January 2007

Jan. 1-7, 2007
• I can know get Isaac to go tell James things. If I say “go tell Papa. . .” or “dile a Papa. . .” He’ll actually go do it most of the time.
• We played another fun family game of laser tag (and grandma and grandpa valiantly volunteered to watch all of the kids)
• We headed back home on Wednesday and it felt good to come home—even though we’d left the place a disaster area because we’d been sick before we left.
• Levi’s eyes are still blue—vamos a ver si se quedan asi.

Jan. 8-14, 2007
• Levi drank formula this week! I’m pretty happy because that means that I don’t have to stress about pumping milk when I leave him with someone. I wish I would have done that with Isaac. I’m going to try to have James give him one feeding of formula a day so that he gets used to it.
• Isaac is getting creative about making up songs. Tonight he sang these words to the “how much is that doggie in the window” song after singing the “I don’t want a bowl of little fishies” verse: “I don’t want a clock or a 1,2,3,4”
• I found Isaac a McDonald’s play kitchen at the thrift store this week and he’s had a ball playing around with it.
• We visited the little Catholic pre-school by our house and it looks like it would be a really good option for Isaac.
• Isaac catches us off guard with sentences like “Papa, can you please drive the car.” And “Momma can you please come and play with trains for a minute”
• When we got to church on Sunday Isaac said, “Let’s go see Heavenly Father” and when we were sitting on the pew he picked up the hym book and said “let’s sing prayer songs.
• Levi is 13 pounds! He’s in the 90th percentile for height and weight for his age. Wow. He’s been sleeping for 6 hour stretches at night lately and that’s been REALLY nice.
• We’ve started using a time-out chair for Isaac and it seems to work a lot better than just holding him or having him face the wall and count.

Jan. 15-21, 2007
• Isaac seems to behave better when I’m not around. When I came to pick him up at the MAC day care on Tuesday night, he started acting up and knocking down other kids toys and he kicked one kid’s shoes. Julia and Norma (the ladies that work there) say that he doesn’t do that kind of stuff when I’m not around. I wonder if its that he knows I’ll protect him or if he just wants to get my attention.
• Levi is such a sweetie. He’s really getting into his play gyms this week. He’s very entertained by the singing stars piano one that Isaac still loves.
• Freezing cold temperatures this week!!! Its made for lots of inside time and Isaac’s favorite video to watch repeatedly is a Baby Enstein one from the library called “On the Go” about modes of transportation.
• We found a new hair cut place for Isaac where the lady is no nonsense and doesn’t put up with whining from kids. Isaac still cried and put up a fight over the process, but this lady did a great job of handling him (even though James and I sill had to physically hold him down). He was really excited about the cool toys at the place he got to play with afterwards.

Jan.22-28
• Everyday Isaac asks to go to the airport. He even remembers what row we were on last time. He asks to go to D-12
• Show me 11—James has been working with Isaac on learning how to show numbers with his fingers. After getting up to 10, Isaac told James—“Show me eleven!” and didn’t quite get why this wasn’t possible.
• I asked Isaac how his day was at nursery after church and he said, “dump out the food. The cookies! No more cookies”. . . little sound bytes that say a lot.
• Cute prayer—thankyou for turtle movie
• Thomas train at Barnes and Nobles behavior miracle—Isaac actually played really well with a little kid named Matthew and was able to take turns playing trains with him instead of freaking out and having a sharing crisis
• Levi is able to grab things now and tries to push himself out of the bumbo chair
• Levi’s starting to prefer his fist to his pacifier and that’s causing some raw knuckles
• 5 more minutes, 11 more minutes, 2 more minutes. . .
• This has been a week of amazing big steps for Isaac. He started preschool on Tuesday at the little Catholic school down the street from us. He loved it and the first thing his teachers said when I picked him up was “He’s smart-- he already knows his numbers and abc’s” I thought, yeah and he knows them in Spanish too! I was really worried about him hitting or not socializing well with the other kids but the teachers (MaryLou and Olenka) said that he did just fine. I seriously think he behaves better when I’m not around!
• We made a poster of sleep rules for Isaac about the order of the bedtime routine and it has helped immensely. He really gets into it and cooperates a lot better because he knows what to expect. We also started doing more effective time outs this week by having him sit in a chair by himself for a couple of minutes and he’s been a lot more responsive. To avoid timeouts he’ll even be cooperative and let us put on his jammies without a major struggle. This is miraculous because just last week it was a Herculian feat to get that kids pj’s on
• Isaac prayer: “Dear Heavenly Father thankyou for our family and thankyou for go to the airport and go on the elevator and push the button one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.”
• New Spanish phrases “no te caigas” “estoy aqui”
Levi
• He is smiling and cooing most adorably every day and he can now grab his toes and roll over to the side.
• He gets excited about the anticipation of bathtime now and will go crazy kicking in his bouncy chair when he hears the water running.
• We busted out the jumperoo for him this week and he’s a little bit small but he does like standing in it.

