Another Freebie

The same nice lady who we got the piano from, and who we don't even know, called us up to ask if we wanted a swing set! We couldn't pass it up since she wanted to give it to us for free! We have been using our neighbors swing set, that's in the empty lot between our two houses, but that was really only a place to hang Isabella's swing, since all it had on it was two swings. They have been so nice to let us use theirs, it worked out perfect while Isabella was too little to do anything other than swing. Now that she is older, she can do more things, and this came along at the perfect time! She absolutely loves it, I think she's going to wear a hole in the slide, she's on it so much.

I decided to paint it, since it was pretty faded. The picture above is after, the picture below is before.

Princess Isabella

Isabella is starting to get in to princess things just a little. Here she is dressed as a princess after her bath, and how fitting since her patron saint is Queen Isabella, whose feast day is coming up on July 4th.

So many things to look forward to!

This has GOT to be the best summer on record for us. Most importantly because Monte feels awesome, we are taking advantage of his good health by going places and doing things we never would have been able to do before! Seriously, he has not felt this good since we got married 6 and a half years ago! There are so many seasons in life, I feel like we started our marriage off in the "for worse" part of the "for better or for worse" because of his health problems - he, not able to work for 2 years because his health was so bad, he was in and out of the hospital, he didn't have insurance, me being worried sick about him, medical bills, what the future would bring, possibly not being able to have kids, etc. If I had had a blog back then, let me tell ya, it would have been one sad story. And now he feels great, he has a job that he loves, and that allows him to be home a lot, and we have our little miracle! How amazing and good God is! For sure we are in the "for better" part now!

I am looking forward to this week so much. My mom is coming out for a visit tomorrow through Friday. She, Isabella, and I are headed to the mall tomorrow. Then, my favorite part - city wide garage sales Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!!! Man, do I love garage sales! Our town is having all sorts of activities this weekend, kids games, a parade, pro rodeos, and did I mention garage sales! Oh and one more thing I'm super excited about that will be showing up at our house tomorrow evening, but that's a whole other blog post. Tonight I'm busy baking for our church bake sale, so I better get back at it.

Recent Isabella Quotes

"Hmm, my eyes are getting all tangled up!"





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She and I go for a walk everyday, we almost always stop in to church on our walks. The other day as I kneeled down in front of the tabernacle she looked up at it and said, "Oh hi Jesus, how are you today? *pause* Oh, you're good, that's good, I'm good too. I love you, bye."

Father's Day Weekend Extravaganza

My "brave" girl in the sprinkler. She didn't want the water any higher than this, and proclaimed "Oh no, I'm getting wet!" Yes dear, that's what's supposed to happen.

I didn't put nearly as much thought into Monte's gift this year as I did last year, but I continued the tradition of Isabella giving him a book he can read to her. This year it's "Hop on Pop" by Dr. Seuss. We also gave him a 1000 piece puzzle and another book for his own reading pleasure. I made him an ice cream cake, which he can't get enough of now that he can have dairy, and tonight I'm making his favorite meal, Sweet and Sour Chicken. Yesterday we went out to the lake that's only a mile from our house and did some fishing. We had a fun morning at the lake, and also had a picninc there before heading home for Isabella's nap. Then the rest of the day was spent outside enjoying the backyard. Monte even set up our tent for Isabella to play in for awhile. We got it shortly after we were married, and have used it once. I got way too much sun, though, even with sunscreen on, and was feeling the effects last night. Today we were planning on going to an air show, but it's been pouring rain all day, so it's a relaxing day at home instead.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband (and my awesome dad, but he doesn't read this)! Your little girl could not be more head over heals for you! You're the first person she wants to see every morning, and is less than thrilled if I'm the one to get her out of bed. You are so hands on with her, from giving her baths, to taking her potty a thousand times a day when we were in the not fun potty training stage. She has to sleep with a picture of you if you are ever gone for work, and you are her favorite playmate.

Here she is "working" just like Daddy.

