Early Literacy Learning Photo Shoot

Hi, it's me, Xia, ha ha ha ha (if you watch Elmo, you will catch the correlation). Mommy works for the Library System and they are putting together a brochure to promote Early Literacy Learning. They wanted one more picture of a father reading to a child for the front cover and asked if Daddy and I would volunteer. Here's the results from our morning photo shoot on Thursday 7/30/09...

Too posed:

Too whimsical:

Did Isa just wake up? Is she breathing?

And the winner is...

Another Isa Close Up

Isa here. How about enjoying another close up of me because one really never can get enough of "Isa Extreme Close Up". This was taken Monday 7/27/09:

Milk, it does a body good!

Xia again. I think I could probably be in one of those magazines pushing Milk. I enjoy a good shake in the morning. Here I am gulping one down on Saturday 7/25/09:

And here's the shot we'll be submitting to the magazines:

Xia the Virtuoso

Hi, it's Xia. I think I'm getting pretty good at this piano playing. Here's a concert from Tuesday 7/21/09, enjoy...

Xia Mimmicks Mommy?

Xia here. You know, I've been watching my Mommy take care of Isa for 4 months now. I think I've got it down now. Check out my skill at calming down a crying "baby". What do you think? PS. watch out for those refrigerator door handles!!



Movie taken Monday 7/20/09.

Isa Lifts Her Head

Isa here. I've made my parents proud by lifting my big ol' head!! This was on Monday 7/20/09:

The End of Isa's Diapers of the Day

So there were 58 diapers in all. Did you enjoy them? If you choose to relive the moments, here is a PDF file of all of them.

And here are links to all of Isa's Diapers of the Day:

1 , 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58

Thanks again to the Volpes for such a creative gift!!

Rehoboth Beach - Take two...

Isa again. Daddy's good friend, Missy, and her husband, Mike, were kind enough to let us come down and visit them at Rehoboth Beach DE. We did this last year too and had a lot of fun. We left about 5pm on Friday 7/17/09 for the 2 hrs and 45 min ride. Unfortunately, Xia got a little car sick and threw up on the way. Mommy and Daddy feel like they've been broken in as REAL parents now after having to pull over to the side of the road and strip her down and give her and her car seat a wipee bath. Hooray for wipees!! Then we rode the rest of the way with quite an interesting smell in the car. I was the only one who didn't stink and I'm the baby!! Missy let us use her washing machine to clean the car seat and clothes up good once we got there. I got real fussy at one point and was fed a bottle at a McDonalds. And the traffic was really bad. So we didn't get there until 9:30pm!! Mommy says if she just adds 2 hours to the time she thinks she'll get somewhere, it works out fine.

We went to the beach on Saturday 7/18/09 and had a great time. Here are Xia and Mommy in their beach chairs:

Here I am:

And here's Daddy:

I got pretty tired and Mommy tried to put me on the blanket for a nap. I kept fussing so she finally did the swaddle thing and out I went:

Take note of what areas of my body are showing after being swaddled up. Later, it will be a VERY GOOD thing that I needed to be swaddled and wasn't just laid down in my suit for my nap under the umbrella...

Xia is still not a fan of the ocean and wouldn't even go in when Mommy or Daddy held her. We'll have to see how next year goes. But she did have a lot of fun in the sand again this year...



So... when we left the beach and had a walk on the boardwalk, Mommy put me in my sling and looked down at me and said to Daddy.. "Is that a sunburn on Isa's face?!" They weren't sure, thought maybe I was just hot in the sling. But... when we got back to the house later, YEP, I was sunburned!! I didn't notice at all and haven't complained about it at all, but Mommy is so upset. She has a history of skin cancer and feels TERRIBLE!! She's confused because she was told no sunscreen for me til I'm 6 months old so she's always VERY GOOD about keeping me out of the sun and in the shade. Well, I guess that old sun reflected on the sand and I got a nice toasty red face. Now you know why it's a darn good thing I was swaddled or my whole body would have gotten it! The sunburn is right in line with what was not covered up in my swaddle blanket.

We had some fun later that night taking pictures and video of me next to a lobster since Daddy's new nickname for me is lobster face...



Mommy - Daddy - How could you DO THIS to me?!

Really, I'm fine, but Mommy's "Mother's guilt" is kicking in bigtime. I really had a great time and it's going to be okay. Live and learn!!

Thanks for the great visit Missy - Xia and I had so much fun with you...

Thanks Mike!!

Swaddled Isa

Isa here. I sleep best when I'm swaddled. Here I am on Thursday 7/16/09 in a Daddy super swaddle job. He is THE BEST swaddler:

Swimming with the Smeltzers

Xia here. Daddy, Isa and I went over to the Smeltzers for the day on Wednesday 7/15/09 after we dropped Mommy off for work in the morning. I had so much fun swimming and slip n sliding with Eli and Kylie. Here are a bunch of pictures and videos of my fun, fun day!!

