Isaac is TWO!

Two years ago on Oct. 6, Isaac entered this world. Oh how we love him. This is him a few days old:

Last year, we were in Colorado so Taylor could do work interviews. We just happened to go eat at Red Robin with my parents. He didn't care so much about the balloons and really only ate baby food. But this year...totally different! Wanted the balloons from the moment we came in, ate a pizza for lunch and wanted to devour the ice cream sundae at the end! Oh how time changes!

Even loves coloring, or as he says, "wa-ite!" Notice the tongue...

"Just hand over the balloons and no one gets hurt..."

"How big can I open my mouth?"

"So Yummy!"

His birthday was on Tuesday, but due to hectic schedules we did some presents on Tues and the rest on Sunday. I had dance that night so we opened some from us and Grandma!

Thank you Grandma!!

Sunday was the main day, but seeing how he is only two, we just celebrated with my family. I don't think he'd really grasp the whole "party" with friends thing yet. He did pretty well with opening presents and loved the cupcakes. Here is his cupcakes, obviously different sport balls with some in the shape of a "2."

Opening more gifts with daddy this time.

Got his very own "Quiksilver" backpack which he thought was pretty cool.

Amongst some clothes, coats, more play-doh and toys--my parents got Isaac this "Leapster Learn to Read" gadget. Don't quite know how it works yet, but I think it is really cool. You put this caterpillar looking thing on a book and the caterpillar thing reads the book back to you and makes the noises of the animals.

Thank you Nana & Papa and Hee-Hee & T! Isaac was soooo anxious to eat his cupcakes. All day while I was making them he kept asking to eat them and even managed to grab a part of one while they were sitting on the counter to cool.

Yes, you are seeing that right, he started with a soccer ball and then had a basketball...perhaps having two cupcakes explains why he was bouncing off the wall when it was bedtime!

We are also in the process of putting his "big boy" room together. We have the same bunk beds that Taylor grew up on in his room and as soon as I get his curtains up, we will post pictures of his all-boy-sports-filled room. :)

Happy Birthday Isaac, we sure love you!!! (And please don't the let the "two's" be "terrible"!!)

Last Week's Update

Last week was a fun and busy one like usual. Last Monday, believe it or not, we got SNOW!!! So what better way to spend the day than making homemade chicken noodle soup (YUM!) and homemade bread!!! But a better combination would be to have Ashley helping us make the bread!! This beauty is a girl in our ward and she and I want to make this "homemade bread once a month" a tradition! :) It was great to have her over and all in all, we made 10 homemade loaves!! Even Isaac wanted in on the fun...

He LOVED the flour...

Hard at work...look at all those loafs on the stove rising!

Wednesday I was asked by another great gal from church to be a judge for Pine Creek High School's Glenwood DECA try-outs. I was a DECA participate many years ago, so it was fun to go back and help out!

Before the try-outs on Wednesday and then again on Thursday, I taught a few hours of dance--did I mention on here how I am back at dance? But this time as a teacher?!

Friday night we were invited to Taylor's Aunt & Uncle's house here in Colorado Springs for a wonderful dinner and discussion on Joseph Smith--it was awesome!!

Then Saturday, we went boating. Yes, it was snowing on Monday, but by Saturday it was beautiful out! It was 83 degrees at one point and not a cloud in the sky!! My parents recently bought a boat, so we took it out for a spin...it was a blast!!


My handsome hubby!

Nana and Isaac

Cheese!! Isaac ate snack food-galore!

Family pic

Taylor was the only one to get in the water--now before you say anything--yes it was 83 degrees outside, but the water temp was only 65!!! In other words, the water was freezing...here, Taylor's face says it all:

But he did surf for a while and did really well....he wanted to surf without the rope, which he did, but was working on finding that "sweet spot" .... I guess that's what they call it when you can surf the wake without the rope.

However, while he was surfing, at one point he fell and my dad had to turn around to get him--obviously. Well, in order to surf, you have to create a lot of weight in the back of the boat which gives off a large wake. When my dad turned to get Taylor he went right into the wake which caused all the water to come in the boat...no big deal...unless you were my mom. She was "laying out" on the front of the boat, laying on her stomach, with her head at the very front....when my dad hit that wake and all the water came in the boat--she had a wake-up call!! Remember how I said the temp of the water was only around 65 degrees??? BRRRR!!!

So she moved to the back of the boat where she got warm again! :)

We stopped at the beach for a little bit and Isaac thought he was sooo funny because he would "splash" us!

