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!