Ending the week on a high note

Whew, this past week has definitely not been my best. I think I could almost compare this week to the potty training week, it was THAT. BAD. I know I am such a wimp, but I am just so not used to having a sick kid. I'm pretty sure she has never cried and whined as much as she did this last week. And just when we thought she was better, she was up again a good part of the night on Wednesday night. She seemed fine healthwise, though, so possibly a bad dream? But NOW I'm sure I can report that she's fine, she's back to sleeping great and seems to be herself again. She's not asking for "Tyanah" (tylenol) every 3 minutes, the whining has greatly improved, and her ability to catch up on lost sleep amazes me, with the 4 hour naps and long nights of sleep the past couple days. Now if I could just take a lesson from her and get myself to bed at a decent time to catch up . . .

Yesterday we headed back to this lake , but went to a different park there. It was a little on the chilly side, but it was a great way to relax. Isabella enjoyed playing in the sand, and throwing rocks in the lake. The park was HUGE, with 3 separate playground areas, but there were a lot of people there, and quite a few people I would prefer not to be around due to their loud and, um, colorful language. The last straw for me was when all the unsupervised little kids were spitting all over the playground equipment. We packed up and headed to yet another park on the same lake (we have so far found 4 parks on this lake!). It was a beautiful park and playground, and believe it or not, we were the ONLY ones there! Three cheers for being anti-social! :)

She could not get up to the slide by herself, since the only way up was a climbing wall type thing, which she is far from mastering. So Monte sat on top while I lifted her up to him about 1000 times, it was quite the workout.

And I thought I would throw this not so great picture in here from this morning, since, you know, we matched.

Just how old do you think you are missy?!

Isabella, this morning while I was pushing her on the swing: "When I was a little girl, I would just swing and swing and swing."

How to Make a Hooded Bath Towel

I got this idea from one of my friends, she makes these towels for baby gifts, I think it is such a great idea for toddlers. Isabella is always freezing after a bath, "Please warm me!!" she yells over and over. She's too big for the boughten hooded baby towels, so these work perfectly. And they are SO easy.

Buy one regular sized bath towel, and either a coordinating washcloth or handtowel. If using a handtowel cut it in half. Center the washcloth (I actually used a fingertip towel for this one) over the bath towel on the top edge, with right sides together. Pin and sew one seem across. Notice the little hand, it was hard to get this shot, the best one without her in the way. She's my little "helper" . . . always.

Pin the top edge together and sew across.

Turn right side out, and ta da! You're done . . . it's SO easy! I love making these! These towels are probably her favorite thing I've made for her to date.

You can add all sorts of embellishments. On this one I added satin ribbon along the edges, and also made her initial out of the ribbon.

I'm so glad to see this smiling face

Isabella's fever broke in the early morning hours on Tuesday. It's so good to have her back to herself, well she's almost back to herself. She's still overtired from lack of good sleep, which makes a whiny, easily upset little girl, which makes a frustrated mommy. Lets just say my parenting has been less than stellar today. However, after 4 sleepless nights we all had a great night of sleep last night.

Horse Races and All Nighters

Our Memorial Day Weekend has had it's highs and lows, that's for sure. I'll start with the highs I think. Every Memorial Day Weekend there are horse races about an hour from where Monte's parents live, Monte and his friend got me hooked on them back when we were dating, and have made it a tradition to try and go every year. So we packed up and took off for Monte's parents house on Friday. Isabella stayed with his parents on Saturday, while he and I spent the day at the horse races, followed by some shopping, a nice meal out, and a movie (Star Trek, which was my idea, can you believe it?!). It was such a fun day!!

