How We Get Our Excercise

by pushing this girl around! She is obsessed with this tote. Today she sat in it for a long time and looked at books, then she had to play with blocks while sitting in it. What a goof!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I'm Lost

Does anybody know what's going on? I just keep getting more confused every week!

Why Bother Buying Toys

when all she wants to play with is this

Our town has city wide rummage sales every year on the last weekend in June. We have a ton of stuff we want to get rid of, and so does my sister. So she's going to come that weekend and we'll hopefully get rid of lots of stuff. Yesterday I bought this tote so I could get a start at going through closets. I guess that will have to wait, Isabella's having way too much fun with it!

Signs on the Go

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Finally! After a whole month of videos not uploading, I found another way to do it. I think I messed something up because some of my templates I've had have not been directly from blogger. This one is, but who knows what the problem is, and blogger help hasn't been too helpful. Anyway, here is a half hearted attempt at some of her signs, she wouldn't sit still to do them. She's been doing them for quite a while, so far she does all done, change me, hungry, thirsty, and more. She got them all down on the first day I showed her. However, she's not as fast at picking up help me and thank you, which I have been trying to teach her for a while. It's working great for us, especially hungry. Instead of her getting whiny because I don't know what she wants, she just does the sign and I know immediately. Whoever invented baby sign language is a GENIOUS!

Not Again!

Are you sick of me changing my blog template yet? :) Hopefully this will be the last time for a while. There were some things I couldn't do with the old template, like upload videos. So we'll see if this works.

Edit: All that work and I still can't upload videos! Grrrr. I keep getting the error message - could not connect to blogger.com everytime I try a video. I've tried several different ones, even really short ones. Anybody have any suggestions?

Getting into Mischief

Yesterday morning I realized Isabella had disappeared somewhere in the house, and it was eerily quiet (which is usually not a good thing). Just when I was going to go look for her, she came running out of her room, saying oooh, with the biggest smile on her face, and the proudest look. She was holding her treasure to give to me. What was it you ask - a dirty diaper!! She figured out a way to get into her diaper pail, and I didn't have the heart to tell her no (at least not that time) because she was so darn proud of herself for bringing me a "present".

Adventures in Babysitting

I'm so glad I could go to my sister's to take care of my niece this past week. I was just sure Isabella would come down with the "yuck" that Monte and I had experienced, but somehow she escaped it. My sister was so good about coming out once a month to babysit Isabella when I was working, and now I am more than glad to return the favor. She and I are somewhat different in that all I have ever wanted to do is be a mommy, she wanted a career, and made quite the career for herself as a CPA, working insanely long hours! But as the saying goes, everything changes when you have a baby. She gave up her job to stay home for most of the year, and now only works during tax season (January - April) and I know she would like to give that up too. They found a nice, older lady who doesn't watch any other kids to babysit my niece, but she was unavailable last week. So that's where I come in, and I plan on going out once more in March as well to help out.

Don't let the picture in my last post fool you, the cousins weren't always so chummy with each other! :) They have totally opposite personalities. Rachel is very outgoing and rambunctious, Isabella is shy and reserved. So Rachel's constant "affection" towards Isabella was a little unwanted. For example, within minutes of us getting there Rachel ran up to Isabella to give her a hug which sent Isabella toppling over into the cupboards and hitting her head pretty bad. It was one of those times where you can see it in slow motion while it's happening but you just can't do anything about it! Needless to say, after so many "hugs" like that, Isabella wasn't exactly too keen on having her cousin get near her. There were definitely good times too, they did play together pretty nice, and were very into sharing toys. They would just sit on the floor handing a toy back and forth to each other, it was cute to watch. And my goodness, I thought Isabella slept a lot, always having slept from 7:00 to 7:00. But one night Rachel slept from 8:30 until 10:40 the next morning!! That's just crazy, plus at almost 18 months Rachel still takes two long naps a day. That would be nice!

There was one catastrophe while I was there, Rachel somehow got her hands on a glass pitcher and it shattered all over the kitchen floor! I put each of the girls in their cribs so I could clean up the glass without them around. I, of course, had surround sound screaming coming from both their rooms while I was mopping the floor. I'm sure they wondered what they had done to deserve that.

It was a good week, I miss my little niece, but it's good to be home. Between going to my in-laws and going to my sister's, Isabella and I have been gone for most of the past two weeks. I don't like being away from Monte for that long, and I don't like taking Isabella away from him. I wish my sister and I lived closer, so I could help out more.

Matching slippers

Going shopping at the "store", aka pantry.

This is great, all I get to play in at home is a drawer!

Rachel's version of combing Isabella's hair - banging her head with the other side of the brush.

Cousin Love

Lazy Day

Today was a relaxing day for us, Monte is the latest one to succumb to the bug. It seems the littlest one is the healthiest one in our family. And I hope she stays healthy as she and I are leaving tomorrow to take care of my niece until Friday. So, since Monte called in sick today (his first time, I hope they didn't think he just wanted Presidents Day off) he did a lot of sleeping and laying around, and I did - well I'm not really sure what I did, a whole lot of nothing I guess (other than take care of Isabella of course). It's funny that whenever Monte is home I feel like I don't do anything around the house. I'm so used to my set schedule of things every day during the week, then he stays home one day and I get thrown off. Not that I don't like having him home, because I absolutely do, it's just different.