Back from my break

You may have noticed "silence" around here lately. I decided the computer was taking up too much of my day. Add that to my poor time management skills, and I felt like I was headed somewhere I really didn't want myself to be. So all this week I took a break from the computer, except about 5 minutes every night to check my email, and that's it. I thought it would be hard, but it was actually quite the opposite, I felt free. I love blogging, and I love that it allows me to stay in touch with friends, and "meet" new ones who I have so much in common with, but if you (I) allow it to, it can be a not so good thing too. One very late night I found myself heading for the computer as I so often did late at night, when just as I was sitting down, the words, No, you can spend some time with Me, you never do anymore, popped into my head. I knew exactly where that thought came from, so I shut down the computer, and spent some time in prayer, and it felt SO good. And that's what really prompted me to reevaluate things. This week has been amazing (except for some major constipation issues with my poor girl, which finally got resolved today). We've spent almost every waking hour outside, Isabella's toybox hasn't even been open this week! I've spent more time in prayer, Monte and I have been working out in the evenings together, and I've even been spending part of Isabella's naptimes sitting outside in the warm sun reading a great book. This week has really changed me, I've decided to keep blogging, but my time on the computer will definitely be less. I'm thinking about setting aside one or two certain times every day (probably at night, and maybe a very short one during Isabella's nap) which will be my computer time. I haven't worked it all out yet, but I'm hoping this continues.

Our Staycation

My mother-in-law called the other day to see if Isabella could come spend a few days with them. They were passing through on Saturday morning, and she wanted to know if they could pick Isabella up. Of course Isabella was ecstatic about the idea, it was all she was talking about, and she woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning because she was so excited. I talked her into to going back to sleep, but that only lasted until about 6:20, which is still early for her, crazy girl. After they left, Monte and I had a whole date day. We went out to eat, to an arts festival, did a little browsing around some stores I had never been to, went to a casino (where I lost $10 and Monte won $10). That penny machine sure kept me busy for a while. We went out for ice cream, and the best part of the day was when we went on a walking trail. It was so pretty, there were ponds, streams, gazebos, etc. everywhere, and we would stop every so often and feed the geese. Both Monte and I were marvelling at how wonderful it was to do all this, especially the walking trail. When he was doing bad with his Crohn's there is no way we could have done anything like that. We will definitely have to take Isabella there, she would love it. When we got home I started reading a book, not a parenting, toddler activities, or preschool activities type of book, which is the norm for me, but an actual novel.

This morning Monte and I were commenting on how quickly we got out of church, since Isabella wasn't with us. I mean, nobody stopped Monte or I to tell us how pretty we looked, or how good we were in church. :)

On the agenda for me today is painting the deck on the front of our house (I guess it needs it every year) and trimming bushes and other landscaping projects. And resting/relaxing. Although I LOVE painting and doing outdoor projects, it really is a form of relaxing for me, and I really want to get it done while Isabella is gone. And tomorrow we're going golfing, and then off to get my girl.

My Girl at 2 and a half

Sorry for the ridiculous amount of pictures, but I can't decide! And this isn't even all of them.

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, *almost* everything's going my way . . .

I can't remember what musical that is from, but it's a catchy tune. I add the *almost* because not quite everything is going my way, but I'll get to that. It is FINALLY nice here again, the past week has been cold, rainy, and dreary. I know I always say this, but I had every intention of actually taking Isabella somewhere to finally get some professional pictures taken, since I've been just taking them myself for the last year and half, but since we have no in store (which I love) photographers (Sears, Penney's, etc.) around here the only other options are A) Wal-Mart and B) ultra expensive portrait studios. I like the way Wal-Mart pictures turn out, but unfortunately the Wal-Mart photographers around here are, well, not exactly the nicest people and make it quite obvious they don't like their job, which in turn makes it a bad experience for everyone. And option B, I just don't want to fork out that much money for only 2 and a half year pictures. So I gave it another try this morning. We went to ____ Gardens (I don't want to say the whole name, as I don't like the whole world wide web to know where we live). It was a little early for everything to be in bloom, but it was still SO pretty, I haven't been there in years. Isabella loved all the flowers, especially the purple ones (her favorite color). We had so much fun walking along all the paths, I don't think we even got to everything, but we'll have to go back sometime and take Daddy with. Isabella did have her first experience with a Port-a -potty, eww. She was fine with it, I was the grossed out one. If you know me well, it won't surprise you to know that the minute Isabella walks in to a public restroom she raises her hands up and says, "It is germy in here, I won't touch ANYTHING Mommy!" Ah yes, I have trained her well. Anyway, here are a few random pictures from the morning, although pictures really don't do the place justice. And I'll try to get the actual 2 and a half year pictures I took of her on here later.

