What happened to September?!?!?

Can I just say-Holy Cow! October is next week!!!!! September flew by and we really weren't all that busy.

Jake had a rough week dealing with poison ivy on his face and ear! Nice, huh? It was pretty nasty by the time he finally went to the doctor. He came home popping pills and said, "I might get mean." What?!?! He was given steroids to clear up the ickyness and appearantly a common side effect is mood swings. Thankfully, he never experienced such side effects-at least not at home! :) (By the way, I tried to Google Image a picture for this and I gave up because all I got was real pictures of the plant and a gazillion pictures of the character from Batman-I've never seen that movie I guess...)

Isaac had two more teeth come through-both bottom molars. He is now crawling for real and can walk, just usally chooses to crawl. At his 15 month check up (a week before he was 16 months) he was 21 pounds-still a little guy, but healthy as can be.

I am growing every day-here's a picture to prove it! I am about 20 weeks now and comparing with pictures from Isaac, I don't think I'm all that much bigger. :)

We were able to watch the Iowa-ISU game earlier this month (Go Hawkeyes!). The women all made 27 quarts of applesauce while the kids and men watched the game actually. (Jake was quite intrigued with the new attachment to his mom's KitchenAid so he helped once the game was over-he even went back home to get more apples!) All but 3 quarts of that was from apples off our tree and we still have 567,389,929,548,321 apples left. (Really, I counted them all!). If you live near me and want some apples, PLEASE come take some. They're not great eating apples, but they are fine for canning. (All sales are final and the charge is nothing!)

I got busy yesterday with Isaac's scrapbook and did 12 more pages. Sad thing is, I still have like 30 to do before I am caught up. The problem is that Isaac thinks he can help so I can only work while he's taking his nap and I usually have other things to do during that time (like update this good ol' blog). Some day I'll get there. This is current condition of my dining room thanks to yesterday's marathon scrap attack.

I was a part of Kristan's Fall Swap-my first swap ever! Thanks Mary for all the goodies-I hope I remembered to regather everything for the picture. What a fun thing to do! Happy Fall everyone!

And a baby update-we still have no names, please feel free to send ideas our way, whether or not they start with an "H" as Jake has strangely requested.

And the verdict is (almost) in....

Thanks for all of you out there who voted-makes me feel like people really are reading my blog and I'm not doing all of this writing and posting for no good. Alright...on to what you're all waiting for. My doctor did do an ultrasound and everything looks good. He's pretty sure that it's a girl! We are super excited and have started the search for names. For some reason Jake said he likes "H" names. I've got a few I kind of like, but we'll get more serious about the decision soon. (Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!) My doctor will do an ultrasound next visit (in 4 weeks) to see for sure (He's about 75% sure at this point). He said not to do any shopping yet....yeah right! The baby is measuring 18 weeks even though I am 19. My doctor said this is totally normal and that it's just because I am the lucky girl who gets to have non-giant babies. I won't complain about that (Isaac was 6 pounds, 11 ounces and this baby is expected to be about the same at this point). So now I need to get busy neutralizing Isaac's room, which is now "the kids' room" and working on Isaac's scrapbook overtime since I can start the next one. So much to do! Good job for those of you who voted girl-it won hands down!

Last Day to Vote!!!

I know most of you are probably reading my blog from your Google Reader so you may not have noticed the poll...I am having an ultrasound today (in an hour and a half to be exact) to find out if we are having a boy or a girl. So you have a few hours left to vote if you feel so inclined. Just thought I'd let you know!

State Fair and Other August Happenings

I don't feel too behind on my blogging...it's only the 3rd and I should finish my August postings-wohoo!!

We went to the Iowa State Fair on the most beautiful day. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded at all. We enjoyed lots of lemonade, Jake enjoyed a pork chop on a stick and a GIANT turkey leg. I had a corndog, and usually have a funnel cake, but was too full by the time we were ready to go home. By the way, can you tell Isaac was a little tired by the end of the day? (see picture above...)

