I am far from a great photographer, but thanks to improvements in phone camera technology, these pictures turned out really great! My good friend Sara is opening up a store where she makes and sells stuff with this laser cutter thing called a glowforge. She was kind enough to make the adorable name tag prop that I absolutely love.
Gotta show off that handsome little baby bod
Got some clothes on
And then... the bow tie! We had so many babies born this summer that the Relief Society started dropping off little boy ties for the baby boys. There was another baby boy in the ward born the same week as Isaac.
I can't get over how cute the bow tie is
"Oh, look! there's a nice light over there!"
"Why do you keep trying to get me to hold this wood thing?"
"Why yes, I am a little gentleman"
"High five!"
Most of the other pictures of Isaac in existence have been taken by Elliot. He is constantly asking for my phone to document every smile his brother makes.
Sleepy baby with our favorite "there's a new sheriff in town" onesie
Elliot's love language is drawings that he cuts out and gives to people. Annie gets pictures of cats taped to her crib, I got a cute picture of Harry Potter taped to my wall, and Aaron got a card with a picture of peanut butter and a laptop.
I get these delivered to me several times a day. It is common for a paper heart or two to be slipped under the bathroom door to let me know he misses me during our time apart.
My Harry Potter picture
Aaron told Elliot that he would be done working in a few minutes. Elliot came downstairs and wrote this math equation to convert minutes to seconds. And of course he had to cut it out because that's how he operates.
Elliot asked dad to explain all the symbols on the calculator to him. Now we find pi symbols around the house, and he'll tell us "this e is euler's number!"
We have been cutting up fruits and veggies for dinner. I let Elliot arrange them into a "fruit pattern." He made this stick puppet that he likes to wave at me while I'm cooking.
A fruit pattern in the making
Aaron has been teaching Elliot some basic coding using a website called scratch. They have made a couple games together.
Grumpa Donuts! There is a picture of my dad in the 70's that you move back and forth with the arrow keys to catch donuts falling from the sky. Elliot made the sound effects. It's pretty cute. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/398930530
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Elliot took this great picture of Isaac smiling. He now texts it to Mimi several times a week.
He also gets a huge kick out of photographing his feet (yes, I punned on purpose) He laughs his head off whenever he looks at this picture. Boy humor.
The builder boy, and a bit of my toes that he painted for me
Elliot is really good at reading. I taught him the basics and went through Bob books over a year ago, but with cousins here and the baby coming, I haven't spent much time having him read to me. I sat him down a few weeks ago and had him read a book with me, and he read WAY more than I thought he could. It turns out that he has been practicing reading by himself in his room at night. I got him some beginner comic books from the library which have been a huge hit. He loves the Bad Guys series by Aaron Blabey. He is now at the point where he can and will read books without me sitting next to him. He doesn't get all the words, but he is great at guessing based on context. It warms my heart to see him curled up with a book, laughing to himself.
He falls asleep curled around our illustrated Harry Potter book most nights. In the morning he will tell me things like "MOM! The last chapter in the Prisoner of Azkaban is called "Owl Post Again!"
Elliot's 2 weeks of swim lessons were pretty much our only social interaction in the past month. Elliot didn't want to put his head under the water at first, but as soon as he started counting how long he could hold his breath, he got a lot more enthusiastic. His record is 12 seconds.
Pillow piles are a common site around here. And pillow forts. And pillow beds.
Elliot's cousin Aaron made a mold book. I showed Elliot pictures of it on Facebook, and he immediately decided to make his own one.
Aaron wrote some of the captions, but Elliot added more on his own.
Every week at home church, we make goals as a family. We put Elliot in charge of making the goal sheet. This one came with pictures of ideas for goals. My favorite is "no punching."
It is so fun watching Elliot grow up and become more independent. And it is so nice having a kid who can pour his own milk!
It is so fun watching Annie's big personality emerge. Annie is 100% girl and just a delight to be around. Here's a dump of my favorite Annie pictures from the past half year or so.
My favorite Annie outfit
Vigorously pretending to be asleep
This was shortly after Annie learned that nail polish existed. Needless to say it was life changing.
Don't believe this face- having that cat painted on her arm at Mila Barnett's birthday party was one of the best things that has ever happened to her
The cousin salon! Note Tata's job of guarding the box of supplies against Ethan
After the cousins left, Annie had to start persuading Elliot to paint her nails. He's pretty good at it!
