Stress Relief

I have been a little tired of work lately! Hopefully there will come a day (and soon) when I can stay home with Isabella all the time. I don't mean to complain, I know I am lucky to work part-time, but I miss Isabella! I work this Thursday- Sunday and next Thursday-Sunday. She goes to bed SO early, so she is usually in bed by the time I get home. Tonight I was home about an hour before she went to bed (that is all I saw her the whole day), and she just wanted to be with me all the time. I wonder what she must think. Getting back to the subject of my post, we went for a quick drive around a lake close by tonight. I was looking forward to it all day - good, quality family time. I couldn't ask for more!

Miss Anti-Social

My sister and niece were here for a couple of days to babysit. Isabella, who has always loved her cousin, is now terrified of her. I don't know what is going on, I'm hoping it is some sort of phase she's going through. It may have been that my niece enjoyed hitting Isabella on the head with all sorts of objects, but even when my niece was wanting to give Isabella a toy so they could share, she still would start crying. Isabella didn't even want her coming near her. She wasn't really herself the whole time they were here. They left when Isabella was napping. Monte said when she woke up she looked all over the house, and when she realized they were gone she immediately became her usual, happy self again. Anybody have any experience with this? I'm a little worried she won't play well with other kids.

One of the rare happy times.

Productive Weekend

It's finally done, our house is painted! It's only taken 5 months! I've learned that things take A LOT longer when you have a baby. I knew we had to get it finished because the weather is getting colder. On Saturday both Monte and I painted. He painted the places I refused (or was scared) to paint.

Isabella watched, and thought Daddy looked so funny up on the roof!

On Sunday, Monte stayed inside with Isabella because the weather wasn't very good. I started painting as soon as we got home from Church and finished right before it got dark. I didn't mind painting the actual house, but the back porch was a pain. I felt like I was getting nowhere, and then a little voice in my head said "offer it up" (I'm pretty sure it was my mom's voice, I heard that a lot growing up) :)

I can't even describe what a good feeling it is to get this done, now I feel like I can relax without having that in the back of my mind all the time.

New Baby

Congratulations to our friends, Connie and Dave. She's a big, beautiful girl!

Daddy's Girl

More Recalls!

Is nothing safe anymore? First millions of toys are being recalled for having lead, then Gerber infant cereal for "clumping" up and causing choking, now over a million cribs are being recalled. And we just happen to have one of those cribs! I don't think I'll be sleeping very well tonight. I just ordered the replacement kit which I'm told will arrive in about a month! No hurry, we're only talking about over a million innocent babies here! What kind of testing are these companies doing? Whatever it is they need to do more.

Happy Fall!

I've gotten over my flowers in the basket dying, now that I got a bargain on this cute scarecrow!

Emotional Moment

What is it about being a mother that makes you so emotional! Before I had Isabella I was not an emotional person, in fact my in-laws used to call me "stoneheart" (jokingly of course) because I never cried at movies. That is definitely not the case anymore! One example is yesterday, I turned on the radio so Isabella could dance - her latest thing. Whenever she hears music she waves her arms up and down and moves her shoulders back and forth. The first song that came on the radio was "I Cross my Heart" by George Strait. I always liked this song growing up and thought it was a great love song. But yesterday as I watched my little girl "dancing" and listened to the lyrics I saw it in a whole new light. I think it could also describe the love a parent feels for their child, and I was overwhelmed. Man do I love that little girl!

I Cross my Heart

Our love is unconditional

We knew it from the start

I can see it in your eyes

You can feel it from my heart

from here on after

Lets stay the way we are right now

And share all the love and laughter

That a lifetime will allow

I cross my heart

And promise to

Give all I've got to give to make all your dreams come true

In all the world

You'll never find

A love as true as mine

You will always be the miracle

That makes my life complete

And as long as there's still breath in me

I'll make yours just as sweet

As we look into the future

It's as far as we can see

So lets make each tomorrow

Be the best that it can be

Mistake

Okay - the third link of the last post didn't work. It's supposed to be a cute wooden snowman that sits over a fence not camo tees! I'll see if I can fix it.

Edit- Couldn't fix it, so I deleted the link. :(

Christmas

I did some catalog Christmas shopping tonight and now I am so excited for Christmas I can hardly stand it! I love this place, most of their things are really reasonable! I got presents for all of my nieces and nephews, so that's a good feeling. I also got this for Isabella's birthday, I got some books a month or so ago too, so now I have her birthday presents taken care of. And how cute is this, I couldn't resist. And as long as I'm putting all these links up, here's one more, I really want to get that for Isabella, maybe it could be an early Christmas present so she can play with it during Advent.

Yet Another Cooking Disaster

I really love to cook and bake and I actually consider myself pretty good at it, but I am really having a rough time lately. I think my problem is that Monte can't have any dairy so I am always substituting with either soymilk or goat milk, dairy free sour cream, dairy free cream cheese, etc. This doesn't always work! He was talking about these awesome chocolate cupcakes with a cream filling that his mom always use to make when he was growing up and could have dairy. I got the recipe from her this weekend when we were there and decided to try them out today. After spending two hours of Isabella's precious nap time making them, here's what I opened my oven door to - the "cream" filling in all 36 cupcakes exploded all over in my oven and left huge holes in all the cupcakes! Very frustrating! I so wanted to surprise him when he got home from work but instead he came home to chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, you can't really mess those up too bad. I'm pretty sure cookies are his favorite food, so he definitely wasn't disappointed.

