Isaiah's 1st birthday

Isaiah celebrated his first birthday on March 24. We had a wonderful eve of his birth on the 23rd reliving a lot of what happened one year ago. Everything from remembering waking up with cramps from beginning labor, to dinner at a friend’s house, to Nathan finishing up a wood-working project, to walking to the hospital in the cold and rain, laboring all night and then welcoming our little one at 6:38 AM on the 24th. For one reason or another, Isaiah was up a lot during the night and when I would look at the clock I would automatically think back and wonder what I was doing one year ago. Kind of a fun way to look back at the year.

Nathan took the afternoon off and the three of us went to the zoo (again). J It was such a nice day out, that we HAD to get out again; very different than the day he was born…blustery, cold and rainy. The three of us then had a low key meal at home followed by some friends over for cake and ice-cream.

The week before Isaiah’s birthday, I was driving with a co-worker and on the side of the road there was a Little Tykes play gym type-thing with a FREE sign on it. I couldn’t get it apart, so Nathan went back and managed to get it apart and into our car. This was Isaiah’s birthday present from us; gotta love free things!

Snow shoeing

Okay, this is a LITTLE out of order. But, back in February, when we still had snow on the ground, we went on a family date to Boulder Lake and went Moonlight Snowshoeing. Nate carried Isaiah on his back in our AWESOME Ergo carrier. It was a beautiful evening, of course a bit chilly, but the moon was full and gave off plenty of light for us to snowshoe our path. Okay, I'll be honest...one of Nate's snowshoe bindings broke while we were putting our shoes on, so we ended up having to walk the path. It worked out just fine though because the path was pretty packed down so you didn't have to worry about falling through the snow. I think we'll put the snow shoes away for this year! The way the weather has been, I don't know that we'll see anymore snow before October. But, this is Duluth...

Spring Break!

Although I didn’t have Spring Break from work, my 16 year old sister and Nathan both did. So, we did our annual meet up during Spring Break. Pearl and my mom drove up from SD and met me, Nathan and Isaiah in Minneapolis. We had a great time.

We started our break by driving down to Minneapolis Wednesday afternoon. We visited a friend who just had a baby and then had dinner with Nathan’s sister and her partner. Then, we headed to the hotel in downtown Minneapolis where we waited for my mom’s and Pearl’s arrival. They finally arrived and we spent the evening catching up.

Thursday we began our vacation by heading to the Minneapolis library and playing in the toddler area. It's a newly remodeled library and had a GREAT space for toddlers. It was so beautiful outside, that we decided it would be in our best interest to spend some time outside so we headed to Como Park. We walked around the zoo and the gardens throughout Como Park and enjoyed the wonderful weather. Being that it was my birthday, we then headed to a wonderful Indian restuarant for dinner and enjoyed a delicious meal. Then it was back to the hotel for some Ben & Jerry's ice-cream! :)

Friday Nathan headed to St. John's for class, so Pearl, my mom, me and Isaiah headed to the Mall of America to do some prom dress shopping for Pearl. Yes, Pearl is going to prom this year! She found her dress after not too much stress (lucky for us all!). Then, off to Ikea. I can't believe how well Isaiah did through all the stimuli! We are one lucky family to have such an awesome kiddo! :)

Saturday morning we woke up and headed to St. Cloud with my mom and sister to celebrate Isaiah's birthday with a birthday party with friends and family at Nate's parents house. We had a lovely Mexican themed dinner with lots of yummy dessert! My grandma recently sent me the birthday candle used on my first birthday, so that was used on Isaiah's cake. I can't believe my grandma kept that candle after all these years!

We had a great time celebrating and were so lucky to have both sides of the family attend the party.

Valentine's Day in Duluth

Our 1st Valentine's Day as parents was perfect! As I shared before, we got a babysitting co-op going and I was the secretary for this first month, which means that I arranged all the sits. So, Nathan secretly went behind my back and found the list of sitters and called around to see if he could find someone to watch Isaiah so we could go on an early Valentine's day date (our 2nd date in one week...gotta love this co-op!). So, I came home from work, Nathan had picked out my outfit to wear and had Isaiah all ready to go to a sitter's house. We dropped him off and went to dinner at Va Bene, an Italian restaurant that has a year round balcony that overlooks Lake Superior. It was absolutely beautiful as the ice was beginning to break up and the sun was setting. Below is our view from our table. We enjoyed a lovely dinner together.

The next day, Nathan, Isaiah and I walked down to Bayfront Park for a full day of festivities to mark the first day of the Olympics. We had a beautiful day just moseying around by the lake and enjoying a crisp February day. Here is that awesome Lake Superior ice again...as I write this April 5, the ice is LONG gone!!

Babysitting Co-Op

Our group of moms continues to get together, which has been just a HUGE blessing in our lives. Especially mine, as motherhood can be challenging at times and I often question myself on the choices we make. However, to have other moms sitting in the same boat is a lifesaver.

We recently started up a babysitting co-op, which has also been a blessing. Nate and I were able to go on our first date in several months thanks to the co-op (I guess we're just too cheap to pay a sitter). So, instead of exchanging money for watching each others' kiddos, we exchange points. It has been excellent so far; it will be fun to see how the co-op expands and changes to see how our relationships with each other continue to grow.

9 months

Isaiah had his 9 month check up (although he is actually 10 1/2 months now) and here is how he measured up:

Height: 31"

Weight: 21 lbs. 13 oz.

His growing has slowed down quite a bit and he is now in the 80th percentile for height and about the 60th percentile for weight. Although, he is still comparable in size to some of his older friends.

Believe it or not, he is still not crawling...although, he does an incredible job of turning in circles on his butt, reaching for things and he is even beginning to get a little bit of an army crawl down (his Grandma Sam or Papa Jerry must have been teaching him that over Christmas). :) Just over the weekend he got clapping down, which is just SO cute. Every day is more of a surprise of what he can do. He is getting to look more and more like a little boy, especially when he smiles and you can see his little teeth (he has 6 now). Just like everyone says, parenting just keeps getting better and better.

Mexico, entry 2

We had an incredible hike on our day "off" in Tepotzlan. We started in town and hiked our way up a mountain to where we could get up close to the pyramid El Tepozteco. When we began our hike, we were assured that there were switchbacks up the mountain. We learned quickly that there were no switchbacks...indeed, just straight up the mountain! It was about a mile hike up from the base of the mountain and we made it up in about 1 hour. It was the perfect temperature for hiking and a pretty easy-going trail (although, I wasn't the one carrying Isaiah!). It was great to get out and do a nice hike.

Another day we had the chance to go on an outing as a group to some ruins. This was also very beautiful. Unfortuately, our translator wasn't with us this day and our guide only spoke Spanish so we didn't get to fully understand the story behind these ruins. It was a beautiful area though.

Overall, our trip to Mexico was a great success. We had a wonderful time and Isaiah did great. He was the best traveller we could ask for. We were told before we left that Mexican women love babies; in reality, I think it's safer to say they ADORE babies. I don't think it helped that Isaiah has blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin! :) Everyone wanted to hold him and play with him...it was really sweet and made us feel very welcomed. Living at the retreat center was the director's grandaughter who was born just three days after Isaiah (she, however, was MUCH smaller than Isaiah). Here are some pics from that:

Our trip to Mexico wouldn't be complete without an outside bath! :) Nate and I thought it was fun, but Isaiah didn't think so though.