Wow, Almost a Year Already!

So, today I wanted to look something up and the easiest way to find it was to just go back and look on my blog to see what I wrote. Well, that got me started. I began looking through all the old pictures and reading all the old stories and I started to feel guilty that I had let this go for so long. Looking back, I'm not really sure I could have found the time often to sit down and write, but I definitely could have done it at least a few times. So, I'm going to attempt to summarize the last year and add a few pictures and start this whole world of blogging again. If for no other reason than someday I might want to go back and read through it.

I left off in November, so here we go from there...

November-
*I don't really remember much other than we went to Ohio for Thanksgiving.

December/January-

*Basketball started to pick up and Daniel began to get busier and busier, but loved coaching.

*Everyone came into town for Christmas. Daniel's parents had come back over Thanksgiving. Katy came home from school, Joel and Kristen came from Alabama, Michael and Demet came out from California. It was a whole house full and we ended up not having enough beds, so Katy and JoAnn shared a room. I loved pretty much every minute of it, since I am huge on family time during Christmas.

*On Christmas morning we had our own little family Christmas. Then that afternoon we got together with Daniel's family and had our scavenger hunt, dinner and present time. After which all the guys went to go see a movie together.


*The day after Christmas we drove over to Columbus, had Christmas with my parents. Daniel had to come back on the 27th for basketball, but the kids and I stayed in Ohio since Michele and Ty were coming up that day. I spent the next couple days with them and then flew by myself with both kids to Tampa, where we met Daniel after he flew out of Indy and we went down to Boca Grande for a while.

*Boca was beautiful and a very welcomed break from the freezing cold Indiana December weather that I am dreading again this year. Some where in here was New Years Eve, but for the life of me I cannot remember what we did to celebrate. I know Daniel's parents and Katy were also in Boca so I'm sure we did something for dinner and then Daniel and I put the kids down and probably passed out before midnight.

*At some point we went out on a boat and I know we have a very similar picture of JoAnn on her first boat ride when she was just a few months old.

*After about a week there Daniel had to fly back to Indy for basketball, but I wanted to spend some time with Michele, so JoAnn, Isaiah and I stayed with her from Thursday to Monday. We met her now fiance, David and were able to actually spend quite a bit of time together. It had been far too long since we had been able to spend more than a day or two at a time with each other.

*JoAnn loved being at Aunt Michele's since she got her hair and nails done just about everyday (so not my specialty) and I'm pretty sure Michele loved being able to do it even more.

*I flew back from Tampa by myself with two kids. I seriously don't know why I was thinking that would be a good idea other than I really wanted to see my family and I wasn't sure how to make it work if I didn't.

February-

*THE BIGGEST NEWS from the past year...I found out that I was expecting another baby. That's right since the last time I wrote I went through a whole pregnancy and we now have another baby! Crazy. (I'll get to him when I get to September.)

*Isaiah turned one.

*The doctors felt like Isaiah was too small for his age and we went through about four months of trying everything I could to get more calories in him and build up his muscles and ended up seeing a specialist at the Riley (the children's hospital downtown) who basically told me there was nothing wrong and she barely saw any of what the pediatrician had seen at his one month check up.

March-

*I had my first ultrasound and found out (rather early) that we were having another boy!

*Daniel's basketball team went to sectionals and played in Jasper, Indiana so we all went for the weekend and stayed at the hotel. It reminded me a lot of playing in tournaments for soccer growing up. They ended up loosing a really close game to the team that was supposed to win it all.

*Daniel went to the Philippines for a few days right after basketball season ended, so the kids and I headed over to Ohio to spend some time with my parents and to celebrate my dad's birthday.

April-

*The only thing I remember is my parents came over right before Easter and my mom had gotten JoAnn the colored bubbles from Crayola, which I promptly threw away immediately since they turned EVERYTHING blue and I mean EVERYTHING. It was awful.

May-

*We bought our first house. I love the house and love the location, but didn't really love the whole process of looking for a place.

June-

*We moved into our house and 10 days later Daniel went to the Philippines again.

*Daniel and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary.

*JoAnn and I watched the Fishers fireworks with Ryan, Heather, a few friends and all their kids, while Daniel tried to get over jet lag and Isaiah konked out.

