dave was very excited to find that one of his anemones split - that's one of the ways they reproduce. i don't know if you can see it without knowing what you're looking for, but here it is in process

i just discovered i had his weight wrong - he's actually 14lbs 11 oz which is a whole lot closer to 15 pounds. and i switched his percentiles - he's 95 in weight and off the charts in height. i'm getting some strong arms. well actually just my right arm is getting pretty cut, the left is not really getting a work out.

isn't he cute??

proof that we really do eat vegetables

ellen and her friend nevaeh playing together

Isaiah and I both slept 9 hours last night!!!

isaiah weighs a whopping 14 lbs 1 oz and is 25 3/4 inches long. that puts him in the 95th percentile for height and 100th for weight. holy moly. as you may have guessed, we had another dr. appt today. but it went quite well. i can't remember if i mentioned before that we saw our old doctor's partner one day unexpectedly. i thought we were supposed to see the first doctor but because of when it was scheduled, we saw the other one. after i got over being a bit perturbed that i wasn't told we wouldn't be seeing our normal doctor, i was thrilled with him. he's prompt, nice, encouraging and just overall seems like a wonderful doctor. i've scheduled all of isaiah's and ellen's appointments with him now, which is nice because i really like the nurse. so if isaiah hadn't had to get shots it would have been a completely nice dr. visit. although there was a tense moment when i heard the first doctor talking in the hall and tried to hide a bit so i wouldn't have to tell her i was going to her partner now. :) we went to a local fruit stand tonight and bought some outstanding fruit at outstanding prices. we all gorged ourselves on the strawberries on the way home. they're so good they almost don't even taste like strawberries. if i would have had the camera you could have seen ellen's face and hands dyed completely red from strawberry juice.

Grandpa kevin came to visit this past weekend. we came up with a good name for him - pasta (like pasta kevin) inspired by our eating pasta and chicken for dinner... *these were supposed to be part of yesterdays post, but Isaiah asked for some help falling back asleep and lo and behold i fell asleep too.

but it was vetoed

cutie pie ellen

dave did more yard work this past weekend...

ellen fell asleep watching

i found a slug hanging from a thread like a spider the other day. i didn't know they did that.

i went to a demarle party tonight - anyone every heard of that before? this was my first time. it's cookware - baking stuff mostly. pretty cool stuff - everything is made of plastic or silicone or something so it's flexible. but the good part is that you can't really burn anything and you don't really have to scrub at it. nothing sticks. but it is pretty expensive so i just looked. tomorrow i go to a "stamp it up" party. that should be interesting. yesterday ellen put on dave's red baseball hat backwards and said she was going to work. she asked for her shoes to be put on and told me she was going to work in the garage with the fish. today i asked her something (can't remember what) and it sounded like she said "ummmm i forgot." she cracks me up.

ellen thinks her middle name is carrots :)

ellen's first tree climbing experience also over last thanksgiving (that's aunt sheri putting her up there)

i just rediscovered this picture taken over thanksgiving of jill receiving a reward for ???? do you remember jill?

funny ellen things

....when dave was going to work today, ellen said "bye, love" ...when I asked her what daddy's name was she said "budd" (neither one of us has ever prompted her with that answer) ...she told me her first unprompted story today about dave taking her on a tricycle ride and she tipped over (granted the entire story consisted of me asking if she had fun and she said "yep. tip over." ...isaiah said his first word tonight - "snuggle" it sounded exactly like how ellen says it.

ellen holding george in the pouch in exactly the way i hold isaiah

ellen got some new bug friends. at first they were scary (gary!) but now they're okay. its kinda funny to see her playing with them and then run away from a lady bug screaming gary! gary! im not sure where the fear of bugs came from

one of isaiah's favorite sleeping places

today was nice - i got to sleep in and have a nap (sorta - isaiah didn't fully cooperate with the nap). and in the afternoon we drove around a bit looking at all of the beautiful country around our house. first we stopped at a new store that dave discovered recently...Wilco. apparently its a farm store. he was excited because a lot of the stuff he wants/needs for fish is there for really cheap. it seems its a good strategy to try to think of all the various industries that might sell whateverit is you need and look around. there was a pond there that was retailing for less than dave can get it wholesale from his pet industry suppliers. anyway, he took us all there because they had chicks and ducklings for sale. very cute. we almost bought the ducklings, but came home to do a bit of research first and decided that it was probably better to wait until the kids were closer to school age for a pet. suprisingly enough, i'm really not interested in taking care of something else right now. ellen actually punished herself tonight. dave told her not to touch the swing when isaiah was in it, and after i took him out she pushed it once. i didn't really think anything of it and walked away. next thing we hear ellen is yelling "daddy!" (more like da-eee!) and she's standing in the corner! so we went with it and turned on the timer for a little bit. she stood in the corner for something else later that night and when i told her trouble was over and she could get out she kissed the wall before coming over to talk to me.

i think isaiah is finally up to par health-wise! hopefully i'm not speaking too soon. his diaper rash is finally gone (by the way - the first one that i had to go off dairy and citrus for went away as soon as i put some hydrocortisone on him. he got another one that took another week or so to get rid of. the magic for this one was "butt paste" like desitin - but better). his eyes are clear (tear duct issues) and his belly button seems to be okay (it took forever to fall off and looked like it was getting infected for a bit there. whew! it's amazingly exciting not to have anything to treat!

our lawn has gotten somewhat out of control...

the grass proved to be too much for the lawn mower...

dave decided to weed whack the grass forest

ellen and i went to the park on a "play date" with a friend from school and her son. somehow i didn't get any pictures of them. but ellen was rather excited to draw in the sand. this is the first park we've been to up here that had sand instead of bark-a-mulch

dave decided to experience the pouch

isaiah snoozing through the last class of the semester

isaiah's a happy little dude. we tried to get a good picture of him smiling but he's also a wiggly little dude.

isaiah talks to me everytime we make eye contact

thanks to Luann's library friends for the clothes!

ellen fell asleep in her high chair for the first time this week. she conked out at 6:30 and was out until the next morning

ellen playing dress up with dave's shoes