Our first stop was at the petting zoo-Isaac LOVES animals and was a fair-lover from the start. (This was actually his second time at the fair, but he was 4 months old last time and probably remembers...nothing). Notice the little cup I'm holding-we bought it full of food and towards the end I was feeding a goat and he stole the cup! It was stuck on its mouth like a muzzle. I bravely had to stick my hand way in the cage and take it off. I think the goat ended up eating part of the cup as well. Never a dull moment at the Iowa State Fair...

Another stop for our little animal lover were the animal barns. This little baby donkey was just lying there-it was SO cute!!! (Not cute enough to convert us to be Democrats) But cute nonetheless.

And last, but certainly not least...something you'd only see at the Iowa State Fair: McGruff demonstrating the many features of an Oreck vacuum cleaner.

One of Isaac's new favorite chew-toys is a toothbrush (I just get him the cheapies at Wal-Mart for $1.50 for two). He was playing with one in the car and fell asleep. (Jake was driving) I literally had to pry it out of his little hand!

I know I already posted about Nauvoo, but I found this picture today and couldn't NOT post it. We were at dinner in Nauvoo and Isaac just swiped this chicken leg right off my plate and started chomping away. Hungry? I think so....

One day when we were at my parents' my dad took Isaac outside to play. My mom was washing dishes and looked up to see the most beautiful sight in the world-my little Isaac!

Isaac always seems to be pretty interested in the bubbles left in the tub after I wash him up-so I decided to buy him some actual bubbles. He really wasn't all that impressed-I had to make him smile for the picture so it looked like he was having a grand ol' time. The cutest thing is that the bubbles are "Cars" bubbles and came in a bottle that looks like an oil bottle. You can see it fairly well in the picture. Maybe I need to add more next time-I did almost twice as much as the directions said the first time!!

Window Washing

A couple of weeks ago I finally finished cleaning my windows-inside and out (we also have storm windows on most...that makes like 8 sides if you count the top and bottom portions individually). I knew they were bad-especially the two in our dining room. However, I was AMAZED and how much sunnier our dining room became when I was finished. It was a little time consuming to wash the inside, open the window, open the storm window, close the regular window, go outside and clean the outside of the regular window, go inside...well, you get the idea. I did 5 windows like that and the other 6 weren't too bad. We need to get them "reglazed" (there's some sort of special caulking-like-stuff that goes around the seam between the glass and the frame). I haven't gotten any estimates on that, but we did get several estimates for new windows when we moved in. Those ranged between $6,000 and $18,000 (good 'ol Pella Windows). Needless to say, we will not be putting new windows in this house. Although you can see the difference in the two windows (left is before, right is after) the picture still doesn't do the whole effect justice.

TOFW

Hooray! I have been trying for the last couple of years to go to Time Out For Women, an event sponsored by Desert Book. I finally convinced most of the women in my family that it will be great fun-well, it really didn't take much convincing-I think they just needed someone to organize the whole thing. Now that I don't have a baby who needs me ever few hours to eat, I can go and enjoy the day and a half of upliftment (I know that's not a word) and some time with just the ladies in my family. I'm sure every presenter will be great, but I'm most looking forward to Mary Ellen Edmunds and Cherie Call. Look for pictures and an update the end of October. I'm so excited-I can't wait!!!

Smoothies

You may remember my efforts to get Isaac to eat yogurt from a previous post. Well, after the mess that caused, I thought I'd try a different approach (he still won't drink milk at all). I bought some yogurt smoothies and he LOVES them! He drinks one almost every morning for breakfast. He's certainly more like his dad when it comes to breakfast (Jake rarely eats anything unless he's been up for a few hours!) and is full after just a smoothie. They have a little foil top and I just poke a hole in it with a knife and he drinks away. It took a few days for him to master the method, but it works out great and I don't have to be so concerned about the lack of calcium intake.