July-

*Daniel went back to the Philippines for a third trip. This time it was with Covenant's basketball players, so it was neat for him to take some of the players he coached to where we lived.

*JoAnn turned 4 and Daniel turned 32.

*I managed to talk Daniel into taking care of JoAnn and Isaiah for a couple days while I went to Ohio to a bridal shower for my friend Kristin, who is getting married next week. It was the first time I had been away from the kids over night in well over a year. It was only one night, but it was nice to have a little break and give the kids a little quality daddy time.

August-

*The doctor was concerned that the baby was not growing as big as she had wanted him to, so I spent the whole last month of my pregnancy going in for doctor appointments to make sure he was growing okay.

*The last day of the month I had another ultrasound to see how much the baby had grown in the past three weeks and the doctor ended up calling me to tell me that even though he had grown she thought we needed to go ahead and have the baby early. I was already 38 weeks so it wasn't like he would be too early, just earlier than we had planned.

September-

*Daniel's parents were gone so my parents came over to be at the hospital while Daniel and I went in for the c-section and the kids went over to Ryan and Heather's for a couple nights and on September 1, Nathaniel was born. He was 6 lbs. 3 oz., 20 inches and absolutely perfect.

*Unlike Isaiah's birth there was nothing too crazy, it was pretty much your standard c-section delivery and everyone was healthy.

*The kids adjusted to another baby in the house and fell in love almost instantly with Nathaniel.

*Two and a half weeks after Nathaniel was born I took the kids with Grandma, Papa, Aunt Boo, Uncle Joel, Uncle Ryan, Aunt Heather, Avery, Ella, Eli and a few others to an apple orchard and pretty much from that point on life has gone back to its normal crazy self.

October-

*Nathaniel just had his one month check up and is weighing in at 10 lbs. and 22 inches. He is my biggest baby at one month jumping from the 6th percentile at one week to the 46th percentile in weight. And he is actually starting to get some chubby little rolls on his arms and legs. He is the only one of the three to have that. I love it!

Well, that pretty much catches us up. I know there are many things I left out, but this will have to do and I will try to be better about not waiting so long before I write again.

November Update

So these are starting to turn into monthly updates. I had wanted to write more often than that, but things seem to be going 100 miles an hour lately. Anyway, here are a few things that have happened since the last time I wrote...

Isaiah:
*He started crawling with his belly off the ground.

*He now has two teeth with a third trying to break the surface.

*He sits up completely on his own.

*He is on meds now for GERD, which has changed my life. I no longer need to follow him around with a rag and carpet cleaner.

*He is pulling himself up into a standing position.

*His favorite food right now is Cheerios since he can feed them to himself.

*He has started dancing to music and his favorite song is "Oh, Happiness" by the David Crowder band. Here is a video of him dancing.



JoAnn:
*She loves school (aka Sunday school).

*She literally eats pancakes every morning.

*She melts my heart when she randomly looks at me and says "Mommy I love you."

*She claims Isaiah is her best friend.

*She is becoming quite the cook. She actually does help often and is getting better and better at it.

*She went trick or treating for the first time with Marley. Here they are getting ready to start.



Daniel:
*He has started coaching Covenant Christian High School varsity basketball as an assistant for one of the guys he worked with while we were in Nashville.

Misc.:
*A few weeks ago we had donkeys running loose through the back yard. (I think the neighbor is starting a full out farm next door. He now has 1 horse, 2 donkeys, a handful of chickens and a milking cow.)

*Daniel's parents have been in Florida for about 5 weeks now, but will be back for Thanksgiving through Christmas.

*I had my nieces and nephews over for a night, which convinced me that I would love a house full of kids and convinced Daniel that two is enough. Avery stole my heart by wanting to build "forts" which was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. Here they are in one we built in the kitchen.




*Last Saturday we had a really fun Filipino themed night with some friends to celebrate the Manny Pacquiao fight, which he dominated (or so I heard from Daniel since I was sleeping through it).

