Point Sebago 2009

We just came back from our annual trip to Point Sebago, Maine, and while the weather didn't really cooperate with us for the entire week (2 days of full sun, 2 days of rain, 3 days overcast) we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless!

Izzie really enjoyed playing in the water and playing in the sand with her cousins and spending time with MEM.

And surprisingly enough, she enjoyed all of the characters and wasn't freaked out by them at all. She even gave kisses to each of them at the character breakfast on Friday morning. Which impressed the counselors that she so young and wasn't afraid.

As for updates, Sandy is STILL pregnant! Any day now (she hopes). As you can tell by the pictures... she is definitely pregnant and ready to go!!

More updates soon.

-JB

New Location, Same Great Stuff!

It's been a long time since our last post and things have been crazy.


So, here is a really quick update:

Izzie will be 18 months old at the end of July.

Sandy is now 8 months pregnant and is due on or around August 12th.

Daisy (our Beagle) turns 3 August 4th. Happy Birthday DAISY!

Wyatt (our Puggle) is a hyper 16 months old with no signs of settling down.

And they shut down our old blog website so, I had to find a new place to post our blogs and updates to keep everyone in the loop!


So, this will be our new site. I'll try to re-upload the old blogs to keep everything in one place. That way we can provide updates and keep a record of Baby #2 when he/she arrives as well!

Here's a picture of Izzie playing in the dog house in the backyard.





Since the dogs don't use it much, it might turn into a cute little play house for her. We'll see how much she likes it. Right now she steps on the "porch" and the pulls at the door molding, and then quickly starts whining because she needs help getting down. Good times!

I hope to provide more updates pictures soon.

And I'll be sure to post information about the new baby as soon as things progress!
-JB

Just Teething... We Think!

The past seven to ten days have been pretty brutal. Not in the fact that things are going badly or that any major changes have been happening, there is just one thing that has been making the last week or so really tough… Lack of Sleep!

Isabelle, is teething. At least we think she is teething. So, she has not been sleeping through the night very much since the Friday before last. She has been waking up between 1 and 3 a.m. a bit fussy and then when you settle her down, she just doesn’t want to go back to sleep, she’s ready to party. At her daycare, they actually call her “party-girl”, I hope that moniker goes away by the time she’s out of pre-school, God help me!

Whenever this happens, Daddy has night-time duty. So, I get up with her and I either bring her down into the living room and put her into the swing and we watch a little television, while Daddy tries to catch some more z’s on the couch. However, this method that used to work like a charm and lull her back to sleep has failed miserably in recent attempts.

She now begins throwing her binky and monkey blanket about the room and leans over and looks at me while I sleep on the couch with her arms dangling over the edge of the swing like a monkey swinging by its tail off a tree limb.

As cute as this really looks, it’s not so charming or cute at 3 in the morning.

The next phase after this 45 minute failed attempt is to bring her back upstairs to her room, and try to see if she’ll rock in the rocking chair for a few and put her cute little head on Daddy’s chest and fall asleep. Once again, in recent attempts, miserable failure!

Izzie pushes away from me and wants to get down and play with her toys and “read” her books. I mean why not, she’s wide awake right? So, I put her on the floor to play with her toys and she starts walking around her bedroom carrying any number of books or stuffed animals in a dizzying circular motion. I don’t know if the dizzying effort is for her, for me or to lull the stuffed animals into a false sense of security, but either way, my head starts spinning and Daddy needs to lie down on the floor.

While we are both now on the floor, Izzie starts handing books to me to read to her. I do my best to keep my eyes open and be at least mildly entertaining in the state I’m in. She usually gets bored rather quickly at my mediocre late night/early morning reading skills and takes the book from my hands barely halfway through and discards it immediately. She then picks up another book or toy and comes back over and basically sits on my chest or hip, bounces a few times, gives me a look and a giggle through her binky-filled mouth and goes back to playing with her chosen toy.

Our next fun step is cranky time. We’ve now been up around an hour and a half to two hours and we’re both getting sleepy again. Isabelle starts getting tired and rubbing her eyes. Daddy starts yawning and rubbing his watery eyes as well. It’s hard to tell which one of us is crankier at this point, but I’m going to have to lean toward Daddy.

Now, as much as you’re told not to give your baby a bottle in the middle of the night because they will get used to waking up to eat, you’ll do anything to get them to settle down and get back to sleep. To add to this, Isabelle hasn’t been eating very well lately because we think her teeth and mouth have been bothering her, so, she probably is waking up hungry as well, and that bottle isn’t going to hurt as far as I’m concerned.

And it’s a proven fact in the Daddy science book (that I am currently writing) that warm milk makes you sleepy and want to snuggle up with your stuffed animals. So, warm milk it is, and it usually does the trick. Lately, however, her awake times have been a little longer so, Sandy, aka Mommy, has been getting up at the four or five o’clock hour and giving Izzie the bottle.

To be honest, Mommy does have more of a magic touch when it comes to bedtime than Daddy does. It usually takes Mommy about 25-30 minutes to get Izzie back to sleep, and I welcome the peace and quiet and comfort of my bed after a long couple of hours awake in the middle of the night. Of course, getting back into bed and having to jockey for position with the two dogs is a story for another day.

