Birthdays

Isaac turned 2 years old at the end of August! Here are some pictures from his birthday celebration:

It's so fun to live close to family! Here's everyone who lives close enjoying some homemade pizza for dinner.  Isaac's favorite!

Daddy showing him how to blow out the candles in his cute sandcastle cake aunt Katherine made him.

Enjoying his cake.  He actually ate this yummy peach cake.  He usually doesn't really like cake, pie, cookies, muffins etc.  He'd much rather have something like candy so that he can get his sugar without any extras

He likes anything that he can load/unload and pull around with him!

He caught onto the idea of presents really quickly and loved unwrapping them.  He kept saying "more present!"

Another thing to load/unload and take around with him! He calls it his "ki-cart"

Some things about Isaac right now: 

• He is talking really well.  He hardly said anything until he was probably around 20 months old (which was much later than William) but once he started talking he could say anything and everything.  One quirky thing is that he often will put an f sound at the beginning of words so bread = fred, broken = froken etc. He also calls Grandma and Grandpa "Mima" and "Pipa". It's pretty cute.
• He absolutely loves his big brother and will follow him around and copy everything he does.  Whenever William is out of sight or gone Isaac asks "where's Diam (William)?" over and over until he finds him.
• Unlike William, Isaac really likes playing with toys.  He will play with trains, trucks, cars, animals, dig outside in the dirt etc. for long periods of time entertaining himself happily.  I love it! :) 
• For the most part he is a cheerful, happy child.  He wakes up happy and ready to play every morning, and usually continues that way through the day, although he can put up a pretty good fight if he can't have something he wants.
• He sleeps like an angel at night and takes 2-3 (sometimes 4) hour naps in the afternoon.  He has had a pacifier to sleep with until he decided to throw it in the garbage the other day because it was "yucky".  I thought it would be a hard couple of nights, but it hasn't seemed to affect his sleeping at all except he does stay up longer talking and singing to himself at night. Most mornings he will wake up and play with his baby and his animals in his crib until I get around to getting him up. 
• He is the most accident prone child ever! Ever since he could get himself around he has been falling into things, falling off things, bonking his head etc.  It's lucky if he goes a week without some kind of bruise or scrape.  Right now he has a bruise on his forehead, his eyelid is a little swollen, a cut/bruise/swollen area right next to his eye and a cut on his finger all from separate incidents in the last 3 days.  He fell on the cement twice coming out from church today but managed to catch himself on his hands both times so at least his face didn't hit.  Crazy kid!! I promise we don't abuse him!
• He is such a ham! He makes the funniest most expressive faces and once he gets a reaction he will keep trying new things to get another laugh. 

It sounds cliche, but Isaac is like a ray of sunshine in our lives.  We can't imagine our lives without his sweet little spirit.

William turned 4 years old at the end of September! Here are some pictures of his birthday celebration:

Happily contemplating the pile of presents.  All day he kept saying "I wonder what I'm going to get!"

Since William is obsessed with "diggers" I decided to be ambitious and attempt a digger cake.  It turned out better than I expected since I don't pretend to have any talents in that area (therefore I didn't expect very much).

The most important thing though, is that William was THRILLED with it!

Family who loves him and Isaac trying to get to the present.

This is how Isaac felt about it being William's day to open presents. 

William, however loved every minute of it!

Sporting his new fishing vest

Figuring out his bow and arrow set (he's now got it down great and can shoot an arrow farther than I can)

It was a good thing William had enough other things to distract him so that Isaac could have a chance to play with the new digger.  He kept insisting that it was "my digger!!"

Once William decided he was ready to play with it Isaac was not very happy.

Nothing better than eating cake and ice cream with mini diggers right?

Some things about William:

•  He is always thinking up solutions to things.  He likes to engineer things and make plans for fixing things.  He also can come up with plenty of ideas how we can do things that the adults don't really think are possible/good ideas. 
• He is a cuddler.  It takes him a while to wake up in the mornings and he really likes to be held and snuggled especially when he is waking up, or is sleepy.  He is definitely a mamma's (or grandmas if mom is unavailable) boy, and likes to be close to me especially in unfamiliar places or with unfamiliar people.  Once he finds something that is interesting or engaging to him (usually having to do with building things or digging in the dirt etc.) it can hold his attention for quite a while. 
• He loves primary! His sunbeam teachers are amazing and he loves them very much.  He calls his sunbeam class his "little class" and sharing time his "big class".
• He one of his great ambitions is to have a license to drive a digger truck.  He told me the other day that when he grows up he is going to be a firefighter, a doctor and have a license to drive a big digger and a combine harvester.
• He likes to be right in the middle of anything big people are doing.  He loves to help cook, sew, tie flies with Chris, or work on any project anyone else is doing. 
• He has always spoken really really well, and continues to have a gift with language.  Today he told me that he was going to come "eventually". 
• He knows most of the letters with their sounds and has quickly catches onto blends like "at" where you then add different letters to the front to make bat, cat, sat, mat etc. Most of it he has just picked up too, because I haven't put a whole lot of effort into teaching him. He can write his name, and several other words. 
• He is also very good with numbers and likes to count things out and add things together.  He likes to know precisely how much or how many.  For instance "how many miles is it to the store" or "how many minutes will it take".
• Of course, one of William's very favorite things to do is go fishing with Daddy.  He is getting to be a good little fisherman and a fun companion for Chris to take along.

We love our boys! It is so fun to see them grow and it has been so much fun to see them become better and better friends.  They play together really well now and care about each other a lot is really special to watch.