*I turned 28 this week. It was one of my favorite birthday celebrations I've had in a while. Heather watched the kids while Daniel and I got a Starbucks (a huge highlight for me since I haven't been able to eat anything with milk in it while nursing Isaiah), had lunch, went shopping for my favorite pair of sweatpants ever (thanks Daniel), relaxed in the hot tub for a while, and I took a long warm shower without one or more of the kids screaming in the background. It was wonderful.

*Other birthdays I've missed on here...Kristen (who was actually before my last post, sorry), Marley and Sally were also this month. Happy birthday to all.

What's New with you

Here are a few of the new things that Isaiah has been doing lately...

*Saying not only "mamamama" which he has been saying for about 2 months now, but also "dadadada" and "nananana" and "babababa." So I of course am convinced he is actually saying "Mama," "Dada," "Nana" (my mom) and "ball."

*Sitting on his own as long as he has something he can hold on to.

*His version of crawling. This one I made sure I took a video of (please ignore JoAnn screaming in the background)...





*Actually playing with JoAnn. I love to hear the two of them laughing with each other. I don't think there could be a better sound in the world to me right now. Here the two of them are playing with each other in his crib.

*Oh and he had his first ever ear infection last week. It was actually my first ever ear infection that I've dealt with as a mom, since JoAnn never got one. And I must say I am so thankful for antibiotics. I couldn't figure out why he had stopped sleeping until the infection moved to his eye and I took him into the doctor, but after only one dose of antibiotic, he was pretty much back to his normal self.


Now for JoAnn

*Playing with my makeup

She was so funny about this. I had heard her in the bathroom playing but couldn't tell what she was doing, so I asked her to come in the room I was in and as soon as she came within view I immediately called for Daniel to come in. I wasn't mad, but I'm guessing JoAnn thought I was since she hid so Daniel wouldn't be able to see her when he walked in. I was in the middle of something I couldn't stop so I asked Daniel to take a picture of her. All I could think was that it looked like she was going to be in the musical Cats.

A little late

So, I got caught up in trying to get caught up on what's been happening that I completely skipped over this picture...


I'm not sure you can really read it, but down at the bottom it says "Happy birthday Tyus." Believe it or not this picture was actually taken on his birthday, which was September 18. So, Michele if you are reading this would you tell Ty that we love him and I am SO SO sorry this is so late. JoAnn painted this picture for Ty to let him know that we miss him and to wish him a happy birthday.

Parade of Hills

It has been FOREVER since I have wrote anything on here. There are so many fun things for me to do right now that I don't really want to take the time to sit down and write about them. Now over a month since I've last written I'm really wishing I would have at least done a little. So I want to write a little about the Parade of Hills and then I am going to try to catch up as quickly as possible.

After Kristen and Joel came, I took JoAnn and Isaiah over to Ohio for the weekend. We hung out with them for a few hours and then my mom drove over to pick us up. She was a major trooper. That had to be one of the longest days for her. I asked her to stop by Sam's Club with me so I could get a few things and it was closer if we went right before we left Indy. Then about half way we stopped so we could eat and I could feed Isaiah, which is when I realized that I had forgot diapers for Isaiah. Now tell me how I can forget diapers. I'm still amazed that I did that. I was just going to let it go until we got to Columbus, but somewhere around Dayton Isaiah was screaming and would not calm down. That usually signals it's time for a diaper change. So we pulled off of 70 and stopped at a Meijer that is right off the freeway and picked up some diapers. By the time we made it back to Columbus we had turned a 3 hour drive into a 5 hour trip. My poor mom was so patient the whole time though.

