Digging Out . . . and an anniversary

Maybe one of these days I'll get to a post on our wonderful Christmas, and our busy December, but probably not tonight. I will however write about our record 20.2 inches of snow we got on Christmas!! We left a day early, to get to my parents in time before the blizzard hit, then were snowed in at their house for a few days with my whole family. It was nice and cozy! Our neighbors called us to tell us how much snow we got, and that the snow drifts were covering 3/4 of all our doors, so there was no way we would even get in our house. In the past, when we have been gone and gotten lots of snow, our neighbors would snowblow for us so we could get in our house. This time, not even a snowblower would do the job, so Monte called someone in town with a loader to clear the snow out before we got home. Our normally 4 hour trip back to our place from my parents took about 5 and a half hours, due to icy roads. Then, we got more wind, and it took Monte 5 hours to snowblow our driveway the next day!

Also, as of today, Monte and I have been married for 7 years! (A couple of pictures from our wedding day are located here.) The three of us celebrated by going out to eat at our favorite restaurant tonight. Then Monte and I played our usual nightly game of Scrabble, a great night!

What we've been up to

What I've been up to - making yummy Christmas goodies (and probably gaining 10 pounds in the process!) . . .

What Isabella's been up to . . .

This and That

It's officially winter here. We had a snow storm on Tuesday, and the temperature has been near or below zero almost all week. I've made it out a few times this week while Monte has been home to watch Isabella, but she hasn't set foot outside the house all week, other than the holy day Mass on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure she was going a little stir crazy, and that that was the cause of her crabbiness a couple of days ago. So we went out on a fun family night last night. I hyped it up to her, and kept telling her we were going on a date with Daddy, and she was SO excited! We went out to eat, made the weekly Wal-Mart trip, with an addition of going to Target, and then drove around for quite a while looking at Christmas lights. It was a perfect Friday night in my book. I was hoping she would sleep in a little today, since we didn't get home until 9:00, which is a little over an hour past her bed time, but she didn't, and I'm not surprised since that's how it usually works . . .



I have some Christmas gifts I want to make, I should probably get on that since it's two weeks away! The only thing I can cross off my list so far is a baby doll blanket I made for Isabella. She is SO into baby dolls, I love it! We got her this doll for Christmas, and let me tell ya, I would have LOVED this doll when I was a little girl. Here's the description of it from the website - "Now your little girl can tend to her very own baby doll - as adorable and lifelike as a real baby. This interactive doll breathes, takes naps, cries and features realistic facial movements. When you give the baby doll the pacifier, her mouth makes sucking movements and her eyes blink. When you remove the pacifier, the baby doll coos. The baby doll cries when she is put down. When you feed her, she gets tired and falls asleep." I was going to make some cloth diapers for the doll that Lenetta linked to a while back, but I think I'll wait on that until she gets the doll, so I know for sure what size to make them.



I love to bake, and every year I bake all of the Christmas cookies and candies for our Christmas with my family, this tradition started before Isabella came along, by the way. So far I've made a triple batch of Peanut Blossoms, Peanut Butter Bon Bons, and Kringla, I've got a ways to go. I have a new recipe I want to try this year - Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles, they sound heavenly!!



I had a great girls night out with some friends on Thursday night while all the kiddos (except the littlest babies) stayed home with their dads. There were 12 of us all together, storming the aisles of Target (until 10:30!) together after our supper together. A couple of months ago we raised money to buy Christmas presents for 3 young siblings from our local sharing tree. So we did the shopping for them on Thursday night, it was so much fun to pick out things for them, especially when you know they don't have much, and they wouldn't have had any presents otherwise. It inspired me to pick someone for our own family, too. I explained it to Isabella, that some parents can't give their kids any presents, and she was excited to help pick out things, though I don't know for sure how much she understands, she seemed to get it.



My mom was supposed to come visit us for most of last week, but that didn't happen, due to the snowstorm. I was so bummed! Hopefully, weather permitting, she can come this week instead.



Next weekend we'll be having our Christmas get together with Monte's parents, then we're off to my parents for Christmas.

Monte and I have been playing Scrabble every night after Isabella goes to bed, we are addicted! I forgot how much I love playing board games in the winter!

