Thankful for a Snow Day and Getting to Stay Home with Isaiah!

This morning began at 5:30am when my phone rang and I got notified that the Newberg Schools were closed today!   I looked out the window and sure enough beautiful white snow was upon the ground and trees.  Next, I sent a text to my dad to make sure my mom knew she didn't have to get up early and come watch Isaiah today.  Then, I emailed my student teacher and told her she got an extra day off.  And finally, I went back to sleep.  We all slept until about 8:00am.  When I went to get Isaiah I opened his bedroom shaded and let him look at the snow.  Then we went to find daddy in our bedroom and he looked at the snow with daddy.  Here is a picture and a video of Isaiah seeing and talking about the snow!

 

My Aunt Cheryl is visiting us this weekend so I soon got a text from my Aunt DeAnn saying that everyone was going to Sharis for breakfast and we were meeting at 9:00am.  Travis and I got ready (luckily we take showers at night on work days so it wasn't too hard to get ready quickly and we let Isaiah go to breakfast in his pj's, boots, and coat.  I ordered French Toast, Travis had Farmhouse Buttermilk Biscuit Breakfast, Isaiah at cereal and grapes from home.  This was a fun way to start our morning!  Thanks for taking us out to breakfast Grandad.

Travis had to go into work around 10:00am. Isaiah and I enjoyed playing in the snow next.  Since it was pretty cold outside I decided to bring the snow inside.  Here are some pictures and a video of playing with snow!

After playing with snow inside for a little while Isaiah was ready to play toys again.  While he played toys I took the extra time at home to vacuum my downstairs wood floors.  Isaiah loves to talk about the vacuum and try and help me with the chore.  Then, Isaiah took a late bath.  He had fun being silly and playing in the bathtub with mommy.
 

After bath Isaiah had pizza and apple sauce for lunch and I steam mopped the downstairs floors.  Next, we needed to venture outside to take Sophie potty.  He loved playing outside as the snow was falling on him.  We decided to take a short walk until daddy came home for lunch.   

And currently Isaiah is napping as I catch up on some blog posts!  It has been a great snow day!

Dance Party

Isaiah loves to dance!  His cousin Campbell loves to dance!  So why not let them have a mini dance party... especially when they are wearing matching pj's that my sister and I didn't even plan.  Enjoy the dancing silliness!

Swinging with Pops

I remember getting to swing like this when I was a little girl.  It is so fun to watch my son be able to do some of the same things!

Korean Meal

Last Friday evening we meet Trav's parents and his sister and her husband at a Korean restaurant in Beaverton.  Trav's parents were in town because his dad had been at an education conference all week.  We decided to do a special meal to celebrate Craig's birthday a couple weeks early. 

Travis didn't get a super clear picture, but at least you get the idea.

We got to cook our food at our table...and as you can see we had tons of food! 

Unfortunately, Isaiah didn't love this experience and thus was super clingy to mommy!   We aren't exactly sure what triggered being so upset.  Isaiah had skipped a nap to go to a playdate earlier in the afternoon, but he did get a car nap.  However, he woke up just minutes before going into the restaurant and being around lots of family.  The restaurant also had a very strong Korea smell... so who knows maybe that triggered something too.  Interestingly this Korean meal experience was very similar to our second day with Isaiah in Korea when we also had a Korean meal with our tour guide. 

Overall, we had fun sharing a Korean meal with our family!  Craig thought it was a great birthday dinner as he loved a lot of the side dishes!

Valentine's Day

A little note about Koreans celebrating Valentine's Day:  February 14th marks Valentine's Day--the same is in Korea, but on that day women are the ones that buy chocolate and gifts for the men. White day is a very special day that falls exactly one month after Valentine's day, on March 14th and that's when it's payback time, and the men are expected to return the favor.

One way we celebrated Valentine's Day was by eating chocolate covered strawberries that Nonna made for us!  Isaiah LOVED them!  Thanks Nonna!

Listen closely for "Yummy, huh?"  He says this at almost every meal!

Isaiah got a little sad after the first chocolate covered strawberry was all done, but was much better once we let him have a second one!

Another way we celebrated Valentine's Day was we exchanged gifts with each other.  I got Travis a couple things for his office:  he got a new framed picture of Isaiah and I and a Oregon Ducks sign (No pictures were taken of his gifts, maybe we will have to go visit his office and see if we approve of his decorating skills!)  We got Isaiah a heart balloon, which we thought he would love because all during the month of February every time we went to the grocery store he pointed out the heart balloons.  However, all I heard today was "balloon, no balloon" thus no pictures of him holding his balloon.  Travis bought me some lovely flowers, which was a nice surprise after work today.

Isaiah also got a special card in the mail from Aunt Jolene and Uncle Lance.

I also celebrated Valentine's Day with my class by having a class party.  Prior to the party I asked my students to participate in a Valentine box decorating contest.  The award categories were Most Humorous, Most Creative, Most Romantic, Best Academic box, Best Animal Theme, and Best Sports Theme.  My students did a fantastic job.  Here are a couple of the winning boxes!

 

 And it isn't a party without a yummy sweet treat...the students got to decorate heart shaped sugar cookies with TONS of candy!  Yes, they were hyper and I was glad I got to leave at noon!  My wonderful students also sent me home with lots of yummy treats and sweet cards to enjoy.

