My growing boy!

Isaiah sure is getting big. I just can't believe he is already 16 months old. It just seems like yesterday that he was a newborn. He keeps mommy really busy and helps the days to go by much faster while daddy is at work. It is so funny lately when he wakes up in the morning, he looks at me and says, "Mommy? A daddy?" Like mom, where is dad? So I have been telling him that daddy is gone bye bye at work. So the other day he asked me "Mommy? A dad?" Then he answered his own question by saying, "work" which sounded like "wook" because he can't say his R's very well yet. It was so cute! You can sure tell he misses his daddy. Every time Casey comes home from work Zaya runs over to his daddy all excited. Then he runs back to me and hugs my legs and then he runs back over to his daddy and starts jabbering. He is such a funny boy. I just love him to pieces.

Yesterday I made brownies for FHE and I tried to get Isaiah to lick the spatula. At first I held it toward him and he said "No" and pushed it away. So I tasted it and told him it was really good like cookies. So then I handed it to him and he sat down on the ground and started eating it. These are the pictures I got of him.

                                                                        Enjoying his treat!

After I took the spatula away. Poor boy.

It was so cute! I am sure he is always going to be begging for cookies or a D'nack or G'nack (which is how he says snack). The more he wants a snack the more loudly he enunciates the D or G. It cracks me up! What a silly little boy. He is starting to talk so much now. Here are some of the words I can think of that he is saying:
Snack: G'nack or D'nack (Fruit snacks are his favorite)
Popcorn: Botter
Cookie
Airplane: Aipane when he says it really fast and is excited it sounds like Appy. He says this every time he sees or hears an airplane, or every time we are in the car and he thinks he sees one.
Button: Butty although today he was starting to say Bunton. He LOVES buttons. He thinks light switches are buttons too. He even turned the lights off on us in Relief Society our first Sunday in our new ward. How embarrassing! He says "I see Butty" anytime he sees something he thinks is a button.
Beep: He loves anything that beeps, especially the microwave.
Teeth: Dee (He loves brushing his teeth).
Yogurt: Yogeet
Applesauce: Appsauce or Assauce
Milk:  Miulk
Water: Wateey
Bubbles: Bubbles bubbles
Duck
Bath
Book
Look: Nook
Outside: Ouside
Shoes
Puppy
Kitty: Titty
Blankie:  Bankie
Night night: Nigh night
Boo
Remote: Mote
Get You
Get it
Monkey
Hi
Hi Five: Hi fi
Bye Bye
Umm: He likes to hold the phone up to his ear and walk around the house saying umm then jabbering like crazy then every once in a while he will throw in another ummm like he is thinking and then start jabbering again. It is so cute it cracks me up!
Up:  He says this if he wants down or up.
Out:  He says this when he wants out of his car seat or high chair.
Ball
Nose
No!
Piano: Miano
Smile: Mile He says this when he gets a hold of the camera. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what he was saying, then I realized he was saying smile!

I am sure there are more words he says, but right now I think that is enough, and I can't think of anymore. It seems like he is learning one to two new words about every day now. He really is getting big!

A couple other things that he does that I think are so cute are that he loves dancing to music or any kind of beat. He even dances in his car seat by moving up and down to the beat. It is so funny. The other day we were walking to the mail box to get the mail and a car went past with its radio cranked up. Isaiah stopped walking and started dancing to the music right there on the side walk. It was so funny I couldn't help but laugh.

Also whenever he thinks something is neat or when he hears a noise he likes, he will open his mouth all the way and his eyes get big like he is really exited. It is so funny! Sometimes he will say, "mommy" to get my attention and then do this just to make me laugh. I think he likes the attention he gets from doing this because I like it so much. I think that is why he does it a lot. I will have to get a video of it, because it is really funny!

Okay one more funny story. The other day I gave him some pears to eat for lunch. He wasn't eating them very well. Then he saw the remote over on the table and he wanted it. So I told him if he finished his pears than he could get down and have the remote. So Isaiah thought I said "prayers" instead of "pears" so he folded his arms. He thought I was saying if you say your prayers then you can get down and have the remote. It was so funny! I was laughing really hard.

Well that is all the funny stories for now. Stay tuned for more updates on this silly boy that we love so much!

Summer Fun

WARNING: Because I haven't posted for so long this post and the following post are very long and sum up our entire summer. There are LOTS of pictures. Hope you like long posts. :)

Zoo

We have done lots of fun things this summer. After graduation we had some time before we had to move, so we spent lots of time with Isaiah doing fun things that we probably should have been doing, but were too busy to do. He finally got to spend more time outside with mom and dad! First we decided to go to the Zoo in Idaho Falls. We drove all the way down there to find out it was closed already! So we went and rode the carousel at the Fun Park right next door. We decided to make another trip back to the zoo when we knew it would be open. Isaiah loved it! His favorite was the monkey that came right down to the glass and was playing with Isaiah. He also really liked the petting zoo for the children. He got to go in a pet the goats and sheep. I think more than the animals though, he just loved being able to run around outside and have fun. I was really surprised how big the zoo was and the variety of animals they had. Here are some pictures.

Riding Carousel because the zoo was closed.

Mommy and Zaya

I think he liked it!

Zaya's Favorite Part of the Zoo

Petting the Goats with Daddy

The Cutest Animal at the Zoo :)

I really liked this one.