Light through the window

Isabella's sleeping habits have changed a little in the last couple of weeks. She's always been pretty predictable about getting up at 7:30 every morning. Now she's getting up at 6:30 instead, bummer. I'm hoping it's a phase. She's a kid that can pretty much be talked into anything, so I thought I would try something. I told her that she can not call for Daddy (he has to go in and get her, since she won't get out of her bed) until she sees light coming through her window, and that if she doesn't see any light coming through, that means it's still night time, and she can't get up. She said okay, but I really thought this was one thing she couldn't be talked in to. When the next morning came, I heard her rustling around in bed at 6:30, and talking to her stuffed animals, but she did not call for Daddy until 7:00. When he went in to get her, she said, "Daddy, I see a little bit of light through my window!" It was definitely hard to see, but yes, there has been the teeniest, tiniest, amount of light coming through her window now when she calls for daddy. :)

A Little Lady

Downsizing

When we moved to our house, we inherited a huge Christmas tree from my parents. It's a beautiful tree, but it takes hours to put together (which is why my parents didn't want it anymore). I don't mind putting it together, I love Christmas decorating. Now that we have a piano, our space for the tree is limited, as we used to put it where the piano now is. I still put the tree together this year, and soon realized it looked ridiculous anywhere we tried to put it. I felt like it was overtaking our house. So I made a trip to Wal-Mart and got a cheapo, skinny tree, and we love it. It's perfect for our little house. Isabella had a blast "helping" me decorate. All the ornaments ended up on the same branch, which I evenly distributed later. This time of year is so much fun, she really understands what's going on this year. She loves reading about baby Jesus, singing Christmas songs, and of course the Dora Christmas DVD Grandma gave her is quite exciting as well. :)



BTW, these posts are in random order, this was before she got her hair cut.

Praying with the babies

The other day, Isabella was playing with her babies (which is about ALL she does lately), she put them to bed in their crib, and then said they couldn't go to sleep without saying their prayers. She then said all the prayers I always say with her before nap and bed time.

First Haircut

On Monday morning, I took Isabella to get her first haircut. My mom has trimmed her hair once, and I've trimmed it once, but she's never had a professional cut before. She thought it was really neat to get her hair cut, she was just chatting away with the beautician the whole time! After the haircut, my mother-in-law came down for the day to join us for a day of shopping. It was SO much fun. Isabella just walked beside grandma and held her hand the whole time. At one point a lady came up to us, and started chatting with Isabella. Then, as were were leaving the mall, the same lady came and told Isabella since she was such a good girl, she had something for her. She gave her a magnetic Nativity set. How sweet - a random, sincerely nice person.

3 Year Pictures

A couple of weeks ago, we got together with Monte's whole family to get family pictures taken for his parents' 40th anniversary. Since Isabella had just turned three, we decided to get some shots of her, too. I think they turned out really good, but I now realize how much money I've saved us by taking them myself the last couple of years! I'm still glad we did it, though. She's looking very grown up these days, I think. I'm posting pictures of the pictures, so they're not the best quality.

This and That

Monte has been taking the computer to work with him quite a bit lately, so I haven't been spending a whole lot of time on-line. Here's some snippets of life recently that happen to come to mind right now.

Isabella went as a Care Bear for Halloween. I have never been a fan of Halloween, and it would appear that she's not really either. I'm not quite sure how I got a picture of her smiling in her costume, she must have smiled for one nanosecond, and I actually caught it on camera! I do enjoy the pumpkin carving every year, though, but this year I was sick in bed with an awful migraine the night before Halloween. Daddy did a good job on Isabella's pumpkin, and I hear they had a lot of fun!


Over the past few months Isabella has taken quite the interest in watching TV. We usually limit it to one show in the morning, and one show after her nap. Her new loves are Dora and Diego, she got some Dora books for her birthday, and I cannot read them to her enough. She has them all memorized, and "reads" them to her babies all the time. One set of grandparents is getting her the Leapfrog Tag system for Christmas. There are Dora and Diego books that go with it, I know she will LOVE it!

Speaking of Christmas, I'm SO excited for it! I can hardly wait to start listening to Christmas music, Christmas baking, decorating, etc.

In the picture below, Isabella is being Diego. She has both her "rescue pack" and "spotting scope"!

My sister and her kids came to visit, and we went to "Pla.yhouse Di.sney L.ive". It was so much fun, the girls loved it! Isabella sat on my lap, and never moved, she was absolutely amazed.

During intermission.

Isabella has been all compliments for almost the last year, it's so cute. I can't even count how many times a day she tells Monte and I she loves us. Every night right after her bath she gives me a hug and says, "I'm so happy I've got you, and I'm so happy I've got Daddy, too." Talk about melt my heart . . . Some things she's said lately that I need to write down before I forget, "Daddy, I think you misunderstood me.", the other day I asked her what she was looking at, and she responded, "Oh Mommy, just pretend I'm not here." And the last few days when she's been playing with her little animal toys, she's been all talk of "hibernation". I would love to say that she learned her recent counting in Spanish and other Spanish words from me, since that's what I actually have a degree in, but it was all Dora, folks. :)

Monte has a friend from high school that is an ul.timate fighter, and is on the realty TV show, also called The Ultima.te Fighter. We are watching it right now, it's crazy to be watching someone on TV that we know, but I am most definitely NOT a fan of ultimate fighting.

