Teething Biscuits are Messy

. . . but SO tasty!

Cousins

My sister came yesterday to babysit while I was at work. Her daughter is only two months older than Isabella. Thank goodness she could come, usually Monte is able to work from home on the one day a week that I work, but for most of the summer he is too busy and can't be home. We did have our neighbor lady lined up to babysit, but she had to back out to help take care of her sister with cancer. We really don't want to put her in daycare and everyone else we tried was busy yesterday, so my sister drove 2 hours to babysit for the day! What a great sister! She said the girls had a great time, they were actually interacting with each other for the first time and jabbering back and forth to each other. How cute!

Here Isabella is modeling her new shoes and looking quite tired!

Home Again

We had a great trip, but it feels good to be home again. Leaving Isabella was hard, she cried which of course made me cry. But it only lasted a minute and then Monte's mom said she was happy again and so good all weekend. Our trip to the Cities was fun, as much as we missed Isabella it was good to have some time to ourselves again. We went to Valleyfair, The Mall of America, and a Twins game. On Sunday we made it back to Monte's parents house. Isabella was already in bed so we had to wait until the next morning to see her. :( The next morning she just looked at me like - oh it's just you, but was all smiles for her grandpa of course. We then took off for Monte's sisters house where we stayed until Wednesday. It was great to see them and Isabella had fun with her cousins entertaining her.

Prayer request and a vacation

My prayers go out tonight to the sister of a girl I work with. Her name is Melissa, and about 5 months ago she came to work SO excited because she just found out that her sister and her husband were expecting their first baby. She talked about it all the time and just couldn't wait to be an aunt! A couple of weeks ago Melissa told me that her sister had an ultrasound which revealed the baby, a girl, has a very severe cleft lip. That was the least of their concerns, though, as the ultrasound also revealed almost nonexistent brain waves. I haven't heard much since, but I don't work very often so I just found out today that this precious little girl will be born with part of her brain missing! No one knows what the future holds for her. I can't even think of the words to write - I'm just so sad for this couple, I absolutely cannot imagine going through what they are going through!! It makes me realize what a miracle a precious little baby is, and I'm SO grateful to have a healthy baby. I think I take that for granted. I will be keeping this couple in my prayers and praying for the best possible outcome, please keep them in your prayers as well.

It doesn't really seem right to talk about something exciting after that, but we are going on vacation tomorrow morning. I'm excited but nervous. Nervous because we are leaving Isabella for the first time. She will be going to Monte's parents to stay for three days! Yikes! I think I'll have fun, but I'm really going to miss that little girl. We're going to go to the Twin Cities, then on Sunday come back to my in-laws to get Isabella, then go to Monte's sister's to stay for three more days since Monte has meetings for work in Fargo Tuesday and Wednesday, and she only lives an hour from there. (Wow, that was a HUGE run on sentence - oh well) Anyway, I better get packing and quit rambling! It's amazing how much more there is to pack when there is a baby involved! :)

Clothes, clothes, and more clothes!

My mom came out to visit for a couple days, and she brought me three huge boxes of clothes for Isabella. They were given to her by her friend who has a daughter with twin girls. I'm not quite sure why she wanted me to have them as this lady has 8 children and 30 some grandchildren - I would think there would be some other little girls in there somewhere. Anyway, I am so grateful - these clothes are awesome, most are like brand new and SO cute! There are clothes from her size now, 6 months, all the way up to 3T, even three nice coats and a snow suit! Yay!! Getting bigger clothes for her is always so bittersweet for me, I love putting her in new outfits, but it's so sad to put the clothes away that are too small. (I admit, I've put her in pants that are too short and passed them off as capris) :-) She's growing too fast, I want her to stay my little baby. I sometimes get out her preemie clothes and I can't even believe they used to be too big for her - I swear they wouldn't even fit most dolls! Anyway - I suppose I better end this before I start getting all emotional.

Exhausted Girl

Well, we went to Target today and she's exhausted - yes Target. That's all it takes to wear her out. As my mother-in-law says, she's "fragile". I happen to prefer "delicate". :-) I hope she's okay, I've had so many people say they've never seen a baby sleep as much as she does. As long as she's healthy, though, that's quite all right with me - she can sleep as much as she'd like!! She's just now at 8 1/2 months starting to take 3 naps a day. Up until a week ago she could only be up for 1 - 2 hours before she needed a nap. I guess I've always loved my sleep, so maybe it's hereditary!

Don't worry, I take the blankie away after she's sound asleep. She has to have it to fall asleep!

Storm of the century

Well, maybe not, but it was definitely the worst storm I've seen in a while. They weren't even forecasting it so it was a complete surprise. Monte called on his way home from work to say it was raining so hard all the cars were stopped on the interstate. Then he called to say it was hailing on his precious Durango, but thankfully he got home safely! We had 60 mph winds and we got 1 and 1/4 inches of rain in about 20 minutes. Then it was gone as fast as it came. We went out to survey the damage - my poor rose bushes! :-( And our garden looks like a monsoon hit it, and our big, sturdy fence is leaning now, yikes! But it could have been much worse so we are thankful for that, and Isabella slept through the whole thing.

Hello

Hello - after months of "lurking" around other people's blogs, I have decided to start my own. It all started when a friend suggested I check out danielle bean.com. I've been addicted ever since.

As for the name of my blog - it's something I stole from my friend Meredith (sorry Meredith, I'm not exactly creative) . To make a very long story short -

http://greathomework.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

(it's the second post from November 9th)

I feel my little family has been faced with quite a few challenges when it comes to our health, but yet God has provided so many "little miracles" which have only made us stronger.

And without further ado - here is our little Isabella then and now: