Izzie's 9 Month Checkup

On March 27th Izzie was 9 months old (finally) and we had her 9 month checkup that day. There's not much to explain, so I won't pretend and make stuff up so that it sounds way more interesting than it was.

Here we are heading into the doctors office.


Here we are hanging out in the waiting room.



How big did she get?

28"


20 lbs. 7 oz.


Izzie didn't get any vaccinations this time, but she did get some blood drawn from the tip of her finger. It was an iron test, and apparently it was painful.






Here she is only moments after the big stab and life is nearly back to normal.



Eyes, ears, nose and mouth:




And that was the checkup. We didn't have our usual doctor doing it because he had a student working in the office with him, so she was the one that conducted the checkup. Although the doctor did come in at the end to answer any questions we had, and to justify the bill that we had to pay. It was a good checkup, and we were told what we already knew. Izzie is happy, healthy and growing.

St. Patty's Day 2008

Billings has a St. Patty's Day parade every year, and since we had a child this year, we decided to go. It wasn't anything special (nothing in Billings is), but it was fun to get out and spend some time with our friends and watch a ridiculous parade. Hopefully they will get better as Izzie gets older. Then they will definitely be worth going to.

We were in the heart of Downtown when we first got there, and it turns out that everyone else wanted to be there too. So, we headed down the road a couple of blocks to join some friends and find a less crowded spot. Here's Izzie hanging out waiting for the parade to start.



The parade started, and leading the pack were the bagpipe players from around Billings. They were pretty cool, but I don't think Izzie really knew what to think about it. She just kind of stared without any expressions at all.



Not too long into the parade was by far the coolest car of the entire event. I say that because I'm a nerd and anything nerdy is cool to me. I don't think I need to identify the car because, let's face it, if you don't know which car this is, you're probably not from this planet.


Here's Nell and Izzie hanging out watching the parade.


Here's two of Izzie's boyfriends; or so they think. These are two of our friends' kids, and since we have the only girl out of the whole bunch, all of the boys love her. Every time we get together with them, their boys hug and kiss Izzie to tears; literally. They get up in her grill so much and push and pull on her because they are all trying to hug her at the same time that she just starts screaming. I think it's hilarious and cute at the same time. I just wish they would stop when you asked them to. I usually ignore it and let them terrorize Izzie because she needs the exposure to rambunctious kids, and she needs to get used to playing with other kids.


Here's Izzie and I sitting on the curb watching the parade go by. It was a fun day, and I think Izzie was captivated by her first parade.

Izzie's First Flight

For the last week in February, Lynnell and Izzie flew to Elko to see Shasta and family. It was Izzie's first trip that involved flying on a plane, and the longest trip away from dad yet. I was fairly excited to have a week to my selfish self to do whatever I wanted and to catch up on things, but as the week wore on, it became less and less enjoyable.

It started out on Monday the 25th. I came home from lunch for an extra long lunch to spend some time with my family before they left. Here's Lynnell and Izzie sorting out the packing issues. Turns out the Moby in one of the greatest ways to carry a baby through an airport. Here they are trying it on for size before they get to the airport.


We ate some lunch, and then we headed to the airport. Here's Nell and Izzie saying goodbye to dad.


Here they are sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane.


Lynnell said that Izzie was a little angel on the way down there; no fussing and no whining. Not too far into the flight she fell asleep, so obviously she was a little board staring at the bottom of the tray in the seat back in front of her. Here they are on the plane (before and after sleep).



They flew to Salt Lake where Lynnell's sister and family picked them up. Lynnell said that Izzie was still tired when they put her in the car, and she slept most of the way back to Elko.



Here's Izzie's cousin Austin:


Here's Izzie's cousin Devon (note the wangsta sign):


Last but not least is Cousin Bailee who, I must say, is getting big, but not line backer big like my Izzie:


After a three hour car ride, they finally arrived at Joe & Shasta's house. Here is Izzie acclimating to Aunt Shasta and Bailee.


