February 2007

Jan.29-Feb.4, 2007
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?” He gets his linguistic zest from his momma.

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.

Here are some of the things James and I remember from his blessing:
He will have a strong desire to communicate with Heavenly Father through prayer
He will be responsive to the teachings of his parents
He will have the opportunity to serve a full time mission and marry in the temple.

Feb.5-Feb.11, 2007
Big grins and giggles from Levi this week. He is very interactive and is all about love and attention and getting more of it. Aren’t we all.
Isaac noticed that when you close your eyes you see black. He closed his eyes and said, “black momma—it’s the color black”
Levi is starting to laugh now when we zurbert his neck and he smiles in recognition of our voices.
Isaac still loves stealing Levi’s binky and swiping his hats.
Isaac has started asking “How do you say ?? in Spanish?” He keeps me on my toes with the vocabulary. He asked “How do you say blinds in Spanish” and I finally remembered that they’re called “persianas”
For the primary activity on Saturday we taught the kids how to do fancy decorations on cookies and all of the kids had fun giving Levi love and attention.

Feb. 12-Feb. 18, 2007
Isaac is now using Levi and a conduit for his expression. He’ll say, “baby Levi wants to watch a movie, or “baby Levi wants a cookie”
I made the mistake of giving Isaac a couple of “surprise” toys from the thrift store last week and now every day he keeps asking for more surprises.
Valentine’s week! James got me some beautiful white roses and made me breakfast in bed. Isaac and I made a few valentines and sent them to grandmas and grandpas.
We had our first Spanish play group on Friday morning. Anna and Claudia weren’t able to make it, but Amerika and Maylis’s girls came and we really had a good time. Amerika and I read some stories and then we danced around with the kids to songs from the Spanish story time mix that I made in San Diego.

Feb.19-25, 2007
Isaac saw some trees at the park and said, “Look, big broccoli!”
When he woke up on the 22nd he wanted to sing happy birthday to baby Levi which was kind of uncanny because it just happened to be Levi’s four month birthday
Isaac is crossing over into the more independent “Isaac do it” stage. He wants to hold the knife to spread the peanut butter and cut the apples.
His language development is cute. He uses the pronoun “us” more than “me” He’ll say, “Papa can you come for us” or “can you help you for us.”
He is very excited about the upcoming family trip in April and he’s constantly saying “in April we’re going to the airport.
Isaac can go through alphabet in English and Spanish with a picture chart and say “A is apple / A es para agua” etc. He can also recite almost all of the “I’m a big brother book”
Levi has figured out the bouncy fun of the jumperoo and he has been bouncing around quite a bit this week.
Levi is not content to just lay on his back any more. He’ll roll over pretty quickly sometimes and then flail around trying to move forward. He’ll also try to sit up and he’ll strain into a half sit up position and has a very determined look on his face.
Playgroup—on Friday we danced to the elephant song and Isaac wanted to keep dancing to it over and over again. He kept saying, “un poquito mas!” It’s hard to deny him when he sounds so cute.
Isaac can go on the big boy swing now! We put Levi in the red baby swing and Isaac stepped up to the plate and tried out the blue swing for the first time. He still makes us nervous when he starts to let go, but he does pretty well.

Feb.26-March 4, 2007
Levi is an official flipper—he doesn’t stay put very long on his back now and when he flips over to his tummy he starts wiggling around and trying to crawl. He’s really determined to move and he definitely manages to scoot himself off of blankets somehow.
Isaac—plurals—he learned to say “boxes” and now overgeneralizes to “lights-ez”
Spanish—during Spanish playgroup on Friday, Isaac said, “mama, quiero ver la tele” pretty funny
On Saturday Isaac wanted to go to Costco and I told Isaac that we had to wait for Papa because he was in the shower. Isaac promptly ran over to the shower and yelled, “Apurate Papa! Apurate!” (Hurry up Papa, Hurry!)
Levi giggles now and is very into grabbing everything. I forget he can grab and on Tuesday he knocked over my fruit smoothie because I had him in the baby carrier and I wasn’t paying attention.
Levi has also been very interested in Isaac’s toys this week. He especially likes the one that makes elephant noises.
Isaac is getting better with his pronouns—he can say “can you help me” but he still sometimes says “can you help you” He hasn’t really gone through the “mine” stage, but instead of that he says “Can I have a turn” and grabs at things (sometimes patiently, sometimes not)
Ever since he got mildly burned by a hot bread pan over vacation, Isaac has had a very strong fear of hot things to the point that he freaks out when he hears things sizzling in the kitchen—especially eggs.
Levi has become quite adept at sucking his toes. He’s on flexible little guy.
I went with the boys to hang out at Alisa and Lonnie’s new house over in Katy. They have a little fish pond in the back and Isaac had fun feeding the fish and then he “accidentally” dropped the fish net in the water and got this big grin and said “Alisa, where’s the tennis racket?” (he thought the fish net looked like a tennis racket)
Isaac is always very disappointed that all of his number books end with number 10. He always wants to count higher. I found some foam squares and we wrote the numbers up to 40 on the backs and then Isaac connected them together for a number train. He was so excited. He’s a number fanatic.