He thought the spots on the chicken were buttons or as Zaya calls them "Butty!"

Penguins

Huge Tortoises

Tiger

Family Reunion

Also this summer we were able to have the Richard Pieper family reunion. We started off by celebrating Jamie's birthday Chinese style, which was lots of fun. Then we were able to welcome Elder (Paul) Pieper home from his mission to Uruguay on Friday. Zaya liked his Uncle Pauly right away. It is so good to have him back! Then on Saturday we were all able to go to the IF temple and Pete was able to receive his endowments. On Sunday Paul gave his homecoming speech which was great! Afterwards we had lots of family and friends over for a luncheon. On Monday all the guys left for a "boys get away". They went on a big hike somewhere. Casey was sad he wasn't able to go because he had to leave for CA for training for his work. So while all the guys were gone we had fun having girl time. We went to the splash park all of the kids seemed to like it accept for Isaiah. So Jessie, Mary, and I took Zaya over to ride the carousel since he likes those a lot more. Then we all went over to play at the park. It was so much fun to be able to spend so much time with my family before we moved to Vegas. They were all tons of help in getting us packed and moved as well. Thanks again guys. We sure miss you and love you. Here are some of the pics from the reunion. Wish I could have gotten more.

Greeting Paul at the Airport

After Peter received his endowments at the Idaho Falls Temple

Jenny Wren, Ike, Baby Jacob, and Jen

Zaya and I at the splash park

Lucy loved the water, unlike Zaya

Jenny Wren

Ike

Zaya

Mary, Zaya, and Jessie

Zaya

Hannah and Zachy

Baby Jacob

Lucy and Jen

Zaya loved the slide!

He isn't afraid of the swings anymore. :)

Zachy in the swing

Matching monkey outfits we got for 25 cents each! Thought we would dress them up like twins.

It has been a really fun summer!

Yellowstone Adventure!

Wow I have so much to catch up on I thought I would start here. Right before we moved to Las Vegas we went up to Yellowstone to take advantage of the "free pass into the park" weekend promotion that was going on. Casey also wanted to do a fishing trip with my uncles Alan and Russell who are avid fishermen. So we all went up and we were going to hike around Jenny Lake while the boys/men went fishing. Peter, Paul, and Ben left early to meet Alan and his boys at the lake. Casey was going to meet them there because he had been gone to CA for training the whole week before, he flew into SLC early and was going to get a few hours of sleep then drive straight to Jackson and meet them early in Saturday morning. Then all the rest of us would meet them later.

I was really hoping that Casey would be able to hike around Jenny lake with us, but since he got there later than he hoped he wanted to take advantage of his day fishing pass he bought. Although it turned out that no one really got much fishing in because the axle on Uncle Alan's boat trailer broke and they spent most of the time fixing that instead of fishing.

It was such a beautiful hike around the lake (3 miles long). That was only half way around the lake. At the half way mark they have a ferry that you can ride back across the lake to the starting point. I was so glad for that because after packing Isaiah that far I was glad we didn't have to go any longer. Besides the beautiful scenery we saw 2 adult moose and a baby moose, 3 snakes, and a bear. The mother moose who had the baby was right on the trail in front of us. It scared me so much. We all had to get to the side and hope she wasn't going to charge us or something. Then just a few minutes after that we saw a black bear eating berries in the bushes. I was probably only 20-30 feet from him. Probably not even that far! My dad being crazy as he is got 15 feet away to take a good picture and video of the bear. Funny thing is that the bear didn't even mind, he just kept on eating his berries. Thank goodness! I think the moose actually scared me more than the bear! It was so pretty and it was so much fun.

After the hike was over the guys were STILL trying to fix the boat trailer so we went to help them. Or sit and watch while they tried to get it fixed. It should have been really simple, but they didn't have the right tools. Anyway to make this long story a little shorter we didn't leave there til around 11:00 at night. Then Casey and I were driving down the road in our Saturn and the shifting in our manual car went out. It would still shift, but it wouldn't engage. I thought, "you have got to be kidding me! This can't be happening right now." Casey was miraculously able to cut apart the center console and rig it so he could drive it home. We weren't sure how safe it was so Zaya and I rode home with my parents since they had room. Then after we got that mess all taken care of... we were going to fill up with gas, get some food, and head home. Well my cell phone battery died and so did Casey's. We kept trying to get a hold of him since he got separated from the rest of us. We werent' sure if his car was still working properly or not. Anyway we didn't feel comfortable leaving Jackson until we knew he was alright. We searched all of the fast food drive through's in town and all the gas stations and couldn't find him anywhere. We figured he must have headed for home. Luckily he had and we all made it home finally at 2:00 in the morning. What an adventure it was. One I probably won't forget too soon! Sorry this is so long. Here are a few of the hundreds of pictures I took!

                                                                  

First Sign of Wildlife

One of the three snakes we saw!

Momma moose and her baby

Black Bear

Pretty Wildflowers

Packing Zaya around the Lake

Luckily all the huckle berries helped keep this tired boy happy.

Ike, Mary, and Hannah climbed this big rock

Mary and Hannah in a little cave. :)

           Zach, Jamie, and Me

Silly little Zaya sitting on the trail

The troopers that made it to look-out point.

Hannah, Mary, and I with the gorgeous hidden falls behind us.

Ike after he fell in the lake :)