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. :)

A few weeks, one post

How cute are these two little monkeys?

Jesse, Jenn, and Katelyn came to visit us a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I feel like I spent most of the visit either feeding Isaac or taking a nap. So it goes for the first few weeks of a baby's life, right? Anyway, we had a whole bunch of activities planned for the kids, starting with the Angleton Rec Center pool.

Leah was a bit hesitant to get in the water.

Kate, however, plunged right in and swam like a fish the whole time!

Isaac came too. He was nonplussed.

One evening everyone else went to the park, and Isaac stayed home and helped me peel shrimp for dinner. Doesn't he look like he's being helpful?

We had lots of fun with our visitors and really enjoyed watching the girls play together. Leah showed them all about the things you do when you live in the country.

Like feed chickens...

...play outside...
...and ride horses! Does anyone else see the pure joy on Leah's face, or is it just me? I keep telling Jared that one day she will want a pony of her own to ride.

And I just love this picture below. Kate looks so focused, and Leah is watching intently, while gently rubbing her favorite tag on her "mimi" (It's what she calls her blankie).

Once our visitors left, it was back to just hanging out as a foursome.

I like how Leah is in the middle of saying "Baby Isey" in this picture.

Why so worried, little man?
Lounging with Daddy.
And just being cute. And yes, that paci is absolutely essential to Isaac's (and our) happiness. Just ask Leah-- she tries to shove it in his mouth no less than five times a day. :)

Thus far, Isaac has been a REALLY good baby. He goes for 3.5 to 4 hour stretches between meals, which leaves ample time for me to sleep and play with Leah. He had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday which showed that he gained over half a pound since he left the hospital on Friday. So yes, he is a good eater!! The doctor also told us that he looked super-healthy and didn't have to come back for a check-up until he was 2 months old. Fabulous.

Leah has been such a good big sister. She helps put Isaac's diapers in the diaper pail, brings me burp cloths, blankets, etc when I am nursing him and can't get up. She tells him night-night before she goes to bed, pats his back to help burp him, and comes runing to get me when she hears him crying before I do. All in all, she loves her "Baby Isey".

Pictures of the little man are in high demand these days, so without further adeiu (sp?)...
Everybody loves the burrito baby.

Snuggling with Mommy...

and snuggling with Daddy. Or maybe I shouldn't call it snuggling since they are both "men", thus making it more appropriate to call it chillin'.

Being a newbie is so tough.

Spring has arrived!

After what seemed like months and months of chilly, rainy, and windy weather, we are finally getting some sun around here. And we love it! (For right now, anyway. I will hate it in approximately 3 months.)

I just adore this series of photos. You can see why, I'm sure.

Leah is working the puny pony-tail. It doesn't last long, but I try anyway.


Helping Daddy pot some "trees" (they looked like sticks with roots to me).

Inspecting Jared's work.

And playing tug-of-war with her best buddy, Heidi!

More Isaac!

How did we pick Isaac's name, you ask? Well, Isaac is Jared's middle name and we had always liked the idea of using it should we ever be blessed with a son. Also, it means "He who laughs", and who doesn't wish for a lifetime of laughter and joy for their child?

Nathaniel was a little bit tricky. We wanted to try and keep the 2 syllable, 4 syllable pattern that Leah's name has, so that narrowed down our choices some. Nathaniel was really the only one that flowed the way we liked, and upon looking up the meaning we found that it meant "God has given". With a meaning like that, how could we resist?


Being in the hospital can get pretty boring, and sometimes there's just nothing else to do but sleep. These two jokers are perfect examples...Like father, like son.

Since Isaac was so tiny, he wasn't very good at holding up his body temperature on his own. Turns out he just needed to spend an extra night under a warmer in the NICU and he's doing ok now. He looks so much smaller with all these wires and lines coming out, doesn't he?

While Isaac was in the NICU, Jared went and picked up Leah to come hang out for a while.

She read books, colored (On more than just her paper, unfortunately. Hopefully the hospital won't mind the artistic flair added to Room 4676.), ran around the room like a wild banshee, extremely exhausted me, etc.

Isaac Nathaniel

Welcome to our newest little addition-- Isaac Nathaniel Judy. Born on March 3 at 5:01 am. We feel so blessed to have another little nugget in our lives and are incredibly thankful that everything went as smoothly as it did.

Dropping Miss Leah off at Oma and Opa's on the way to the hospital at 11:30 pm on Tuesday night.

Giving her some final hugs and kisses as an only child. Leah's response to where we are going, "Say what, now?"

This picture was taken RIGHT before things got messy (as in, I started to push). Clearly, I am relaxed. Yayyyy epidurals. Ten minutes later, out he was!

Hello, little Isaac! Nice to meet you!

This was our first picture as a family of FOUR. Wow. The only way we could get Leah to sit still and not poke Isaac's face was to let her play with my phone.

Isaac meets Oma and Opa. Oma looks enamored, don't you think?