Crawling!

Isaiah has started crawling and I was fortunate to get it on video! He still has a long way to go, but he is getting the hand of it.

London post posted on August 9

For some reason my London post and pics posted on August 9, so it showed up in the archives- you'll have to go on a treasure hunt on the right hand side of the screen to find it...good luck! In the mean time take a look at these Isaiah pics...he keeps backing himself up under things and getting stuck...it is hilarious!! Oh, and he started crawling today! Woot woot!

"Uhhhh...how do I get out of here!!"

Ruff, ruff & helping with the laundry

A few new pics of Isaiah :) He's so much fun!

Isaiah helping with the laundry.

Isaiah is growing up so fast! He has 5 teeth coming in at the same time, which has been an adventure! Isaiah has also recently been getting very excited about books- he squeals and tries to pull books off the shelf to read every time we walk past his books shelf. Crawling is also on his "to-do" list...he hasn't mastered it yet, but he is getting close! Another new fun thing that Isaiah can do is answer the question, "What does a dog say?" "Ruff, ruff" It is maybe one of the cutest things I've ever seen, so I thought I'd share it with you. :)

London

Back in July, the Smidt family came to visit we got to enjoy several adventures together. One of our first destinations was London. In London we were able to see all of the main sights including the Tower of London, Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, Westminster Abbey, Churchill War Museum, Museum of Natural History, St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and of course, the London Underground. My favorite parts of London were the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, the Globe Theater and catching an evening showing of "Phantom of the Opera" with Ben. The Tower of London is actually a fortress...who knew?!?! I thought it was just going to be one tower, but it was an enormous complex. Inside housed the crown jewels, a 4-story ancient armor and weapons exhibit, several torture rooms and prisons, living quarters, and many other buildings. I really wish we would have been able to spend an entire day there; i feel like we didn't even make a dent in all there was to see. Westminster Abbey was breathtaking and spanned quite a large area with all it's Abbey rooms. Shakespeare's Globe Theater was another fantastic experience. As some of you may know, I taught one semester of freshman English at Morton High School in 2008 and we covered a unit on Romeo and Juliet. As prep for that unit I taught a day or two of Shakespeare's history including info in the Globe Theater, so it was really special for me to be able to be there living what I taught about. I also love to act and being such a famous and historical theater was amazing. We even got to witness part of a rehearsal of Henry VIII...very cool!

Our second night in London, Kathy offered to put Isaiah to bed and babysit him in the room while Ben and I went to a show. We originally tried to see "The Lion Kind" but it was sold out, so we got tickets to "The Phantom of the Opera." Time was short because I had to nurse Isaiah before we left, so we didn't leave the hotel until 7:15 and our show started at 8:00. It was quite and adventure getting to the show...we ending up walking almost 2 miles, very quickly...and I was in heels! I was definitely limping after mile one... Miraculously, we made it to the show with about 10 minutes to spare. It was really great to see a Broadway style show in London. (This was my birthday present :)

London was very interesting and it was great to actually understand signs and menus (although I think I heard more Spanish and French than English), but I have to admit that London wasn't my personal favorite (although it was probably everyone else's favorite). I love feeling like I am in a "different" country, and to me, London felt like Chicago- only cooler. Great fun with the family though!

Isaiah and Ben inside the Tower of London.

Isaiah drinking from my water bottle. Notice that he is drinking English style with a raised pinky. He knows how to assimilate, this child :)

Shakespear's Globe Theater

St. Paul's cathedral

Typical London street.

Tower of London bridge, but not the famous "London Bridge"

Tower of London.

The Rosetta Stone!! Absolutely in amazing. This was located in London's natural history museum, which is known as the "Museum of Things the British Empire Stole From Other Countries" The Museum was enormous and impressive- there was everything from mummies to ancient Greek sculptures to Indian pottery to gold Buddhas.

Westminster Abbey

The Tower of London.

Grandpa Smidt, Isaiah and one of the Crown Jewel guards.

Big Ben.

Eating some delicious, authentic English-style pot-pies.

Inside Westminster Abbey- it was beautiful! Definitely one of my favorite places in London!

The main door of St. Paul's Cathedral- HUGE!

Isaiah with his London toy of choice: a bottle.

Catch on Video

Hey all! I have so much to blog (Smidt family visit, London, Amsterdam), but I have to admit that I've been a bit distracted lately...I am almost finished with my annual summer re-reading of the Harry Potter series. I started reading the first one in mid-July and I'm already on book 7...that is a lot of pages in 1 month!

Until I get around to blogging interesting things, here is a fun video of Isaiah playing catch. I also got Luna in the video- we've been receiving some requests for Luna appearances, so here she is :) Sorry the video is long-ways...you may have to turn your head sideways to enjoy...hah!

Father's Day

This year Ben got to celebrate Father's Day for the first time- we had a great day! I made pancakes for Ben for breakfast and gave him his present (pictures of Isaiah and me for Ben to take to work to liven up his desk :). Isaiah thought it would be a good idea to get dressed up in honor of Father's Day, so he chose his best suit. We were a bit surprised to find that when we put it on, the sleeves were 2 inches too short and couldn't be buttoned at the wrist and I couldn't button the top button of his shirt, so his tie was a bit off center- Ha! We have a big guy on our hands...the suit was size 12mo! After church, we played games and relaxed the rest of the day.

Isaiah thinking, "Luna...come on, we are trying to take a picture here!"

"I'm tired...can I take a nap now??"

Ben doing a great job being Dad- Isaiah was being fussy, so he bravely put on the sling and stuck Isaiah in while I was making pizza for dinner. Definitely wins the "Dad of the Year" award for that one!

Going Swimming

The last couple of weeks has been fairly warm in Brussels (80's- hot for here!) On Friday, July 2nd, it reached the 90's, and Isaiah and I were smoking hot hanging out in our apartment without air conditioning. I really wanted to go buy Isaiah a little baby pool to put on our balcony, but riding a tram for 20 minutes, walking for 45 minutes and lugging a pool all the way back in the 90 degree heat didn't sound too appealing. So, we got creative! I found a Rubbermaid bin that held all my craft things, emptied it out and filled it with water. Carrying the water-filled tub from the kitchen sink to the balcony only resulted in minor damage to Luna and our wood floor, in the form of small rain showers. Isaiah got to wear his swimsuit from Grandma Smidt for the first time! I have to admit that I didn't have a water diaper, so Isaiah went "Commando."

Getting some pics before jumping in the water!

"hmmm, what is this fun string??"

Splish, Splash!!

Figuring out how this fun water toy works...

Whoops! Tower Tumble!