Marlena's (Not So New Anymore) Haircut

What happens to you if you have a frugal dad and a scissor-happy mom? An at-home-haircut! Marlena's hair was hanging in her eyes and since she always pulls out any hair clips, it was time for a hair cut. She was supposed to get a basic bob - like Dora the Explorer, if you know who that is. Well, she wiggled and moved and the hair kept getting shorter and shorter. Finally Don held her head in place and I tried to fix it. Here is a picture, a few weeks later, of the end result:

Not too bad, if I do say so myself. Marlena was pleased as punch with her haircut. Since I'd cut my hair short she's been asking for me to cut her hair short, too. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

One unfortunate side effect of Marlena having short hair though, is that she is constantly being mistaken for a boy, no matter what she seems to be wearing... OK, so I dress her in jeans and t-shirts a lot... but the jeans have ruffles and pink stitching, and her blue shirt has pink buttons. Can nobody pick up on these details?!?!

Wolf, on the other hand, doesn't have enough hair for cutting.... yet. He'll probably just end up getting buzz cuts since we happen to have an electric razor handy. So, no big image changes on his part, but here's a fairly recent picture of him anyway.

Happy New Year!

Wolfie feeds himself lentil soup - mid November 2008 - 6 & 1/2 months. Just getting comfortable with this eating thing.

Wolfie plays the Cymbals

Also from November, Wolfie learns to play the cymbals.

Wolfie's sleep-aid

This is a little out of order date wise (it's from November), but here's what we get when we wake up Wolfie when he has had a good nap . 

Merry Christmas!

Pictures of Wolf from yesterday

So far Wolfie has been a little shortchanged with the number of pictures we've posted of him. But, just because we haven't posted any pictures of him doesn't mean we don't have any. We do. We just haven't posted them. But I took some pictures of him yesterday and thought I'd post them. Especially since my sister Desiree was displeased with the picture of him with the fake hair. She said she couldn't really tell what he looked like.

Hopefully these pictures will satisfy....

Marlena and Wolfie Bonding

Here is a little video of Marlena and Wolfie. The first little clip is from April, the second from May and the last one is from August. Enjoy!

Marlena's First Visit to the Dentist

At the beginning of October, Marlena went to the dentist for the first time. A pediatric dentist, they had TVs on the ceiling. The Backyardigans were on when Marlena's appointment started and it kept her attention throughout the whole visit.

Here are some short clips of her experience.

Video from Halloween... finally

Here, finally, is a video from Halloween. Well, a video of Marlena hollowing out pumpkins, and some pictures of Marlena from Halloween Night. The videos from that night didn't turn out too well. And then she peed in her costume.

She got a bit of candy, not enough, in my opinion, since I was the one who ate her booty. Still, I think she had a good time and will be looking forward to it next year.

What is that on earth?

"What is that on earth?" is the newest phrase Marlena is trying out. I think she's trying to say "What on earth is that", but isn't quite getting it right. I do think the phrase is quite appropriate for this picture of Wolfie.


We were at a friend's house last week and her daughter had a head band with the long blond hair attached. Marlena wasn't interested in trying it on, poor Wolfie didn't really get a say in the matter, but I thought he looked quite funny. Like one of those troll dolls. The joys of having a baby.

In reality, he isn't quite as bald as he looks. At 6 months, Marlena had male-pattern-baldness going on - lots of hair around the ears and back, but none on top. Wolfie, on the other hand, has a more hair. It's quite light so you can't really see it, but it's growing everywhere on his head in a consistent manner.

Other milestones include sitting up, but he doesn't seem to like to roll over. Not from front to back, not from back to front. He's done it a few times, but doesn't show much interest in doing it regularly. He does manage to move around his crib quite a bit. I'll lay him down with his head pointing north and when I go to pick him up at the end of his nap, his head pointing in a totally different direction.

He has discovered banging things together and seems to get a lot of enjoyment out of that. I'll have to post the video I have of him banging the lids of Marlena's toy pots together. Actually I have a lot of videos I need to post... I'll start soon... I promise...

In the meantime, here is a picture of Marlena, from the same day we took the picture of Wolfie above, with her friend rocking out with her tennis racket guitar.

I'm blue and you're red.

I've been meaning to post this 'cause it was just too cute. The other day, I was looking at the value of our house and when I saw how much it had gone down I got bummed out. I came out of our bedroom and when I saw Marlena I told her, "Marlena, I'm blue."

Marlena's response: "I'm red."

I just had to laugh.

Marlena at the Strawberry Fields

So I figured out how to use the video editing software that came with our camera - hooray - and now I'll be able to string together multiple videos and hopefully they'll be a little more interesting. I can cut out the (to me) boring parts, and stick the good parts together. Which is what I've done with the different videos Don took this morning when he and Marlena went to go pick strawberries.

Enjoy the video!

