A two-binky kind of day

Zay wouldn't take a nap today so he was super cranky. Apparently one binky wasn't enough because I found him a few times with TWO in his mouth at once...

Our little farmer

Okay he's not really a farmer at all, but I love little kids in overalls! Once I added the sepia tone to the picture it made me think he was on a farm somewhere, rather than in our backyard where the only things growing are weeds where the grass should be and grass where the barkdust should be.

Zay still isn't talking much, but he's working on learning some new signs. He can do milk, more, book, and all done pretty consistently. He also made up his own sign for mad. Sort of. I didn't want to be yelling at him all the time (just some of the time...) so when he frustrates me I clench my fists and sort of growl at no one in particular. Then one day we were reading a book and a cartoon guy in the book was mad and when Isaiah saw it he clenched his fists and growled. It was pretty funny. So he does that whenever he hears the word "mad" but it's always with a smile while he waits for us to laugh at his adorableness!

The toddler bed. Ugh.

Since we'll be needing our crib for #2 in a little while, we are working on switching ZayZay to a toddler bed. As you can see it's a pretty slow process. Here he is sleeping behind the bedroom door (he can't open doors yet so he gets up, cries, then comes and stands at the door and knocks) where he apparently fell back to sleep during a nap. The spot on the floor is also just about as far away from the toddler bed as you can get. He mostly does okay if he falls asleep elsewhere and we put him in the bed after he's asleep, but of course it would be nicer if we could just put him in there and he put himself to sleep. I'm hopeful it will happen someday since he used to do that in his crib, but if anyone wants to cross their fingers for us we'd appreciate it! Once we get him sleeping better we'll move him to his new room (the old office which I finally finished painting) and #2 will take his place in the nursery.

Cute kid?

Sometimes I think it's so obvious that Jerel and I produced a beautiful child.  But then I remember when I was a kid, I used to babysit for this lady who had 5 kids.  They were not attractive children.  I mean, personalities were fine, but they weren't the best to look at.  Not that that matters because of course I always judge on the heart rather than the outward appearance, I'm just saying with near complete objectivity that her children weren't cute.  Anyway, one night she came home after I babysat and she said "You know before I had kids I used to worry I'd have ugly kids.  But now that I have them, I mean jeez, they're gorgeous!  I don't know why I ever worried!"  I smiled and nodded but immediately started worrrying myself.  Not that I'd have ugly kids, but that I'd have ugly kids and think they were cute...

Anyway, here's Isaiah and I'm just saying I think he's gorgeous!  My friend Erika took some family pictures for us yesterday and they turned out so cute!  I can't post them all yet because one of them will be for our Thanksgiving cards this year and I don't want to spoil the surprise.  But Isaiah is so cute I had to post just one!

Also, thanks to Rick & Ivy--do you recognize his outfit?  Calvin Klein sweater (which Jerel loves) and Kenneth Cole jeans, both of which formerly belonged to cousin Cooper.  We love hand-me-downs and now that Zay is growing out of 12 month into 18 month he wears Cooper clothes almost exclusively!

Spoiled baby boy!

Here's Isaiah getting spoiled by grandma Atkinson...we make him drink milk & water. He doesn't even get juice. So here he is in the backseat with Grandma having "just a tiny bit" of her chocolate milkshake (I'm estimating he drank at least half of it). He wasn't too excited about being in the car after the 5-hour drive to Freedom WY one day and the same drive back the next day, so I guess a little treat was in order!

By the way, Zay's mom is spoiled too--Jerel got me a GPS for my birthday!  I used it when I went to the post office, Rite Aid, and Home Depot the other day...all of these are places I go frequently and know exactly where they are, but it was fun to have someone telling me "turn right in 100 feet" and such!  It's a cool one that does some sort of bluetooth feature so you can answer your phone by touching the GPS or something...oh wait, that's only if you have bluetooth on your phone, which I don't, guess it's time to upgrade!

ZayZay's first airplane ride

Isaiah LOVES airplanes so we thought he'd LOVE his first airplane ride, but as it turns out he didn't really seem to get how exciting it was. We flew to Utah for Jerel's grandpa's funeral and I was so glad we got to fly! Jerel still thinks driving would've been easier (for his 15 month old? for his 7-months-pregnant wife? for him having to drive all night long? I'm not sure.) It was a bit of a pain hauling his carseat around the airport, but since I'm a carseat nazi we had to bring it. Turned out handy on the plane because it wasn't full so they let Isaiah have his own seat and once we took off he seemed to think it was just another boring car ride and he slept the whole way there. Definitely a relief, especially since we'd been delayed two hours and were both running out of patience with him!

On a related note, Zay is moving from the nursery to his new bedroom soon ("soon" meaning whenever I'm finally done painting it) and we're going with an airplane theme. The top of the walls will be a sky blue, the bottom a tan color, and then on the top half on one wall will be a huge red airplane decal. I decided I like the idea of the airplane theme but I want everything airplane-related to be easily removable so that when Zay decides he's too cool for airplanes I'm not stuck repainting or anything. At some point I'll probably make him some airplane bedding or curtains or something, but he doesn't even use bedding yet so that seems silly. Anyway, stay tuned for exciting before and after pics of his new room!