She went through a phase where she would only wear dresses or skirts. Girlz got twilz
Not quite the use of the flower prop I had in mind, but we'll go with it
She LOVES watching people put on makeup. I let her pretend to put some on using the smudger end of my eye shadow
The inevitable mess of Annie getting into my mascara. Luckily we caught her fast so it wasn't too bad.
This gal is always willing to help. And she does not ever let anyone go to the garden without her tagging along.
Annie LOVES Isaac. The week before he was born, she fell asleep with her blanket stuffed up her shirt to make a pretend baby bump. Then in the morning she would snuggle with me in bed and "baby sally" would be born for us to snuggle with. Having a real baby is even better!
Isaac joining her for snuggles during the bedtime song
This girl and her smile. I can't even handle it.
This is bound to be our most quoted video of all time. Here's the transcript:
Aaron: "What was in your Dream, Annie?"
Annie: "Not any more dweams!"
Aaron: "What happened in your last dream?
Annie [with Aaron's prompts removed]: "I falled on the ground. I grabbed on the airplane. The whole trampoline broke. I go back in my house. I cut the watermelon and then I say, you not supposed to be in da watermelon cat! And then I say, you can't be in the watermelon! It fell in the hole. Then a doggie... then i used the broom to close it all up. I drink some water."
I feel like we have been on a reverse vacation where we never leave the house and everyone comes to visit us instead. One week after my Mom left, Max & Morgan came to visit. Max's capstone film was shown in a film festival in Southern Utah, and they decided to come on down to visit us since they were already about halfway here. Max has been working remotely, so he brought his big fancy computer and worked a few hours a day while he was here.
My kids love their goofy uncle Max
A hit game that Max made up had them taking turns being a sleeping mummy who would wake up and chase them through invisible booby traps in the tomb. And of course we spent lots of evenings playing games, including Max Johnson originals like Ramshackle Rover and Illuminati Prom. I love being related to creative people. And to good cooks. Morgan and Max cooked for us several times. Their Korean chicken nugget sandwiches were the tastiest form of chicken I have ever had the pleasure to consume.
I recruited Morgan to help me shave off Isaac's mullet
Elliot volunteered to document the event. Hence the strange angles.
Annie recruited Morgan to be her personal stylist. I'm impressed that she got braids into her super fine hair!
The last day that they were here was Max's birthday. Morgan made him a giant 4 layer red velvet cake. It was delicious but SO BIG. After they left, the top two layers slid off in the fridge and got frosting all over. What a delicious mess. We ended up giving away huge chunks of cake to friends because we couldn't eat it all.
One week after Max & Morgan left, Mary's family came down from Gilbert for a weekend to be there when we blessed Isaac. Even though it was just her family plus Bishop Nielson there in person, we were able to have almost all of both of our families join us in a video call.
The gaggle of kids talking to their cousins after the blessing
The kids had an absolute blast with their Mimi while we were at the hospital, and for a whole two weeks afterwards! She came prepared with a bunch of activities for the kids, which were all huge successes.
Kitchen Science Experiments! This one with milk and food coloring was awesome.
A small sample of Annie's new dress ups
Princess nail polish! This girl would be happy painting her nails multiple times every day. Which she did do while Mimi was here.
We now have a song called "Annie likes to paint her little nails" that she frequently requests for her bedtime song.
The daily ritual of helping Mimi put on her makeup
Not pictured are the thumbprint art books and Settlers of Catan Seafarers. Needless to say, everyone was amply entertained!
The main event of Mimi's stay was the Peach Palooza! Our peach tree was in full production mode. Mimi went out and harvested 2 or 3 huge bowls of peaches every day and created a non-stop flow of delicious peach creations. I now have a section of my recipe binder dedicated to things I can make with peaches thanks to my mom's diligent research and experimentation.
Picking peaches a day or two before Isaac was born. They are SO JUICY AND DELICIOUS.
Mimi up a ladder doing her morning harvest
We made so many batches of peach leather! This stuff is so addicting. It dries outside for a day, and then we cut it into strips and roll it up in the press and seal plastic wrapper.
The mastermind behind all our peach operations! The netting worked to keep critters off the fruit leather. We used cans of beans to keep the netting off of the leather.
"Take a picture of me too mom!"
Pork chops with Peach glaze and peach bisque
Balsamic peach pizza with peach salad
We also made peach muffins, peach oatmeal, and froze several large bags for smoothies. After all of that and eating as many as we could every day, we still had a hard time getting through them all. We ended up giving a bunch away to ward members and neighbors. Peach time is quickly becoming one of my favorite times of the year, especially when my mom is here to put in hours a day processing the peaches!