Now on to the lows. Isabella woke up in the night on Friday night, she NEVER wakes up in the night. At first we thought she was just scared since she was sleeping somewhere else, or that she had a bad dream. But when the crying WOULD NOT stop we realized she was more than just scared. She felt pretty warm, so we thought she was coming down with something. It was a REALLY rough night, she and I tried the recliner, her bed, our bed, nobody got much sleep. But then Saturday morning she was just fine. She had fun with Grandma and Grandpa all day Saturday while Monte and I were gone, then Saturday night went exactly the same as the night before. This time we knew she was sick, she felt so hot! So we came home early this afternoon, she actually slept in the car plus she and I took a 3 hour nap as soon as we got home. I spent the rest of the day rocking her, that's the only thing she wanted to do. Her only symptom is a fever, it has been so rare for her to be sick that we don't even have a thermometer for her. So I was worried since I didn't know what her temp was, but I did find these Vicks stickers we used when she was a preemie, we had to monitor her temps closely back then. I should really get a thermometer, I would love one like this, does anyone have one?? If you do, please leave a comment as to how you like/dislike it. Thanks. Also, does anyone have any thoughts on Motrin? I gave it to her last night in the night, and it didn't work at all. Then I gave it to her this morning, and it didn't work again! I was disgusted that I had to wait 6-8 hours to try something different. This evening I finally gave her some Tylenol and it worked WONDERS! Within 15 minutes she actually wanted to play, and was showing signs of her old self again. Weird, I've always heard Motrin works so good. She was in bed about 7:00, and her Tylenol is due to where off about 9:00, so I better get a few things done, I have a feeling it's going to be a long night again . . .

Mommy's Little Helper

Is it safe to say we are out of the woods as far as getting that awful stomach flu that was ransacking it's way through my entire extended family?? I have no idea what the incubation period is, but I'm hoping we are good to go. Isabella did have some minor tummy issues on Monday, but nothing that slowed her down too much. She has been in Pull-Ups since then, though, just to be on the safe side. So I think she ended up with a very minor version of it.

This morning she helped me pick rhubarb, I LOVE rhubarb! I have two big ziploc bags full in my freezer so far, and today we picked some to bring to my mother-in-law this weekend. We had a whole system worked out, I would cut it off the plant, cut the leaf off, then hand it to Isabella, and she would place it in her wagon. She thought she was quite the helper!

Make Up Mother's Day

Since Monte was sick on Mother's Day he suggested we do something on a different day to celebrate the day. He asked me what I wanted to do, and my response was that I just wanted to try out a different park that we haven't been to. The only thing he had to do for work on Monday was meet someone for an early morning appointment, and the weather was beautiful, so it worked out perfectly. We found a really nice park on a lake nearby, and had fun watching Isabella have so much fun. We were even the only ones there! We went out to eat, then Monte took Isabella home for a nap, and I got to go buy all my flowers, tomato plants, and pepper plants by myself, yay! I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening planting all my flowers while Monte kept track of Isabella, it was a great "Mother's Day".

Monte thinks I look hilarious in this picture. Okay, so maybe I look a little out of place.

Her favorite thing was throwing rocks in the lake.

I came in for a break from planting flowers at about 6:30, and this is what I found. She didn't have her pajamas on yet, but she was bathed, so off to bed she went.

Get us out of here!

We are home tonight after our weekend away got cut short due the fact that I don't think I've EVER been around so many people with the stomach flu! We went home to my parents yesterday to celebrate my nephew's 6th birthday last night, and my grandma and her sister's (identical twins) 80th birthdays today. We intended to stay until tomorrow, but the shear amount of sickness going around was enough to send me packing. My brother's entire family of five just got over it, my uncle still had the tail end of it last night at my nephew's party, my aunt (who spent a long time holding Isabella last night) came down with it just a few hours after the party, my grandma was just getting over it, one cousin had it, and my dad came down with it in the night last night! It will be a MIRACLE if we didn't bring it back with us, that's for sure! It was a long way to go to turn around and come back the next day, 8 hours of driving to be exact. Poor Isabella, she did so good with all the driving though. She only got a 20 minute nap due to my grandma's birthday party today. We stopped about 2 hours from home this evening, and I put her pajamas on. When we were about an hour from home, we heard the most pathetic whimpering coming from the back seat. I turned around and she had tears in her eyes, but she was trying not to cry. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "I'm just so tired.". So sad. So I told her she could go to sleep (she's weird like that, I have to tell her it's okay for her to do about anything, before she will actually do it). So after I told her, she was out like a light. Despite all the sickness and travelling, we ended up having a good time with all of the non-sick people. We'll see if Isabella makes it up in time for 8:30 Mass tomorrow, we might have to catch a later one in a different town. Since the weather got nice and she's outside so much, she's been requiring even more sleep. She's been going to bed around 7:15 or 7:30, with one night even being 6:30. On to the pictures of the not even 24 hours we were there . . .


