New Year's Eve

We decided not to host a big party this year. Instead we went to Brian and Gina's house for the New Year. It was nice to be able to let Isaac roam the house with other kids.

Here he is playing kitchen with Grace.

Like my hat! Starting to get tired. Way past my bedtime.

Hey, party horns. Alright, I think I know how this works.

Weeee! This is fun.

He walked around looking at the horn go in and out and not really were he was walking. He bumped into quite a few things but it didn't bother him as he was so totally focused on the party horn.

Does it work if you blow on the other end?

The older kids all dressed up with no where to go. It looks more like Mardi Gra than New Years.

Vicky and Jay given us the Columbus gang signs. Or are they telling us how many minutes they have left before they fall asleep.
Man, that hat really works for you Brian. You should were that around town. Its sure to be a hit.

Mommy and Isaac, both asleep about two minutes after this picture was taken.

Fun with a Broom

Ok, I mentioned Isaac has a fetish with cleaning. Vacuums, brooms, dust pans, anything cleaning related. So we have basically had to buy one of each item for him. Otherwise, whenever we try to clean he throws a fit until you give him the specific cleaning item. The grandparents know this so they each bought him a broom for Christmas. So Isaac now has three brooms, a dust pan, and a vacuum cleaner.

Yet our greatest plans were all for nought. Instead of Isaac using his broom, he makes mommy use his small broom to sweep the kitchen while he uses the big broom. Do you know how long it takes to sweep an entire kitchen with a 6 inch wide broom.

Here is Isaac deciding that mommy doesn't need that broom either.

"That's better, Mommy let me show you how to use two brooms at once to sweep the kitchen."

Christmas Morning

Isaac looking to see what Santa left him in his stocking. Santa gave him his own cell phone. Hopefully this will prevent him from "borrowing" mom and dad's phones. We have had to call each others phone multiple time to find out where Isaac had deposited the other phone.

Taking a stroll with my new monkey backpack.
We have taken this with us to restaurants and Isaac will spend the whole time walking up and down the lanes between tables pushing his backpack and trying to get into the kitchen area.

Heather's godson, Jacob showing off his yo yo skills.

Heather's aunt and uncle had motorized bears and Christmas figurines. Isaac was in awe of them and kept wanting to hug them. Which was really cute, until you could hear the motor grinding on the inside because he was preventing it from moving. Most of the day was spent trying to keep him from tearing them apart.

We gave Grace her first purse. She loved it and wore it the rest of the night.

Isaac getting his own tool bag and tools.

A wagon from mom and dad. Not as easy as you would think to put it together. After attempting at the party and realizing that we were doing it wrong we stopped until we got home and could read the directions. Yep, you read that correctly. I read the directions. Although, it didn't really help that much. We basically looked at the picture on the box. Another negative side effect of outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. Their directions don't make any sense.

All the grand kids in the family. Quite the gang of kids. They can make quite a bit of noise together.

The kids with their spouses.

The parents and grandpa.

Isaac enjoying his new Wisconsin Badger crocks. It was quite funny to watch him walk in them. Think old west cowboys walking with the inverted U shaped legs.

Isaac finally gets his own vacuum cleaner! Isaac has a love/hate relationship with vacuums. He loves to push them around the house, take all the parts off them, and play with the chords. He even likes to be in your arms when you are vacuuming. But... they scare the crap out of him if he turns it on and isn't in mom or dad's arms. He will literally fly across the room to get to one of us and climb up our legs if we don't move fast enough. It is so hard not to laugh. I know we sound like evil parents but he knows what he is doing. We warn him that if he turns it on it is going to be loud. But he seems unwilling to learn that lesson yet. The toy vacuum is the best of both worlds, all the fun without the pooping of the pants scariness.

Stanley checking to see if there is anything he can help with or has Isaac dropped any food lately.

Christmas with the Stapleton family

Issac digging into his first present. He didn't really care to much at his 1st birthday party but he had a good time at Christmas opening presents. He normally didn't care what was in the wrapped box, he just liked tearing the paper and eating it. Basically, this was the start of the random destruction phase that we are still dealing with at home.

He got some really cool crayola crayons and markers. Yep, he is eating the marker.

Unfortunately, he still was in the phase of putting everything in his mouth so after one minute with the markers he had a blue and red tongue. We had to put them away until he gets a little older.

Grandma and Grandpa helping him with his gift.

The grand kids ready to dig into the gift and yes that is Isaac with something else in his mouth. I have no idea what it is.

Uncle Ty helping Isaac with his presents.

"Man, this is fun. We should do this everyday."

Yes, it is back! The old "Sit and Spin" that we had when we were kids. Or as I liked to call it the "Spin until you Vomit." I don't know if I ever vomited but I do know I got close pretty much every time I used it. Isaac's came with a 21st century upgrade, it plays music when you hit the buttons on the top of the handle. This is one of the few toys Isaac opened on Christmas that he immediately wanted to play.

Isaac helping daddy assemble the "Sit and Spin."

Isaac still waiting for daddy to finish setting up the toy. He just couldn't wait to start making himself sick. Actually, he is not quite strong enough to get himself going fast enough to make himself dizzy....so daddy helps him out. A dizzy kid looks very similar to a drunk adult.

Grandpa reading the "Night before Christmas" to the grand kids.

We took about 20 pictures and this is the best one we got. It is hard to get three kids to stay in one place long enough for a picture, let alone look at the same camera. Plus grandpa has a bad habit of blinking when the camera takes a picture.

Merry Christmas from Stanley! Lets just say he is not a fan of the Santa hat, but he is a good sport about it.

Max with his reindeer ears.

The Return of Bono

Nonnie and Isaac trying on his Bono sunglasses.

Dude, am I cool or what?!

I am ready for my close up Daddy!

Just a nice Christmas picture.

Isaac's First Haircut

Isaac's hair was getting quite shaggy so we decided that he should get a haircut before Christmas arrived. We took him to the place where I get my hair cut. We brought Nonnie and Grandpa along with a boat load of toys to help distract him so Angela could cut his hair without Isaac "helping."

The colorful smock entertained him for about as long as it took to put it on him. No good.

Extra combs worked for a while. He had to have a comb for each hand and he would still drop one to grab the one in Angela's hand. No good.

Here is a joke for you. "How many combs does it take to cut Isaac's hair?" There are five in the picture, but the answer is zero. They don't distract him long enough to get much accomplished. No good.

Here is what Isaac thinks of haircuts! This picture still makes me laugh. We call it "one of Isaac's special pictures." He kinda looks like he is doing the Sylvestor Stallone sneer.

What did we finally get to work? A squirt bottle filled with water. If I lightly squirted his face or allowed him to suck on the bottle he remained relatively motionless. Ok, that is a exaggeration. Let's just says Angela was able to remove some hair but it wasn't really a "good" haircut.

Here he is getting his drink of water.

Here are the after effects of the squirt bottle.

Isaac getting his first look at the Christmas tree.

Isaac "helping" decorate the tree. This means he dug through the boxes, pulled out what he liked and threw the rest on the floor.

Isaac helping Grandpa put the Christmas train together.

Isaac loved the train. He played with it every morning and night. The train played music. Isaac loved to derail the train Godzilla style and then point/grunt until we righted the train. Lets just say we were glad to put the Christmas train away after the holidays.