So my best friend David has been down at NAS Pensacola for some training, and I thought this was the best time to go see the National Museum of Naval Aviation with him. I’ve always wanted to visit; they have a great selection of aircraft. Naturally, a road trip these days means bringing Isaac with me; bringing Isaac usually means bringing Charlotte too. Hit the jump for a boatload of pictures and a quick summary.
So I had this idea today that I ought to write down what a day in my life is like right now. I think I’ll look back one day and wonder how I did it, because there are days now when I wonder how I managed to make it through the day only to wake up and start all over. I have to warn you that this is very detailed and therefore long.
My father’s favorite thing to do when his grandsons come to visit is to give them forklift rides:
So when he saw this picture of my grandfather he said “Mom, your family is a forklift family"
you might see a scene like this if you checked on the children after bedtime:
Isaac will likely be found surrounded by non-fiction books. He often has one propped up or will fall asleep with his finger in one. The globe is not atypical. He loves to study maps and other such things as he lays in bed (or when he’s on a road trip). He’s also a little heater so he’s often sweaty.
Charlotte typically sleeps with a doll or water bottle and sometimes both. I have to admit that the light saber is not typical, but I took this picture on the same night as the other.
Nicole will likely be fully away sitting up in her bed singing or talking for hours after you put her to bed. She generally doesn’t cry much if at all when she is put to bed, but it’s not uncommon to still hear her awake as much as two hours after putting her to bed.
Ila is still establishing her sleeping pattern. At two months old, she doesn’t usually settle down until about 11:00 (which is much better than last week when she didn’t settle down till 1 or 2 each night). She can be a little fussy in the evening which is fairly typical for her age, but once she settles down she usually only wakes once to eat before my alarm goes off at 6:30AM.
I don’t think anyone who has had a little boy could make the argument that masculinity 
is something that we train in our kids. When Isaac was 17 months old, someone handed me a book full of trucks to show him. I assumed the book would not hold his attention for long, after all it was a book with nothing but construction trucks in it—I thought it seemed rather dull. Imagine my surprise when his face lit up as he pointed to each vehicle. From there he became captivated with anything that had an engine. Since that experience, I’ve noticed that every little boy I’ve known has gone through a stage where he is obsessed with trucks, trains, and planes.
My girls on the other hand, like girly things. Sure they’ll play with a truck or drive a car around the room, but they show their gender identity in different ways.
6.20.07 Today Isaac brought his toy jeep over to me and said “mom, want some noise†then he turned it on.
6.21.07 Today I took Isaac to the post office with me to buy stamps. 
I let him put the money in, make the selection and then collect the change at the end. As we drove away he told me “mommy buy money at the Post Office.†I guess he thought that when the change came out it was what I had purchased.
I brought a chair into the bathroom for our nightly teeth brushing ritual. Isaac and Charlotte each climbed up and as Isaac looked in the mirror he excitedly proclaimed “big and little†in reference to the height difference between him and Charlotte.
Isaac got a birthday card from Great-Grandma Cochran a few days ago. After he opened it we read it and he looked at it. Then he opened some junk mail and said “yay, another birthday card from Isaac.†For the rest of the day any piece of mail or paper was another birthday card for Isaac!
I scrolled through my log and choose a date at random—here’s what I wrote on February 6th of last year:
2.6.09 Here are some recent things the kids said: "I would sleep so hard that I couldn’t wake up. I’d be stuck asleep and you’d have to kiss me to wake me up. Would you kiss me?"
"And after her birthday I would be stuck sleeping if you don’t kiss me." Isaac (possibly before Charlotte’s 3rd birthday)
After biting his finger accidentally, Isaac said "My mouth thought my finger was food. My mouth thought it was salad"
"Mom, what time will Tigers eat us?"
"Mom, don’t let tigers eat us until we’re ready to die." <<so, when we’re ready to die we should let Tigers eat us?>> "yeah" Isaac
“that’s the Tiger’s pretzels? Because of the white spots?" Isaac upon seeing footage of a Tiger eating a deer that had white spots on it’s back
In answer to the question "What are kids made of?" Isaac replied: "They’re made of everything that skin covers."