I LOVE farm life because that's how I grew up, I'm glad that if we can't live on one, Isabella at least gets to experience it at both sets of grandparents. She loves sitting in Grandpa's tractors.

Grandpa has baby lambs . . .

These two crack me up, they are quite the pair.

At it again . . . They're quite touchy, feely with each other. Too bad I didn't get a shot of Isabella touching Rachel's tongue . . . or not.

Three precious two year olds. We're ALWAYS taking their picture together, but really, three girl cousins all born within a span of 5 months, how awesome is that! I love these girls.

Pictures from Grandma

My mother-in-law sent me these pictures, they are all from Isabella's stay with them a couple of weeks ago.

Isabella and her cousin, helping Grandma make a salad.

My handsome hubby and his brother-in-law, shingling his parents house.


She loved having Grandma take her for rides on the four wheeler!

Two year old talk

(Background Information: Nancy and Denny are our neighbors.)

Isabella: "I'm going to Miami with Denny, and we're going to buy Nancy some juice there, and Mommy will come, and Daddy will be there too becuase he is NOT going to be working, and we'll all go and buy Nancy some juice! "

I have no idea where she heard about Miami. She has some pretty big plans.

2 and a half

My birthday also marked Isabella's half birthday, it seems the time just keeps going faster and faster! I can't believe my baby is 2 and a half already! Monte and I are both in love with the twos, so far it has been such a fun age (except for one thing - potty training, which I will get to). It seemed to us that when she was potty trained back in February that she really grew up. She continues to talk up a storm, and uses phrases like, "I'm being ridiculous.", "That reminds me . . .", "I actually probably need . . ." "Excuse me there Father/Mother.", "You need to concentrate.". She insists that our neighbors have a banana tree in their yard, and is always talking about it! She cracks us up with her talking, but sometimes she WILL NOT be quiet! She counts and says her ABC's like a pro, knows all her colors, and says the blessing before meals, Guardian Angel prayer, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and sign of the cross (she could teach my 6th grade CCD kids I think, but that's a whole other story, sigh). She asks permission with EVERYTHING she does, even going down the slide the other day at the park, she ran over to me every single time after she went down the slide to ask if she could go down again. She still refuses to get out of her bed without either Monte or I telling her she can, I wonder how much longer that will last. She is very easygoing and compliant BUT was not for about 6 weeks after she was potty trained. She turned into a monster, the littlest things set her off and she seemed very angry a lot. I was very worried that I did some sort of emotional damage to her and that I had potty trained her when she perhaps wasn't quite ready. I found myself saying a lot that I just wanted my girl back! It was an extremely frustrating time for me, my worst as a mommy. I felt so guilty for "damaging" her . . . live and learn. But thankfully I did get my girl back, and she is completely back to her happy, easygoing self. She still needs and wants her sleep, and asks me everynight to put her to bed sometime between 7 and 8. We also work our days around her nap, as she really needs that too.

