Birthday Re-do!

We had a great day yesterday celebrating Isabella's actual birthday. Here is our day in pictures:

Opening presents:

We had our families over for lunch:

The newest additions, Mia and Ethan:

Jason's birthday is today (Happy Birthday Jason!) so we sang to both of them:

Brandon had a basketball game after lunch, so someone thought it would be funny to put Izzie in his shorts:

Opening presents while already wearing one! She loves her fairy costume:

And our little family (still in the fairy costume):

Happy Birthday, My Sweet Girl!

This year, I have decided to keep Izzie's birthday letter private- something to give her one day as a future birthday gift. But there are so many things about her at this age that I never want to forget, so I thought I'd write about those instead.

• She will brush her teeth 10 times a day if I let her!


• She is obsessed with babies, real and pretend, and taking care of them. I hope this comes in handy!


• She is still a thumb-sucker, which we are trying to work on- no fun!


• Her vocabulary is really expanding, and she even says quite a few phrases- her favorites being: "I'm sorry." "What happened?" "Oh my!" "It's okay!" "I love you!" "How dit go?" (Where did it go?) and "See ya!"


• She likes to throw my purse over her shoulder and pretend she is leaving.


• She says goodbye to everyone and anything. She says goodbye to the animals at the zoo, cashiers at the store, a tv show, movie or song when it ends, ANYTHING!
  She is very good at saying she is sorry when asked to, which is good because she does seem to have a bit of a temper!
• She LOVES throwing things in the trash- this we do have to be careful with.


• She likes to help me with the laundry: putting the wet clothes in the dryer and helping me "fold" clean clothes. (Her version of folding is throwing the clean clothes out the the basket and onto the floor, but oh well!)


• She likes to give Lucky treats. Although I think her favorite part of it is when she taunts him by running off with it and making him chase her :)


• As stated in previous posts, she has become quite the actress.


• She is learning her ABC's and still loves to be read to.


• I sometimes regret teaching her the word help because she says it all the time, which is good, but only when used appropriately. However, it is not good when she shouts it over and over at the top of her lungs when we are at the grocery store and she has decided she is done sitting polietly in the basket.


• She LOVES to dress up- particularly in my shoes :)


• She tries to sing along to songs that she knows. She does this by repeating the last word in each phrase.
• If she sees a commerical for cookies, she needs one immediately.
• She has learned to undress herself and does this at almost every naptime. I watch her on the monitor and once she is completely naked (expect for the diaper, thanks goodness) I turn up the heat a bit (why couldn't she have learned this in the summer?!). When I go in her room to get her when she wakes up, she asks me "What happpened?" as she points to the pile on the floor.
• She HATES for her hands to be dirty. We wash them a lot.
• When she can't find something: her baby, her cup, Lucky or Lulu, ANYTHING, she calls it like it will come to her. She puts her hands flat against her cheeks and shouts for it over and over.


• She still gets so excited when Daddy comes home from work. He scoops her up into a big hug and she usually reaches out for me to include me in the hug, squeezing both of our necks tightly.
  
• She always knows when it is Saturday, and asks Joe to take her outside for their Saturday morning swing. This is how she likes it: he sits on the swing with her in is lap. He asks her to count so that they can "take off" and she always counts: "five, seven, nine, GO!" Not sure why she chooses those numbers, but she is always consistant in chosing those three.
  

I could go on and on for days about all the things that she does that I love. Everyday I love her more and more, and I am pretty convinced that the sun rises and sets all for her. Never in my life did I think that I could love someone so wholeheartedly and unconditionally as I love her. She has taught me so much about love and life in her two years, and I look forward to the lessons she will continue to teach me throughout the years :)

Happy birthday sweet baby girl! You are my love, you are my life! Thank goodness God chose me to be your Mommy :)

In my attempts to get just a cute, casual snapshot of Izzie for this post, this is how it was going:

So, this is how it ended up!:

So much for the "cute, casual" picture! Just another reason to love her :)

Visting Santa

I just realized that I never posted our visit to Santa! My mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So...Santa was great, his "elves" on the other hand, well, we just aren't going to say anything about them. Which would partially explain why we got such a fabulous picture this year. (Please tell me you can sense the sarcasm!)Don't know who she is looking at, yes the fan that is meant to keep Santa cool is blowing her hair all around, and yes, that is her baby doll she is holding on to. At least she is in Santa's lap and I'm not in the picture. That part is better than I expected! Small victories!

My Little Baker

I did a little baking this morning, and Izzie wanted to help out. This is a new apron, and the first time I wore it, and when Izzie saw it she walked up to me, licked the apron and said, "Mmmmm! Cupcake!" It was too cute :) Naturally, after I took it off, she wanted to put it on. You have to get creative when putting an adult size apron on a 23 lb two year old!

I think she is gonna LOVE the Snow White apron and oven mitt set she is getting for Christmas! Shh! Don't tell :)

The Road to Recovery

Isabella got her stitches removed on Friday and was such a trooper. Honestly, she did so much better than I anticipated. I made Joe go with us, because I didn't know what to expect. First they weighed her, and she weighed in at 22 lbs, 12 oz. I was hoping she would be a little closer to 24 lbs, but we will take what we get! The doctor had a nurse come in and hold her down, Joe held her feet, the doctor removed the stitches, and I stood back and rocked back and forth with my hands over my mouth telling Isabella what a big girl she was being. And she truly was.

