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!

Thank goodness for the kitchen

The weather has been so chilly/ dreary/ rainy/windy for the last week, it has really put me in a "blah" kind of mood. I am so glad we got Isabella this kitchen for Christmas, she didn't play with it a whole lot at first, but now that she is a few months older she is SO into playing kitchen. It has been her main source of entertainment for the last week, since we haven't been able to play outside. It's funny how we were stuck inside all winter, and I didn't mind it a bit, but now that we've had a taste of warm weather, I'm ready to go stir crazy inside the house for a week straight!

How Depressing

You more than likely won't see any posts similar to the last few for a couple days. This morning it was 29 degrees and the ground was covered in a fresh coat of SNOW!

Fully Loaded

Isabella's Jeep is now fully loaded with all the extras! There's a place in it where it must have once had a cell phone attached, so she took her little play cell phone out and put it in that spot. We also attached a horn that is actually a bicycle horn, she loves that thing! But the radio, yes it has a radio, only works some of the time, but I don't care. I can't complain, the thing was free.

Stopping to make a call, but my goodness it's windy, I need to fix my hat.

There, now I can make my call. I'm talking to my Mama.

Honking my horn. Good thing the neighbors love me, it's a pretty loud horn!

And she's off . . .

87!!

It was 87 degrees here today, how very unusual! And now the highs for the next five or so days are in the 40's, very weird. So we made the best of this very warm, but windy day. We spent the remainder of the day after Isabella's long nap outside. Monte and Isabella got most of the garden planted, and we cleaned out/organized our storage shed which is slowly getting taken over by baby items that will hopefully be needed again in the future. We also got some of her outdoor toys out, like her sandbox and her dinosaur. Despite both Monte and my allergies acting up, a very good day.

She's home!

I ducked out of Bible Study a little early this morning to go meet my mother-in-law and pick up Isabella. She had a GREAT time at "Mama's". In fact she told me as we were leaving she wanted to go home with Mama. :( She was telling me on the way home about all she did, she got to ride the four wheeler, play on Mama's swingset, blow bubbles, check the cows with Grandpa, and play babies with Mama. She went down for a nap as soon as we got home, and she is now 3 and a half hours into it, I think it's safe to say she's worn out. She came home to an extremely clean house, since I had lots of time on my hands the past couple of days. Besides lots of cleaning, I went on several walks and runs while she was gone, and Monte and I had our date night, which was wonderful. I realized she doesn't have much for summer clothes, and I got some great deals on clothes for her at JC Penney's and Target when Monte and I went out. I really have to set limits for myself while shopping for her, have I mentioned how much I LOVE having a little girl, and the little sundresses they have out now have got to be some of the cutest things EVER! I think she's going to be wearing a lot of sundresses this summer because A) I'm a girly girl, thus I will dress her in dresses as long as she complies, which will hopefully be a long time since she is exhibiting a lot of my girly girl tendancies, and B) dresses seem like the easiest option for someone who has recently become potty trained. And now her hair is getting long enough for me to actually do a few things with it, oh my goodness I'm just giddy about all this girly-ness!

And as requested, my new wheels . . .