fun weekend

We've enjoyed Blake being home this whole weekend! We went to the Magic House...

And a neighbor randomly gave us tickets to Holiday Magic--a little carnival downtown in the convention center. We rode on the train and on the carousel. And on the carousel again.
and again. and again. and again. I never understood parents standing around the carousel taking pictures before, but now I do! It's just so sweet! He loved it so much. And on the way out, he just had to ride the escalator. That's almost as fun.

How to cure your son of his addiction to Town House crackers

Accidentally buy the reduced fat variety. He will eat less and less and finally when he finishes the box and you can buy the regular kind again, his love affair will be over.

Isaac has said a few new words:
"gerl" = squirrel
"coo" = cool
"ga"= yogurt
His new fun thing to do is to grab a book and sit on my lap to read it. I love that.

We had visitors for Thanksgiving! We squished in Jeremiah, Megan, and Hannah (my brother and fam) and my mom. Hannah is much more talkative than Isaac and called him "uck". So fun to see them!

(yes, that's mom's nose)

I hope that someone can relate to this

Today I taught Sunday School as usual at church and Blake had Isaac in the hall as usual. I guess a nursery leader came up to him and told him it was time for Isaac to go to nursery. He's 17 months tomorrow--I guess they like to transition in from 17 to 18 months. She took him from Blake and walked to nursery. When I walked out of Sunday School, the nursery leader found me and told me that Isaac was doing great but he needed a diaper change. But I was supposed to bring him back after he was cleaned up.

What? He's in nursery? But he's not 18 months yet!!!

I changed him, grateful that he needed me. I walked down to nursery, certain he wouldn't want to stay again. When we got there, he looked at the nursery leader and at the kids eating snacks and looked at them like, "Hey, I was just here. And it was fun. At least, it wasn't too bad." He didn't look back at me and the nursery leader got him up to the table to eat some animal crackers. The leader looked at me and said, "Marie, I think it's time to make a graceful exit."

So I left. And I couldn't help crying through Relief Society, the last meeting of church.

My baby is getting so old.

I'm not ready for this.

Happy Halloween from a little dragon

I'm so glad this costume fits this year at least. I was so disappointed it didn't last year!

Worst day yesterday

Man peed in our back yard (alley) while we were watching with disgust from our porch.
Workers' hammers woke Isaac up.
Workers smoked on our shared porch.
Blake is sick.
Grated my finger with the carrots.
Got audited. Who knew you had to pay to St. Louis City, as well as State and Federal?

Curse my life.

Not as much faith as my mother or my brother

I am so proud that my mom and brother have been serving as missionaries for the past year and a half. Anyone that has talked to me here in St. Louis has heard about how I was going to visit my mom who was coming home from her MISSION at the end of September. And my brother is such a funny letter-writer and we can tell he's just so awesome, as can his mission president because he's been AP for months and months.

Excerpt from Andrew this week:

"But yesterday was probably the best day of my mission, so it is all worth it. Now I am sure you must be thinking, "Andrew, the BEST DAY of your mission? That is a bold statement. What did you do? Find, teach, and baptize a family all in one day?" Not quite...but we sure came close.

Gina Garcia asked for a missionary visit. She had gone to church with a friend in High School and enjoyed it, so she wanted to learn more. Our appointment was for yesterday. Going into the lesson our main focus was to teach by the spirit, and that meant to do everything possible to invited the spirit into her home. So we began with a Hymn, #135 My Redeemer Lives. Then we prayed and bore solid, pure testimony of the Restored Gospel. The Spirit was so strong, I was on the verge of tears. She is a single mother and has struggled for years, finally she is humbled enough to say, I need God, what do I need to have His help. She is going to prepare for baptism on October 30th. When we started to leave, she said, will you also go downstairs and teach my sister and mother? They are waiting for you. Basically the same experience happened, they too are committed to baptism on October 30th. My entire service out here has been in anitcipation for such an experience, and it happened. They have had exposure to the church before, when they lived in Forest Grove, and now they want it in their lives. Really, we did not do anything, just another instrument in the Lord's hands. They were prepared for our visit, and they recognized the spirit.

