Best Buds

My sister and niece are visiting for a couple of days. It's so much fun, but now that Isabella is moving around it's a little crazy with two babies into everything. I love the first picture, it took a lot to get that picture. As soon as one would sit still the other would start crawling around. I think I took about 20 shots before I got that one!

Pictures

She Crawls

Isabella started crawling this morning! I've been thinking for quite a while that it would be any day now, she's been so close for so long. She finally figured it out. I guess we'll have to baby proof the house now! Maybe I'll get a picture of her crawling later and post it - she's sleeping right now.

Today Isabella and I went to the town where I work (about 40 miles away) to visit some friends. We made quite a few stops as they all work at different banks. (Really - I do have other friends besides bankers) :) One of them hadn't seen Isabella since she was a newborn in the hospital, she thought she had changed just a little! She was all smiles, and loved "performing" for everyone. And why is it everyone always tries to guess how old your baby is? Not that it bothers me, but I just don't understand it. Today the cashier at Wal-Mart said, "She must be about 4 months." Wow, people usually guess she is a little younger than she is (which is almost 10 months), but that is a new record!

Klutz

My friend Susan and I have an ongoing conversation all the time about which one of us is the most uncoordinated, awkward, klutzy, etc. She swears it's her, but after tonight I really think it has to be me! I decided to take a quick trip to the grocery store this evening after Isabella went to bed. It was garbage pickup tonight and Monte had just gotten done putting all of our garbage at the end of our driveway. As I'm backing up I see Monte come to the window and start waving his arms frantically at me; I thought, oh that looks funny I wonder what he's doing?!!! Duh, it never ocurred to me that I was about to run over our 123 bags ( at least that's what it seemed like :) ) of garbage! Silly me. As I hear all of the "crunching" of everything hitting the car (yes the loaner car) it is then and only then that I realize what I've done. I'm sure I was quite the sight as I was running around the neighborhood picking up bits of our garbage that had landed in other peoples yards!

Busy Weekend

We had a very interesting weekend. We went home to my parents on Friday night so we could paint my parents' house all day Saturday. We got so much done in one day, I couldn't believe it. My mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, Monte, and I painted all day. My mom got my cousin, Kendall, to come and babysit the four kiddos. She was definitely busy as well. At least my brother's baby girl and Isabella were on opposite schedules so that helped a lot. As soon as one would wake up the other would go down for a nap. It was actually more fun than I thought, it was really nice to have so many people around, which made painting a lot more enjoyable. It was a very long day, then this morning we got up early to drive about 90 miles to my sister's. We went to Church there and went to my niece's first birthday party! It was a lot of fun, my grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins were all there.

The not so fun part of our weekend started on Friday when our car started making a terrible noise on the drive home. We made it home okay, but our car has major problems, and we definitely don't need that financial burden right now! How wonderful is family though! My cousin owns a Ford dealership and he let us take one of the cars off of his lot to use as long as we need to, until we can either get our car fixed, or we might end up getting a different car. Although, we had to get the Durango last year because Monte has to have 4 wheel drive for work, so we were really hoping our car would last a long time because we didn't want to buy another vehicle anytime soon. Hopefully it can be fixed - and it will be cheap. But I think that's wishful thinking! :)

Moo Baa La La La

Isabella is very into animals right now, she loves to read about them! Those of you that know me know that I love sheep, they are my favorite animal. So imagine how thrilled I was yesterday when Isabella started baaing! It is so funny, she tries so hard to get the sound out! I think sometimes I don't realize how much babies take everything in, they understand so much and are always learning. I'm sure now she will add her baaing to her little bag of tricks she has. She always has to perform whenever she sees someone besides boring old mom and dad. Usually it goes something like this - wave bye bye, fake cough, squeal, fake cough some more until her face turns purple and she's half choking, etc. I can't wait to take her home to my parents' farm so she can see the sheep in person. And of course now Monte is trying to get her to moo since his favorite animals are cows, which his parents have on their farm. As for the title of this post Moo Baa La La La is the name of a book I just ordered for Isabella's birthday in a few months. I love the author, her books are so cute.

There is something about Wal-Mart . . .

that Isabella loves! I don't understand it. We go there pretty often, as it is the only place around to do one stop shopping (groceries AND everything else you could possibly need). The thing I don't understand is that every time we have ever gone Isabella sleeps the entire time we are there! We could be there 20 minutes or 3 hours, it wouldn't matter - she sleeps. We go to any other store and she looks around the whole time in amazement of everything she sees. I guess the nice thing is that I don't have to plan our shopping excursions around nap times as I know she'll get a good nap in while we're there. Silly girl!

