We celebrated Owen's third birthday today at home with several of his buddies. Here are a few pictures from the festivities.
My friend Lindsey helped with face painting
Owen with his good friends Ryan and Caitlin
Owen requested a 'CARS' theme for his birthday party
Last week I volunteered in Tatum's classroom and was able to snap a few pictures of the kids in action.
Tatum, decorating her cookie for the Valentine's Day Celebration
Kayleigh, Tatum and Sean playing "house"
Both Isaac and I love his exersaucer! When he's well fed and rested he will play in this contraption for up to an hour, especially when his big brother and sister are around to keep him company. 
Isaac HEARTS Sophie the giraffe!! This is by far his favorite toy to chew on.
Isaac also enjoys his bouncy seat and has become quite skilled at bouncing himself by pumping his legs up and down.
Owen's Little Gym class recently celebrated the end of the semester. The kiddos showed off their skills, while the parents were invited to take pictures. It was fun to see how much Owen has improved behaviorally and skill-wise since early September.
Owen demonstrated doing a somersault in front of the class. He's still working on tucking his chin to his chest :-). 
Receiving his award from teacher Charlene
Owen's favorite skill is probably Monkey Jumps
A couple nights ago when Isaac was chatting up a storm and practicing his newly discovered "cough", I whipped out my camera to capture him on video. As soon as I started recording, Isaac went completely silent, however, attention starved (not really) Tatum and Owen decided to jump in front of the camera. I'm not sure if my favorite part is when Owen flashes me a close-up of his smile, or when I ask Owen to make his brother laugh and he decides to loudly yell in Isaac's face. Anyway, here is the end result!
How can this be? Isaac hit the five month mark on the 29th of December. Our little guy continues to grow before my eyes! He's doing very well, especially now that he is over his Christmas vacation cold. As Isaac has gotten older, he's definitely become a less fussy baby. When we first brought him home, he would scream over every diaper change, outfit change and when putting him in the bath...he has since outgrown that, but looking back it was an early indicator of his personality. Isaac, like his older sister tends to have sensitive senses. He has a very tough time napping when we are on the go (there's just too much external stimulation), and with two older children were are on the go frequently. For Isaac, I think not having a consistent schedule during the day is contributing to our inconsistent sleeping pattern at night. On a good night I get about five hours straight. I'm really not bothered by this though....I know his crazy sleeping pattern will work itself out. He's also recently decided not to take a pacifier or bottle. He'll only nurse, suck on his fingers or thumb or suck on my fingers. I'm hoping with the introduction of rice cereal, he might change his mind about a bottle. At the very least, once he starts on cereal, I'll be able to get away for longer periods of time on my own!
In five short little months Isaac has brought an abundant amount of joy to our lives. His bright smile and sweet laugh is incredibly contagious. As I carry him around on my hip I can't help but kiss his little bald head. We are so blessed!
Isaac and Laine. His very first solo play-date with my good friend Amanda's first baby, born in October.
Wow! Is it really January already? What a whirlwind the last month has been! As much as I love the holidays, I must admit I'm ready to move forward and start fresh in 2010. The following posts are a few highlights from the past month.
This photo just about sums up our Christmas day. OK, so it wasn't completely a disaster, but it was definitely an exhausting 24 hours. We spent the day at my Mom's, but Isaac was not having it. He cried (screamed is probably more appropriate) most of the day. He had come down with a cold a couple days prior and was running a fever...that along with all the commotion of Christmas had him over the edge most of the day. We got home that evening around 6:30 and I was thrilled to have the kids to bed early and a little quiet time to myself. However, that was very short-lived. Both Tatum and Owen spent the entire night (and that's not an exaggeration) throwing-up. I was counting down the hours until Scott came home in the morning. We pulled through and finally everyone in our household is healthy again! Here's to good health in 2010!!
This year Santa came to our house one day early on Christmas Eve since he knew Daddy would be working a 24 hour shift on Christmas Day. We spent the entire day at home which was very nice and then went to my Mom and Clint's that night to have a sleep-over. Since Scott was going to be gone to work we thought it would be fun to wake up Christmas morning at Grandma and Papa's!
Trying out some of the goodies Santa left in their stockings
We were lucky enough to have Auntie Ray-Ray join our Christmas morning celebration!
Tatum and Owen received adorable cooking aprons in the mail on the 23rd of December from my Aunt Mary...just in time to make cookies for Santa!
Owen woke up just in time from his nap to help with some of the taste testing.
Thank you Aunt Mary for the aprons and very cool cooking tools!