I got one of my winter projects done. I went through all of my Taste of Home magazines, and other unorganized recipes, and put them all in a binder with different categories. I've had fun trying out several new recipes lately, now that I can actually find them!

And that's about all I've got for now!

And sorry if this has been hard to read (if anyone is still even reading!) blogger is being difficult and won't let me separate my last few paragraphs.

A Beautiful Day

We have finally had some great fall weather here lately. Yesterday Isabella and I took advantage of it by going on a walking trail. I've never taken her there before, but I knew she would love it because she is obsessed with bridges. This trail had lots of bridges for her to explore! We had so much fun, but at the end she told me her legs were tired. Afterwards, we made our weekly Wal-Mart trip, and she fell asleep sitting straight up in the cart! Then she begged for a bath at 5:30 last night, and was in bed for the night at 6:30! She was worn out, for sure.

Stopping to look at the geese.

Best Friends

Isabella's favorite playmate is definitely her cousin, Rachel. The girls have SO much fun together whenever they get together. I wish we lived closer! Although, for being 2 and a half hours apart, we are fortunate to see each other as much as we do. They came to visit last weekend, and are coming again this weekend.

I would find them like this quite often, just laying in bed talking to each other . . .sigh . . . they are getting so grown up!

More Birthday Fun

On Monday, the actual birthday, Isabella had lots of fun! My sister and her kids were staying with us for a couple days after the party, so Isabella had loads of fun with her cousin, Rachel. Isabella and I recently discovered the play area at Menards, of all places! Actually, I've always known about it, I've just never been one to let her play anywhere like that because of my germaphobe tendancies. I have to say, though, I've gotten much better about things like that, I just make sure to have hand sanitizing wipes with me at ALL times. :) When it comes down to it, after so many weeks of gloomy, cold weather, it's great for both her and I! So we let the girls play there for a while, then we went to McDonald's for a birthday lunch. Of course McDonald's is the child's favorite place to eat, and we eat there all too frequently. She and I have our "dates" there whenever we go to the 'city' to run errands, which is about once every week or week and half. But this time it was her birthday, and she was with her cousin, and she got to get a happy meal with a My Little Pony in it. Oh, the excitement!! She told me while we were eating, "Mommy, this is SO excellent, it's just the best surprise ever!"

When Monte got home that evening, we told her she could open her presents from us, but she didn't want to! Nothing surprises us anymore, I guess. She kept saying, she didn't want to open any presents. Also, if we ever take her to the toy aisle/toy store to pick anything out, she absolutely does not want anything! I guess she's just a browser, and I hope that lasts! Anyway, we finally gave her the presents the next day, and once she saw them, she was excited. I think part of it was that she was having so much fun playing with her cousin the day before, that she didn't want to stop to open presents.

Playing at Menards.

This picture cracks me up.

Our very nice, and very generous neighbors gave her this tea set (they also gave her a huge bag of Hershey's kisses and a big bag of cookies for Halloween)!

Her Little People tree house from us.

Third Birthday Party

We celebrated Isabella's birthday with my family this past Sunday. My whole family was able to come, which made it such a special day! It means so much to us, because everyone had to drive so far. My brother and his family (with 3 little kids) drove a total of 8 hours that day! The weather was actually nice, so the kids got a chance to play outside for awhile. I made meatballs, cheesy potatoes, spinich penne salad, beer bread, fruit salad, and apples with a homemade caramel dip for dinner. Isabella was SO excited about her cake. I made her a Nemo cake. One night, about 3 months ago, Monte was flipping through the channels, and the movie, "Finding Nemo" was on. Up until that point she hadn't had much interest in TV, but she fell in love with Nemo! Now she'll watch just about anything, her new favorites are Dora and Diego. We usually limit her TV viewing to 2 shows per day, otherwise there's no telling how much the girl would watch.

I thought the cake turned out pretty good. I'll have one more chance to make it this weekend, when we get together with Monte's family.

We made treat bags for her cousins, each one had a Nemo yo-yo, Nemo sticker, and Nemo fruit snacks.

Looking so grown up!

Her new shopping cart from Grandma and Grandpa. Every morning for about a month she would ask me, "Mommy, do I not have a shopping cart?" I took that as a hint she wanted one. :)

I'm three!

Getting in touch with her feelings

I need to write these down here before I forget them.

Today Isabella said, "I felt very frustrated when Rachel was trying to hug and kiss me."

Then a little while later, she said, "Daddy, sometimes you just need to be patient with me."

Checking In

I thought I better write some sort of blog post, since it's been a whole week. I'm still here, just busy. More posts to come soon, including pictures from my baby girl's THIRD birthday!

Home Again

Isabella is back home after her stay at Grandma and Grandpa's. I'm sure glad to have this sweet thing back . . .

It was actually warm enough today (51 degrees!) to go outside for a little while. Since this is the warmest it's been in what seems like a long time, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to capture some pretty fall colors!