The next day I went with my parents to my grandma's house. This was the whole reason we went to Ohio. As a kid my parents always took my sister and I to the Parade of Hills in Nelsonville, Ohio. It's a small town carnival and is literally 2 blocks down the road from my grandma's house. When I was really little I have so many memories of going down the road, playing a few games and winning things like invisible ink and goldfish that would die the next day no matter how well you took care of them. I also remember that my sister and my cousin would always want to go back to ride some rides at night and I was too little so one of my dad's uncles would go with us and take me on the ferris wheel. Which brings me to the only other thing I remember about those times...Aunt Anna's fudge. She had the most amazing gift of being able to make fudge that was to die for. I loved it when her and Uncle Howard would meet us at grandma's because it meant I could go ride the rides and come back for fudge after. Anyway, I had decided that I wanted to take JoAnn to play a few games and then sit in front of my grandma's house for the parade this year. I mentioned something to my dad's cousins, Debbi and Carol, about it and they decided it would be fun to get a big group together. So we headed to Nelsonville for a few hours. It was so fun. JoAnn loved playing the games (which have gotten ridiculously expensive) and we only played the games that had that nice little sign saying "Play til you win." We played two games and I thought oh good, it may be $5 a game, but at least that will provide 15 minutes of entertainment. Oh no, the nice workers were very eager to help the 3 year old that wasn't quite able to win without help. We played two games and including the time to walk the 2 blocks there and the 2 blocks back I think it lasted about 30 minutes. I tried to get a picture of her throwing a dart at the balloons, but before I could get my camera out she actually popped one. She was standing closer than you are supposed to, but I was still expecting it to take more than one throw for her to actually pop one.

After that was the parade. Well, actually there was a bike race that was going from Columbus to Athens and passed right along the parade route and Debbi convinced JoAnn they were part of the parade and she should cheer for them. She had her out on the porch forever cheering. It was pretty cute. The actual parade was actually almost rained out. It was so cute to watch JoAnn who had no concept of why they were throwing candy at her get all the adults around her running to gather candy for her in the rain. She managed to rack up quite a few tootsie rolls. Debbi also convinced Jo that the Miss so and so girls were princesses and JoAnn was quite thrilled she got to see so many princesses.

So, that is pretty much it about the Parade of Hills and I wish I had pictures that I could post from it, but I will have to wait until I get over to Ohio again since our computer had a virus and I lost all the pictures I had downloaded from my mom's camera. Now, here comes the rest a little faster now...

**Over Labor Day we went down to Birmingham and spent the weekend with Kristen and Joel, where among other things we went to a farmer's market, saw Samford where they both went to school, went to a huge flower garden and had a picnic at a park. It was a very busy weekend, but I'm so glad we went. I loved seeing their apartment and I had never been to Alabama before. This is Jo with Kristen and Joel at Samford.


**On September 11 we drove with Daniel's parents out to Illinois to Daniel's cousin's wedding. On the way we stopped to see his grandma (who is amazing for being 99).


**We watched the first Colts game of the season with Ryan, Heather and their kids...I just think this is a cute picture of the kids in their Colts gear.


**I can't remember when, but JoAnn, Isaiah, Daniel's mom, Marley, Heather, Eli and Ella all went to an apple orchard to pick some apples.



**I made homemade apple sauce out of the apples that we picked.

**Daniel got a bunch of people together this week to help pack some of the stuff that went on the container to the Philippines that we do every year and a couple of our friends came from Dayton to help. Tanya and I stayed at the house with the kids while the guys went to the food bank, so I don't have any pictures of that but her is one Tanya took of Izzie and Jo making cookies while we waited for the guys.


**Daniel and I went back a few days later on Thursday and actually put the food on the container. Alright, we pretty much just watched as someone else drove the forklift and did most of the work. It was still neat to see how everything went on and I have never been there to unload the container, so I hadn't ever seen exactly how much food that actually holds. Its an insane amount of food!

**I saved the best for last... Isaiah got his first tooth yesterday. He is growing up way too fast if you ask me.

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff but that is what I am going to leave it at for now.

Catching Up

First and foremost I want to say happy birthday to my father-in-law. As JoAnn would say HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPA! I won't announce to the world how old you are, but I hope you had a great day.

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Its been so long since I've wrote anything and so much has happened that I actually needed to look at a calendar to figure out what we've done. I can't believe how fast these last three weeks have gone by.

On the 14th we went with Daniel's parents and our niece Marley to Brown County to see Daniel's mom's side of the family. We were only there for dinner, but it was fun to see Daniel's uncles aunts and cousins and the next generation that is starting to grow. (And it was really fun to eat the ribs that Daniel's uncle made for everyone.) JoAnn being her shy self and not really knowing anyone there spent the whole time playing with Marley. Here Marley is showing her DS to Jo. I thought it looked pretty funny with the two of the huddled by themselves in the corner hunched over the DS.

