Kristen’s Blog

Isaac is growing into a little boy before our eyes.  He seems to be eating as much as we do and has seemed to sprout a couple inches over the last month.  Not sure what his height actually is at this point, however we are told on the playground that he is as tall as some of the 18 month kids he plays with.  Yikes… Maybe Jeff’s hope for a kid that played in the NBA isn’t so far out of reach.  Heh.

Isaac loves buttons.  Laptops, cameras, cell phones, game consoles, remote controls, you name it, you can’t have it around if he is near you or he’ll want it.  This is why many of the pictures we have been taking of Isaac have been in his high chair- so he can’t get the camera’s buttons. 

Isaac started covering his eyes to play peek a boo.  It was darling when he did this the first time.

Here he is reading one of his favorite books with Dad.  The book is called “What do You Say?”  This page asks, “What do you say to a cat?” and Isaac says “kitty” because I think he has forgotten what a kitty says, but he can say “kitty.”  Last night he said that a snake says “SSSssssssss” and a donkey says “He ha” and I was very impressed. 

Here, Isaac is demonstrating his love of buttons.  We had to move our DVD player from this spot and put in a game console that doesn’t work so he can push the buttons and not mess anything up.  Silly kid.  This infatuation can be quite annoying and hopefully he’ll get over it before too long.

On another note, Isaac started blowing kisses this week.  We were working on it for a while a couple months ago, but I think Nana must have been working on it while I was at work one day.  How sweet it is!  He blew Grandma kisses yesterday when we left their house after she watched him all day.

Look at all those teeth!  He has had several more break through this week.

Isaac seems to have his tongue out of his mouth most of the time.  My Grandpa Van Corbach always seemed to have his tongue out of his mouth, and my dad and sister often do the same.  I am not aware how much I do it, but now I think I’ll be alert to that one.

This is a picture I caught of him playing in his room the other night.  He was taking that little green dinosaur toy and making move on the floor like a car.  It is fun to see him realizing how things move and work. 

I finished the album last night.  It is a good feeling it is finally complete.  I want to Celebrate.  But maybe I’ll just start my next album.

Isaac isn’t feeling well.  He either has a cold, has allergies, or is teething something fierce.  Poor kid.  The humidifier is cranked up, and he is still fussing.  I need to get some sleep as I am probably up for a long night ahead.  We have taken some really cute pictures lately of him.  These were taken on spaghetti  night.  The kid LOVES spaghetti!

I’ll post more when I can.  Night night.

I have nearly completed our wedding scrapbook.  I AM SO EXCITED!!!  I have been working on this project for several years now.  It has not been my only project, but the one looming over my head for the longest time.  WOO HOO!  The last page I am going to be doing is a professional picture taken during our 5th year of marriage.  A milestone for us, looking back on all we had done together by that time:  I had completed my education, Jeff was starting grad school, we had lived in Redondo Beach and Santa Barbara, we had attended 2 churches, and we had decided it was necessary to not only learn to live with each other in marriage, but to also invest in each other as husband and wife.  We had learned how to not tick each other off, but were learning how to lean on each other and how to encourage each other to be the best version of what God has designed us to be. 

I worked in Santa Barbara on Valentine’s Day this year and made it home just shy of 7pm.  It never fails- every Valentine’s Day one of us is either sick or working.  I was happy to be working and not sick this year.  We celebrated Valentine’s Day with my sister, mom, dad, and Isaac.  When I arrived at my parent’s house Isaac was playing in the backyard, throwing rocks in the pond.  He loves it back there.  My dad was BBQ’ing filet mignon and Isaac was having a good ol’ time running around the backyard.   Dinner was great and I was happy to finally be home. 

It has been a long week this week.  I am happy to be off work today and home with Isaac.  We were folding laundry this morning and Isaac was helping.  He took 3 socks and rubbed them together like he was folding them.  Too cute.  What a good helper.  We went on a long walk this morning to the grocery store and we will probably go to the park after lunch.  He loves to be outside.  It is a nice day today, too.  I saw on the weather report it will be in the high 70’s tomorrow and better yet through the weekend.  I’ll have to get Isaac some shorts or he’ll roast.

I am still not thrilled with our digital camera.  I am hoping to get some good picts of Isaac one of these days.

We are gearing up for the Super Bowl this afternoon.  We will join some friends for food and football.  I heard somewhere last year that Super Bowl Sunday rivals Thanksgiving for food consumed on one day.  Yikes.  Apparently Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day for the avocado growers.  On a serious note, it is also one of the worst days to be on the roads next to New Years Eve for drunk drivers being on the roads.   So drive safe.

We are dropping Isaac off at Nana and Papa’s house because still seems to be recovering from being sick.  That way we can watch the game.

This morning Isaac woke up rather early, thus we were all up early.  Jeff left for work sometime around 7am and Isaac and I had breakfast, he a bath, me a shower, and off we went.  We bundled up and set off for the gas station, grocery store, and car wash.  It amazes me what Isaac hears that we have been so accustomed to tuning out.  As we were walking in to the store, he signed “bird.”  So I stopped, listened, and realized he was hearing birds outside the store.  He had a huge smile on his face when he realized what he was hearing and that he was doing the right sign for bird.  Until today, he was getting that sign mixed up with the sign for kitty.  He will say “kitty” all day long, but doesn’t remember the sign.  When I praised him and told him how smart he was for signing “bird” he started signing the other signs he knows.  First airplane, then baby, and then car.  The car one was funny because he heard a beeping noise in the store that sounded like a car.  When we turned the corner I saw that it was a forklift for moving pallets of groceries.  To him it was a car.  Okay Isaac, it is a car.

The last 3 places we have lived we have had problems with noisy neighbors.  It is the music penetrating the walls that leaves us climbing the walls.  It started in Santa Barbara where we tried, ever so politely, to ask the neighbor to turn down the music.  Then we had to ask them to turn off the sub woofer.  The guy refused.  The plates continued to rattle off our walls.  We repeatedly asked him to lower the volume and it never was resolved until we moved.  When we moved to Santa Maria, we had some really nice guys living above us that liked to watch movies at high volume.  Not fully recovered from the horrible experience in Santa Barbara, I really wanted to be extra nice to these guys before making my request for a quieter evening.  I made Chocolate Chip Cookies and took Jeff with me to deliver them.  The guys willingly and easily obliged our request.  What single guy could refuse Chocolate Chip Cookies?  This brings us to our current situation.

We occasionally hear our neighbors next door, but not with any frequency and not with annoying beats or rhythms.  Last night at 10:00 I heard Enya blaring through Isaac’s wall, and then again this morning.  While the music is soothing, it is still too loud for my taste.  It is at a level in Isaac’s room that I would be comfortable listening to on my own stereo.   Isaac can sleep well to it being that it is Enya, but that is not the point.  I am trying to figure out what my next peace offering should be before asking for a quieter condo.

This is one of the reasons I am growing tired of condo/apartment living.