She LOVES the TV show "My friends Tigger and Pooh", however that is the ONLY show she will watch, despite me trying to get her to watch something else every now and then just to mix things up a bit. Other than that show, she wants absolutely nothing to do with TV. Which I'm not sure how to take. I definitely don't want to use the TV as a babysitter, but I also would like to be able to have her watch something quick while I take a shower, etc.) Her favorite thing is to play outside, when the weather is nice we come in to eat and nap and that's about it, and her favorite thing is her beloved blanky. She loves to color and paint, and I'm convinced that Crayola Color Wonder is just about the best product ever invented. She is every bit a girly girl, and puts on her makeup (my empty makeup bottles I gave her) every morning right along beside me. She has quite the imagination, and I'm pretty sure she has an imaginary friend, she just calls her "that lady". Today "that lady" was in my bedroom all day, and Isabella brought her lots of snacks! She likes to go to Bible Study every week, but gets very shy around some of the other kids there. She loves to go places and often asks me in the morning what we are going to do that day. When I ask her what she wants to do, she usually tells me she wants to go to the mall or McDonalds!! Our town has a big, new gymnastics facility, and almost all my friends are starting their girls out there at 3 years old. One of my friends is trying to convince me to start Isabella this summer as they will take kids before 3 as long as they're potty trained. But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do it, she just needs to stay little for a while I think, there will be plenty of time for running her around to different places/events when she's older! We're looking forward to a fun summer with her, especially now that Monte is feeling so well, we are going to take advantage of having a "normal" life! The way I feel about this age/stage can be best described by a quote from my mother-in-law when we were at the zoo the other day. "I just want to spray something on her to keep her like this forever!"

Dreary Day

There's not much going on around here today. It's been a dreary, extremely windy day, so no going outside for us today. But I have been in a spring cleaning/organizing mood lately, so it's the perfect day to work on that, since I don't get a lot done when the weather is nice. The other day I got all of Isabella's outdoor toys organized, and found a nice home for them all in one corner of the garage. Also Monte put together a big storage cabinet for our garage, so I'm antsy to get the garage all cleaned out and organized. He also got his workbench/tool area all cleaned out. And lately I've been cleaning out kitchen cupboards, and I have a crazy urge to go through all my recipes and organize them better. I did that when I was on bedrest while pregnant, but it needs to be done again. I'm partway through that, but don't know how much I'll get done, it's quite time consuming. I've also been working on some sewing projects that I'll post about sometime soon. Thankfully Monte's flu was pretty shortlived, he was over it and back at work yesterday afternoon. Isabella and I are so far so good . . . OH MY GOSH, I just looked outside and our whole fence (big, strong, wooden fence) is tipped over and laying flat on the ground! Yes it's THAT windy, gotta go . . .

My Bah Humbug Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers out there! I didn't get to spend time with my own mom (other than a phone call) today, but will get to next weekend. We had a fun day scheduled, I was really looking forward to it. Monte's parents were coming down, and we had plans to meet them for brunch, and a fun day at the zoo, BUT Monte woke up very sick this morning. For once it had nothing to do with his Crohn's, just a stomach flu type thing. A guy he works with had it this past week, and Monte's medication is an immunosuppressant (sp?) thus making him pick things up easily. Hopefully Isabella and I are able to fight it off, we will see though, we made it all through the long winter without anything. I was really sad that of all days, we wouldn't be going to church as a family, and well, I guess I was feeling sorry for myself. Like it was his fault he got sick, come on Angela! Monte's parents had a longer drive than us, and they had already left, so Isabella and I still went to meet them. After forcing myself to make an attitude adjustmest on the way to town, I ended up having a delightful day, even though we all missed Monte. I realized on the scale of things, one day, even if it is Mother's Day, of not having things work out exactly like I'd hoped is really VERY small. And Monte was the one who was worse off, I hope the poor guy gets over it soon! The Willow Tree figurine above was my gift from Isabella, it's so sweet! I'm so thankful to that little girl for making me a mom!

At the zoo.

