For your viewing pleasure

It's tough to hear, but Leah does make a hiccup noise in this next video. It's just that Isaac's hiccups are so loud that you can't hear hers above them. Oh, and Sesame Street is on in the background, which is why she is so distracted.

Family visit and Easter

We've had lots of pictures in limbo lately, and so there's a bit of a backlog for posting. Jared's parents came to visit in the beginning of the month and spent a week with us over Easter. We are terrible at taking pictures, but I stole the ones below from Jared's dad. My sister also visited for a week, but I've yet to hijack those photos from her. (Hint hint, Jess, send me pictures.)

So I finally snagged Jared's computer (which is where these pictures were stored) and decided to post them up for your viewing pleasure. Since there's so many, I'll try to let the pictures speak for themselves.

How to eat a deviled egg...

The Easter Bunny came!

And he (she?) brought me spoons and forks!

Hanging with Lambie

Multiple attempts at a family photo and this was the best we got.

Leah really enjoyed Easter because she had both sets of grandparents and her Aunt Jess in our house all at the same time. She loved having everybody's attention and would try to include each person in whatever she was doing. What a sweetie.

We took a trip to one of Jared's preserves down on Matagorda Bay and spent a few nights at the lodge there.

This picture has a long story behind it. The shortened version is that there were lots of pigs, and then there were fewer pigs. Leah gave out high-fives for the job well done and then told the pigs "Night-night."

We loved having our visitors and Leah couldn't get enough of her Mom-mom and Dad-dad. We're very much looking forward to our next visit.

Poor Little Isaac

The first two to three weeks of Isaac's life were so easy. He slept all the time with the exception of when he needed to eat. And then things started to change. He was fussy more often. He was taking longer to get back to sleep during the night. He wouldn't sleep for long periods throughout the day (more than 20 minutes) without crying and needing to be soothed back to sleep. He would cry to eat and then cry even more when I would feed him. He burped constantly, spit up, and projectile vomited daily. He was, in general, an unhappy baby. After talking with a friend who's baby was just diagnosed with acid reflux, I looked up the symptoms and realized that Isaac had them all. So off to the doctor we went and he was diagnosed with a classic case of acid reflux. For now he is on Maalox and Prevacid and within a few days we have to call the doctor to let her know how it's working. The first two days he was on the meds showed some really positive results, but today was a complete regression. He screamed most of the day, wouldn't sleep, and spit up all over me. Poor kid. At this point, we'll be evaluating him for a few more days and if nothing changes, then he will be put on an additional prescription medication to help make him comfortable. In the meantime, our days are filled with multiple wardrobe changes and little sleep! Despite all of this, he has still managed to show us some sweet little smiles, but I've spent too much time enjoying the smiles to get out the camera and catch them just yet.

Leah-isms

Leah has been particularly funny lately and seems to have hit a word explosion as she's picking up new words and phrases every day. Almost every night before we go to sleep, Jared and I will talk about how sweet and funny she is. Here are just a few of her latest things:

• She has named her favorite blanket "Mimi". I have no idea where she came up with it, she just did. When she can't find her Mimi, she will wander around the house saying, "Miiiii miiiii, Where arrrre youuuuu?". And once she finds her Mimi, she happily hugs it and says, "Oh Mimi!"


• I've mentioned before that she loves her brother, but she gets sweeter and sweeter about it every day. For instance, whenever she does something she likes to get him involved. If she goes in the swing, she asks for Isaac to come in the swing. If she plays with her Play-doh, she will say "Isaac, play-doh, Isaac play-doh". But the cutest thing of all, is that she will not go down for a nap or go to bed at night without giving Isaac a kiss and telling him good night. So cute.


• She is learning colors right now and her favorite one of all seems to be green. If you ask her what color something is, she will automatically say green, without even thinking about it. But she actually DOES know what her colors are and sometimes thinks that they define an item. For instance, if a red car drives by, she will excitedly say, "A red! A red!"


• The other day she pulled something out of the trashcan and since this was not the first time she did it that day, she got her hand smacked. Naturally, she cried. I asked her to come over to me and, without actually expecting a response from her, I asked her if she knew why mommy smacked her hand. And then she said, "No no Mia (what she calls herself) trash". That completely surprised me!! This girls gets smarter and smarter every day.


• She thinks it's funny to call us Gina and Jared.

It seems with each stage we hit, we enjoy our little girl more and more. And the sweetness she shows to her brother is really amazing. What a joy little Miss Leah is!

For Lina

Say hello to Isaac!!

Here are some photos of Leah displaying her big sister skills. She loves to give Isaac his paci. So much so, that lots of times she takes it out of his mouth just so she can pop it back in again.

She's not always very gentle. Isaac looks a bit frightened, doesn't he?

One morning while I was in the kitchen, Isaac started crying, and I saw that Leah gave him his paci to soothe him. Then he started crying again, and I peek out to see that her next "soothing technique" is to cover him with the blanket.

Tub time these days almost always results in a good shampoo horn. Anybody remember Snorks? Leah also likes to ask if Isaac will be joining her in the tub pretty much every night. And every night I must remind her that he isn't quite old enough yet.

This kid sure loves his swaddle.

I wonder how much of an outcast he will be when he asks his college roommate to help swaddle him every night to help him go to sleep.

Aunt Jess came to visit over her spring break. Since the weather was nice, we thought we'd take a trip to the park and play on the playground.

She slid down like a big girl all by herself! I think having Oma catch her at the bottom certainly helped. :)

And another sweet picture of sleeping Isaac. It doesn't happen often these days, and mostly comes in short bursts, so I have to capture it on camera when I can.

And lastly, back in January Jared entered a weight loss competition that ended this past Saturday. He started out at 196.4 pounds, lost 42.2 pounds, and ended up at 154.2. Wowsers. This is one of the pictures he submitted for his final weight submission.
Do I even need to say that he won? Kudos to you, Jared, for sticking to your diet and exercise plan and congratulations on winning your competition. I'm definitely proud, but I sure am happy to have an ice cream eating buddy again. :)