happy birthday, little girl!

happy one to my lovely little girl!

noah and i took isla on a birthday adventure to fairhaven, where we hit up the bookstore, the toy store and the pastry shop. then we had a leisurely playtime at boulevard park and a nice walk home. it was a beautiful day to turn one!

the birthday princess waits for the bus

on the bus

much fun at the park

noah tried out the pirate's life

new birthday ball

crab crawl along the boardwalk

an attempt at candle-blowing-out

noah took over candle-blowing; this is hilarious

she's a fan of the cream cheese frosting, not so much the cupcake

new birthday artwork
(see http://www.idapearle.com/)

oh happy one!

hello?

isla right now

* says "uh-oh," "ma-mum," and "up." "uh-oh" usually accompanies the throwing down of her pacifier or a snack she's done with.
* signs "milk" and "more," but only when she feels like it.
* scoots all over the place, on her bum with one leg in front. is beginning to pull herself up on furniture.
* follows me and/0r noah around the house. is literally underfoot most of the time. (i have to be careful not to step on her!)

* mastered the "snack trap" in a matter of seconds. munches thousands of veggie booty puffs via said snack trap.
* goes through about five outfits a day.
* is very interested in books. turns pages and says, "oh!" (the cutest thing ever.)
* loves the coffee grinder. bops and claps when we grind coffee.

* loves the beach, and water of all kinds. crawls right up to the sprayers at the spray park.
* loves beach sand, sandbox sand, and dirt of all kinds. also leaves, sticks, grass, rocks.
* loves the bath and focuses on trying to drink bath water.

* has seven teeth, one of which still looks a bit like a fang.
* eats everything she can get her tiny hands on. except shredded spoonfuls cereal. these she does not like.
* loves her new sippy cup, and drinks with gusto. then coughs.
* has probably eaten about a thousand blueberries this week alone.

* loves to unpack the diaper bag, the laundry basket, noah's shoe box, the book shelf, etc.
* does not want to sleep anymore. especially if noah is not in the room.
* loves balls. taps them together, rolls them to noah.
* loves her daddy and claps and waves when he comes home.

spring showers

the rhododendrons are blooming! and it's rainy, rainy, rainy, with a few intermittent sunny days. i'm not sure about that whole "april showers" rhyme. maybe in our case may showers will bring june flowers... and strawberries, and lettuce and sunshine.

what have we been up to lately?

noah and isla are getting into yard-kayaking. it's a very exciting sport. (aaron traded his coworker a custom cabinet for this kayak. we tried it out last weekend and it's lots of fun!)

aaron hung a swing for isla in the holly tree, and she loves it. (please note our tiny squashes growing in the bed under the tree.)

naked baby cozy in mama's bed!

isla munching a teething biscuit. she is very much enjoying eating food these days. she especially loves to feed herself, and is getting pretty good at the pincer grasp.

isla is trying to figure out how to crawl. she often gets herself into this or a similar position, and can't quite get out of it.

noah got this cool barn for his birthday. thanks, grandma louise, great grandma katie and grandma helen! he loves the pulley thing on the side that takes hay up to the loft. also, vehicles sometimes end up in the loft. (and here i thought i'd snuck in a toy that didn't have to do with cars or trucks...)
two kids in a box. we finally said goodbye to the dishwasher box, but it did provide hours of fun.

noah is a hard worker in the yard. he'll spend a long time digging, loading, dumping and starting over again. he has his sandbox and a designated dirt digging area, and thankfully he is pretty respectful of the plants. let's hope we can say the same for isla!

avocados. i love her eyebrows in this picture!

more swinging!
riding the bus to fairhaven. we've done this a lot lately. noah loves the bus.

silly girl with many toys at grandma's house.

similarities

i was perusing pictures of whistler weekends of yore, and found these comparisons. here's noah the kid on the blackcomb gondola this year...

and last year. what a little guy!

and here's little isla (at around six months)...

looking a lot like little noah! (he was about ten months here.) the cheeks must be a dominant gene!

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!

happy saint patrick's day!

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!

little isla two

Click to Play

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

Click to Play

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!