Jan-29-Feb 4
• Tuesday there was no preschool because of a teacher training day but we went to visit the construction site for Claudia Hartenstine’s new place. She and Richard are having a home built about 13 miles away in a new development called Cypress. We’re bummed that they’re moving kind of far away, but its not as far as I thought. Isaac and Michael played trains together at their old place afterwards and Isaac was actually a lot better behaved. He didn’t hit until the very end when Michael was trying to grab a basketball away from him.
• Levi is starting to protest being put in the carseat and arch his back.
• Isaac said, “Look at me baby Levi, I’m your big brother” (he gets that line from the big brother book Aunt Lara gave him) it was really cute to hear him quoting it
• Isaac made it through the full day of preschool on Thursday! Hooray. He did an awesome job.
• Levi tried to suck his toes this week. He likes to suck his hand, fingers, and binky—so why not the toes?
• Isaac has more bilingual awareness this week. He’ll ask, “How do you say. . . .in Spanish?” Like today he was saying—“we have to sit, that’s the rule” and then, “tenemos que. . .how do you say rule in Spanish?”

Isaac has been obsessed shape toys recently—he absolutely loves putting in stars, circles, triangles, hearts, squares, etc. into any shape sorter. He can say all of his shape names and colors in English and Spanish and it’s really fun to hear him in both languages.

Levi’s blessing! James blessed Levi at church today and he sweetly slumbered through the first part and then woke up at the end and cried a little. He calmed down afterwards though and was good for the rest of the meeting.

December 2006

Dec. 4-Dec.10, 2006
• Isaac is obsessed this week with fruit snacks. Especially Dora snacks. He said a prayer the other day and individually blessed Dora, Tiko, Boots, Swiper, Map and the Backback. Wow.
• He amazes me with how quickly he can learn new vocab and phrases in both languages and how he’ll respond to when we correct his grammar. He also likes to make up his own words and one of his favorites is “hati-onk” which basically means to throw something up in the air.
• Isaac still has problems with hitting other kids his age (mostly this happens at Gymboree), but he was humbled this week by other kid biting him (hard enough to leave teeth marks!—ouch!)
• My friend Ann came to visit this week and brought her 10 month old son Collin. Isaac had a rough time adjusting to a crawling baby encroaching on his territory but he did have a few tender moments with Collin (mostly when apologizing).
• I made the mistake of taking Isaac to get a haircut without James there to help me and it seriously took every ounce of energy I had to hold him still so that Carmen (the lady at the peluqueria) could cut his hair. He really freaks out with clippers and doesn’t do much better with scissors.
Levi
• He’s cooing and making a lot more cute sounds this week.
• Our neighbors let us borrow a little baby snow suit that we’ve been swaddling him in at night and it really helps him to sleep longer and be warm and cozy.
• He can officially sit in the “bumbo” chair now for a few minutes and then he starts falling over a bit. His neck is getting stronger everyday.
• When I lay him under his little baby gym he kicks a lot and seems to try and bat some of the little toys.
• We put him under the Tiny Love mobile from my mom and he loves the music and the movement. He’ll move his legs and arms and get a good workout. He has also starting making more sounds and “talking” to us. Very cute.