Oh, and the *almost* that I was going to get to - the air went out in our car on the way home!! Our NEW car, grrrr. So we dropped it off at the dealorship on the way home, but the good news is that it is under warranty and they say it is an easy fix.

When the computer's away . . .

It's that time of year when Monte is going to have to take the computer with him for work every so often. After my day today I am actually looking forward to it, I didn't have the computer today during naptime (I'm usually on it for the first part of her nap) and this is what I got done just during Isabella's nap: kitchen, entryway, and both bathroom floors all mopped, unloaded dishwasher, washed, dried, and folded 2 loads of laundry, cleaned both bathrooms, dusted the entire house (except Isabella's room), shook out all the rugs, got a start on my "pile" of mail and other papers I don't know what to do with, got a start on supper, and pulled weeds outside that are growing in our landscaping. This is definitely NOT a usual naptime for me, but if this is the kind of motivation I'm going to have when the computer is gone, I'm all for it!

Not as Easy as it Looks

I decided to give Isabella a hair cut last night. I haven't given anyone a haircut since, well, since I whacked my Barbie's hair off in about first grade. Her hair is still so baby fine, that I don't think it looks good yet very long. Add to that the fact that her hair in front is still just coming in (that hair has never been cut) so the hair in back needs to be cut unless I want my child to be sporting a mullet around. It was definitely harder that it seemed it would be! The whole rest of the evening and this morning I was following her around with a scissers, I kept seeing little places I had missed. I think next time I will fork out the money, it's worth my piece of mind.

After: Don't look too close!

Laundry Day

Visitors

Last week my sister and niece came out to visit us for four days, it was so much fun. I'm glad they came last week because the weather was beautiful. This week the weather is awful, very cold and rainy. We even have our heat on!! We went on long walks, went to the park, played outside a lot, and went to the zoo. It was my niece's first trip to a zoo. My sister and I stayed up late chatting, and the girls had so much fun!

We got to the zoo just in time to watch the penguins get fed.

I haven't felt like blogging

I've been busy spending every spare moment playing piano! I've been getting well acquainted with my Lorie Line books again.

Someone else likes the piano too!

God Smiled at me Today

I have been wanting a piano for, well, ever since we bought our house. Not like a crazy, out of control I have to have it sort of thing, but something that crosses my mind every now and then. I think about how much I love to play, how much I would like my kids to play someday, but then I think about how crazy expensive they are, and how we don't exactly have thousands of dollars lying (laying??) around to buy one. Just yesterday I was talking to Monte about it, and I even made it a question on my "how well do you know me" quiz on Facebook.

Enter today. Monte's mom calls me and tells me a lady she worked with (Monte's mom has been retired for a year) called her out of the blue to say she is moving and wants to get rid of her piano, she remembered Monte's mom saying once, long ago, that I loved to play piano. So she was calling to see if I was interested, and to let me have the first chance at it!!! I got her number and called her, she then sent me a picture of the piano over our cellphone, it looked really nice. The best part - she wants $100 dollars for it, that's it!!

I called her back to say we'll take it. Of course there are some things to work out, like moving it
(they live 2 and a half hours from here), and borrowing my in-laws truck or trailer, but it looks like by the end of the week I should have a piano, amazing. Seriously, I'm so excited I'm tearing up!