Naturally, she started screaming when they held her down, but then she just kind of stopped and laid there silently. The doctor would switch between scissors and tweezers, and Izzie would scream a little when she saw the scissors, but I'd say that's a pretty natural reaction :) Both the doctor and the nurse commented on how good she was. Like I said, there was a little bit of screaming, but no crying (from either of us!).

Since the wound is not completely healed yet, I do have to keep cleaning it and covering it. And for the next six months, which will obviously include the spring and summer, I have to make sure she has sunblock on it and keep it covered with a bandaid or a hat when she is playing outside. She is great about leaving it alone (for now) but is completely aware of it. I think she thinks the new word for forehead is "boo boo". She touches every one's forehead and says "boo boo". I've even seen her do it to her baby doll, and then she will hold her baby tight, pat her on the back and rock back, and forth tell her "It's 'kay, it's 'kay." It is cute and sad all at the same time.

On a side note, we have been staying in pretty much all week, so we have been watching a lot of movies- her current favorite being "Toy Story". And in the past week, probably with the combination of her injury and admittedly too much tv, she has become quite the little actress. She has a certain scene memorized where a character lets out a big scream, and Izzie doesn't even have to be watching it to know it is coming. She screams right along with the movie. The first time she did it, it really freaked Joe out because she wasn't watching, just listening. In another scene the older brother takes a doll away from his little sister and she screams. Well, Izzie does a dead on interpretation of this as well. She will grab her baby and shove it towards my hand, pretend that I am trying to take it from her and scream. She had actually started her acting skills last week at dance when a little girl was crying. Every time the girl would let out a cry, Izzie would imitate her and run to me, pretending to be crying. She has always been a bit dramatic, but this makes it official. Although ,I prefer to refer to her as being theatrical rather than dramatic. Maybe we've got a little actress on our hands!

Birthday "Gash"

This next blog entry was supposed to be about Isabella and Jack's 2nd birthday party on Saturday. While it was fun while it lasted, it ended in a trip to the ER and Isabella getting 9 stitches to her forehead. I'm not going to go into details other than she tripped on some lady's foot and hit her forehead on the corner of a wall. Her poor PawPaw and I saw the worst of it and it's been really difficult for me to get the image out of my head. While I know that she is totally fine, and things could have been much worse, I just can't shake the image and it literally breaks my heart. She is so tough and so much stronger than I am. While we were waiting for the doctor to come in and give the stitches, she was actually trying to dance on the tile floor! And of course, she managed to get some flirting in with the male nurse :)

She is so good about leaving her bandage alone. Occasionally she will touch it and say "boo boo", but I tell her to leave it and she will. She is acting completely normal- totally back to her old tricks. She even hit her forehead on Daddy's knee, and while we froze and waited for a scream, she just looked up and smiled. She is so much braver and stronger than I am :) The whole thing is really testing my emotions, and I'm afraid to report that I am failing miserably. I'm sure my hormones have something to do with it, but she's my baby after all. If only I hadn't seen her at the worst of it, I may be taking it better. It's just really hard for me to talk about it, or write about it for that matter.

But at the end of the day, she is totally fine and I thank God for that. I'm sure once my poor baby is healed, I will be feeling much better about it all.

Here she is Sunday morning- such a trooper!

And Monday morning with Daddy. We were letting her wound breathe for a few minutes before putting the bandage back on. It looks better than expected already :)

Oh Boy!!

As most of you know by now, Joe, Isabella and I will be welcoming a sweet baby boy into our family come April. We are soooo thrilled and couldn't be more blessed with this new addition. Just like Isabella, he was moving all around at the ultrasound. He is already soo cute :) Seriously, look at that face!

Out of respect for my son, I have decided to leave out the pictures that prove he is actually a boy. But trust me, he is for sure all boy :)

Ham and Games 2009!

We were very honored to be invited to Ham and Games 2009! Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like: eat some ham, play some games! We had so much fun and Izzie did so well. She actually let us stay for quite a while :)

Steve the Beave was there. Here is Aunt TT trying to introduce the two.

Now it's Mommy's turn to try. Not sure if that is Izzie giving Steve a high five or trying to get away from him!

Here is beautiful Riley posing with Steve. Izzie so wanted to like him, but in the end, not so much. Steve was there for about an hour and Izzie knew where he was at ALL times :)

A little game action.

Seriously, look at this gaming face! Her controller was actually unplugged to allow another kid play, but she sure thought she was in control :)


Is that chocolate cake Daddy is giving her?!

Kristen and Scott (For all you out of towners :))

Kristen, me, Addie and Shelby- So happy to get to spend good quality time with these girls. (And we are going to pretend that I am not trying to wear a regular person shirt, when I should be wearing maternity, and that is is not stretched and shiny!- Give a pregnant chick a break!)

Thanksgiving 2009

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