Okay, the suits are on... let's go!

Ooooh, the water's deep and cold...



Hey Eli, what's with dumpin' water on my head!?



Slip N Slide fun - with a shark mouth at the end!



Hey, this water is really sprayin' me now, I'm outta here...



I enjoy the little sprays!

Kylie's trying to talk me into going down the slide, but I'm stickin' with the spray:

Off goes Kylie...

Would you like a blueberry? They're great after all of this swimming and fun...

Isa Checking Out Herbie

Hello, Isa here. I am still quite fascinated with the furry creature named Herbie who lives with us. He's something called a cat. I just love to stare at him. Here I am on Tuesday 7/14/09 checking him out:

Isa's Diaper of the Day #58

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on." Carl Sandburg

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Xia in her Sunday Best

Xia here. Here's a shot of me on Sunday 7/12/09 before we went to church. Mommy never did get a picture of Isa...

By the way, does everyone see the crazy man in the background? How did he get into our house and in my picture?!

Slinging Isa

It's Mommy here, I just had to post this pic of Isa in her Moby wrap on Saturday 7/11/09. Believe me, doing the dishes are SO much easier when I get to look down at this the whole time. What a gift children are...

Playmat Time

Hi, it's Isa. I spend a lot of time on my playmat as you've seen in many pictures. On Wednesday 7/8/09, Daddy took some shots of Xia and I on the playmat. Even though there really isn't much room for Xia, she just can't resist getting on it with me:

Time to Sign

Xia again. Since I can explain everything with words now, I haven't had to sign as much as I used to when I was little. But I still love watching Baby Signing Times and can finally make some of the signs that used to be hard for my little hands. Here I am on Tuesday 7/7/09 signing 'airplane'. I was quite proud of myself:

We're going to start signing with Isa pretty soon even though she probably won't start signing back for a few months.

I was playing with Herbie too on Tuesday. Here's what happened to the poor guy when I gave him a little shove off of his perch on the back of the couch. Yep, he does put up with a lot:

Xia is Thirty Months Old

On Sunday 7/5/09, I turned thirty months old. I'm pretty tall these days - hitting 3 feet now. Plus, I can really hold a very interesting conversation with you if you're up for listening. I'm a very good story teller. My hair has gotten very long and my Daddy still won't let Mommy go to get it cut. What is it about men and long hair!?

We Have Hawks & Scowly Faces

Hi, Xia here. We seem to have two pairs of hawks who built nests in our trees and their eggs have now hatched. Wish we could see the babies, but it's up too high. Seems all we see in our backyard are swooping hawks, it's amazing. Plus, they kill all the little varmits around the yard. Here is a shot of one of them taken Sunday 7/5/09:

On another note, I wanted to share with you the normal expression of Isa. We call her "serious face" or sometimes "scowley face". Boy, she can be intense.

And here I am trying to imitate her:

Isa's Diaper of the Day #57

"It's Your Duty to change this booty!"

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #56

"I (heart) my Daddy."

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #55

"iPood"

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #54

"Potty Princess"

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #53

"If you can read this you're close enough to change my diaper."

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #52

"I coo and poo. That's all I do."

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #51

"AB CD"

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Isa's Diaper of the Day #50

"ROCK 'N ROLL ALL NIGHT AND POTTY EVERY DAY."

For an explanation of these posts, see original post here.

Happy Fourth of July

Did you have a nice holiday? We all enjoyed ourselves on Saturday 7/4/09. Our aunt Kathy has everyone over to her place as she lives near Musser Park in the city where they have an Old Fashioned 4th of July celebration with a cake walk and brass band, etc. We did this last year too! And before us kids came along Mommy and Daddy went.

Here are some shots of Xia in her holiday outfit - she got 2 years wear out of this one! Here she is in Kathy's back yard/garden/oasis, talk about a green thumb! She loved the pond with the fishies:

Some poses:

Mommy thinks she looks way too grown up here!

Tried to get a family shot, but Xia got tired of posing and well Isa's face says it all:

Xia Mommy and Isa really enjoyed the cool see-saw at the playground in the park. First Mommy with Isa:

Then Xia (starting to look at bit tired at 3pm sans nap):

And a movie of it too - note to all Mom's - this is a great workout for your thighs!



Didn't get any pics of the rest of the family, but we were so happy to see everyone and catch up. It really was a lovely day.

When we got home, Daddy got a great shot of Isa:

Xia actually wore this outfit her first 4th of July holiday! Boy, you can tell we're sisters!

Lastly, Daddy closed out the evening by taking this funny video of Isa in her swing and Xia laughing hysterically in the background until she laughed herself silly - check it out!