portion of updates. She’s much better at that than I am. Hopefully she keeps on me about getting pictures up…I’m awful, really, when you consider how lazy I am in relation to how easy this task is.

Heheh

Babeh lemur

Abigail Elizabeth

What Mike neglected to mention is that yes, Isaac does now have a little sister! Though she went nameless until almost 9 hours after she was born, we finally agreed that she is Abigail Elizabeth. She was born on the 20th, at 16 minutes after midnight. She weighed 8lbs 11oz (ouch!)

Its a good thing we left for the hospital when we did, because we were there for less than 2 hours before she was born. The contractions were almost 10 minutes apart when we left home, 6 minutes apart when we got to patient registration, and 3-4 minutes apart when they officially decided to have us admitted; a 50 minute process from the time we left our driveway. Fortunately for me, things went very quckly. We got there too close to delivery for them to give me any meds, which wasn’t too horrible, but it would have been nice to have the edge taken off some of those last contractions. Its hard to do deep breathing when breathing at all makes you hurt more!

So we spent months an months selecting a name for her, and in less than a day, she already has a nick name. She doesn’t really cry or fuss, she sort of chirps, so we’ve been calling her Criket (no connection to the website, I just made that connection as I type this) and it seems like that’s a name that’ll stick.

We came home earlier today. Isaac didn’t have any problem with her, thought she was kind of boring actually, until he realized that his place in my lap had been usurped! That was a little hard on his ego, but fortunately Uncle Kyle was there to soften the blow. Just in case there was any doubt, Uncle Kyle walks on water, in that baby’s eyes.

Well, looks like its bedtime, for babies and for mamas. it’s been a long few days, and we’re all tuckered out. I’ll try to coax more pictures for viewing shortly.

~N

But it was worth it!

So I’m later than I wanted - but it was worth it!

Within a minute of birth. [Small]

Isaac’s first look at his little sister. [Small]

Wow. It’s been a long time…again.

Working on uploading and posting picture as we speak. Update either tonight or tomorrow.

EDIT:
Or perhaps the day after?

Updated again, at long last

I was just re-reading that last few posts and realized that there is NO mention of our big news! Isaac is soon to be a big brother! The nice ultra-sound lady says she is 95% sure that it will be a girl. She’s due to arrive on April 21st. If she stays true to her genetic code, however, she’ll be late. So far, Mike and I don’t agree on many girl names. I like Isabelle and Grace. He likes Sarah and Amanda. So, if you have any suggestions, we’re open to them.

Isaac is officially walking now. He has realized that it is actually easier to walk across the room than to get down, crawl, and pull himself back up again. Fortunately, he still walks slower than he can crawl, which makes keeping an eye on him easier…for now. He is talking a little bit, mostly to say “hi” or “mama” or to practice saying “kitty”. Don’t think he has trouble communicating though. He figured he was ready for bed the other night, so he went and found his blanket and his PJ’s and handed them to me. He got lots of wonderful christmas presents, which are only a little more fun to play with as to rip out of their paper. (pictures coming soon, Mike promised) I caught him in my closet the other day trying to “unwrap” the tube of extra wrapping paper! Next year will be “year of the boxes”, when no present is better than the box it comes in.

Mike is still enjoying his new trade, which is part of why the updates have been so few and far between. He actually comes home from work tired, which is a great feeling. He seems to be learning lots of new things (it sounds like gibberish to me, but my psycho-babble probably sounds the same to him) and likes *most* of the people he works with. All I know is that it gives him motivation to do house projects here, like wiring the garage for lights and outlets. Very much a win-win situation.

Work has been pretty crazy for me. We’ve been down staffed for a while now, which means that we’ve all been pulling extra shifts to get them all covered. As soon as we get somebody hired, somebody else quits. Oh well, that’s Residential. It does look like we’ve finally got things straightened out though, so I see a short vacation in my immediate future. On the upside, as of Monday, my program will have all of its beds filled for the first time in over 2 years. This is exciting because it’s mostly my job to get the kids in the door. I had a lot of reputation reparing to do, but things are going way better now. (Hopefully they’ll remember this come raise/promotion time!)

For those of you who are not Maine based, this winter has been the kind that people assume we get every year. (In recent years, its actually been brown until mid-January) We have had snow after snow this year, and its been great! The pictures of our deck don’t really do justice to the fact that there is easily waist-high snow out there. The deck is 3-4 inches below the kitchen floor, and the railing is approximately 4 feet tall. They’re predicting another 4-5 inches tonight. Its a good thing that it rained just before Christmas and melted a few inches off. Luckily for us, we have a great next-door neighbor who plows us out every storm. There have been a few times that I wouldn’t have gotten to work on time without him. He refuses to let us pay him, so every once in a while I leave banana bread or cookies on his door step.

Well, Hope everyone had a good Holiday Season, and that 2008 treats you well!

~N

October what?

Wow, it’s been a long time.

I’ll toss up some pictures and Nikki’ll get some words up soon.

Isaac is a guitar hero [Large] [Small]

Lots. Of. Snow [Large] [Small]

Hercules is already taking Isaac’s hand me downs… [Large] [Small]

Quick Update

Things have been pretty crazy here lately. Between work and babies, keeping up with people has taken a bit of a backseat.

Isaac is turning into quite the little man. He’s not *quite* walking yet, but he’s got the general idea. He is very proud of how he can climb up into his little chair and turn to sit. He is convinced that he can drink out of grown-up cups…or bowls…or plates, so what if half of it spills all over? He got his front facing car seat for his birthday, so now riding in the car is fun and exciting. He also got a ball thrower toy that he thinks is the greatest thing since sippy cups. Please note, it throws balls, and not rubber duckies. (perhaps Mike can get a video up here soon, its way cute.)

I have to head for work now. I spend way more time there than I do here at home. Oh well, gotta pay the bills.

~N

Soon…soon.

I’ll update soon. Been very busy lately with new apprenticeship.

More pics…and a video

Just a quick pic post and a video. Beware: The higher quality video is 7.4Mb and the low quality video is…well, really low quality - BUT it’s under 1mb.

Here we go…

video [high] [low]

Isaac in his rocking chair at 10months old [Large] [Small]
That’s my boy! [Large] [Small]
Before… [Large] [Small]
After. [Large] [Small]
…FACE! [Large] [Small]
Watching Grammie Hill play the piano [Large] [Small]
Isaac in jail [Large] [Small]
Isaac Was Here [Large] [Small]
Uncle Kris and Isaac [Large] [Small]
Isaac playing with Hercules [Large] [Small]
Sippycups, despite popular opinion, ARE messy. [Large] [Small]
What good is a sunbeam without a kitty? [Large] [Small]