The following Tuesday we made a trip up to Warsaw to see Matt and Britt and a few other people. We just went up for one night, but I have always liked the drive between Indianapolis and Warsaw. You drive through about 2 hours worth of farms and small town America. If it were longer than that I'm sure I would get tired of it, but it's always a peaceful drive for me. I probably like it even more because of all the memories I have of making that trip just about every weekend during the school year when I was engaged and would drive drive to Indy to see Daniel. There were many times when Britt and I would drive down together to see Matt and Daniel since they both lived in Indy and we always had fun during those drives. Moving on, it was a fun short trip. Daniel managed to meet with one of his friends who is trying to get him to go to seminary at Grace and coach high school basketball with him, play 9 holes of golf with Matt and one of his college coaches, have dinner with a guy about a possible job opportunity in Warsaw, and have breakfast with one of his former professors. I'm not sure how he managed to fit so much into such a short time. What did I do? Pretty much I sat and talked to Britt the whole time. It was great. Her is a picture of JoAnn and Addison who spent the whole time together.


One cute side story here...when we went to Ohio later that week JoAnn pointed to one of my baby pictures and said "Mommy look it's Addison, I want to play with Addison." I'm not sure I saw the resemblance, but JoAnn was convinced it was Addison and not me.

The next Friday, Daniel's sister Kristen and her husband Joel came to Indy for the weekend. Long before I found out they were coming home I had made plans to go to Ohio, but we were able to work it out so we could spend the morning with them. They hadn't had a chance to meet Isaiah so it was fun to introduce him to his aunt and uncle. JoAnn had a blast playing on the tire swing with Uncle Joel too.

This is a random picture I found from sometime in the last few weeks. It seems like the only way I can get the laundry folded without one of the kids unfolding everything lately.
I will pick up here later, right now its time for the little guy to eat.

Hot Air and Museums

This past Monday the neighbors had given a hot air balloon ride as a gift to their parents and they actually ended up leaving from right behind their house. So we quickly ate dinner and ran outside to see them blowing up the balloons and take off. I guess open spaces like this where the balloons can take off are somewhat rare so there were actually two balloons with a third that started to set up, but for some reason ended up not actually taking off. It has been so long since I've seen a hot air balloon and I don't think I've ever been so close to one, so it was sort of fun to see how things work. JoAnn just thought they looked cool, but was terrified when she saw the flame that was used to create the hot air. I don't think she would have been nearly as scared if it weren't for how loud they are. I don't think I ever realized how loud they truly are. So, any how here is a picture of the two that took off from right behind the house.

One of the things I've been dying to do was to take JoAnn to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. I have heard so much about it and it seemed like it would be pretty fun. I was going to do it for her birthday, but found out it was a little more expensive than what I wanted to pay and as it turns out the first Thursday of every month from 4-8 pm Target sponsors a free night. So, that was my answer. Knowing that Daniel would probably not really want to go, I asked Katy to come with me before she went back to school the next day. It ended up being so fun and I am so glad we went. I am extremely glad Katy was able to go since I don't think I would have been able to keep up with JoAnn and still take care of Isaiah by myself.

One of the big exhibits was a Barbie area. They had a ton of dolls from the last however many years and these were two of my favorites. The first one was Ken and he actually had a fro. Then the other Barbie was pregnant!


Here is JoAnn with Katy trying to talk to Barbie on the phone.

I think she was a little too young to do much with the Barbie exhibit, so we tried to find something she would like a little better.

This was the Egypt exhibit.

You can't really tell in the picture but she was terrified. She was pushing up against me so hard that I was almost falling over. So we went on and tried the science area. Score. She LOVED it. There was a ball machine type thing that she loved and just stood watching the balls go all around for a long time.

Next was a water way thing that had boats floating through it and you could place rocks and things in the water to change the flow. She loved playing with the boats.

Next to the water there was a house that tried to teach the kids how to have a healthy lifestyle. This is JoAnn with the "couch potatoe."

There was way more to the museum, but that is a quick shot. I'm hoping to go again on one of the free nights, but I'm going to wait until school starts to see if it won't be as crowded since it was crazy how many people were there.