Merry Christmas to all!

We are switching it up this year and blogging our Christmas letter. Below you will find some of our favorite moments of this past year. We hope you enjoy!
Our Top 10 Favorite Memories of 2008

10. Isaac and I flew to Colorado in January to visit my sisters in Boulder. We spent the week hiking, rock climbing, swimming, shopping, watching movies and taking Isaac to the Denver Aquarium. While we were having a blast in Boulder, Gary’s company took him to Las Vegas for the World of Concrete Convention (he had a blast as well!).

9. Our little baby boy (well not so little anymore) turned one in March. We celebrated with family in Sheldon and even though he had a double ear infection he thoroughly enjoyed his cake and opening his presents. He began walking at 13 months and he has been non-stop since. We joke all the time that he is our Curious George because he’s always climbing or investigating something.

8. Gary turned 30! My best friend and I threw a double 30th birthday bash for Gary and her husband; friends joined us at their house for dinner, cake and ice cream. He continuously tells me that “once you hit 30 it’s all down hill;” he’s always got some sort of ache or pain lately. I think it’s his job, he thinks it’s his age :). Either way he has left me no hope in looking forward to turning 30!

7. Isaac enjoyed his first trip to the zoo! He had just learned to walk so he was more interested in all this space he had to roam around rather than looking at all the animals. We still had a fun time, but he was more interested in the animals the second time we took him to the zoo this summer.

6. Branson, Missouri was our vacation spot this summer. We spent the week with Gary’s family (33 of us total!) at Aunt’s Creek Resort. It was a hot week so most of the week was spent on the water-- boating, swimming, skiing, wakeboarding, tubing and cliff jumping. Isaac had a great time playing with all of his cousins and Gary and I enjoyed the extra help in keeping him entertained!

5. In September, we attended my 10 year high school reunion in Sheldon. My class had dinner together at a restaurant and then had a bon fire at Hill’s Park. It was fun to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.

4. This fall we had fun taking Isaac to the Center Grove apple orchard and trick or treating for the first time. At the Orchard he thought it was so funny to feed the goats; he chuckled the whole time and he loved to eat the apples fresh from the tree. He also enjoyed riding the train with his friend Ashley. Isaac dressed as Curious George this year for Halloween, we are biased but we thought he made the cutest little monkey! We went trick-or-treating with good friends of ours, so all together we had a monkey, a cow girl and an Indian…they were definitely a hit with other trick-or-treaters!

3. Gary still enjoys his work and the company he is with. I still love this time that I have to be able to be home with Isaac and raise him. People ask me all the time why I stay home, wouldn't I rather go back to work, don't you get bored, and what do you do all day? Well there's lots of reasons I stay home with Isaac, I wouldn't even dream of going back to work right now, no I don't get bored...everyday goes too fast as it is, and I teach, train/correct/discipline and play with my child all day. I still enjoy teaching fitness classes a couple times a week!

2. At 20 months, Isaac is walking, running, climbing and talking. We are having so much fun watching him grow and learn so many new things. He loves playing with his “frucs” (trucks/tractors) and he is very much like his daddy, he enjoys building with his blocks and legos. Most of what he says is complete jibberish but his favorite words so far are: oh-no, no, baby, ba-bye, moe-moo, (milk & water) stinky ooh-ooh (pee-yew), qwah-qwah (what a duck says) and shoes. I taught Isaac baby sign language so he will also sign a lot of things that he wants which is very helpful. He knows most animal sounds and will make most of them and most recently he has added poo-poo to his list of words. I’m hopeful this means he will potty train early and quickly :) (fingers are crossed)! Isaac continues to be quite the lover and gives us lots of cuddles and kisses.

1. Even though this hasn’t officially happened yet we know it will be a highlight of our year. My family is spending Christmas in Colorado this year; everyone will be together…Gary, Isaac and I, mom, dad, my sisters and their boyfriends and my aunt and uncle. We haven’t all been together for Christmas since 2004 so we are really looking forward to this time with my family. We plan on spending the week skiing, snowmobiling, snow-shoeing, as well as many other things. Most importantly I’m just looking forward to us all being together and enjoying family traditions that are special to our family.

There has been much to reflect on this past year and we have so many things to be thankful for. Like so many of you there have also been many trials this past year that we are looking forward to leaving in 2008 and hope don’t follow into 2009. We are grateful to God for keeping us in His Grace; we have seen His presence in so many ways this year. Our prayer for all of you is that, more than physical or material blessings and abundance, you would grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, the world’s only Savior. We hope you have a blessed Christmas and New Year.

In Love,

Gary, Jess & Isaac

Feeling Better!

Okay, I think it's safe to say that Isaac is 100% better (knocking on wood, fingers are crossed :)). For those I haven't talk to since last Wednesday Isaac came down with a fever Wednesday afternoon and he still had it on Thursday morning so I took him into the doctor. I was surprised that he had an ear infection because other than his fever he gave no signs like he has had in the past. So we got that taken care of but he was not recovering at all and his fever hung around (pretty high one too) until Saturday morning. And no amount of tylenol would bring it down, water helped a little but it was consistently between 101-102.7. He put himself on a starvation diet and refused to eat anything other than "nannas". Most of his calories came from his milk last week, which was understandable. He had no desire to play he would walk around almost dazed but was only content if I was holding him...all the time other than when he was in his crib napping or sleeping. Friday evening when I was making supper I put him on the couch to lay down, popped in Veggie Tales and I don't even think he moved even a finger for over an hour. I'm not sure he has laid that still since he came into this world, after we were done eating we just cuddled in the chair and waited for daddy to come home and he fell asleep and slept for over an hour. Whatever this was had him knocked out!

