Bita Bita and Nimi Nimi

For our next piece, it will be a duet (Isaac's friend Maddie)

Gotta make sure this floor is even!

The boys watching some football

So I (Mike) am finally done with the house stuff for awhile. The goal was to have it done before Thanksgiving and our parties. That's me, Dad by day and renovator by night (usually I would work on our house after Isaac went to bed at 9 and would work until 230 am which worked out pretty well). At our party the other day, one of Kristi's friends told me that I might be able to use my new skill to find a daytime job...I just laughed and said "umm...I'm actually an optometrist."

As for my favorite job, taking care of Isaac is so much fun! I've written down a list of things that he does, since I have been a slacker with my video posts, so here is a brief list:
-He often walks around saying "bita bita and nimi nimi" to which I have no idea what they mean, but obviously they are important phrases

-He is a big fan of any mode of transportation: he waves at school buses while we are driving; stops what he is doing to look at airplanes flying over(then makes a whooshing sound); hears a truck while inside the house and will run to the door to go look at them

-Imitates so many things that I do: one morning I was drinking my coffee and went "ahh" so of course he picks up his milk, takes a drink and goes ahh with a big smile on his face!
also wants to brush his teeth anytime I do and will cough after I do

-He carries around a little frog that he sleeps with and calls it "Mun" which goes back to when he used to have a monkey in his room and has decided that the frog shoud be called mun?!? Anyway, he will pat Mun on its back just like I do to him when he hugs it :) If he can't find it, he will look around the house and call out loudly "Mun, Mun" until he finds it and then will give it a hug and say "Hi Mun"

-Isaac absolutely LOVES any type of ball to which he says "ball, ball, ball, ball" until he picks it up. He does this when we drive past the sporting goods store that has a picture of a basketball and soccer ball on the outside, which conveniently enough is next to Home Depot. He also tears apart my sports illustrated looking for the ball pictures.

-He also likes to pick up his bat and ball and give me the bat to swing. He will then pitch a ball to me and then go chase it and throw another pitch. We'll see how long that lasts inside the house!

-Whenever I would work on things during the day, he would "help" and would climb over my legs to sit directly in front of what I was working on so that he could see all the action and help me, occasionally grabbing the tool and doing what I was.

-One day I was raking the leaves and he was sitting in the big pile, I stopped and put down the rake to go play with him, to which he got up, picked up the rake, gave it to me, and went back to his seat in the leaves to watch me continue working!

-He eats pretty much anything put in front of him, but is a big fan of apples and blueberries (which is good here in Michigan). Most of the time I have to cut him off from having too many!

-He is a big fan of books, especially sports, animals, and truck books; but he hasn't figured out the concept of only reading one at a time and will bring me 2 or 3 to read to him.

-He likes to listen to music and play the piano along with it. If the music isn't on, he will come get one of us and request that it is turned on, by repeating "muh, muh, muh" (which is different than the word for Mommy ("Mah-meh") and milk (meah)). Obviously different requests!
One thing that is really great is he follows commands and directions really well, which makes my like easier. He will also occasionally tell me things like "per" which means he needs his diaper changed or that he is ready for sleeping and will hug Mun and walk to his room!

I could go on forever, but I figured I would give a couple of stories about his life here in the great green north. So much for all the snow hype! Apparently this has been a very mild fall, but the snow is on its way, as evidenced by our neighbors putting up snow marking sticks in their driveways and on fire hydrants!

I'm working on getting the house before and after pics up in a little bit. So until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

What Isaac is learning this week

We feel like he's become such a bigger bear this week. I was watching him play this weekend and he was doing pretend play for the first time, moving his trucks around on the floor and making them go places instead of just throwing them, and making his airplane fly with a whooshing sound. I had a midafternoon break today and at the same time Mike texted me and said Isaac and him were at the park by my hospital. It is such a beautiful day here and we had so much fun at the park, again, watching Isaac show off his new tricks. He was actually catching balls today and holding his hands out and interacting with a little friend he met there. I felt so fortunate to be able to spend part of the day with them at the park.

What Mike is learning this week . . . well he's learning how to strip and refinish our bathroom and laundry room cabinets, cut baseboard trim, reinstall closet doors correctly, and much more. Our projects seen never-ending and while he's doing all the work, it's very stressful to both of us. Our goal is to have most everything major done by Thanksgiving for a party we're having for some of the residents and for my family who is coming to visit. He's definitely an old pro now at painting =) I will enjoy having time together at night again.

What Kristi is learning this week . . . how to drill a temporal bone (bone in the head), how to cook a turkey without having to buy an oven bag, and how to read a sleep study. Not quite as interesting to you all (but useful to me) =)

Anyway, hope you all are doing well!!

Happy Pumpkinween!!

So we really had a really great time this year with Isaac on Halloween, especially special for me since I had to miss it last year. A guy in my class was nice enough to trade me call for a Saturday! so that I could spend time with my family. AND not only that, it was turn back the clock weekend so he had to work an extra hour. AND our hospital did the big bang in the middle of that night where we transferred the entire hospital over to electronic medical records. That deserves another whole paragraph in itself but I wouldn't want to bore you but this week has been extremely crazy with the transition. Nevertheless, I brought him dinner that night at the hospital =)

One funny thing, Isaac and I were sitting at the front door handing out candy and this little boy comes up with that Scream costume on and Isaac gets really scared and starts crying hard core. Poor bear. It was freezing cold so we just trick-or-treated at a couple of neighbor's houses and then had fun going over to our friends house for yummy brownies and to show off Isaac.

I don't just love these pictures but our camera broke now, boo-hoo, so I kind of just point and shoot and hope it looks good b/c we can't see it on the screen anymore. At least you can kind of see what it looks like though, I sewed it for him and it made me feel good to see him wear it and like it =) We're going to a kids Halloween party this weekend so maybe I'll get some better pictures.

Manion Clan

Here is Isaac playing with his cousin Nick, Mike's brother's son. He was the big kid of the bunch.

I just love these picture of little Ella, our niece on Mike's side (his sister). I think she and Isaac had fun destroying Grandma and Grandpa Manion's house =)

Bubbyisms

Isaac did the cutest thing last night. I had been playing the piano for awhile last night and Isaac likes to "dance" to it, which is just adorable to me. Then I went over to talk to Mike and Isaac comes up to me like a big bear and pulls on my leg and says, "meh, meh" (which is how he says mom) and wants me to go back over and play the piano for him. How special for me =)

Here's another picture from Mike and Isaac's visit to Kansas, from Left, Charlotte Jones, Ethan Jones, and Isaac working on a masterpiece! I just love this picture of the cousins. Charlotte and Ethan are my sister's two kids.