Dec.11-17, 2006
• This morning Isaac woke up and asked for icecream. When I didn’t respond immediately, he asked in Spanish “helado?” I told him he could have “un liquado” (a smoothie) and he said “y despues un helado!” (and then icecream) He cracks me up how he’ll add things on to what I say.
• “Give me five” baby Levi.
• “Mommy Santiago Nuttall! We have to go to the elevators!”—Isaac seems to have caught on to the fact that the use of his full name means business.
• We’ve been working on having him choose between two things lately and Isaac turned the tables on James and said “choose red or green”
• “tree branch” Isaac has a new favorite place to go on the river trail. He loves to go sit on the big bridge and admire a big tree branch while hucking rocks in the water.
• Levi is starting to give some very genuine smiles now and his eyes light up when he hears our voices.

Dec.18-24
• We went to Isaac’s favorite place this week: the airport. He loves the airport because it has 3 of his favorite things: airplanes, elevators, and escalators. Of course the part about actually being on the airplane is not hunky dory—especially since he does not like to wear his seatbelt at all and would prefer to be roaming the aisles and climbing over the chairs.
• Utah! We headed to Utah to hang out with the Nuttall clan. Everyone but Peter and Amy was there. Twas very cold and snowy and we spent most of the week inside because all of us were sick and James and I came down with strep throat.
• Grandma Nuttall started a new tradition of celebrating Joseph Smith’s birthday on the 23rd of December and while Lara read stories about the prophet, Isaac wowed everyone with the ability to get a candy cane stuck in his hair.
• Getting dressed seems to be more of a struggle than ever with Isaac. Not so much in the morning as at night—he does not like to put on his pajamas and we pretty much have to tackle him to get him dressed.
• Levi was still very congested this week but he slept well snuggled in his snow suit. He was a really good traveler and an amazing sleeper.
• Levi got to be baby Jesus in the family nativity play (just like Isaac did when he was 9 months old) and he was muy precioso.

Dec.25-31, 2006
• Christmas morning was fun for Isaac—he’s definitely understanding a little bit more and he went around saying “Santa Claus brings you candy canes”
• He loved the Thomas trains from Uncle Matt and Aunt Lara and the veggie cutting set from Grandma. Grandpa Roser got him the Moon Girl dvd and that was also a huge hit.
• He went on a 6 day constipation bout—finally he went again after a glycerine suppository and a long sitz bath.
• Isaac loved swimming in the water at the Nuttall’s pool and pointing out the big blue fish on the wall. He also always wanted to do “motor boat” with Aunt Lara.
• Beth Taylor got married on Friday and Jenny came for the wedding (at the SLC temple) and we all went to the reception in Orem.
• Levi is cooing and “talking” more and more and is beaming some very cute smiles this week.
• We had a great game of family laser tag at the laser tag joint in Provo. The Mission Impossible Sound track kept the adrenaline pumping.

