Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we went to Ric and Jo's. The food was delicious and it was so nice to be with everyone for the holiday. The picture above is me and Shaun eating dinner. (It's so nice to be at family's where everyone wants to hold your baby, I get to eat!!)
This is Shaun's brother Scott and his wife, Jae. Isaak was so tired, he was a little grumpy for them.....
Here's Isaak with Bentley and Ashton. Isaak just looooves Bentley and laughs whenever he comes around and follows him around.
With Thanksgiving being over, I gave Isaak his Christmas pajamas. I think I'll start a tradition of giving them on Thanksgiving.

Anyone else go shopping this morning? We braved the crowds for Walmart, Lowes, and Sears. Isaak is SUCH a good sport. He just slept on my shoulder for half of it. Then I spent about eight hours putting up Christmas decorations. I'm still only half done. *sigh* I guess I'll just finish tomorrow.

Just in time

So today Shaun and I went to home depot because we wanted to build some safety gates for Isaak. As we were looking at the stairs and trying to decide how would be the best way to place everything, Isaak just started climbing! (While holding a block in one hand, and his legs pulling up out of his pajama bottoms) He got all the way to the top (13 steps!). We thought we were planning ahead, but I guess we were just in time.

Isaak's room

We had so much fun decorating this room. Shaun mounted the thatched roofs on the walls and painted the monkeys. All I can really claim credit for is painting the walls and the bead board.
We haven't done anything in the play room yet, but we eventually want to paint the inside like a tree house.

We got the idea for these monkeys off a blanket the Miyuki made me for Isaak. Now his walls match his blanket. I had so much fun doing this room, I'm already planning for our next kid. I want to do a camping theme and have bears and moose on the walls, a lantern for a lamp, somehow have the bed inside a tent.... I don't care if it's a girl or a boy, I've got big plans! (girl's can camp too, right?) Ok, maybe I'd have to switch Isaak to the camping room, I'll decide when we have our next kid.

Witches, Ghosts, Goblins, and a .......Monkey

This is Isaak's Halloween costumes this year. The reason I chose a monkey is because his entire room is decorated with monkeys. I'll have to post a picture sometime, but if you can imagine..... there is an actual tiki awning coming out from the ceiling, there's monkeys painted on the walls (compliments of Shaun), plants everywhere, just a regular old rain forest! Anyway, I love the banana on his head. Too bad Halloween only lasts one month.

1st pearly white

Isaak finally sprouted his first tooth yesterday. He'll be nine months old next monday, so it's been a long time coming. ( I got my first one when I was 9 months, like mother, like son.) I'm so blessed to have this little guy. Even when he's theething, he still smiles and giggles ALL the time. I swear the only time he ever cries is ........hmmmm, I can't remember.... maybe I should pinch him and make sure he is capable of a few tears. :) Right now he's crawling all over and can even walk along the edge of the coffee table. It'll be a shock for me when he can start running all over. Motherhood has definitely taken me by surprise. If I'd known it would be this much fun, I would have had about 10 kids by now. Congrats Isaak on your first tooth!!!

Pumpkins and a Monster Mash!

Every October Shaun and I have a pumpkin night. We'll carve pumpkins and stay up late watching a movie. I was excited for our pumpkin night so I resolved to put Isaak to bed early. As I was trying to induce sleepiness into a teething baby, I heard power drills in the kitchen. Isaak heard it too and was immediately awake. I walked in the kitchen to see what was going on and saw Shaun attacking his pumpkin with power tools! He had to get a head start because his pumpkin was so big. He carved most of his with his beloved tools, mine's carved the old fashioned way. We had a blast that night.
Our annual Murder Mystery Halloween party was last Saturday and the theme was a MONSTER MASH! We had such a good time. We are blessed to have so many good friends in our lives. Shaun and I were Frank N Stein and the Bride of Frank N Stein. These are by far our favorite costumes that we've done this far. Yep, that's my real hair. (lather, rinse, repeat.....about ten times!!) We had so much fun planning these costumes. I love Shaun's grin in that picture.
This is the whole group we had that night. Everyone went all out with their costumes. I love how Levi (skeleton) looks in this shot. All the white was illuminated. Here's our regular smiles....
then our scary pose!
I just had to include this picture. Everyone was in charge of a dish and it all turned out DELICIOUS, but Danielle went all out with the red punch (ZZ negative blood!) She works at a hospital and she actually had an IV running down into the punch bowl so that it looked like blood was oozing out. For the cups she brought actually blood containers from the hospital. LOVED IT! She is sooo creative.
We had to get three tables all together to fit everyone. This is all of us eating dinner. Our best costume of the night went to James (Lou Cifer), and the only person who figured out the murder was my very own Shaun! We've been to 4 murder mysteries and he has been able to figure out 3 of the 4. I haven't been able to figure out ANY of them. I guess we can tell who the more observant one is. :) Speaking of Shaun, I promised him that if he helped me figure out this whole blogging thing when I signed up, I would write about how awesome he is. Shaun is Captain Awesome. He is always doing things for me just to surprize me. When I was in Missouri a couple weeks ago, he deep cleaned the house, painted a few walls, moved a TREE in our yard, and the list goes on. He is always looking to do things that will make me happy. I'm so lucky to have him.

Missouri

Melissa and I just got back from our trip to Missouri visiting Angela. It was so nice to have some girlie time and just do whatever we wanted. Brady had a special touch for when the babies were fussy.
I swear Isaak tries to french kiss any girl baby he comes around. He kept coming at Charlotta with his mouth opened wide. I don't think she liked it very much.
I like this picture because I usually don't get photos of me and Isaak together because I'm always the one holding the camera. (Yes, we're both wearing pumpkin shirts, I'm a nerd.)


We had a CLUE murder mystery dinner party while we were there. It was so much fun to help Angela plan. There was a great turnout and all the food that Angela made was delicious!!

It was so much fun to hang out with the girls and to have all the babies together. The weather was nice enough that we could do some things outside. Angela's yard is so big, (18 acres) we went on a couple walks while we were there.
Angela has 19 guinea hens that eat all the bugs in her yard. I love this picture because Isaak is bird watching from her back door, yet I'm not sure who's watching who.......
This is my favorite picture of the three babies... We had to take about 50 pictures to get one where all the babies were looking the same direction. Angela got all of us Halloween pj's for the babies. I'm going to miss seeing Charlotta! (and the rest of the family, of course!)