On Sunday we were getting ready to go to church; afterall his fever was gone and we were told it was just an ear infection and as far as we knew he wasn't contagious. I went to get him changed and noticed he had a rash all over his little body. This is what he looked like (I couldn't get a picture taken that would show up good enough so this is not a picture of him) on Sunday morning.

I was thinking he was having a reaction to his medicine, his fever was gone so I had no clue. So after waiting and waiting we got in and found out he had Roseola Virus. The rash is the last thing you get when you are over the virus. So that rash lasted about 2 days and finally yesterday he was back to his goofy, silly self. No more confinement to the house, Yay mom is happy! Now we are just praying we can all stay healthy from now until we leave for Colorado and while we are out there!

Stuck

Tonight we had some friends over for dinner, so Isaac had some friends to keep him entertained. It was rather loud in our house for awhile but right after dinner Isaac had gone off on his own and I heard him talking, almost kind of fussing so I went looking for him. I went upstairs to see if he was in his bedroom but he wasn't there; I heard him talking but it was so muffled. So the next place I went was the bathroom upstairs, I thought maybe he was in the bathtub because he likes to play in there, but again while I went in there looking for him I heard him talking again but it was so muffled. So from upstairs I'm calling to Gary wondering if he knows where Isaac is and he doesn't know but again I hear Isaac crying for me but it was so muffled. So we finally figured out to check the downstairs bathroom. Most of the time we leave the door shut but with company over it was left open so Isaac had managed to go in there and close the door partly. Upon opening the door it was apparent why he was crying for help...he was stuck and couldn't get out!


After getting him out he explained to me what he was doing in his words..."poo poo."

Monkey caught in action

I was upstairs this morning doing laundry and while I was in the hallway, monkey was in his room playing, all the while I've completely forgotten that monkey taught himself how to climb into the crib yesterday. Sure enough as I walked into his room to get his laundry there stands monkey in his crib! I happened to catch monkey in action, I tried to remain hidden from him but there was no way of hiding the camera, so that is what he is looking at in the video.

I'm so proud of him for putting two and two together the way he did to figure out how to climb into the crib.

I know typical boy behavior is to climb, I'm wondering if this much at this age is typical?

My question is this...mothers of grown sons or somewhat grown sons, should I be taking this as my sign to prepare myself for the next 10 years for a child who lives on the edge of constant danger?

Monkey has no fear!

Look at him balancing on top of the crib like he's some acrobat. I'm going to need alot of time to prepare :).

For now the chair that was used to help monkey in the action is going in mom and dad's room! Or...I'm going to have to invest in one of these.


Which before when I have seen these I've thought..."really, is it necessary to confine your child like this."

Yep, now I understand the inventor of this product is the mother of a monkey too. Brilliant!

Tales of a Monkey

Tonight Isaac was up in his room playing with his toys and reading his books; he occasionally likes to go up there and play on his own so we let him. I had just been up there with him and he went right to reading this book so I thought I'll just leave him up here to play for a little bit while supper gets ready.

He was getting hungry and therefore getting kind of cranky and there were things he kept getting into that we didn't want him too and that just escalated the crankiness so him being upstairs made it easier. I turned on the monitor like I always do so I can hear him and he was talking for awhile and just reading his books so we didn't bother with him being up there. Looking back now it was silent for a little bit but there was nothing he could get into so I didn't think twice about it. But after awhile he started talking again and then eventually it turned into a high pitched "aaaahhhhhh"..."aaaahhhhh". We kept telling him (from downstairs) to come back down but the high pitched "aaahhhh" just kept getting more high pitched so I went up to check on him. Sometimes he likes to climb behind his rocking chair and he gets stuck so I went up to check on him thinking that's probably what he did.

Much to my amazement this is what I found...




Yep...he climbed INTO his crib all on his own! We think he climbed into the chair, then used the arm of the chair to somehow manage his way into the crib. But you know what this means...the countdown to when he can climb OUT of his crib is only closer than what we thought!

Just the 3 of us!

Last weekend we had our family pictures taken by Sarah of Francyzk Photography. They turned out really good! I wasn't sure how many good ones there would be since Isaac starting melting down about 30 minutes into it, but I'm really happy with them.

Random Cuteness!

Well I think we have all finally adjusted to the Daylight Savings time change! Thankfully we only had one really bad night other wise he did pretty well. On Sunday night he had a party in his crib from 1:00-4:00, mom and dad did not enjoy this party so much.

All of Isaac's 1st year molars are finally in, praise the Lord! And now I think his "I" teeth are making their way in which I have heard are the worst ones yet. I'm looking forward to the teething journey coming to an end, it's been a long year as far as that goes. If his teeth didn't sit in the most painful position for a couple weeks it wouldn't be so bad, but thankfully as he is getting older I think he is adjusting better to the pain.

Isaac is beginning to use a lot of words, some we can translate others we have no clue. I'm pretty sure yesterday he was trying to say grandpa and grandma, I was trying to get him to say it again today but you know a toddler, we only do what we want when we want. Maybe by Christmas. He is quite the monkey, he figured out last week that if he climbs over the back of the couch he can walk along the window ledge (see the picture of him behind the couch). He is quick as lightening too and our efforts to keep him from climbing are quickly outwitted. Maybe he will someday be on survivor, he is very good at 'outwitting, outlasting and outplaying'!

Mommy loves Isaac's kisses!

Enjoying walking in the park
Come on dad, read to me! He climbed up here all on his own, this picture had no help!
Isaac spilled my water on his shirt and pants so I gave him some freedom in running around in his diaper and he was trying to pull it off, guess he wanted to be more free.
He likes his hat that Aunt Gina gave him last year! He was walking around playing with it so he actually put the hat on himself in this picuture, not to bad, huh!