Here is Izzie and Bailee making sure that everyone in the house was up in time for breakfast. Izzie was starting to get a fever that Tuesday morning (who knows why...), Bailee didn't like Izzie screaming in her ear and they were both hungry, growing girls.


Here they are after breakfast full and happy. Notice Izzie is looking a little under the weather. Some of the somber look may have been leftovers from the morning throat clearing though.


Bailee is three weeks older than Izzie, and thanks to her compact size she's pulling herself up on stuff and trying to walk. Lynnell said that Izzie didn't like that at all, but they found out that if Izzie was up on the couch where Bailee couldn't get her (but Izzie could get Bailee) that she was happy. Here's an example:



After the first day and a half, Izzie started getting used to the new people and the new house. Lynnell tells me that she was very happy on Wednesday, and that she had a lot of fun playing with her cousins.





The last picture is my favorite because it shows how big Izzie is compared to Bailee.

Here are the four cousins slowing down for a picture before the boys leave for the weekend.


I don't have to explain to you how much Izzie lovers her baths because you've seen the pictures and the videos, so you know how she loves to splash and play. What no body knew was how bad she hated to share her bath. While she was in Elko, she shared a bath with her cousin Bailee, and it turns out that although the idea was good, the event was not. Izzie hated it. She screamed bloody murder nearly the whole time she was in the tub. Bailee was at the other end of the spectrum though. She thought it was the greatest. Lynnell tells me that the louder Izzie screamed in protest, the louder Bailee screamed with joy. So, there they were screaming their heads off for opposite reasons and just feeding the others frenzy.


The other ongoing battle that raged while they were there was the binky war. It's funny how men check out women and women check out men, but what you don't always notice is that women are constantly checking out other women. It's as if they have know where they compare just to make sure they are better. Maybe it's one of those "survival of the fittest" instincts in everyone, but it is true. I witness it with my own eyes all of the time. With that said, here's an example: Izzie has a binky, and Bailee has a binky. Same exact binky (although it's hard to tell from the picture), and as if it isn't good enough to have just one binky to go in your own mouth you have to have the other one too. Here's Bailee stealing Izzie's binky while hers sits idle in her lap. I think it's hilarious because nobody taught her this. No one sat her down and said "if you have more than your neighbor, you are better." Call me foolish, but I think it's just human nature. In the end, I think they both kept their own binky thanks to the binky strap, but when Izzie gets the itch to start snatching Bailee's stuff, Bailee better watch out because Izzie will use her size to make it happen. :)


Nell and Izzie were gone for a week. They flew down on a monday, and then they came home the following Sunday. They had an early morning flight out of Salt Lake on Sunday morning, so they drove down from Elko on Saturday night and stayed at a hotel. Here's Izzie hanging out and relaxing after a week of cousin acclimation:


They had a blast while they were there, and I know that Lynnell had a good time visiting her sister.

February 2008 (Izzie's First February & Leap Year)

So, my last post was about our new house, and it was a long time ago. The pictures I put in that post were before we moved in. We have since moved out of the old place and now live in our new humble abode. I'll start from the beginning.

When we bought the house, we had to go through and "blue tape" it. Basically you take a roll of blue painters tape and mark anything you don't like: nicks, dings, scratches, missing paint, trim problems, etc. Then the builder goes through and corrects the problems. I left the roll of blue tape on the table the night after we did that, and Izzie showed interest in it. Mostly because she wanted to chew on it, but I didn't want to let my child ingest adhesive glue and chemically treated paper in large quantities. So, I did the next best thing; I gave it to her in small quantities.



We started packing a few days before it was time to move stuff so that we had a head start on it. Here's Nell and Izzie taking a break playing with the blocks.



Here's Izzie next to the tower I built her the next night. I have no idea where she gets it, but her favorite thing is still destruction. She has to sit far enough away that she can't reach anything you build because as soon as it starts to look like something constructive she gets sudden urges to destroy it. (See second picture)



Remember a really long time ago when I promised a picture of Izzie in her mouse ears that Aunt Shasta and family got her in Disney Land? Well, when Nell was packing up Izzie's room, she took one. I didn't even know that she did until last night when I was going through all of our pictures from last month. Here's Izzie doing her Mousketeer impression.