What we did notice this weekend is that Isabelle’s two front teeth at the top that have come through, and two more on either side of her two front teeth are close behind. It also looks like two more bottom teeth on either side of her front teeth are on their way as well. Hopefully, when these come through, things will settle down a little bit and we can all get some sleep. Because I know I need it, and I’m sure everyone else in the house would benefit too!

Izzie's First Birthday

On Saturday, January 31st, Isabelle turned 1 year-old.
It’s amazing that it was a year ago that this beautiful little person came into this world. We are so happy, proud and grateful that she is ours!

For Izzie’s birthday we had a party at Grandma and Granpa Jenkins house or ”The Plantation”, as it is affectionately known. But first, we were off to do some sledding at the local sledding hill. The weather was bright and sunny, but a little on the chilly side so, everything was a bit frozen and icey. And as a result, some of the sledding tubes were sacrificed quite quickly… one on the first ride down the hill.

However, we carried on with the other sleds we had, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Isabelle went down the hill a few times with Daddy and it seemed to enjoy the speed and excitement. She was all smiles (I’ll have to remember that when she wants her first car!!!).

We then went back to The Plantation for pizza, cake and ice cream which Izzie definitely enjoyed!

Izzie then opened her birthday gifts with Mommy’s help and decided in the Letter Box that Grandma and Granpa Jenkins gave her was the place to be!


Izzie (and Mom and Dad) would like to thank everyone for coming to the party and making it very special. And also thank you for all of the great gifts, you were all extremely generous… Thank you so much!

MILESTONES:
Izzie is definitely walking by herself now. She started taking a few steps at a time, the week before her first birthday, but now is definitely walking around the house all on her own. She even catches her balance mid-walk, stops, and then keeps going without falling down. Regardless, it’s pretty fun to watch. On the other hand, she’s getting in to just about everything she can get her hands on. She’s alot taller than you think she is!

She is starting to say words for objects and of course “Mama” and “Dada”. “Bye bye” is a favorite and as always “Daisy” seems to be at the top of her list. She actually said “Bye Bye Dada” the other morning when Jeff went out to shovel and “Hi Mama” when she sees Sandy. It’s all pretty amazing.

Izzie also went for her 1 year physical and Dr. Natale said she looks great. She’s in the 95th percentile for height and head circumference and in the 75th percentile for weight. So, she’s right on track to be tall just like Mommy! She was such a trooper when they took blood from her finger, she just sat and watched and didn’t even cry. What a big girl!

And lastly, a third tooth has started to show… her top left front tooth has poked through the gums, but there is no sign of the right front tooth just yet. So, Izzie might have a professional hockey player look for a little while! GO BRUINS!

Long Time... No Update... Oops

Hi Everyone,
Well, it’s been a long time since I did an update (shame on me) so here goes.
Alot has been going on with Isabelle… so lets see if I can do a quick recap of the last two and a half to three months:

October… Isabelle was a pretty little princess for Halloween. We went to Auntie Karen’s house in Salem in Witchcraft Heights to go Trick or Treating. We had lots of fun, however, Isabelle was soundly asleep by just after 7. Unfortunately on that night, she wasn’t much of a party animal!

November… Izzie had a great time on Thanksgiving, eating turkey and mashed ‘potaters’ at Grandma and Grandpa B’s house. Then we were off to cousin Carol and Charlie’s for dinner in JP. It was a long day of running around, but she did find time to do a little dusting in her pretty red dress, as well as find out she had a new cousin coming! (Sandy’s brother Jon and his girlfriend Jane are expecting in May, YAY!)

December… Izzie and her “sister” Daisy got a new little “brother” Wyatt in December. Wyatt is a Puggle (Pug/Beagle mix) that we rescued from another family who couldn’t take care of him any longer. Daisy and Wyatt have been getting along great with Izzie while she sits and plays on the floor. They give her kisses and let her crawl over them… but Wyatt does enjoy stealing Izzie’s binky… but he gives it right back like a good little brother.

Izzie has also moved from the “bucket” rear-facing car seat to a “big girl” front facing car seat. She loves driving around and looking out the windows as we drive from place to place.
On another note, on December 10, Izzie had tubes put in her ears at the Salem Surgicenter. Izzie was getting ear infections every few weeks so we decided it was a good idea to get the tubes put in. Everything went well and Isabelle did great. The doctors said she didn’t even cry the entire time she was in the Operating room. She just watched them (I think she gets that from Daddy). We had to stay in recovery a little extra time due to the type of anesthesia they used, but other than that, she came through with flying colors.

Izzie’s first Christmas is getting close, and it should be fun. We’ve set up the Christmas tree and surprisingly, she hasn’t really paid much attention to it. The only thing she has done is sit in front of it and push on one of the low branches to make it bounce up and down… and then she moved on. Really cute, and interesting that she didn’t do much more.

Isabelle also just got her first Gym Membership. She’s a member of “The Little Gym” in Woburn. She has a weekly class on Saturday’s where she rolls on the mat, and tries to walk on the balance beam. She gets to play with balls and hoola hoops and sings with about 12 other kids around her age. She loves it (sometimes). I’ll try to get some pictures of that for you soon.
Have a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!
I hope to have more pictures and videos soon.