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?

Activities around the house

I haven't updated this thing recently, and here's why-- we've been busy!!

Take a look at some of the activities Jared and I have been doing around the house. I've been on a sewing kick these days and felt the need to take care of a few things before our newest arrival errr.... arrived.

First, the baby had to have a magic blankie just like Leah's (but different colors, of course).

Then I decided to FINALLY finish up the baby quilt that I started working on over 4 years ago. It has sat in our house with unfinished binding since January 2006. Go me and my fast project-finishing skills self.

Next I decided to make this other baby blanket for the newbie, similar to one a friend of ours had made for Leah. (Leah got a lot of handmade baby blankets when she was born. I didn't want this kiddo to feel left out right from the get go.)

And finally, I made this nursing shawl (it's folded in half in the photo so it actually provides twice the coverage) and little carry bag. I've still got a few miscellaneous projects I'd like to tackle, but for now I think I may need a bit of a breather.

While I've been sewing up a storm, Jared has been going buck-nutty with gardening.

He started by creating these mini greenhouses for some of our newly planted vegetables just in case we should have an unseasonal cold-snap, such as tonight. (As I type this, it is 34 degrees outside and there is snow falling in Houston.)

Then he built some new garden beds to house some blueberry bushes (they are planted in the bed above, but you can't really see them)...

... another new bed for some grapes...

... and a third garden bed for some blackberries and raspberries. (This is the one I will be frequenting most.)

And then he planted two apple trees, one peach tree, and one plum tree. Here's hoping all of these plants produce and we end up with some delectable fruit this summer!

Soooo... did you know we're having another baby? Yes? Did you know we were having that baby fairly soon? I didn't think so. Time flies when you are having fun, and we are currently less than 3 weeks from our due date of March 15th. I guess in some ways that could mean this baby could come 'any day now'. Yikes!!

I look funny in this photo. The smile is clearly fake, possibly because it was super cold out that morning and possibly because I was leaving for the commute of death in about five minutes (this is the most likely of the two), but Leah looked cute, so I figured I'd get over myself and post it.

Leah was being super sweet and wanted to give the baby nice pats. Apparently she has to lift up my shirt to do so.

Since 2nd baby is so close to making its debut, our friends offered to watch the Little Miss for a night so that Jared and I could go out on a nice dinner and a movie date to PF Chang's and to see Avatar. Thanks guys! :)

We don't let Leah watch TV too often, but Sesame Street is certainly becoming a favorite. I don't know why she gets such a kick out of Elmo, but apparently he is the greatest thing on earth. Here she is in her Elmo trance, snacking on some raisins. I particularly like how she's propped her foot up in the coaster holder as an added touch.

A little post-tub time Babe watching. I had to censor her in this one. :)