November 2006

Nov.6-Nov.12, 2006
• Isaac has added another Leap-ism (Leap is the name of his talking Frog) to his vocabulary. He’s always saying “I’m so glad I’m friends with you”—very cute.
• On Wednesday Isaac looked up at a segment of the Baby Shakespeare video and said, “the animals climb up the escalator” –he blows my mind with how fast he’s putting new sentences together. He also wanted to blow bubbles in his milk tonight with a straw so he said to James “mas soplar burbujas”—I don’t recall teaching him that—I’ve just told him to soplar something cuando esta caliente so its cool to see him put together new word combos in Spanish.
• Grandma Nuttall came to visit this week and help us out. Like with my mom, Isaac did well one on one with her, but when I was around he could get a bit onery with her and do an annoying scream or hit. A lot of times Isaac would say “no pegues—don’t hit grandma” as he was doing it or “don’t scream—no grites” after screaming. At least he knows what he’s supposed to do even if he doesn’t exactly follow through.
• When we were doing family prayer one night, Isaac looked up at Marti and exclaimed, “Grandma’s sleeping!” We all had a good laugh.
• “once upon a time there was a little baby in momma’s tummy and then baby Levi come out of momma’s tummy”—wow! He gets it.
Levi:
• First bath! He didn’t mind too much because I took a bath with him and let him nurse to comfort him while I put soap and water on him. He smelled all clean and fresh!
• Grandma Nuttall came to visit and we tried out a bunch of new recipes for James’ diet. Levi got it all in the breast milk. He loves his breast milk and makes lots of cute gulping and squeaking sounds as he eats.


Nov.13-19, 2006
• Isaac’s language development is amazing. He really picks up on new words fast and he’s good at creating new sentences and meanings. He’s also become more aware of when we rephrase things to correct him. For example he’d been saying, “momma help you” when he wanted help. I started rephrasing it for him and asking him to say “momma help me” or “ayudame” and he really picked up on it fast. Sometimes he’ll start to say it the old way and but then stop and correct himself.
• Isaac likes to point at Levi and say “he’s a little brother” and then with prompting, “he’s my little brother”
• He’s adapting pretty well to Levi—he just always likes to pull me over to play with Thomas train while I’m nursing.
• Isaac has been doing something interesting with question formation. He had been saying “what are you doing?” but this week a few times he’s said “what you are doing?”—I think I remember learning about that type of error in my linguistics class.
• Airport / airpork 
• Holy crap. . .be careful what you say around Isaac (I said that when we almost hit a car and Isaac repeated it religiously)
Levi
• More vocalizations, more alert time, and lots of gas!
• He likes to go around with us in the carriers and we usually carry him around a lot during the day because if we lay him somewhere else to sleep he tends to wake up faster.


Nov. 20-26, 2006

• We got to go to the “airpork” on Sunday with a little help from our friend Heather Lau and go up in a big airplane in the sky. Isaac loves everything about airplanes except the fact that he has to wear a seat belt during take off and landing. . .and not being able to kick the seat in front of him. . .and not being able to escape to the aisles, etc.
• We visited my Mom, then my dad and then we went to Phoenix for a big Hargis reunion at the cactus park and then a big Bosen reunion at Tara’s new house.
• Isaac had a lot of fun with his cousins. Lots of bathtime craziness with Sophie and Ellie.
• He looked up at the proclamation to the family on Matt and Lara’s wall while we were there and said, “Heavenly Father made Adam and Eve.” Pretty cute.
Levi:
• Levi’s first airplane ride! He did great and mostly slept and nursed (and pooped ofcourse). It was actually a lot easier to handle Levi than Isaac who kept wanting to bang on the seat in front of him or escape to run down the aisles.
• We took lots of pics of Levi and Matthew together. Matthew looks a lot more filled out and bigger than Levi and he’s already very interactive. Levi will catch up soon! One day they’ll be good buds.



Nov. 27-Dec.3, 2006
• He really loves smothering Levi with slobbery kisses. Overall he’s really gentle with Levi, but sometimes he’ll push to hard on his head and twist his little fingers a little too much—I just do my best to let Isaac share the love and protect Levi at the same time.
• He’s been busting out a few more sentences in Spanish lately like Vamos de compras par manzanas y vamos a la bilioteca.
• As we were driving to church on Sunday Isaac looked out the window and said, “It’s hot outside, we have to blow on it.”
• He looked at Levi this week and said, “Baby Levi, what do you want for your birthday?” Pretty cute. We think he probably learned the phrase from watching the Elmo birthday video a few too many times.
• Claudia and I took Isaac and Michael and Levi to the galleria on Thursday and they had a marvelous time riding in the elevators. I think we must have gone up and down from the first to the 12th floor a dozen times and that still wasn’t enough for Isaac –I had to drag him away kicking and screaming. He kept saying “vamos a los ascensores”—
• Drawing elevators
Levi:
• He’s starting to make other sounds besides crying and the beginnings of some cute smiles.
• He’s amazingly tolerant of Isaac showering him with slobbery kisses.
• Levi really seems to enjoy bathtime. He doesn’t complain at all about staying for a while in the tub and Isaac has fun washing his toes with the bubble soap.
• I started putting him facing outwards in the baby carrier this week because he’s more alert and seems ready to start observing the world around him.

