Life in a Small Town

Our neighbor works at the post office, and today while Monte was mailing some letters, she told him about a conversation she had with someone from our town the other day. It seems this nice, older gentleman came into the post office to ask our neighbor about me. He told her that every morning Isabella and I walk past his house at 9:15, but he hadn't seen us for 3 weeks now. He was hoping that she could tell him I was okay, because he was really worried! How sweet is that?!

It seems that I'm totally out of my summer routine now, we're spending a lot more time inside, we've been gone, I had (and still do) a cold, and the weather has warmed back up now, but for a while it was really chilly. So those are my excuses. :) But I don't care what the weather is doing tomorrow (unless it's pouring rain) or how I'm feeling, I think I better go for a walk around 9:15!

Her latest obsession . . .

coloring. And don't show her the crayons she loved coloring with not all that long ago, oh no, according to her, those are "baby colors"! Now all she talks about are "big girl colors".

Oh, and I'm glad she loves to color, it gives me an excuse to color with her. :)

My big, brave girl

Isabella's Recipes

I love recipes, one of my favorite things to do is look through cookbooks and cooking/recipe magazines. Like all kids I'm sure, who want to do whatever their parents are doing, Isabella loves to do whatever I'm doing. So she is also quite taken with looking through recipes. So I decided to cut out some colorful pictures from my Taste of Home magazines and put them on recipe card size construction paper. Then I put clear contact paper over the whole card so she can't rip them at all. Now she has her own recipe cards in her own recipe box that we only get out whenever I'm going through my recipes. This way, she has her own to go through, and she doesn't try to mess mine up (at least not ALL the time). She loves it!

Tagging Along with Daddy

Monte had a meeting a few hours away this morning, and Isabella and I went with. We went yesterday, and stayed at a hotel with an indoor waterpark. We all had so much fun! It was just like being on vacation. We hung out at Cabela's, ate at one of my favorite restaurants, and had tons of fun in the pool. We had the whole waterpark to ourselves except for one older couple who were there part of the time. Of course I took lots of pictures and a couple videos, and I thought it was funny when the older guy said, "She must be your first." :)

Washing the chlorine off!

Alone Time

I'm amazed at how independent Isabella is becoming. There was a while there where I thought she would never play by herself for longer periods of time. Three times yesterday she would run back to her room and disappear. After a while, either Monte or I would go check on her, as the silence was worrisome. :) She took all the toys out of the little toy box, got her clothes out of her bottom dresser drawer, and climbed in the toy box with her doll. For almost an hour EACH time she proceeded to dress her baby, read to her baby, sing to her baby, etc. One time when Monte went in to peak on her she bumped her baby's head, and he heard her say, "Oops, sorry baby." Then when she saw him, she said, "No Daddy, out." I couldn't believe it. She loves having her own little space.

Good Deals

Isabella and I went to visit my sister for a few days. The two girls had fun playing together, although they weren't always quite into sharing. My sister's town had city wide garage sales, and I got some great deals! Two sacks full of nice, name brand clothes (some brand new, still with tags on them) for Isabella this fall/winter, a snow sled, a trike, a bike with training wheels, and a Discovery toys animal bowling set. Everything except for the trike (faded paint) looks brand new! I got all of that for a total of $36, I love good deals!

My sister and brother-in-law are expanding their dairy farm, so we could go out and see the baby calves whenever we wanted, they arrived at the farm the day we got there. Isabella liked feeding them, her favorite calf was named "Kimberly". Two year old cousin Rachel wants to name a calf "Elmo". :)

If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you'll see this is the lovely Kimberly. (Look on the ear tag.)