We had such a nice day today, the only thing Monte had to do for work today was go to a town nearby and meet someone quick to get his signature. So Isabella and I tagged along. We went out to eat and to the mall. With the cool weather lately, I've realized Isabella doesn't have much for long sleeved fall outfits. She's got a ton of 18 month outfits for winter from my mom's friend, hopefully that's what size she will be in by then. So I picked up some 9 and 12 month outfits today. I actually hit some pretty good sales - so that was good. I am a bargain shopper thanks to all those years of my mom "teaching" me the right way to shop. I'm afraid I've passed on my love for shopping to Isabella, she gets the biggest smile and actually starts laughing at the mere sight of a dress. She's all girl! After our trip to the mall, we of course headed for Wal-Mart so Isabella could get her nap in and so I could get a bike. It is honestly the first bike I have had since I was about 12 years old! Monte's sister gave us a bike seat for Isabella, but I think I better practice up a bit first so as not to risk the life of my child, whose mother hasn't ridden a bike since she was in junior high. Anyway, with working the past couple of weekends it was so nice to be together as a family today, it wouldn't have mattered what we did.

Strange Weather

When I think of August I think of insanely hot weather, at least in the 90's. What is going on lately? It seems like most of the country is in a heatwave, but our temperature for the last two days has been 56! I had my heat on in the car today. It has been raining almost nonstop as well, but at least we're not getting floods like other areas in the midwest. There's more cool weather and rain forcasted for this whole coming week, that's just not a good way to enjoy the last days of summer!

Hopefully Isabella won't be needing this for quite a while!

Trying on her winter hat with Daddy.

Date Night

My mom has been here for a few days, so on Tuesday night Monte and I got to go to Church and out to eat by ourselves! Yay! It's so nice for just the two of us to get out once in while - just like old times. :) Isabella is definitely a grandma's girl, she loves to show off for my mom and is all smiles for her! We'll see how she is for me on Monday after all of this attention she's getting - my mom left today and Monte's mom is coming tomorrow for three days. I'll probably be boring mom to her after the weekend is over.
We've been very busy around here. Monte has been really busy with work, he hasn't been around too much lately. I got one whole side of our house painted yesterday while my mom watched Isabella, it was really humid which made me exhausted. I work today through Sunday, and in my spare moments I've been trying to get some canning done.

Outdoor fun and a Gardening Tip

Isabella had a great time with her daddy this weekend while I was working. I'm glad they get to spend so much time together when I'm working (although I'd rather not be working). I've discovered that she takes really nice, long naps after she's been outside, so I'm wondering what her schedule is going to be like when the weather gets cold and she's not outside as much.

And now to gardening . . .

I wouldn't exactly consider myself a gardening expert, but for anyone into flowers, did you know that in order to keep your flowers looking good at the end of the season you just need to cut them back. That's right, just take a scissers and hack off about half their length. I just learned this and it actually works. I wish I had a before picture because they were just about dead.

Isn't this basket cute - my father in law made it!

I just wish there was something we could do to make our garden look better. Last year we had so much produce we didn't know what to do with it all. So far this year, rabbits ate all of our green beans, our potatoes were rotten, and ants (yes ants) ate all of our sweet corn. I have never heard of ants ruining sweet corn! At least our tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are doing really good. It's time to start canning, last year was my first canning experience, it went rather well. I can't wait to get started, hopefully I can do it soon but we have a busy week ahead of us. My mom is coming for a few days, we've been working on painting our house since May, hopefully I can get a little more done while she's here. Then she's going to babysit on Thursday, I normally don't work two weekends in a row but I have to work Thursday - Sunday again this coming week. Then Monte's mom is coming for the weekend so he can hopefully get some painting done also.

Disappointment is . . .

1. Splurging on a twenty dollar package of spareribs to make your husband's grandma's recipe that is one of his absolute favorites.

2. Not eating hardly anything all day because you're looking forward to supper so much.

3. Waiting even longer to eat because you want to wait until after the baby goes to bed, so you can savor every scrumptious bite!

4. Having the meal be a complete disaster.

Morning Walks

One of my favorite parts of the day is taking Isabella for a walk in the morning before it gets too insanely hot. Of course we don't get to go on the days I work, darn work gets in the way of everything! I would have to say that my favorite baby item we have bought is our stroller, I love it. We almost didn't get one with the infant car seat attachment but we found one on clearance and now I am very glad for that. I am very much a person that needs a routine and we definitely have a summer routine going. We take the same route, first we meet the man walking his little white poodle, then we walk past the old man who is ALWAYS sitting outside just waiting for someone to stop and say hi. He always seems so happy but I can't help but think he must be so lonely. Then we stop at Church for a while to light a candle, say some prayers, and Isabella waves "bye bye" to Jesus. That all started when one day I told her we were going bye bye as I was looking at the tabernacle. So now she waves bye bye to Jesus in the tabernacle. I love it!! The other day we made a stop at the library. We have lived in this town for a year and a half, we live 6 blocks from the library and we have never been there before! We will definitely be going back on a regular basis from now on though. I'm afraid Isabella didn't do a very good job of obeying the "quiet rule" though. She loves to hear herself make noise, and the noise she usually makes is a VERY high pitched, loud squeal. She really prefers to make this noise in places such as Church, restaurants, libraries, and any public place in general. I don't think the librarian was too happy with us, but oh well. I tried giving her the pacifier but she wanted nothing to do with it, she really only likes it when she's sleepy.

