Snow!

There was a little snow on the ground when Isla was born. The next year, I think we had an inch or so of snow but Isla was sick so I didn't take her out in it. Last year we has one little dusting--it wasn't even enough to make her bundle up to go out in.

Yesterday she got to play in the snow! We got around 5 inches maybe? It blew so much it was hard to tell. We were under a blizzard warning Christmas night so she didn't get to stay with my parents like we'd planned. Instead she got snow!

Potty training

It's going better. She's starting to occasionally tell us when she needs to pee before she does it. But she'll still tell us no then go if we put her on the potty anyway. We're only wearing pull-ups at night and at school they use one for naptime. We tend to have about one accident a day. Hopefully things get better in the next few weeks before Disney. She's supposed to go to one of the childcare centers where they have to be potty trained.

Disagreeable day

Today's word of the day was disagreeable. And she'd argue with me every time I told her she was being so.

This morning she told me the sun was in her eyes, then "momma you have to share your glasses with me." Only I was wearing my prescription glasses, not sun glasses.

Tonight's stall tactic at bedtime--I heard her arguing with daddy about who was left off the "God bless" list. She was upset that Speckles wasnt included tonight.

Christmas baking

Christmas pictures...

Santa

Alyson's tree

Decorating with Y

Loved the train...

I know...

I wasn't the only momma who had trouble leaving their baby at school, daycare, a sitter's house, or wherever today. Isla didn't want me to leave either. But I knew if I kept her home today, I'd never let her go again. And we can't live in fear. Faith, not fear.

Are those jingle bells?

I was trying to get Isla to sleep tonight and singing Christmas carols. In the middle of Jingle Bells, I hear air escaping from her booty. I asked her if those were jingle bells, expecting her usual "I bo-bo'ed" answer. Instead she says "no, those were reindeer farts."

Shiner

Unrelated to the type of accident referenced in the previous post, Isla had a little fall on Thanksgiving. Think thing puffed up and started turning colors before I could make it from the kitchen to the living room! Now it's yellow, blue, green, and purple. Very lovely. Hopefully it clears up by Saturday when we have pictures taken with Santa.

Woo hoo!

A full day of no accidents!

So much...

There's just so much each day with Isla that it's hard to find time to write about all of it. Potty training FINALLY seems to be catching on. So happy that MG told me that H required a phone call from Bat Girl for things to catch with her. So MH called as Dora 2 weekends ago and that REALLY helped. Isla was so excited that Dora called her! Then 2 days later, Dora left stickers on the porch for her (I have the BEST friends!). And at Halloween I discovered that M&Ms are a better motivator than Skittles. Who woulda thunk that MY kid would be driven my chocolate?
Speaking of Halloween, trick or treating was a big hit--she loved seeing all the kids come by the house more so than going to the few neighbors' houses we went to. She'd run to the door and open it while we'd race to keep Speckles from going outside. Then she's run back and tell us how many more there were and what they were dressed like. She didn't seem scared of any costumes, but there was one person that I think she told "I don't like your costume." She's already decided that next year she will be a butterfly and Daddy will be a ladybug.
We went to an open house at school the other night. One of the student workers said something about reading a book to Isla, asking her to count, and she counted in Spanish. Um, yes. She does that. Gotta love Dora and Diego.
Yesterday Daddy had to leave for work early. I was sitting on her bed holding her and she was dozing in and out. P gave me a kiss and told me bye and left the room, thinking she was asleep. "Daddy?" He came back to see her arms raised for a hug. I saw him melt. She gave him a hug and a kiss, then said "I love you Daddy." He melted again. As he walked out of the room, she said "Have a good day." I think he had a hard time leaving yesterday morning. Last night after he got home, we were all 3 sitting on the couch and suddenly she says "How was your day Daddy?" Such a sweetie.
Speaking of sweeties, hopefully another sweetie will be in our house soon. Our home study is almost done. J comes Tuesday for our home visit and then she has to finish her report. Should be done soon, then we can register with the agency we want to use. And then we'll wait. H2H's website says the wait til is usually under 9 months. I keep seeing things online about them never having enough families open to race so we may have a baby a lot sooner than that.