We played hard, it was a great day with great company....and surely, we wore Isaac out...please notice how he is holding on to Taylor's hand! :)

New Blog: Letters to Angelina

I have a new blog--in addition to our family blog--titled, "Letters to Angelina." For those of you who don't know, our second child was born stillborn earlier this year. I have really been impressed lately to start a blog to record what we went through and what we continue to go through with everything that happened with Angelina. The web address is:

http://letterstoangelina.blogspot.com

For me, part of this is therapeutic. Another part of it is to record our thoughts, feelings, etc. But a bigger part of creating this blog is to meet others who have gone through similar things or who are going through similar things or who are plain out having a hard time. From when we found out about our high-risk pregnancy until recently, I used to look for web sites or blogs of someone who had gone through what I was going through and never found anything--until recently--and it has really been a helpful and insightful avenue. So please, if you follow this or not, please pass the link on to family, friends, etc....it would mean a lot.

Annual Housley Vacation--Lake Powell

Last week we participated in our annual Housley vacation, destination: Lake Powell. We bought a three week timeshare a year or two ago and this was our first time going since we had to work last year. Taylor and I left late Tuesday night and spent the night in Grand Junction (wonderful idea!) and then got up Wednesday and drove the rest of the way. We pulled out of the marina that evening and went to find a spot to park. Wednesday was also my brother-in-law's birthday, so I remembered to take a few pictures of that:

He LOVES chips, and since his birthday fell on 9-9-09, we gave him 99 bags of chips.

Thursday the weather was less than ideal, but we still stayed occupied. Theran, Cam and Taylor went scuba diving. Despite the fact that Taylor had never been before and received a (maybe) 10 minute lesson on how to scuba dive from Theran, it proved to be a fun time for all....maybe not Cam since he got a sinus infection and had clogged ears the rest of the trip. :(

Friday the weather was beautiful. To start the day off, my brother-in-law Brett threw me in the water--dressed and all. Talk about wake up call. :) He was nice enough to walk me into the water since I had a death grip on him and luckily the water was pretty warm, so it was pretty funny. Then we went out on the boat and believe it or not, I got up on the WAKEBOARD. I have never been on it before but thought I'd take a whack at it and really liked it, even though I am still sore from it. :) Later that day we played Scrabble, got in a mini-water fight with Theran since he poured ice cold water down my back, and ended the night playing Werewolf. Lots of fun!

Oh, and another thing I witnessed... (I learn these things now since I never had a brother growing up) Lesson learned: never fall asleep around your brothers, especially if you are the youngest....case in point:

Taylor woke up with permanent marker on his feet. :) It was funny.

The food was yummy, the weather was great, the company was even better and we got much needed R&R. We left Saturday afternoon and got home that night. Many thanks to my parents, sister and her husband and Jodie for helping with Isaac!!! We sure appreciate and love you!

And until next year....Brett, you better watch out...retaliation is coming your way! :)

An Incident Per Day

Please tell me this is not how my week is going to go...

To start, yesterday Isaac put Taylor's wedding ring down a convenient hole--the hole between the unfinished wall and the door frame. To be exact, it was the opening where the door handle closes in the door frame and there was just the perfect opening between the door frame and the unfinished wall for Taylor's ring to fall straight to the floor. We had to rip part of the door frame off to get the ring and in the process put a nice hole in the wall, not to mention we have to replace the trim now.

Secondly, Isaac put a blue ink pen in the laundry hamper. Oh, but it wasn't his fault that turned all the clothes and the dryer blue...nope...as I was pulling the clothes out of the washer I saw the pen and instantly thought, "Ah Isaac! At least it wasn't a dirty diaper..." (which several of my friends have washed) but nope, I had the chance to pull the pen out of the washer without hurting the clothes. Instead, I was thinking about two of the items that had previous stains on them and I was hoping they had disappeared since I used Tide's new stain booster drop-in....(which it didn't fully get the stains out) but in the process of focusing on those stains, I grabbed the last bunch of clothes and threw them in the dryer. When I proceed to get the clothes out of the dryer, I noticed blue streaks in my dryer drum, my immediate thought was, "Oh NO! How could I have forgotten!?" Currently, I have sprayed those clothes with hairspray and am re-washing them...hopefully that hairspray trick works!!

Needless to say, we have had an "incident a day" at our house this week and hopefully that streak will end!!

BEST SURPRISE EVER!!!!

So, I may have been "MIA" for the past week or so, but that is because Taylor has been in BRAZIL on a week long business trip!!!! I don't like posting to the WWW that my husband is gone and I am home alone, so I didn't post at all, plus--he had the camera.