Wolfie at 8 Weeks

Today I made a little video of Wolfie playing in his gym, something he really seems to enjoy. He caught on pretty quickly that he can use his hands and feet to hit things and make noise. And he can actually spend quite a bit of time just doing that.

I have to say, he is a little cutie patootie, especially in his golf shirt onsie!

Fresh Picture of Marlena & Wolfie

Here's a recent picture of Marlena and Wolfie. Marlena sure loves her little brother and is thrilled to be holding him. As he started fussing she started telling him "It's OK Wolfie" and other stuff that she's heard me say.

Wolfie is doing pretty goodbut we are having burping issues... or maybe gas issues. It's hard to burp all the gas out of him. Sometimes it starts bothering him half an hour later, even though he was thoroughly burped during his feeding. I'm wondering if it could be something I'm eating that's causing this. I hear dairy can be irritating to little stomachs, even if it comes through mommy first.

He's changed a little bit in the last while. He's lost all the hair on the top of his head! I was scrubbing his head with a baby brush to get the dry skin off, the cradle cap, and with the dry skin all the hair on top came off. If the hair on the sides of his head were longer, I'd be tempted to try and do a comb-over, just for laughs.

Marlena the Pirate... Aaaargh!

One of Marlena's favorite books is called "How I Became a Pirate". It's about a little boy called Jeremy Jacob who is carried off by pirates. At first pirate life is good, but then he discovers pirates don't tuck little boys into bed and there are no books, so Jeremy returns home and helps the pirates bury their treasure in his backyard.

From this book, Marlena has learned to say "Aaaargh", and "Scury Dog" and "Shiver me timbers". The other day, we put a scarf over her head and showed her a picture of Jeremy Jacob with his pirate scarf on, and Marlena spent the morning as a pirate. Oma took her to the library to play on the computers and Marlena kept her pirate scarf on all morning. And, before she set out, I had to take some pictures!

Wolfie at 3 Weeks

Here's a picture I took of Wolfie this morning after his feeding. He's growing fast and sleeping lots... except between 4:30 and 9:00 pm. For some reason he doesn't stay down during that period, but we're working on it.

Some Videos of Wolfie

Some Wolfie pics

Hey this is Don. I have not been to this site for awhile so sorry for the multiple post I just sent out using Tanya's name.

I am going to try to attach some pics...

Wolfie has arrived

So, many of you have probably heard that Wolfred Jacob Isaak has arrived in spectacular form!

Here are his stats:

Name: Wolfred Jacob Isaak

Birthdate: April 25, 2008 at 6:38am (but maybe it was 6:35am)

Weight: 7lbs 7oz

Length: 20"

And yes, we had a home birth! Definitely not the plan, but there wasn't much time... and I thought we had time. It started at 2am with mild cramping that occured everytime I seemed to fall asleep again - maybe every 30 min. Things got a little intenser as 4am approached. A few groans escaped me and I told Don that he probably wasn't going to work today, but I wasn't sure it was real labour 'cause it still wasn't that intense.

Contractions started getting stronger between 5 and 6 - We talked to the doctor at about 6:20am but I still didn't think I was that far along because I was way more lucid this time around - I was waiting for the time where I wasn't aware of my surroundings. The contractions started getting really intense and I told Don that I was going to ask for an epidural. After talking to the dr, Don went to juice some apples. While he was gone I had a few more contractions, not many, where I started pushing as well because that made them more bearable. Then Don came back and my water broke like a balloon filled with water smashing against the sidewalk (fortunately this all occurred in the bathroom) - I think that stunned us both, but Don was a trouper. Then the pushing really started and I told Don to call 911 because I knew we weren't going make it to the hospital. The 911 operator told Don that I should lie down on my side, but that wasn't going to happen, he was there.... 2, maybe 3, pushes later his head came out, Don caught him and pulled the rest of him out. With my mom's help, we untangled him and I lay down with him on the bathroom floor and then the paramedics were there. They cut the cord and took me to the hospital where everything else went the way it was supposed to.

So much for my birth plan - altho' I did, once again, have the natural birth I wanted...

Wolfie, despite his quick arrival, is doing great. Thank God he was in a head down position! He latched on in the ambulance and has continued to do so since. Like Marlena, he is good at sucking. He's pooped and Don has experience the "fountaining effect" that we heard boys have while changing him. The pee tees from my mom will come in handy.

We don't have pictures ready yet, but he's not as cute-looking a baby as Marlena - he looks like a little old man. He has nicer fingernails than Marlena. His chin seems to be a bit receeded, but that could be because he's sucking his bottom lip. He doesn't have as much hair as Marlena did, and it certainly isn't as dark. I thought it was a bit wavy, but now I'm not so sure. He also wasn't as alert as Marlena was, but it could be that he was cold. He was under the heater for a while to get his body temp up. No jaundice.

Anyway, both he and I are doing very well. We'll send out pictures once we have them. If I had to do it again, I think the fast birth was better than the long drawn out one...