Familia Nuttall

James was taking care of the boys on Saturday night and he took the boys over to Whole Foods. The lady at the checkout gave Isaac some stickers and when Levi fell asleep on the way home, Isaac covered his face with stickers. Needless to say, he was not a happy camper about having them removed when he woke up.

Another Boy!

Sept. 22-28, 2008
Isaac and I have a new game when we’re walking through town. I say “yo veo un. . .” and then I say something that I see using Spanish vocab like “un carro rojo” or “una puerta verde” Isaac really gets into it and if he doesn’t know the word in Spanish he’ll ask me so it’s a good way to learn new words.
I finally got Levi to say “leche por favor”—he definitely prefers to say milk, but he’ll humor me.
I met a cool girl named Marina through the Wharton Kids Club. She and her husband are Russian, but they lived for a few years in Shanghai, China and their little five year old girl speaks Russian, Mandarin Chinese, and English. And I thought managing two languages was tricky!
I successfully cut both of the boys hair by myself this week. I’m not saying that its perfect, but at least their bangs aren’t in their eyes and there are no spots that look overly crooked. Levi cooperated pretty well as long as he was distracted and Isaac resisted for a while and then finally gave in and let me do some snipping. I wish there were a kids haircut place close by, but since there isn’t its forcing me to learn a new skill.
I found out on Tuesday that we’re having another boy! Ay caramba. We’re excited but I have to admit that Isaac did have me convinced that it was going to be a girl. Maybe I’m just meant to have boys. My mom says that we’ll be able to have a sports team soon. Isaac was pretty dissappointed because he was positive that he was going to have a baby sister. When I told him about the ultrasound, he said, "no mom--the doctor is wrong!" He was in denial at first, but he's starting to warm up to the idea. Now he wants to name the baby Max after the bunny rabbit from the show "Max and Ruby"
Isaac talks like Bob the Tomato and Tolola lately. He does the Tolola British accent really well and his favorite quote is, “after a bedtime treat, its time to brush our teeth.” His Bob phrases lately are, “you might be wondering why. . .” and “I suppose. . .”
Levi made is first foray into pretending Isaac style on Thursday. He came into the kitchen and announce, I’m Dora you’re Boots.
Our Chilean friends—Maria Paz and her two kids, Matias and Pepita, came over for a playdate on Friday morning. Since I’ve left Isaac with Maria before Isaac was worried I would leave him. In his haste to tell me not to leave him, he forgot the word for leave in Spanish and said, Mama, no me “leave-es” It was hilarious to hear him conjugate an English verb in Spanish.
Isaac said, “mom, do Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber go pepee in the toilet?” I said, “ofcourse they do and he said, “but mom, they don’t have any holes!” Good observation.
On Saturday Red Bull sponsored a really cool motorcycle show a couple of blocks from our apartment and it was pretty amazing. The stunt riders were doing flips and all kinds of cool bike tricks. After watching for a few minutes Isaac said, “I didn’t know motorcycle could fly mom!”
Levi can use irregular verbs in the past tense—“ I caught a fish mom” and “I found it”
Levi is very excited about space ships these days and he’ll point to church steeples when we drive by and yell “rocketship”
Isaac and Levi have a new brotherly interaction. Levi will look at Isaac and say, “you’re a mermaid!” and then Isaac will respond, “you’re a monster!” and they’ll repeat this going back and forth—sometimes getting confused and switching and its pretty darn hilarious.
Sunday afternoon we went out when the rain slowed to a drizzle and Isaac and Levi had a blast jumping in the puddles in their rain boots. They both got completely soaked though and we had to head home for bathtime.

How many boys can you fit in a train car?

On Wednesday we went to the zoo with some friends from church and all of the boys wanted to ride on the zoo train--we had seven boys on the train and they had a blast.

Dinosaur boys

Sept. 15-Sept.20, 2008

We had a good park day on Monday. I try to remind myself that the good weather here won’t last—we definitely got spoiled in San Diego and Houston with mild winters. They say that the winter here last year wasn’t too bad but maybe that means that this year will be a doozey.
When we were walking home from the park Isaac saw a guy dressed like a baker sitting outside a culinary arts school. He said, “mom, do you see what I see?” and got this big excited grin. He squealed, “it’s a baker mom! A real baker!” Luckily the guy smiled and said hi. Isaac felt like he was meeting a neighborhood celebrity.
Isaac seems to be doing better with behaving himself at school. His teacher said that he has been more mellow the past two days. Hopefully he can keep it up. I’ve enjoyed having some one-on-one time with Levi. Usually Carrie and I go to the park so he and Jordan can run around together and then I go to the library with Levi. There’s actually a good dvd selection at the Roxborough library and Levi loves obsessing over all of the dvd covers—especially anything with Veggie Tales on it. Today his big trophy was the Larry Boy movie.
Kim McKay got us into the big Adventure Aquarium in New Jersey on Wednesday. The boys loved getting to see sharks and “Nemo fish” as Levi calls them. Levi and Kim’s little boy Elliot wanted to run through the whole place and they wore themselves out pretty well—Levi zonked out on the way home.
I read a book called “The Last Lecture” for a Wharton book club tonight. The book is pretty amazing—I still need to watch the video of the last lecture but the book is a pretty detailed expansion of it. Its one of those books that can’t help but make you want to be a better person and really live in the moment—you just never know when your time on earth will be cut short.
We discovered a thrift store Thursday morning over by Aldis and the boys had fun playing with the toys while I sifted through the kids books. I found some cute Dora books and a really fun Spanish book about a jumping backpack.
James has been gone in the evenings a lot this week and the boys miss the physical rough housing with their dad. Levi especially starts “spazzing out” so I try to put on some dance music and swing them around.
Friday morning we walked by an old building that looked like a castle and when we walked by I pointed it out to Isaac. He said, “What will the king say if we go inside the castle mom?”
Isaac asked me at the park on Saturday how to say “show me” in Spanish and I told him “muestrame” and then he said, “quiero mostrarte algo mama”—he must have recognized the verb because I was amazed at how fast he was able to put it back into its infinitive form.
We hung out with our Chilean friends on Sunday and that’s always such a great opportunity for the boys to get great Spanish exposure by someone other than James and I. Isaac was speaking a lot of Spanish with Matias and it was so fun to hear him talk. Levi was catching on to a lot of new words to and he can say “gracias” and “por favor” pretty well.