Feliz cumpleaños mi mama

We all want to wish you a happy birthday!! We love you and miss you very very much!

My Growing Boy!

I forgot to write about Isaak's 9 month check up last week. He's doing mighty fine I must say! Here are his 9 month stats:

weight: 24lbs- 95th percentile
height: 30 in.- 95th percentile
head circumference: 47 cm- 90th percentile

He's just a big guy all around. Following (almost exactly) Ethan's big-boy growth pattern. He also has grown his top two teeth just in time for Christmas. I have to say that biting has not been an issue where breastfeeding is concerned (thank goodness). No, Isaak is more into pinching. He's not walking yet (another thank goodness). He gets into enough trouble just by crawling around. Here is a picture of him getting into the plastic container cabinet. Take a look at those legs. Nice and chunky- Just the way I like them!

I also had a follow-up appt last week. More MRI's were taken of my foot & ankle post-operation a week prior to this visit. The MRI took 2 1/2 hours and it felt like pure torture! Next time I'm getting sedated! Then, I waited at the doctors office for an hour and a half (again) before I finally saw Dr. M. Basically he said as little as possible to me and spoke mostly into his tape recorder and to his visiting intern. Finally, I told him that I needed the information more than him -pointing to the intern. He just smiled and said, "See you in 3 months for more x-rays." I did manage to make him stay in the room for another 30 seconds to ask more questions before he quickly walked out of the room. UGH!!!!! Maybe I need the sedation for the doctor visits and not the MRI's. I just don't understand why he is an hour and half behind for a 10am appt. They don't even open until 8:30am!!! I'm positive they are double booking appointments. I ALSO don't understand how he can be really helping people when he has so many patients! I felt like I was hung on a 10 mile assembly line then when I finally got to see him he just looked at me through his scope and yelled "NEXT!" Hopefully I will only have to see him a couple more times before we move-AND believe me, WE ARE MOVING!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We had a nice quiet day of cooking, stuffing our faces, then lounging around. It was great. Just the four of us. It would have been even better had we been able to sleep in a little. No, Ethan thought it best to burst in our room at 6:50 am. Well, what can you do.

Since everyone loves to ask what we eat on thanksgiving, here is a look at the menu for today and the lovely pictures before we stuffed our face. We only made a small dent (there was sooooo much food) but that's okay. I love Thanksgiving leftovers. YUMMY!

Thanksgiving Tofu Loaf with Stuffing (the big brown dome looking thing)
Mashed potatoes
Creamed corn casserole
Candied yams
Homemade wheat rolls
Whole cranberry sauce
Tofurkey Mushroom Gravy
Pumpkin pie (with eggs) and Vegan Pumpkin pie (no eggs or dairy)

Here is a picture of our plates piled high. Everything turned out great! We are still stuffed even now 3 hours later after a round of soccer and tag in the back yard (it was me and E against Daddy and Sinah)

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

Only 30 days till CHRISTMAS!!!

The soccer season has come to an end.

Thank goodness too! It's very tiring dragging Ethan to all these games and practices. Especially when he doesn't want to go half the time. I think all that kids have had there fill of soccer for the year. Their last game was yesterday and they just were not getting into it. Plus, it was pretty cold and windy out (finally some fall weather). Ethan did make a goal and was pretty excited about it.

Today we had a "end of season" soccer party- at a hamburger joint. Fortunately for us they had just put veggie burgers on the menu so we were saved from having to eat just french fries. It was a nice party. All the kids got a trophy, brand new soccer ball, and a little soccer guy (pictures to follow later of E with trophy). The kids also sat together at one table. We were all being brave parents by allowing them to all sit together- with no adults. I think half the parents were holding their breath as they watched there kids, us included, try to eat, play and not knock over their drinks. They had a great time laughing and talking about really silly stuff. Wish I had a video camera.

Now, we have our weekends free. What will we do? Absolutely nothing! HUH!