The kid loves water! I think all the water was her highlight. Although, she tells me the parrots are still her favorite.

I don't even know what this is, but she took a liking to it.

She was so excited, she ran the whole time we there! I had one tired little girl that fell asleep as soon as she got in the car.

Grandma and Grandpa sent her home with a bubble lawn mower, in Grandma's words, "Every kid needs a bubble lawn mower." At least we're not the ones spoiling her, at least I hope not.

Little Golfer

Oddly enough she looks like quite the little pro in this picture, but I assure you she really had no idea what to do!

Is this what I do?

The ball is even pink!

First day at the park

We had our first outdoor playdate of the year at the park this morning. Isabella wasn't all that keen on the three boys we met up with there (they were all older and doing really boyish things). But she did still have a blast! She was into climbing for the first time, although it was VERY delicate climbing, she still thought she was just something! And she thought it was so much fun to climb up and go down the slide all by herself.

We walked to the park, then the grocery store, then a cute little boutique downtown, then the post office, then home. We put the miles on, that's for sure! It's going to be so nice to start walking everywhere again, I'm glad she still loves the stroller. It was a great morning, I never had any idea what time it was, we just strolled around as we pleased, I feel so blessed.

Posing

I wonder if it means you take too many pictures when your two year old randomly asks you to take her picture, hmmm . . . These were all her idea, even the last one, she posed that way without me saying anything, silly girl. (Actually, I think she asks me to take her picture because she likes looking at the picture on the camera afterward.)

Thanks for all the birthday messages, emails, etc! Our mother/daughter banquet went really well, I now know what it's like and will be more prepared for next year, it was a really busy weekend! Today Isabella and I went to where Monte's sister teaches and watched her third grade production of "The Wizard of Oz", it was so good, I can't believe little third graders could do that well! They only live an hour from us, but we never see them, so it was nice to go there. I didn't know what Isabella was going to think of it, but she loved it, she sat still and really paid attention. The only time she said anything was in between scenes, she would loudly exclaim, "Somebody needs to turn the lights on!" And now she's exhausted from only a short nap in the car, so I better get her to bed . . .

29!

I woke up this morning, the day of my 29th birthday, to an empty house! Monte has spent yesterday and today shingling his parents' house. This is the weekend of our church's mother/daughter banquet that I have been planning and preparing for the last year, which meant I had to be at church at 8:30 this morning to start decorating, and the decorating is best done childless. Four hours of decorating down today, five more hours of decorating tomorrow. So Isabella went with Daddy yesterday to go stay at grandma and grandpa's house. In fact, he was leaving for their house right after an appointment he had for work, so as he said, it was also "take your daughter to work day" for him! She was, once again, ridiculously excited to go, she even refused breakfast, saying, "no, I just want to go to Mama's house". She was just there last week for a few days, which although I missed her, it was nice to have some time to myself and get a lot done. But this time, I REALLY missed her, I had all this time to myself yesterday, and I ended up just kind of moping around, wishing she was here. I did make it to First Friday last night at church, though. This evening I will be meeting them on their way home for a birthday meal (can't decide where I want to eat though), and then I'm hoping Monte and I can watch a movie after Isabella goes to bed. Since he's not here for most of today, he wanted to give me my present early. He got me a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, YUM!! I haven't had one in years, since he couldn't have dairy, but now that he can we're all over stuff like that! I ended up losing 12 pounds during lent, but with all this ice cream and cheesy, creamy meals I've been making, it's only a matter of time before I put that back on. Why is it I had an insane amount of willpower during lent, and now, nothing! Anyway, he got me an MP3 / video, etc. player (basically a much more reasonable form of an IPod). It was something I have been wanting, mostly for when I run, but now my age is really showing because the thing is foreign to me! I think after WAY too many hours of trying to figure it out, downloading and transferring music, etc. I finally have it figured out, I hope. Monte said if Isabella was a few years older she would probably be able to teach me all about it!