Looking Back

I am constantly taken aback by how quickly Isaac has grown! He looks like this now but, believe it or not,...

...he used to look like this! Can you believe how small he was?

I realized recently that I never really shared pictured from when Isaac was a newborn, and what better way to do that than our familee blog?

This is one of my favorite pictures from the hospital. It was taken right after Isaac was born, I was still recovering from delivery. Enoch looks so genuinely happy to see Isaac, and it almost looks like they're old friends.

This one was taken right before the last pic, as soon as we left the OR.

I barely remember a lot of the delivery, but I do remember the first time I held my son, and this is it. I was so tired, and a little distracted/overwhelmed by everything that had just happened but I will cherish this moment as long as I live.

Enoch stayed night and day at the hospital (four days total) in spite of being in the middle of a semester at school. I would, once again, like to point out how small Isaac used to be

There is a much-loved picture of Dan holding a newborn Enoch on the mantle at his parent's house. We were trying to re-create the picture with the next generation. Unfortunately I don't have the original one of Dan to show here, but we got pretty close.

Last day in the hospital, time to go home!

We had a lot of visitors over the first few weeks and I didn't get pictures of everyone. However, we did snap this of Abi and Isaac because they're pretty close in age

Here's my dad helping Frankie hold "Baby Isaac". She adored him and was so cute with him.

Jenny, Chris, and Johnny. They brought tons of clothes and have been a huge help when I have questions about how to handle Isaac

Kris actually went above and beyond and stayed with us for about three weeks after Isaac was born. She stepped in and helped cook, clean, and even took over "daddy duties" a couple nights when Enoch went back to school

Enoch would sometimes read his textbooks out loud to help soothe Isaac. I know he didn't always retain the information as well as he could have if he was studying in another way, but it worked well and they enjoyed their bonding time

Isaac's 1st Birthday

Now that I'm back to blogging, I decided I should post some pictures of the hands-down cutest member of our family. Isaac turned one year old on March 7th and we celebrated with a "space" themed party - for anyone who doesn't know, that's also his bedroom theme. Thanks to everyone who joined in our celebrations! I would like to state something before we commence with the picture parade however: as much as I would like them to be, these are not in any sensible order. It's extremely difficult to move pictures around on Blogger once they've been uploaded and I rarely have the foresight to plan out how I want my pictures placed.

That said, enjoy!

The three of us opening Isaac's gifts (thanks everyone!)

Cousin Frankie - she had a blast playing with her Great Grandpa Olson!

Aunts Amber & Charlotte

Frankie again, with Johnny in the back. This time they're playing with Great Grandma, it was so cute to see them having so much fun

Isaac sitting on Grandpa's lap

Here we are opening presents with Katie, she was such a good "helper" that day

Rachel looks on as Asher either takes a breather or throws a fit, can't quite tell here. Garrett's probably waiting for cake

The elusive Tom Hatch was even able to make it! Yay!

Britta took a lot of pictures (they're on her blog if you want to see them). And the Mayfields are smiling, as usual. Awwww, cute!

Here's Uncle KyKy ( ;D ) with Jenny, Chris, and Johnny. His girlfriend Adrianna is hiding behind him to the left.

We got no less than a million pictures of Isaac eating his cake, but I especially like this one because he almost looks sheepish about it; like he's been "caught in the act"

I couldn't resist buying this hat for Isaac to wear, knowing full well that he loves pulling them off immediately after we put them on his head. I'm glad I had it though, we got some nice shots of him wearing it in our family photos (which I will post soon)

I thought these were cute. Isaac is such a smiley baby anyway, but when we pull out the camera he usually turns into a little ham! So I couldn't resist snapping him crying for once. Maybe it's just because I'm his mom, but I think his crying face is still adorable.... (not all the time though)

... aaaand we're back!

Here's the cake I made. It's a moon, do you see it? I baked one of the cake layers in a round Pyrex bowl to achieve the dome look, then I filled and iced it with frosting that had Oreo cookie crumbs and grey coloring mixed in. Then I made little craters with the "baby" spatula as well as adding some Oreo craters, and topped it off with some space figures/toys I bought from Amazon. There's even a space monkey on there somewhere! I really wanted to make a cool rocket ship cake with fondant and cutouts, etc, but I simply didn't have the time! Maybe next year?