My Little Valentine

Still Here

Isabella and I just got back from visiting the in-laws for a few days, my brother and his family are coming to spend the weekend with us, and next week Isabella and I are going to my sister's to babysit my niece. I also am trying to cut back on computer time during lent. So, my posting may not be too frequent, especially in the next week or so.

New Slippers

In an attempt to warm my always chilly girl, I decided to make her some slippers. The pattern is located here. It's a little hard to see, but she's sporting a lovely mullet in the first picture. Usually, it's curly in back, but she had hat hair - thus the mullet. Very stylish.

Checkup

Isabella had her 15 month checkup on Thursday. Everything looks good, I have a tall, skinny kid with a disproportionately large head! :) She's 21 pounds (25th %), 31 inches (75th%), and I can't remember what her head size was, but I know it was in the 85th percentile.

When a Mommy gets sick

Today I took Isabella to her 15 month checkup, then we met Monte for lunch, then we ran errands for most of the rest of the day, all with a fever, headache, and sore throat. The weird thing is that before Isabella was born I probably would have called in sick to work, and spent the entire day curled up on the couch watching movies, feeling sorry for myself, . . . And honestly, today I didn't even realize I felt that bad until now, when Isabella is in bed and I have a chance to think about it, and take my temp, otherwise I probably wouldn't have spread my germs around everywhere today. Isn't it funny how things change once you have kids? I told Monte tonight, "Mommy's aren't supposed to get sick." And when I think back on my childhood, I can't remember a single time that my mom was sick, and I'm sure she was! All I remember is her taking such good care of me when I was sick. The only thing I care about is not getting Isabella and Monte sick. There is so much going around right now, and Isabella's only ever been sick twice (although the bout after her birthday lasted a couple of weeks) . I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'm realizing more and more what this parenting thing is all about . . . sacrifice, and not because I have to, because I want to.

Nicknames

Mommylife has a cute post today. It's about terms of endearment. Here's what we call Isabella.

When she was first born, for some reason, it was really hard for us to call her Isabella. We didn't know her gender before she was born, and I was positive I was having a boy so I guess I never imagined myself with an Isabella. Now I can't imagine her as anything else. Anyway, all the nurses during her hospital stay always called her "little dolly" or "dolly" due to her tinyness. For about the first six months of her life, Monte called her "Miss Baby". It was so cute, that's all he called her, even when he was talking about her. For example, "I think Miss Baby is hungry." :) I always called her "Baby girl" for the first couple of months. From there we went on to Smelly Isabelly (man, did she have some gas issues for a while). After that we went on to always using her full name for some reason, Isabella Ann. Now we only call her Isabella Annie or just Annie. One thing I have always called her is "Angel". I use that one a lot. Actually I don't think I ever call her Isabella, except when I'm talking about her or writing about her. When I'm actually talking to her it's either "Angel" or "Annie". It's funny because before she was born, we always said if we had a girl we would name her Isabella, but call her Belle. I still really like the name, but I can't imagine her as Belle. So how about you, I would love to hear what everyone's nicknames are for their kids!

What Isabella learned on this first day of Lent

How to pray.

Hopefully she'll be doing a little more praying in church tonight, and a little less squirming around with ants in her pants. But I doubt it.

As Requested

Crockpot Beef Stew

1 large can v-8 juice

1 can beef broth (14.5 oz.)

1/4 cup red wine

1 cup water

1 packet McCormick Beef Stew Seasoning (1.5 oz)

1.5 lbs. stew meat

4 potatoes , cut up

carrots

1 can peas

Combine everything except peas. Cook on low for 8-10 hours and add the peas no more than two hours before serving.

Note: I actually have never made it exactly like this. I basicly use what's on hand. For example, last night I used a quart of home canned tomatoes since I didn't have any V-8, I also omitted the beef broth since I didn't have any. It was still very good!

The Best Bread in the World!

I've been making this recipe for a few years, not sure where I got it. Believe me, this stuff is unbelievable!! Nothing can beat a slice of this fresh out of the oven, and it's so easy to make!

Beer Batter Bread

3 cups flour

5 Tblsp. sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1 can or bottle beer (12 oz.)

3 Tblsp. butter or margarine, melted

Preheat oven to 375. Grease loaf pan. Blend flour, sugar, baking powder, and beer in large bowl. The batter should be lumpy. Pour into pan. Pour melted butter on top. Bake 50 minutes or until done.

We're having this tonight with crockpot beef stew. Yum! I just realized there's red wine in my beef stew. Hmmm, I guess we're going for an alcohol themed supper. :)

Winter Fun in the Sun

It was a balmy 28 degrees here today, but the best part was that there was no wind and the sun was shining. Monte suggested we take Isabella outside to play. I tried this with her once before and it went much better this time. She loved it! She was so scared last time when it was just her and I, she must just need Daddy there to protect her! I think she looks a little "geekish" in her sunglasses, I love it! :)