New Classroom Pets

At the beginning of the year we told our 3rd graders that if they earned 20 Dolphin Splashes (Dolphin Splashes are earned as a whole class not as an individual) then they could get a class pet.  We thought this would encourage them to "buy in" to the school behavior plan.  The class was doing alright collecting the Dolphin Splashes, but they just earned the 20 Dolphin Splashes in January (we thought this might happen earlier in the year).  Since they got to 20...of course they wanted their class pet.  Well, after doing some shopping research, taking a class vote, and then a little more shopping we have two Egyptian Spiny Mice as our class pets!  They seem to be doing pretty good adjusting to their new home so the mice are making the trek to school this week.  However, one of them bit me the other day so I don't think the students will be holding them...more just observing them.    

This isn't the greatest picture because he was running into his house with some precious food!

Going For a Walk in Boots

Isaiah does many things throughout the day that are funny and allow for a good laugh.  I got a short video of his silly dance moves as we are getting ready to go for a walk!  Unfortunately, I had to ask him to do things in this video, but before I got the video camera he was doing it all on his own...talking about his boots, dancing, and saying walking.

Our Smart 2 Year Old (x 2)!

Isaiah loves letters, but he also likes numbers too. The other day during a diaper change I finally got some video of his counting skills.  We are so proud of our little guy.  It is hard to believe how much he has learned in just 9 months of being home!

Isaiah's Current Favorite Books

Old Hat New Hat by Jan and Stan Berenstain is currently Isaiah's favorite book.  He likes to read it multiples time per day.  One evening we all had to take our turn reading him the book. Here are videos of us each reading to him. Notice all the parts he knows how to "read" since we read the book so many times per day!

Isaiah also likes Inside Outside Upside Down by Jan and Stan Berenstain.  He only wanted this book on time on this particular night.

Happy 1st Birthday Lily!

On Saturday, February 5th we got to visit a new pizza place called Pizza Caboose in order to celebrate Lily's 1st birthday.  The restaurant atmosphere was cool, the pizza was yummy, and we had fun seeing friends!  Here are a few pictures from the afternoon.

Sarah lighting Lily's birthday candles.

Everyone signing Happy Birthday!

Isaiah still LOVES the Happy Birthday song!

Michaela was excited to get a princess cake topper to play with...Sarah offered one to Isaiah too but he gave the classic "no".

Isaiah didn't say no to cake though!

Josh feeding Lily some of her cake

Lily diving into her cake.  I think she liked playing with it more than eating it...smart girl!

Michaela, Isaiah, and Lily...photographing three kids isn't easy!

Clearly the party wore out Isaiah as this is what he looked like on the way home.  Thanks for hosting a great party Sargent family.  We had fun celebrating with you!

Our Smart 2 Year Old!

What is a blog for if you can't use it a place to brag about your son?  So let this proud Mommy share with you that Isaiah loves letters and he knows all his upper case letters and most of his lower case letters.  I keep thinking we need to get a video of him playing with letters because he spends so much of his day playing toys that have to do with letters.  So the other day we captured this video of him playing with his alphabet puzzle.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
  

Learning About Lunar New Year (Feb. 2,3,4)

Korean New Year, commonly known as Seolnan, is the first day of the lunar calendar. It is the most important of the traditional Korean holidays. The Korean New Year holidays last three days,
and is considered a more important holiday than the solar New Year's Day.

Korean New Year is typically a family-oriented holiday. The three-day holiday is used by many to return to their home towns to visit their parents and other relatives where they perform the ancestral ritual known as charye (차례). Many Koreans dress up in their hanboks. Tteokgik (떡국) (soup with rice cakes) is commonly served.

Many traditional games are associated with the Korean New Year. The traditional family board game Yutnori(윷놀이) is still a popular pastime. Traditionally men and boys would fly kites and play jegi chagi (제기차기), a game in which a light object is wrapped in paper or cloth, and then kicked in a footbag like manner. Korean women and girls would have traditionally played neolttigi (널뛰기), a game of jumping on a seesaw (시소), while children spun paengi (팽이).

2011 brings the Year of the Rabbit! People wish each other prosperity and luck. 새해 복 많이 받으세요 (saehae bok man-hi ba-deu saeyo)-Happy New Year!

Well, since I just learned that many Koreans dress up in their hanboks for the holiday... I thought I would let Isaiah put his on too! 

So the last time he put his hanbok on was the weekend after his 2nd birthday (in December) and he didn't seem to mind wearing it.  However, only a couple months into being two and this time when I put it on he pulled at the vest and said "no and all done".  Perhaps this is why none of the pictures I got of him in his hanbok (in February) are great.  Oh, how I love my boy though! 

 Walking away from Mommy and the camera!

 Pulling at the vest saying "no and all done"- classic!

 Earlier in the evening we had been having TONS of fun on the bed in the extra bedroom...so I was trying to recreate the fun, but he would have none of it...he just kept crawling to the edge of the bed

 and climbing off!

 We went downstairs to show Daddy, and Daddy took our picture.  Can you tell he wasn't impressed!

In Honor of My 200th Post...

I am doing a THEN and NOW post.  I am documenting about something my son loved in Korea and still loves today-cups! 

Here are two video clips--that never made it on the blog because I just recently downloaded them from the video camera=)--of Isaiah playing with cups in Korea!  These videos were taken in the afternoon on the same day we got Isaiah.  No need to pay attention to all of our background conversation(remember this was our first day as parents)...just enjoy Isaiah's sense of discovering!  

Here is a current video clip of Isaiah still thoroughly enjoying playing with his cups!

It has been so fun to watch his development of play grow.  He continually amazes us!  Hopefully you noticed in the video clip that he now knows how to set up multiple cups "into position" all by himself so he can have several cups spinning all at the same time.  This truly makes our boy happy!

In honor of his love for things that spin--we just purchased this shirt for him.