The Easter Bunny Lives!

Although Easter is over a month away and I am not quite sure how bunnies and Jesus are tied together, the Easter Bunny has come to reside in our backyard. Our neighbors across the street have a pet bunny who apparently does not have the world's most secure cage. Every morning he hops into our backyard around 8:30am (seriously, same time every day) and hangs out by a tree for most of the day. This has made the world a much happier place for Isaac. He loves the bunny and will go to the window and talk to him. This morning he immediately went to the window and said "Peas, bunny, peas, peas..." until I opened the blinds to see if the bunny was there (however, it was not 8:30am yet so the bunny hadn't hopped on over for a visit). He tells the Bunny "Hi" every time he passes the window and "bye" when we head out the door. At nap time, he tells the bunny "night-night". Too sweet. We haven't attempted to actually approach the bunny without the safety of our window to protect us until I am sure that he doesn't bite and is disease-free. We don't really know the neighbors that own this bunny (aside from the fact that the daughter one time backed her car up into Tobe's old car) so I haven't had a chance to have the "Is your pet a carrier of odd diseases that will harm my child?" conversation with them yet. (You can see the bunny in the background of the above pictures)

In other news, here are some happenings at casa de Phillips:

**Isaac has gotten/is getting SEVEN teeth in the past three weeks. SEVEN, people! He only had six teeth at the beginning of February and has now added seven teeth to the mix. Four of those are molars, two are on the bottom, and one is on the top side. This has created some sleeping issues and some grouchy issues, but I do keep casa de Phillips stocked up on the Infant Motrin for times like these. I call his new teeth "Chompers" and you can say, "Show me your chompers." and Isaac will point to his back molars proudly.

**New words this week that have been added to the vocabulary: Library, lion, mouse, and attic. Isaac is really starting to participate when we try to get him to repeat words, which is a lot of fun. Also he is putting more words together to make short sentences. He says a word that sounds like "Ernie" which we aren't sure what it means. Usually he says it when discussing "MoMo" (Elmo) and I think he is referring to Big Bird and not the character Ernie. He says it quite adamantly sometimes and I just have to nod and smile.

**Last week Isaac and I made a quick and short visit to Searcy to see our new niece Savannah Grace and to visit the grandparents and great-grandparents before I can no longer travel. My mom and I decided that Isaac will need a 12 Step program to get over his addiction to watching Elmo movies in her van. Unlike us, my parents have a DVD player in their car and of course allow Isaac to watch Elmo anytime he is in the carseat. This lead to him wanting to always go "bye-bye" simply so he could watch television in the car. He would go to the door and say, "Bye-bye, movie, Elmo, peas, Nanny (his name for my mom that he devised all on his own)."

**As we welcomed the age of 18 months old, we also welcomed temper tantrums into our house. We don't see them often and they last all of 20 seconds, but boy can they be dramatic. Isaac will fall to the ground and let out a fake cry at times when told "no." Little does he know that his mother has seen all forms of temper tantrums (some that lasted for hours and days) in her former job and it doesn't phase me in the least. I simply ignore him and he gets up and is then his normal perky self. He also is trying out a whiny voice when tired, to which I reply, "Can you use nice words?" and he so sweetly says "Peas (which means please, by the way)..." Too sweet, even though the word "please" is generally out of context in these situations. However, it looks like we are taking a new turn in parenting as we make the switch from baby issues to kid issues. Fun times indeed. I have an entire box of tricks that likely won't work on my children, but I am up for the challenge nonetheless.....

**I hit week 30 of this pregnancy on Sunday. 30!!!! This pregnancy is going a bit too fast and I hope is slows down some in these final ten weeks. Although this baby girl has some things to wear, she currently has nowhere to sleep. I keep reminding myself that I didn't start Isaac's nursery until around this point in my pregnancy and he had a place to lay his head when he came home from the hospital. We are hitting Babies R Us this weekend with a gift card Evelyn got for Christmas to stock up on some needed things during their Spring Sale--perhaps that will inspire us to get things in motion for this baby!

**Isaac ate---and liked---pickles tonight at supper. Although he has a good appetite, he is cautious about trying new foods. However, he wanted a pickle from the jar (we had hamburgers--creative, huh?) on the table. We figured he would spit it out, but he ate it and asked for more. He still has a corn obsession and requests this yellow veggie quite often (typically for breakfast with a waffle--which I refuse to do!). We have to limit his corn intake because it makes diaper changes quite interesting.

**The whole controversy surrounding Al Gore and his personal energy output is really starting to annoy me. Yes, he has conducted a vast amount of research on global warming and was fortunate enough to have someone turn a simple slideshow into an Academy Award winning documentary. He is bringing an important message to the people (one that is generally ignored by other political leaders who shall remain nameless). Yes, he lives in a large mansion and isn't perfect. Who is? At least he is doing something, which is likely more than the commentators on Fox News who feel the need to devote hours of their programming to discussing Al's energy bill (by the way, is one's home's energy consumption public record?). I didn't happen to catch anyone discussing how inconsistent it is that Oprah has several multi-million dollar residences across the country and then sounds her own horn about the school she recently opened in South Africa. No one discusses that despite the fact that Bono does incredible work to bring education and resolution to the world AIDS crisis, he still lives a very "rock and roll" lifestyle, complete with private jets, $100+ concert admissions, and large homes. Can't people just be happy with the fact that someone is attempting to make a difference in spite of their human flaws?

**Here are some more pictures of Isaac---enjoying a cracker at the park and playing with his new truck I bought for ONE DOLLAR at a consignment sale. Happy Thursday!