Saturday the 7th was the big move day, and we got up bright and early so that we could finish packing and make sure everything was in order so that when our friends got there all we had to do was put boxes and furniture in the Uhaul.



Did Izzie help, you ask? Well, not so much, but she did a good job at holding the high chair down.


I didn't get any pictures during the actual moving process. Yes, I'm bummed too, but I didn't want to be the guy standing around taking pictures while all of my friends moved all of my stuff for me. The move was very impressive though. It took 14 people 90 minutes to move all of our stuff. That's first box into the Uhaul to last box out (including furniture and everything). I think that's a new record for us. Here's Nell giving a very tired thumbs up after everyone left and a long day of packing.


Obviously we didn't have anything to make dinner with. We didn't even have a fridge. So, we decided to order out, and we decided to make it fancy. We ordered Domino's. Here's us eating our second meal in our new house.


The house didn't come with four things: a fridge (previously mentioned), a shower curtain, blinds and a mailbox. That's right. I had a "honey do" list before I even signed the papers and moved in. I prioritized though. The first thing to go up was the shower curtain so that I could make sure I was a clean boy in the morning. Nell did her part by picking up a sweet curved shower curtain rod to give us some extra elbow room in our sweet new shower. Here I am making my first home improvement.


Here's Izzie hanging out in the living room watching Nell unpack her office (the kitchen). She's really getting good at anticipating the flash on the camera. I usually have to take two or three pictures so that I get a good one. This one shows just how good Izzie is at avoiding the flash, so I thought I would post it.


Blinds were the second most frustrating part of it all (after the fridge). I had no idea how expensive blinds were. You'd think that they were made out of gold or something. Anyways, we decided to get something nice instead of spending money twice for crappy shades now and nice ones later, but we didn't want to fork out $800 for blinds from Lowe's. It was looking like it was going to come down to having to get vinyl mini blinds, but our real estate agent saved us. She recommended a blind site called Blinds For Less, and we were able to pick up our blinds for about half the price. Unfortunately we couldn't decide on what we wanted before we moved in, so we went with sheets for a week while our blinds were made and shipped. Here I am putting the blind up in Izzie's room.





After we got our blinds up, there was this feeling of relief and comfort. I guess it was just knowing that we could have privacy at the pull of a string. I can't even explaing it, but I know I was pretty happy about it.


The next item on the list was the mailbox. For a week Lynnell watched the mail man drive by day after day. No mail got delivered, and we were getting pretty depressed about it. On top of it, we were expecting packages from grandparents for the Iz for her first Valentines day. So, on the second weekend we lived in our new house, I went out to dig a hole for the mailbox. It turned out to be a tougher endeavor than I thought it would be.

The first few inches went easy, then I hit gravel and the post hole digger I was using became worthless. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the gravel was mixed in with clay and that it was all frozen. So, I went down to Lowe's (which is quickly becoming my new place to hang out) and picked up a breaker bar, a shovel and a sack of Quikrete. A few hours later, I had a hole, and within another hour, Nell and I had put the mailbox post in it and filled it with concrete. It was by far the most miserable chore I've had to do yet. On top of that, I'm a fat out of shape engineer who only lifts pencils all day. My muscles were sore for days after I dug that stupid hole. At least it's done.




A quick note on our first mail delivery: it was like Christmas (almost). We were pretty jacked to get mail though.

Izzie digs the new bathtub. It's extra deep, and she knows it's different. I guess she thinks it's better too. Here she is in yet another bathtub picture that looks just like all of the other bathtub pictures I've posted.


And here she is dry.


And that was the first three weeks of February. It was more than hecktik, and now that we have internet at the house again (it took two weeks to get it hooked up), I'm back in the blogging business.