First Shoes

She's tried on some sandals before, but has never actually worn shoes anywhere. She doesn't quite know what to think about these new "toys"

on her feet!

Babysitter

Isabella had her first non-family member babysitter today. I was a little nervous - I knew Sister would do an excellent job, but I was worried about her not knowing Isabella's routine, wondered how she would sleep for her, etc. Isabella definitely sensed that something was different because when Sister came this morning, she immediately started crying. She buried her face in my shoulder and held on to me for dear life! This was very unlike her as she's scared of a couple of people but usually smiles at everyone right away. Of course that made me feel bad but it only lasted about three minutes! Then she was laughing and smiling again. Right away Isabella had to show off all of her tricks which now consist of clapping, fake coughing, baa-ing, crawling, saying Da Da over and over and over . . . and standing. (Either she forgot how to wave bye-bye or she's moved on, and don't even get me started on the standing - that's all she's doing lately, she hardly even plays with toys right now, that's all she wants to do is stand) Her fake cough is really getting out of control, half the time I think she's going to damage her vocal cords! And yesterday we met Monte for lunch at Applebees and everyone in the restaurant kept staring at us because they probably thought she was choking! Anyway, I actually was really happy when I left because they were having such a good time, and I guess Isabella layed right down and slept good for Sister too! I thought for sure that wouldn't happen because she sleeps different for different people. She usually goes to sleep really good when I lay her in her crib, but it's a different story with Daddy. Apparently he's too much fun and she doesn't want to nap when he's taking care of her (I must be boring).

It's Over

Summer is officialy over for me, I dug up almost all of my flowers tonight *sigh*. It's just so sad! They were looking pretty tough, I gave up watering them about a weak ago as I saw no more hope for them. Our garden is also done, I was hoping to get more tomatoes out of it, but with the temps getting down in the lower 30's the last few nights there's no hope for that either. Yesterday was my last day of canning for the year, I made one last batch of my grandma's wonderful bread and butter pickles. My canning this year consisted of salsa, tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, and pickles. I love to do it, it's a lot of work but I feel like I've really accomplished something when I'm done. And how great will it be to have some homemade tomato soup on a cold winter night!

Discipline

We have been working on baby proofing our house lately, there are just some things that you can't do anything about, though. Things like china cabinets, floor lamps, and ovens just to name a few! And of course these are the things that are the most tempting to Isabella, she just can't seem to help it. She definitely knows the word "no". About half the time when she is crawling toward something she's not supposed to be near and we tell her "no no" she stops and turns around. The other half of the time she stops, looks at us, and continues on very slowly like if she's doing it in slow motion maybe it will be okay. So it was bound to happen that yesterday when I was at work she tipped over our floor lamp in the living room. She could have really gotten hurt. It didn't fall on her, thankfully, but she was knocked over in shock! Daddy quickly picked her up and consoled her. I guess for the rest of the day she would crawl over to the lamp, but keep a safe distance from it, and give it a dirty look! Of course today she forgot all about "the incident" and was desperate to touch it again. This is bringing me to a realization that we are actually going to have to discipline her as she gets older, right now we tell her "no" because we don't want her to get hurt. I know as she gets older it will definitely be a lot more complicated than just telling her "no" and I hope I will be a good parent and be able to handle anything that might come my way in this area. It is a little scary to think that as parents, we are soley responsible for the physical, spiritual, and emotional well being of our children. It's still a wonderful "job" though!!

Fall Has Arrived

All bundled up!

Link

A new blog to check out. Please go there and read her story, she has been through so much. She and her husband were our NFP teachers - wonderful people!

Last Days of Summer

Note to self

Don't ever chop up all of the remaining jalapenos in the garden to freeze, without wearing some sort of gloves. Your hands will be on fire ALL day!!

Visitors

We have had quite a bit of company lately. My sister and niece were here last Wednesday and Thursday, then my cousin Kendall came and stayed with us from Friday - Sunday. It was so much fun to have her here. She is 12 years old and I don't have any cousins even close to my age, but Kendall and I are really close. It was great to get to spend time with her. We did all sorts of "girly" things. Her mom doesn't cook, and she really wanted to learn how so I taught her how to make a casserole, bars, and she even helped me can salsa!


Today was my best labor day in a while. Other than last labor day when I was in the hospital with my pregnancy complications ( so that doesn't really count) this was my first labor day off from work in four years. Yes, the bank I work at is open on labor day (and other holidays, and Saturdays, and Sundays even)! Monte's parents came for most of the day, then our friend Sister Mary Edwin came to visit. We met her last year when I was on bedrest and in the hospital, she would always bring me communion - she's so wonderful! She said today that she would really like to babysit Isabella. How great is that, this could solve our problem as to who is going to watch Isabella when I'm working and Monte can't do it! I couldn't think of anyone better to do it! What a good influence on Isabella too.

Isabella and Sister Mary Edwin