“What happens if a Lion goes into a machine that turns him into food for people, that would be chicken?†Isaac
After getting a light spank for getting out of bed at bedtime, Charlotte said "I need pajamas that doesn’t have a spank on themâ€
<<The picture was taken February 1, 2009>>
Here’s a little video of Charlotte and Isaac playing with her birthday present:
She wanted “a magic car that goes by itself”. I think this works.
I also think Nicole is destroying a book in the background.
DAY 9: On Wednesday we set off for Knoxville. 
It was a long crowded ride in my mother’s Tribeca, but the kids behaved well and the trip was uneventful. We stopped for lunch at Wendy’s and Nicole enjoyed dancing to the music and making faces with my mother. She was in such a funny happy mood that I was glad I had my camera handy to capture a few moments.
The only other noteworthy thing was the few times that Isaac announced that he needed to use the bathroom right away and we frantically exited as soon as we could only to find out that his need was not nearly as urgent as he had claimed.
When we arrived at our new place, the movers were still unloading the truck and a neighbor from the ward had provided a hot meal for the family.
The rest of our moving experience is not blogworthy as it consists of me unpacking and organizing our things into our new house, but I think 9 days of moving details really should be enough detail for the few readers we get to our humble little blog.
Isaac seems to be doing well in his new school. His school day is much longer than it was in Utah. He went from 2hrs and 45 min of school to 5 hrs and 15 min. It means he gets to eat lunch at school which he thinks is great. On Fridays they wear Orange to support the local football team (Tennessee Volunteers) and Isaac loves his new orange shirt so much that he often tries to wear it all weekend as well.
After his first day of school, I asked him if he had made any friends and he said “no, but lots of kids made friends with me.†He now tells me that a boy named Storm is his friend because in his words “Storm always gives smiles when he sees me and he always wants me to sit next to him at lunch and when I sit next to him he gives smiles.†He also informed me that a girl named Faith doesn’t like him because “she gives frowns†when she sees him.
DAY 7: We spent much of day 7 exploring my parent’s property. We kicked off our adventures with the traditional forklift rides. Isaac and Charlotte took turns riding the forklift with their grandfather. He showed them how to lift a pallet up and down and even gave them a ride on the pallet and loaded them onto a truck.
Next they had a tour of his warehouse which included showing the children the kiddie rides that grandpa Bird has been storing for a company.
DAY 5: Our first day in Ohio was mostly spent relaxing at my parents’ house.
Lee stopped over as we were having some lunch and introduced us to his girlfriend, Jen. We had a nice visit with Lee and Jen as we munched on french fries and BBQ chicken. Nicole took to Lee right away. She snuggled up to him as soon as he picked her up and enjoyed smiling at him and making faces.
DAY 4 CONTINUED: The airport experience with three little kids is a little crazy. The kids were actually quite good, but just the management of them all would have been 
impossible on my own. Once we made it through security, we stopped at a little play area before going to our gate. This provided a perfect opportunity for a potty break. Unfortunately, Charlotte managed to get her underwear wet while sitting on the potty so I had to make the trek back and forth to the bathroom with a fresh pair of “airplane underwear.†By the time I was finished (the play area was not close to the bathroom), I could only allow Charlotte 10 minutes to play before we scuttled them all off towards the gate.
DAY ONE: We were lucky enough to have Zach’s new job pay for a moving company to 
pack and move our belongings. I think if not for that I really would have lost my sanity. They came at 8:00 AM and worked until 7:00 PM packing and loading our things onto a gigantic semi-truck. The beginning of the day went well, Grandma Cochran took Nicole and Isaac went to school so I just had Charlotte with me and Zach’s Aunt Neta who had come down to help. We sat on the couch and talked as they worked through the morning.
