we're off!

...to whistler for our fourth annual bandstra-vaganza of cross-country skiing, hot-tubbing and tube-cookie eating. check back next week for snowy photos!

spring break

it's spring break for our friends the walshes, and they made the long drive from boise to spend the week with us. unfortunately spring in bellingham means a lot of rain, but we've also had a few nice days.
highlights have included: listening to very cute conversations between jasper and noah ("you bonked your head, jasper?" "yeah, i bonked." "you bonked?" "yeah." etc.); peeing outside (not the grown-ups); going for a few walks/runs/explorations; eating really good food; drinking beer and laughing a lot; reminiscing about the north shore and all the folks we love there; soothing fussy babies and refereeing grabby boys; not sleeping much; and drinking lots and lots of coffee.



we also got to visit briefly with the scott-fishburns, who are on whidbey island this week for the presentation of josh's master's thesis. it was lovely to meet little pascal and see josh and rose again. the last time we saw them rose was very pregnant with pascal and i didn't realize, but i was very newly pregnant with isla. and now these two little ones are not so big!

here are some whidbey island pictures:

hooray for seeing old friends! if only the rest of you long-lost folk would show up on our doorstep...

happy saint patrick's day!

1, 2, 3, tip!

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wherein a learning-to-sit isla tips over and noah cracks up

big and little boy

i wrote his name and maryka drew the giraffe. but he did the rest of the chalkin'.

yesterday while isla was sleeping, i heard fake-crying sounds from the kids playing in the yard next door. noah must have heard them too, as he came into the kitchen and asked me, "mama, is isla freakin' out?"
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noah loves our new chalkboard door in the kitchen. he pulls up a chair, gets the bowl of chalk and tells me he's going to do some chalkin'. "mama, i'm chalkin'!" it's interesting how much he has taken to this medium. he has not been much into drawing or coloring, and his efforts on the page have pretty much been scribbles. but things are different on the chalkboard. as soon as he got up there with a piece of chalk, he began drawing boxes, circles and long person-like images. it seems like he was just waiting for a comfortable medium! it's very cool.
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we've been identifying numbers a bit lately, as we've talked about thomas the tank engine and his friends, and what numbers they have on their engines. thomas is number one, of course, and now noah is very good at identifying ones. yesterday we were in the front yard looking at our house, and noah noticed the house numbers on the porch. "mama, there are two ones!" he told me. which is true, in our 1716 address.
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noah is very precise with language. recently he corrected his little friend not to say "breaked" but "broke." he also uses the funniest adult-sounding words, like "actually," "rather," "option," "cooperating," etc. he really likes rules and will recite our family rules when prompted. though he will also change the rules on a whim. "no, we are allowed to eat in the living room!" or, "i may have two chocolate chips. that's the option!" he will tell guests, "no boots or shoes on the rug!" which isn't really the most hospitable.
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he has the funniest ways of identifying his cars and trucks. he is very specific about what they're called and what they do. our friend and mailman, mike, recently gave noah a mail truck. he already had one, but he clearly loves the new one more. he calls it his "side-door-open mail truck," and the other one is his "back-open mail truck." he also has a "fancy car," a "tow car," a "side-door-open bug," a "john deere tractor duallie," etc. he also pays attention to how other kids label things, and often adopts their lingo. when jasper was here in the fall, he referred to one of noah's trains as a "honkie choo-choo," since it made a little steam noise. since then we have called it that. jasper also loved to eat "yogurt and granolie," so now we eat that too.
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the past few days he has chosen "regular" cups instead of sippie cups to drink his juice in. today when i asked him if he's done with sippie cups he said yes, he'd use regular cups now and isla could have his sippie cups. "i'm a big boy," he told me. but later when he was feeling tired and needing a hold, he told me he's a little boy. (he is also a little boy when he needs a pacifier.)
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noah is such a good big brother. he is very on top of keeping "chokables" away from isla, and is good at helping her find toys and her pacifier. in the night when she wakes and i go to nurse her, he often says, "it's okay, isla," sleepily from his crib. he doesn't like it if he wakes up and she's gone (to my bed, where she comes if she wakes super early). he has enjoyed trying to feed isla little bits of food, and cracks up when she makes funny faces. he also loves it when she tips over on my bed after sitting on her own for a few seconds. they both laugh hysterically then. he calls it "1, 2. 3, tip!"
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i am so very thankful for my sweet and tricky, little and big boy.

"what the experts say"

crazy girl

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noah's coughing got isla going too.  she's crazy!

thankful

for isla and noah's very lovely bunny shirts, made by jess thistle. also for the train whistle from sarah and andrew. we are missing you all very much.watch out, noah--isla is a toy stealer now!

amtrak, amtrak, goin' so fast...

noah, isla and i had a great adventure this weekend taking the train to grandma and grandpa's house. aaron stayed home and worked on some house projects with a few helpers. (thanks grandpa, kevin and alan!) i'll post house pictures soon.

noah was a little nervous about how loud the train would be...
so he took some precautions at fairhaven station before the train arrived. after the train pulled in to the station, though, he got really excited and hopped right aboard. he said, "i have my own seat! i'm riding on the train!" it was really cute. he was a little upset, though, that the conductor didn't say, "all aboard!" he also really appreciated that the train was a double-decker. we spent most of the nearly two-hour ride to vancouver upstairs in the observation car, sitting at a little table where we ate some snacks, read the train magazine and looked out the window. it was a really fun, reasonable adventure. i enjoyed traveling the same route we've driven a thousand times, but seeing the scenery from a different perspective. we talked about how we often look for trains along highway 99 in delta on our way to grandma and grandpa's house, and now we were ON a train! crazy.

here's the tiny passenger with all his supplies.

and in other adventures, we spent sunday morning at UBC cheering irene on in her second annual traithalon. here she is swimming in the outdoor pool. she's in the farthest lane, with her head peeking up. she also biked and ran. she did great!

here are noah, aunt nicole, uncle colin and grandpa cheering for irene at the finish line.

and here's little isla lou, who spent a good chunk of the race snoozing in the stroller.

little isla two

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in the spirit of marking isla's half birthday, here's a walk down memory lane. irene took these videos in the hospital when isla was hours old. she's so tiny! (well, relatively tiny at ten pounds.) and noah seems so small too, and his voice is so childlike! these videos really mark his growth these past six months as well. he is such a big boy now.

in this video noah identifies his new little sister's body parts.

little isla one

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in this video noah counts his new little sister's toes.

happy half year

isla has been on the outside now for half of a year. what a happy half year! it's impossible to remember what life was like without her. she is a happy, easygoing little girl with the brightest blue eyes, the faintest red hair and great big squishy cheeks, belly and thighs. really, she is a little person all of a sudden. she listens, she jokes, she steals, she yelps, she licks, she laughs, she snuggles, she toots... she is big and strong, still topping the growth charts and doing all the things a person of her size is meant to do. how lucky we are!

this weekend she began to sleep with her brother instead of her parents. what a big change! so far the transition has gone fairly well. she still wakes plenty in the night to nurse, but i just go to her and nurse her in her room, and lay her back down. she and noah don't seem to wake one another very easily, which is a relief. and noah loves having sleepovers every night! he is so sweet to her, and says, "good night, isla," or "it's okay, baby isla" if she cries. it's fun to imagine them giggling together in the dark as they get older.

happy half birthday, little girl!