October 2006

Oct. 2-Oct.8, 2006
• At dinner Wednesday night Isaac looked over at James and said, “Hey Papa, what’s goin’ on?” He sounded so grown up we both had to laugh
• I took Isaac to my prenatal appointment and the nurse was really cool about letting Isaac “help” listen to the baby’s heartbeat and measure my tummy.
• James and I asked Isaac if he liked the name Levi or Timo better for the baby and he didn’t really seem to be paying attention. Then a few days later he said, baby Levi, baby uncle Timo? Baby Levi’s coming. I told James that it’s a sign we should name the baby Levi, but he’s not totally convinced.
• More full sentences these days like, “Who’s hiding behind the window?” or “It’s dark outside, “ or “It’s nighttime.” “Lets go see the new neighbors”
• He recognizes how many fingers are being held up, at least 1-5. He’s trying to do it himself, but so far he’s only able to do 1 and 5.
• I found a used double “sit-n-stand” stroller and Isaac seems to like it—he calls it the “super babies stroller” because it looks like the one in the Dora cartoon.

Oct.9-Oct.15, 2006
• He really likes pointing out the difference between daytime and night time—es noche.
• When he wants to ask what something is called he says “English?” or “Español?” What’s funny though, is sometimes he’ll point at people and say “English?” wanting to know their name and they’re pretty confused. For example I walked into the little child care center at the gym and saw Isaac pointing at another child and asking him “English?” We’ll have to start practicing “What’s your name?” 
• At Gymboree this week the theme was being a postal carrier and Isaac had a lot of fun pretending to mail letters through a little slot and sending play packages down a slide.
• Isaac has been really good about staying in nursery at church and at the gym. He repeats the mantra to himself, “momma always comes back” A couple of Sundays ago the nursery leader had to bring Isaac to me during Sunday school because Isaac had a poopy diaper and right when he saw me he yelled at the top of his lungs matter-of-factly, “Momma always comes back!!” It was pretty cute.
• I found a Dora CD at the library and now he wants to listen to the “grumpy old troll” song over and over and over. . .
• He’s usually pretty good about separating Spanish and English but the other day after I had just read him a counting book in both languages, he turned to the page with # 8 on it and said “ocho babies eating galletas”
• Isaac loves accompanying me on my visits to see the doctor for “baby tummy” and listening to the “baby’s heartbeat” He really likes participating and the nurses have been cool about letting him “help” and measure my tummy and be a part of the check up.

