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!

Home Again

Isabella is back home after her stay at Grandma and Grandpa's. I'm sure glad to have this sweet thing back . . .

It was actually warm enough today (51 degrees!) to go outside for a little while. Since this is the warmest it's been in what seems like a long time, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to capture some pretty fall colors!