Birthdays

Isla's has known (and told everyone she can) she will be 3 on her birthday and that her birthday is January 12. This morning she and Grandma were talking about birthdays and she told Grandma that Daddy's birthday is December 15. Then she asked when Pop Pop's birthday is. When Grandma told her August 9, she said "he matches Mommy! Mommy's birthday is August 1st!"

Wow.

Happy Halloween!

Isla-isms

What's this one about? (Used for many situations--TV shows, books, ice cream).

Rainbrella

Swimsoup

Summersoup

Heart melt...

Isla this morning as we're driving across the parking lot. Where's this? Is it church?
Me: Yes, we are at church.
Isla: Why?
Me: We're here to worship God and tell Him that we love Him.
Isla: Thank you for our food. Amen.

Hoppy to help

A bunny on Dora just said "hoppy to help." Isla repeated it, emphasizing the "o" in hoppy then laughed and said "that's funny!"

First fair ride!!

And her second ride...

And the 3rd time!

Chopping

Flip flops like mommy

Wow

I handed Isla something as we got in the car yesterday. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

Did you just say "I appreciate it?"

"Yes Mommy. I appreciate it."

Molar alert!

I can finally see the top two two-year molars and can feel at least one of the bottom ones. I got concerned about biting so I didn't try for the other bottom one. Maybe that's part of the reason for her waking up so much the last week or so.

Potty time

"Momma, there's something in here!"
And before momma knew it, Isla jumped up from the potty, picked up the bowl, and poured out the pee. On the carpet.
Sigh.
Momma was still "SO happy!"

Just after P left this morning...

Momma, you sad?
Yes honey. Momma's sad because Daddy doesn't feel well.
I give you a hug.

Heart. Melt.

"Momma, check it out!"

"Daddy's gonna love it. I did it all by myself!"
So much excitement for a hula hoop on the basement door.

Still recovering from the weekend....

Isla had 2 birthday parties to go to this past Saturday. She's big into birthdays right now and had a TON of fun (although she was disappointed that she'd just taken a bite of her cookie when we started singing to A and couldn't sing with her mouth full).
During the night though, the partying caught up to her and she got sick. I ended up in the recliner with her (after she puked on 2 sets of sheets) for awhile then laid down with her in our bed hoping she'd sleep late Sunday. It worked. Everything seemed fine Sunday so we took her to grandma as planned and P and I went to St. Louis to see the Lion King on stage--my anniversary present to him. On the way there we found out that she'd gotten sick on my mom on the way to church. Mom insisted we stay for the show and Isla ended up being fine the rest of the day. She did fine at daycare yesterday too, but for some reason she didn't rest well last night. Nor did I. We've both been tired and fussy today so we've lazed around the house.
We did leave briefly to mail our application for a home study (more on that in another post!). Before we got in the car, Isla started crying about something. I got her to calm down so she could talk to me and she was saying "my chore, my chore. Speckles needs a treat!" Her chore each morning is to give the pup a treat when we leave and in her disgruntled state, I'd done it myself. We went back in to get Speckles another treat. By the time we got back home, Isla was snoozing in her seat. Great. Early nap means short nap. In a little bit I'm going to have to get the Super Isla costume she slept in last night off her and get her dressed. I'm supposed to meet J at the gym. I plan on taking full advantage of the 2 hours of childcare I get for $2 at the gym today. I'll swim some laps, sit in the hot tub awhile, and take a long shower before collecting her from Miss Michelle!

Long time no posts....

I'm not sure why I haven't posted much this summer. Every day there are things that I tell myself I want to write about so I'll always remember them, but I rarely use the laptop anymore and Isla frequently tells me to put my phone down so I often can't finish a thought. I have been reading quite a bit on my Kindle app on my phone. I've downloaded a bunch of free book and found a few writers that I like who have other books available that are cheap.