So Many Books, So Little Time

I just finished reading the Millenium series, consisting of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. I really enjoyed the series despite having trouble keeping track of so many characters and not being able to even guess at how to pronounce most of the Swedish proper nouns. I became interested in the books after watching the Swedish movies (love Netflix). Fun Fact: did you know that the Swedish title of the books is Men Who Hate Women? The books themselves as well as the story about their author Stieg Larsson are very interesting and I recommend them to most (although there is a lot of swearing and some disturbing events dealing mostly with rape that were hard for me to get through). I also, obvously, enjoyed the Swedish movies and am looking forward to the American versions that are being made, the first of which is scheduled to be out this December (nudge, nudge, wink, wink Enoch). I'm just not sure how anyone will portray Lisbeth Salander better than Noomi Rapace...

The real reason I'm writing is because I don't know what to read next... I have over 100 books on my NookColor, but I find that none are really grabbing my interest (however the lack of interest could be due to the face that it's four o'clock in the morning). Here's a very brief overview of what's available to me on my Nook as of right now: the Dexter series, about four Dan Brown novels, a bunch of James Patterson's Alex Cross books, some Wheel of Time, a few of the classics like Pride and Prejudice, a bunch of C.S. Lewis, and the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, as well as Tina Fey's and President Obama's autobiographies. There are a few other random books sprinkled in there, but I don't want to take the time to list a detailed inventory. So what do you guys think I should read? Or should I get a new book? I'd be interested to read the book , which the movie Limitless is based on. I'd appreciate your input. Thanks!

Throw me a Bone

There's a billboard near my house advertising that any size soft drink costs "one bone" at a certain golden-arched fast food establishment. That got me thinking: when did bones become currency? And are they really only worth one dollar? Does that mean that an adult human is only worth $206? And that would be for a perfect specimen: I bet broken or otherwise damaged bones would have to be discounted in some way, like dented cans at the supermarket. However, if that's true then human infants would be worth around $300, making them more valuable which is in line with how our culture views babies versus adults in terms of worth (based on legislation to protect and care for the two.) That still seems kind of low to me, given what it costs for medical care in general. Although I think most medical care deals with the softer and/or squishier parts of the human body, and so I suppose those parts are more valuable than the bones?

I was curious to know where the term came from, and after doing some admittedly light internet research I can say that I have absolutely no idea how a "bone" came to be synonymous with a "dollar". The closest I can guess is that it came from a secret Masonic code, but that's kind of a cop-out really; the Masons get the credit/blame for a lot and they seem to be the easy go-to scapegoat for anything we can't explain in society.

So what do you, my vast, international audience think? (Kris spends half a year in Antarctica, and another quarter abroad so I'm counting that as "international!") Would you accept a bone in place of a dollar bill? Or would you rather a greenback, buck, ace, frogskin, or clam (as another billboard for the same company uses)? OR... would you simply smile awkwardly, don a pair of gloves, take the bone from the person offering it as payment, and quietly call the police?

Hello!

My good buddy Skip has inspired me to start blogging again! I've been doing most of my updating on Facebook (which I never thought I'd be saying, but alas it is true). I think my biggest beef with Blogger has been that it's not super easy to arrange photos on my posts in the artsy configurations I would like. However, it's still better than creating my own blog, and is a nice compliment to my Facebooking adventures.* I noticed I now have 5 followers (although I don't know this blue cat person...), thanks for being interested - or at least feining interest - enough to declare publicly that you want to know what I have to say! I work graves at my not-so-new job and therefore have more free time to write, so I'll make an effort to remember to bring my laptop along so I can post pictures too. Also, I think I'll finally share the reins with Enoch and get his input as well. So long and thanks for all the fish!!**

*Bear with me people, it's 6am and I've been awake for far too long already today!

**from the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchiker's Trilogy by Douglas Adams