I'm going to be so sad to see the summer come to an end. I'm enjoying every day, as I know our warm days are soon going to be numbered. I look forward to many summers ahead as we watch Isabella grow up, but for now I'm just enjoying having her the age she is!

Big Girl

This is such hard work!

I'm working up a sweat!

Yay! I did it, I can stand up all by myself! I'm such a big girl now!

Nine Month Checkup

Isabella had her appointment today, it went so much better than I thought it would. She had to have a blood test, which I thought she would cry through. She actually smiled during the whole thing! The nurse said, "Some babies cry, some don't, but I have never seen a baby smile the whole time!" She did cry after her shots - I always feel so bad when she gets shots!

She weighs 18 pounds 6 ounces (50th percentile) and is 28 inches long (75th percentile). She has really caught up! She started out in the 5th percentile, and at 6 months was in the 25th percentile. You definitely can't tell she was a preemie anymore.

We also found out today she has allergies. Her eyes get really dark circles under them with a rash sometimes. The pediatrician took one look at her and said she definitely has allergies. We don't know to what yet, he thinks they are environmental but it could be some type of food. He said we don't have to do anything right now because she is not bothered by it. This came to no surprise to us as Monte and I both have environmental and food allergies. The poor girl, she doesn't have a chance!

Weekend Fun

We arrived home today from our family get together. Isabella's first hotel stay went rather well, she still slept her usual 7:00 to 6:00. We were shocked to find out she was not afraid of the water! She must take after Monte's family because I was terrified of the water growing up. Even her two cousins about the same age as her didn't want anything to do with the water. My sister's little girl didn't even want my sister to be CLOSE to the water. She cried and cried until both she and my sister were safely several feet away from the pool! This morning we all attended Mass as a family which was really special, especially to my parents I'm sure.

I said she wasn't terrified, I didn't say she liked it! She never fussed or anything so it must not have been too bad.

Summertime Cut-outs

My nephews seem to like my cut out cookies, and since today is my nephew's sixth birthday I thought I would bring these to our get-together tomorrow. I've made all kinds of cut outs before but never watermelon cookies!

Trying Week

It has definitely been a long week. We have been without hot water for a couple of days. It was bound to happen - showers have been getting colder and colder around here! You don't realize how much you use something until its gone. Monte installed a new water heater last night, but when we still had no hot water today we knew something was wrong. We called an electrician to come and look at it. It was installed properly but the heating element was defective. So now we are going to have a bill for labor and a new heating element on a brand new water heater! I did call the place where we got it, though, and they were really nice. It sounds like they will hopefully pay for the electrician. Now we know how people felt in the old days, it's not much fun to heat up bath water on the stove! Also, now hopefully Isabella will have a better rest of the week since I figured out she's just HUNGRY! It's so easy to get wrapped up in all of the minor little things in my own life when something like this happens and really puts things in perspective. My prayers go out to all of the people affected by this tragedy.

9 months old today

I can't believe in three short months we will be celebrating Isabella's first birthday! I can't decide whether the last nine months have gone fast or slow - it seems like we have had her forever yet it also seems like not that long ago when she was a newborn. I'm guessing babies go through a big growth spurt around nine months because she is hungry ALL the time right now. I can tell she has grown too, her 3-6 month clothes are finally getting too small! Maybe she'll start catching up. I'll be interested to see how big she is at her dr.'s appt. next week, they always go by her adjusted age. Since she was a preemie, they say she is developmentally a 7 month old. She has also started a new thing- she's very clingy - which makes it somewhat of a challenge to just go to the bathroom! I know my niece is like that too, so it must be a phase. (And it's kind of nice to think that she doesn't want to be away from me) :)

Pictures

This weekend is my parents' 35th wedding anniversary, my whole family is getting together at a hotel for the weekend to celebrate. I am making my parents a scrapbook of all their grandkids, I can't wait to give it to them! These are some of the pictures I took of Isabella for the book -

Recipe

With all the hot and humid weather we've been having lately, I really don't want to use the oven. But we have no cookies in the house (and believe me - that's a problem!). I was going through recipes yesterday when I found this great recipe for no bake cookies. I haven't had them since I was a kid and they are so easy and delicious! They really don't take very much time at all.

No Bake Cookies

2 cups white sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup margarine

1tsp. vanilla

1 pinch salt

1/2 cup chunky or creamy peanut butter (whatever you prefer)

3 cups quick cooking oats

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, cocoa, milk and margarine. Bring to a boil, stirring occassionally. Boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, salt, oats, and peanut butter.

2. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto waxed paper. Allow cookies to cool for at least 1 hour. Store in airtight container.