But updates on our little girl:

We got an "Ages and Stages" report from daycare this week. She lost points for not pulling up pants by herself and for not putting on a shirt by herself. The next day I came out of the shower and Daddy had her shirt on backwards so I'm not terribly concerned about that one. We were both amused that the sentence example they documented was "There is Ashlee" when that night she was rattling off 8 and 9 word sentences all night. She's using a lot of adjectives and of prepositional phrases to expand her sentences. She does pretty well with pronouns too but uses him and her instead of he and she.

Sleeping has been going okay--she doesn't usually sleep all the way through the night, but waking just once is a major victory! Last night she woke up yelling "MILK!" Daddy took her some milk and she drank the entire cup and went right back to sleep. She doesn't usually get up from bed on her own when she wakes in the morning, but she is starting to do it sometimes.

J spent Tuesdays with us this summer. This week at naptime when I told her it was time for nap, she said "J doesn't take a nap." I told her he'd take one on the couch. "Then I don't want to sleep in my room." She ended up napping on my bed.

She can count to 14 on her own and to 8 in Spanish. The one item/one number skill is developing. So are basic math concepts--she's starting to understand that if I have one hat and she has two hats, there are three hats total.

OK, perhaps the hats that are being piled on my head and laptop and the picnic basket and tea set on my legs sat this moment are the reasons I haven't updated recently.

She's interested in birthdays these days--of course it is birthday season in my family. She was looking at a birthday card in the car this week and told me we need to get one for A and R. Then she told Daddy that we need to get A and R presents. I got a cute little video of her singing Happy Birthday to PopPop last week. We'll see what she does this weekend when we have two birthday parties on Saturday!

I'm getting piled up with picnic supplies. Guess I gotta go.

It's time to party!

We called Grandma to tell her Happy Birthday this morning. Instead Isla said "it's time to party!"

Sleep hasn't been going well lately but the past few nights have been great.

Sunday at the pool, J was saying "fee fi fi fum....". Isla said she didn't like J Giant. Hmmm--she must know the story. Apparently Daddy read it to her at bedtime Friday night. That was a HORRIBLE sleep night! She kept saying she had bad dreams. Daddy's going to be careful what he reads at bedtime.

Slacking

The past few weeks have been very hectic and busy. Here are some pics until I get a chance to update again....

Princess Tea Party

Friends came today for a Princess Tea Party and play date. The tea is one that my Grandpa gave someone from church in 1960. It was given back to my mom several years ago and she passed it on to me. It coordinates well with the china my grandparents gave me when I was a little kid. The lovely tablecloth was given to me by A from one of her trips to Germany. But it was the 3 precious little girls who were truly priceless.

I love you baby....

I love you too momma.
I love you three.
I love you five!

Doctor Isla

Hole

Isla went up to Speckles tonight, lifted her tale, pointed, and said "hole." Then she said something about poop.

Here are some phone photos of my princess....

No Daddy--no eat Momma

And so our kiss was interrupted by the child thinking Daddy was trying to eat me.

Kiss it!

So there are a couple of you who read here that I KNOW have heard this story. But I love it and want to make sure I don't forget this sweet stage. Isla is in the "kiss it and make it better" phase. Momma and Daddy can cure anything with a kiss to the affected area (and it's symmetrical counterpart). We're also in a "hyped up before bed" stage and a "try to jump all the time stage." Recently I had her on my lap trying to get her dressed for bed after her bath. She was hyper and trying to do acrobatics on my lap. I was worried that she was going to fall so about the second or third time I got on to her, I swatted her tush (seriously, we spank her much harder when we're playing with her than the few times we do so when she's in trouble). Her little eyes got big, she looked shocked, pouted out her lip, pushed out her hip to turn her backside towards me, and said "kiss it! kiss it!"

Love that little girl!!

Pics, stories, and vacation memories!

Trying to do a month of blogging in one evening....After I did the first post with a few pictures, Blogger wouldn't let me do another post like that so I had to go through Picasa to export pics to the blogs. Not sure why, but that's why all the separate posts.

I didn't think I was getting any good pics of Harrison--little guy moves like a monkey and I didn't think I was catching anything, but I ended up with several I liked. I got a few good ones of Henry too. Love those guys and wish they lived closer!