This is now the combined Nuttall family journal

Oct.16-22, 2006
• Isaac has been into a show called “Blues Clues” lately (we’ve just gotten a few random episodes on video from the library), but he calls it “Blues Plues” which sounds really cute. In the show there is a big chair they call the thinking chair and now Isaac calls our blue sofa the “thinking chair.” He’s also learned the song about mail from the show “We just got a letter. . . “ and likes to sing it when we go get the mail.
• Very adorable prayers this week—he’s been thanking Heavenly Father for his body/cuerpo lately because they had a lesson on being grateful for their bodies in nursery.
• We’ve been teaching him not to put his hand in his diaper and so when he does we say, “don’t do that or you’ll get very sick.” Well, he started to put his hand in his diaper today and then he stopped himself and said, “don’t put your hand down there—just mommas and pappas. . .”pretty funny
• Grandma Jo came to stay with us on Saturday night and I started having contractions that continued to get longer and stronger. There was a bit of a break mid-Sunday and we thought maybe things were going to slow down, but then the contractions started up again around 3 in the afternoon and we took a long walk along the bayou. When we got home my contractions were getting very painful and lasting almost a minute so around 8:30 we left for the hospital. When we got there the nurse checked me and I was already dilated to 7 centimeters—hooray!! I couldn’t believe that I had already progressed that far. They asked me if I wanted an epidural and I said YES!! It was a miracle because I didn’t get any contractions while they were administering the epidural and then the drugs kicked in almost immediately and I felt a lot calmer and in a lot less pain. The epidural didn’t slow things down too much either because I was able to start pushing around 11:00 pm and Levi was born at 11:22. Unfortunately I tore in two places and had to be stitched up, but most importantly Levi was born without any major complications and he’s a happy healthy baby. James got to cut the cord which was pretty cool. The timing of his birth was also miraculous because I didn’t want to go into labor until my mom was here to stay with Isaac, but I didn’t want to have to be induced on Monday. So basically Levi arrived during the perfect window of time—Sunday night! I feel VERY blessed. Levi Mateo Nuttall weighed 7 pounds and 15 ounces and measured 22 inches. His hair color is the same as Isaac’s but it looks like he’ll have darker eyes and his own distinct little nose. Isaac came with grandma on Monday to see his new brother and he was very excited about baby Levi—and even more excited when he found out that the hospital provided a “sibling cake” to celebrate the birth. We told Isaac that the cake was from baby Levi. We also had a little tricycle waiting for Isaac when we brought home baby Levi that was a present from his brother.
• Levi’s Homecoming on Tuesday—we dressed him up in a cute Beatrix Potter outfit.
• Lots of sleeping and eating and pooping and peeing going on for baby Levi. He likes falling asleep on Grandma Jo’s lap.


Oct.23-29.2006
• Isaac is doing a pretty good job of adjusting as a big brother. He’s been pretty gentle with Levi and likes to point at him and say “baby Levi!” and then say in Spanish “bebe Levi” Levi is also very tranquilo and holds up pretty well with all of the slobbery kisses.
• Isaac’s a good helper with Levi’s diapers and loves to run as fast as he can to the trash can to throw away the dirty diapers.
• Isaac has had fun going with Grandma on little trips to our local thrift store and has found some cool treasures like a little farm and some fire truck shoes.
• On Friday I got an Elmo dvd at the library about birthdays and that is Isaac’s new favorite movie. He’s always asking for Elmo and the birthday party and he loves the slapstick comedy routines in them by Mr. Noodle. He likes to say “Silly Mr. Noodle!” and have mom rewind certain parts over and over and over again.

Oct.30-Nov.5, 2006
• Halloween! Isaac has a new favorite day of the year. He was in heaven when he realized that if he just put on a silly tiger suit, he could ring ANYONE’s doorbell and get free candy. He picked up on the “trick or treat” and “Happy Halloween” phrases really quickly and he and his little friend Michael made an absolutely adorable duo going around our neighborhood. Michael was dressed up as Mickey Mouse.
• His prayers are getting more and more adorable. He sometimes likes to pray in both languages and also throw in random things like “bless the fan.” He’ll bless things he’s excited about twice like strawberries and cream. . .
• Isaac and my mom went on lots of fun excursions to the “troll bridge” down by the bayou trail and they also went to the little thrift store over at the Catholic church complex. We actually found a few cool thrift stores this week and got some great books, videos and other assorted randomness.
• Levi:
• His belly button cord fell off on Wednesday—yeah!! It was looking pretty yucky. His circumcision has also healed nicely.
• Lots of cute facial expressions in his sleep.
• He’s a snuggler—loves to sleep and my tummy and snuggle up beside me and be carried around.