So, let me tell you what was the best surprise ever....Isaac and I took Taylor to the airport on Sat. Aug. 22. Those of you who know me, know that I am not one that likes to be alone, especially at night. But I really tried to be brave, especially because a lot of my friends and people in our ward had or have husbands who are in the military and get deployed for months to a year. So, with that in mind, I told myself I could do eight days. But it is nerve racking to have your husband in another country!!!! So, yes, I video taped Taylor before he left--I told him to give me a message that I could watch in case I got scared. :) Truth be told, I never watched it once when he was gone....but at least I have it! And we took a family picture before he left for the airport.
I felt pretty good about combating the task of being alone for eight days and being home. Many prayers were said and answered! However, the first day he was there, his phone wasn't working. The office put an international chip in it prior to him leaving, so it was surprising it wasn't working. It cost a lot for him to connect to the Internet from his lap top so he didn't do that very much. Luckily his phone started working by the end of his first day in Brazil (Sunday) but even then our conversations were short due to the cost per minute.

Here are a few of the pictures Taylor took in Brazil...

Out to dinner...the man on the far left is a guy that Taylor thought was incredible, believe he is the COO for Outback Restaurant. Next to him is Taylor's co-worker, then another guy from Outback, Taylor, and then David who is the President at Taylor's office.

Love this picture of Brazil! Think it was of Sao Paulo...he was there and in Rio.

Ok...so the BEST SURPRISE EVER... Taylor was done with meetings on Friday in the afternoon which was earlier than originally thought and planned. But he didn't have a flight home until Saturday night. I was expecting him to arrive home on Sunday around noon. Turned out the President of the company wanted to send them home earlier rather than keeping them in Brazil with nothing to do---he is my new favorite person. Anyway, long story short, Taylor flew out Friday night and had his cousin pick him up on Saturday from the airport. I was at my parents house, which Taylor knew, so he grabbed his truck and drove over to their house. I was at my parents house alone--well Isaac was napping--because my parents did a quick errand. I was putting some things away and as I was coming up the stairs, Taylor walked in and honestly, I thought I was hallucinating!!! I had no idea he came home early, it was honestly the best surprise ever--that is, after I got over the fact that I thought I was hallucinating! I couldn't believe he was really there, it made my day, week, month, year!!! I told him it was such a surprise and was so awesome that I may even put it on our Christmas card! ...ok, probably not, but hopefully that tells you how awesome it was!!

It was weird knowing he was on a plane when I had no idea he was on it....but I would gladly take that weirdness knowing he came home a day early!!!!

His jet lag hasn't been bad, and he is back to work today.

For those of you who don't know, Taylor served his two year mission in Brazil, so it was really neat for him to go back--weird in some ways, but neat. I say weird because the last time he was in Brazil he was single and serving for our church. Now he went married and doing business things, so he saw a new side to Brazil. Overall it was a great trip--I was so happy he had the opportunity to go and that his meetings went really well. He will most likely go back to Brazil....well, he is either going this November or in January. ...but hopefully not for a whole week.... :)

Week in Idaho at the Cabin

This post is about a week overdue...but blogger has not been my friend lately (uploading pictures has been quite the task).

Anyway, the end of July and first week of August we drove out (ok, some of us drove) to Island Park, Idaho which is really close to West Yellowstone. My grandparents have a cabin in Island Park, and it is one of our favorite places to go. So my dad, mom, Isaac and I drove. Thank goodness for the TV in my parents car--it made the 10 hour drive bearable! Here's our set up in the car...Isaac really did do a great job throughout the car rides.

Quick stop in Pocatello at Costco...

We did a lot of boat rides...

LOVE this picture of Isaac and Taylor

And this picture of Isaac...

Papa Great even let Isaac help his drive...Isaac's face looks like "oh this is cool mom!"

And they showed Isaac where the horn was...which he continued to find the rest of the week. :)

Papa took Isaac on a lot of 4-wheeling rides, a.k.a "rumba" rides

And a lot if Sea-doo rides...Isaac was in heaven!!

Taylor worked on jumping the wake

We even got Tyson up on the wakeboard and my dad did it too...even have pictures to prove it!

Love this picture of Taylor wakeboarding

Can't get enough cute pictures

My parents bought this water-toy called "Saturn" ... essentially it is a giant ball that you anchor in the water and you climb up it and play on it and knock people off....SO FUN!!! Here's Taylor doing a back flip off of it

Here are the boys playing on it

Even put Isaac in the "little swimmer" skies...haha ... everyone was doing it so he wanted to too!

I even took Isaac on a tube ride ... notice Isaac's starting position (in my lap)....

And his ending position ....almost whole body in the water if I'd let him...

He LOVED jumping in and being dunked

Then one night he grabbed the step stool and climbed up to the sink to grab the dish cleaning brush and proceeded to clean the oven door with it....hahah!! I love it... (notice tongue...hard at work!)

Even stops to smile for a picture...

And then on the way home all he wanted to do was cover himself with his blanket say "nana" over and over and have her pull the blanket off...

It was a fun and relaxing trip! Taylor was able to be there the first half of the 10 days and then had to leave for a work trip and Heather and Tyson were there for 8 of the 10 days. Not mention all three of them got to fly....while the four of us drove.... :)