When we left, I realized how many months I had been wasting trying to indoctrinate people and convince them of the truthfulness of the Gospel by my own logic and reason. The way the Lord asks us to preach is by the spirit. If they feel the spirit, they will recognize us as servants of God. And if they believe with all their hearts that we are the Lord's servants, then teaching becomes easy, it becomes secondary to the testimony they have received. The Lord has people prepared, people who will recognize the promptings of the spirit, and once I understood how to really teach by the spirit, the Lord poured out his blessings on us."

He's my little brother?
And my mom is awesome too. It was so funny seeing her walking around her huge house with this look on her face like, "Where am I? What am I supposed to do? Who can I teach?" (The answer was the photographer we met up the canyon and the lady who asked us to take a picture of her and her dog.)

Anyway, I visited home. It was fun. Wish I was still there.

On Wednesday I was reminded of something that happened on my trip to Utah. At 7 AM I was unloading the dishwasher and Isaac was walking around the kitchen, as usual, pulling things down from the shelves and putting magnets on the floor and taking utensils out of the dishwasher and getting them dirty on the floor. Anyway, his shoes were on the floor by the fridge and then one of them was missing. All day we couldn’t find it. I was just sure it had to be in the kitchen because I didn’t think Isaac had left. When I was in Utah with my mom Isaac lost a shoe in the middle of a shopping trip so we traced our steps through Deseret Book and the across the parking lot to Bed Bath and Beyond. My mom drove up to Bed Bath and Beyond and while she passed me said, “Have you said a prayer? We should pray.” So I know my mom prayed and I did say a quick little prayer, but I was thinking that was a little childish. I found the shoe in Bed Bath and Beyond and I know it was because of my mom’s faith, not mine.

So on Wednesday God was giving me another chance to pray for something I needed. Anyway, found it at 5 PM in between the rice and the oatmeal where I had looked five times. I almost called my mom to get her prayer power because hers work better. So now we know—four of my prayers = one mom prayer.

FHE

my sisters

so many boy cousins

missionary mom (and Drew)

Cute things Isaac likes to do lately

He likes to go for walks and will pick up sticks. “Tee” = stick.

He will always notice the sound of a plane and will point up. “Dis” = plane (and a lot of other things).

He will walk towards birds and dogs. “Dis” = bird. “Gog” = dog. He’s always so disappointed when the birds fly away. And he loves it when he can pet a dog and even tries to kiss the dogs sometimes.

He likes to go to the library, especially if there are other kids there. He will pull out some books and not want me to put them back. He twirls a bookcase.

At home, he loves to listen to music and will periodically turn the dvd player on and off to turn on and off the music. He can reach on his tippy toes to turn on and off the tv too.

One of his favorite toys is pig. Pig belongs on the backrest of the couch and Isaac will stand on the couch and throw it into the quilt rack and I’m supposed to get it for him.

Isaac likes to go in the back of our building and drink some water out of the hose.

He likes to splash in a bucket on the porch and watch mom bounce the ball, which one time he called “ba”.

Cars are his backyard friends. "Ca" = car.

He loves to stand on the counter and pull out all of the spices.

He likes to turn on and off lights.

He likes it when dad comes home and if dad gets on his hands and knees Isaac will chase him anywhere. “Da” = dad.

Isaac loves to give kisses and will randomly throughout the day give me a kiss on the lips with a lot of slobber. If anyone at the store or on the street says hi he will give me a kiss to show them he’s with someone.

When Owen (the boy we tend) is at our house on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he gives Owen lots of kisses too and will hand him some toys.

Isaac's little brother in training. Such a cutie! So patient and happy!

When we go for a walk with Owen, Isaac likes to push him in the stroller and periodically go to the front of the stroller and see what Owen is playing with.

Isaac’s favorite book is Barnyard Dance because he can dance to the rhythm when we read it.

Isaac likes to turn on the computer and watch a video or two of himself and maybe Elmo’s song on youtube. He sings “ya ya ya” when Elmo sings “la la la”.

When we run to the park in the morning, Isaac’s favorite thing is to climb the stairs. Sometimes he want to go down the slide, but mostly he wants to go up and down the stairs. He can do it by himself, mostly, when he holds on to the railing. He can’t do the stairs at our apartment building because the railing is too high.

His favorite food is townhouse crackers.

If you try to give him a drink and he doesn’t want one, he’ll shake his head and say “nuh”.