He's a natural

Today E and I (I as in mommy- not Isaak) played a scavenger hunt game with my digital camera. We play this every once in a while. He loves my digital camera- ALWAYS wants to take pictures. Usually I make a list of things and he runs around taking pictures of these things when he finds them. Today was a beautiful day so we spent most of it outside in our back yard. Isaak watched excitedly in his exersaucer. Here was my list:
A porcupine, A yellow leaf (with no brown), a green leaf on the ground, something blue, two wind chimes, a basketball, a net, a brick, two feet, a tree, and a chimney

Here are the pictures he took.

I thought they turned out really well. There was no coaching from me. He must be a natural!

Check out Creative Kismet

I've just started yet another blog site. It is called Creative Kismet. I made it as a showcase for my creative side of life. Here I will post my new paintings, and crafts at random. In my efforts of accomplishing my dream of having an online store called Creative Kismet, I am hoping that this will open the door towards getting my creations and name out there in the web world. Eventually my new blog will link to my new online store. You can check out my new blog site here.

I have also joined a sort of web ring called Illustration Friday which is a wonderful idea where a topic is posted every week and then illustrations (art, drawings, paintings, etc) are submitted by hundreds of different artists. It's just like art class in high school. Back then we called it "Freestyle Fridays" which I always just loved. We could draw whatever we wanted (outside of our regular art class work) and post it on the board every Friday at the beginning of class and critique all the works. Illustration Friday is the same idea and I just love it.

I know what everyone is thinking. I've heard it a bit already. "Where does she get the time" or my favorite, "You must have a lot of free time on your hands". Well I don't (obviously). I'm very busy with the boys of course, and with my creating. It's simply just what I love to do so I make time to do it. I spend the majority of my day playing and doing stuff with the boys, running errands one day a week (sometimes 2) and I multitask (for lack of a better word) like crazy. The very second that the boys lie down to nap or sleep at night I'm in my craft room doing something. I also get up early and go to bed late. So that's what I do in a nut shell. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of "free time" on my hands.

Before-After

It was high time for a haircut. Ethan's hair has been driving me mad. Once it gets to a certain length, it starts sticking up in the back, and there is nothing you can do to get it to lay down. We had wanted to keep it a little longer than usual because all the boys now days, and the boys on his soccer team, keep longer hair do's. Well, a couple of games ago, I swear they all showed up with hair cuts making Ethan look like a scraggly wild guy. So today I wrestled him down, bribed him with some Halloween candy and finally cut his hair. It was messy, but it had to be done. Here is his dramatic before/after picture. See, doesn't he look much happier now that his hair is cut?

A Cowboy & an Elvis impersonator

We had a great Halloween despite the yucky early day weather. It pretty much rained for most of the day and it wasn't looking good. I was a little worried that the Halloween festivities would be a wash but luckily the weather changed into a pleasant, slightly chilly Halloween evening and night.

After spending the weekend sewing, ripping apart and re-sewing I think the boys' costumes turned out pretty good. I do have to say that no animals were harmed in the making of Ethan's outfit -only cotton and faux fabrics were used. Anyway, It was fun, but next year I will give myself more than the weekend before to make the costumes. You know me- can't do anything the easy way.

Ethan had a blast!! He is quite the friendly trick-or-treater. We had to remind him not to go inside the houses. We also had to restrict him to saying only "Trick-or-treat","Thank You" and "Happy Halloween". Otherwise, we'd be out all night just making it through one quarter of the homes on ONE street. If you get him going, pretty soon he's telling all sorts of stories about Isaak, our cat...you name it! He kind of lingered too. You know when the candy givers say "okay... have a good night" and Ethan, several minutes later, is still standing there staring into their big bowls of candy as if mesmerized. He's a hoot!! He made out like a bandit. A pretty good size bag filled with goodies. Surely he couldn't and shouldn't eat it all by himself. Thank goodness for mommy and daddy.