On the way to the store 
last night, Isaac noticed a flag at half-mast and asked why the flag was hanging down. I explained to him that people fly the flag that way when someone dies, but that I didn’t know who they were honoring. He thought for a few moments and then announced that if we didn’t have any food, he would fly the flag at half-mast to tell everyone we were out of food. I told him that people don’t fly flags low to say they need more food. His next idea is that we could make a special flag to fly low when trains are on fire.
We’ve had Grandpa Bird in town, and so we thought it would be fun to have an adventure together. The last few times Grandpa Bird has visited, I’ve dragged him through Utah’s exotic deserts. I thought it would be a nice change to go to the mountains this time.
Normally I like to avoid crowds, so I stay away from the mountains and national parks when it’s a holiday. This was really our only chance to go, though, so off we went. It was Oktoberfest at Snowbird as well, so there were longer lines and some crowds, but nothing too bad.
Isaac noticed the alpine slide right away, so I went ahead and got a ticket since we were having a day out. He enjoyed riding the chairlift to the top, and after a bit of a wait in line, we raced on down.
After this we were ready for some lunch. Grandpa Bird treated us to some sausages and sauerkraut, along with German potato salad and potato pancakes. We listened to a silly little Bavarian band while we ate.
We’d planned to go to Snowbird for the tram ride to the top of Hidden Peak. It’s the easiest way to get to 11,000 feet in Utah, and is certainly the easiest peak I’ve done this year.
At the top, Isaac was full of excited questions about the tram:
After a few minutes walking around the peak and taking pictures, Isaac declared he missed his sister. “Which one?†I asked. “Both of them!†he replied. So we went back down and headed home.
It was a fun excursion, and great to have Grandpa Bird and Heidi along. More pictures below.
I don’t have anything really funny or inspiring to write. . .but I am very excited about a great 
deal I got yesterday.
Getting a good deal on something always makes me happy, but the icing on the cake is when I go out with the express purpose of purchasing a specific item and I get a good deal on that item.
So I was thrilled yesterday when I went out to buy some BYU clothes for the kids to celebrate the kick-off of BYU foot ball and found these outfits for just $3.00 each! Yes, you may all tell me how much I rock ;) GO COUGARS!!!
When I picked Isaac up from school he didn’t say much at first, but as we walked home he 
started telling me bits and pieces of his day and by the time we got home, he was very eager to tell me more and more of the details. He was especially eager to read some books for his reading log. He ran into his room and came back with two books on machines. Both books were not beginner reading books, but he was determined to read from them. I helped him with the words he didn’t know and we read a few lines in each book together. He was very excited about his reading and wanted me to write down each word that he had read and then talked about how amazed his teacher would be with his reading.
I walked Isaac to school this morning for his first day. 
Charlotte came with us and held his hand as we headed off to school. As he walked, Isaac turned to Charlotte and said “I love you, Charlotte†to which Charlotte replied “I love you too, Isaac.â€
At school he lined up right behind his best friend Sam Kelson. I was glad he had a friend in his class to help him get over his shyness. When they walked into the school, each time the line would lag a little bit, Sam would reach back and take Isaac’s hand to pull him forward.
As you might have guessed, I did cry a few times, but I’m not worried about him. I’m excited for him to begin this adventure and I can’t wait to hear about his day. I think I might be a little more nervous for him if it wasn’t for his friend Sam. I know that with Sam there he won’t get too lonely or scared.
Isaac has been really interested in going bowling since he saw the icon for it in his 
magnetic calendar. The longer he had to wait, the more interested he became. He checked out books on bowling at the library which he chose as bedtime stories multiple times and talked about it periodically through the weeks it took us to get around to actually going. On the day of the big trip he saw a truck filled with tall skinny propane tanks and excitedly announced that the truck was filled with bowling things (because they looked like bowling pins to him).
On the way there and on the way back he excitedly intoned “Bowling is a fun sport?!†When we told him his score at the end he proclaimed himself the winner. To see a video of Isaac bowling, click here. To see Charlotte bowl, click here.