Baby!

Announcing, Baby Ward #2 will be arriving at the end of November. We're really excited for another addition to our little family. Isabelle has been such a dream boat of a kid, we're hoping we can be even 1/2 as lucky for our next one.

Isabelle is going to be the best big sister ever. She loves her dolls which she calls babies and even enunciates it perfectly (along with shoes and dress, is she a girl or what?). She constantly has one with her. She rocks them and kisses them, and feeds them her milk and snacks, and wraps them up in blankets, and takes them for rides in her shopping cart and stroller. It's so fun to watch her grow up. She now even has to sleep with her big baby and her little baby and the little blanket, not to mention HER blanket too. Soon, there won't be room for her in that crib. When she's upset, the blanket use to work just fine, but now she blubbers, "baby" until I find her a doll too. Kids are so funny! "Bye-Bye" she's telling me now with her shoes on, ready to go. I told her we were going to go to the store and apparently I've taken too long.

Sleeping through the years...well 18 months

We have been spoiled from day 1 with Isabelle and her sleeping habits. She is her father's child and LOVES her sleep. She can sleep through ANYTHING and ANYWHERE! I found all these pictures we've taken over the last 18 months and found it entertaining. She turns 18 months next week and I just can't believe it. Isabelle is growing up so fast and now she's just a little toddler and no more baby!

Happy Easter!!

I got this super cute picture of Isabelle in her bunny ears, but was bummed I cut off the bottom of her face as she moved when the shutter went. So I tried to get her to do it again and this is what I got....


Being Silly

No luck, so I bribed her with chocolate chips and still had no success, but got some funny pictures anyway.


Our neighborhood has a cute Easter Egg Hunt every year. We finally had a reason to go. Isabelle was a champ! She had no idea there was anything in them so she didn't get distracted picking them up. I told her to clean up the eggs and she went to town. She wouldn't let go of her basket even before the hunt began.



She really enjoyed it. She loved it even more when she found out there was candy in the eggs. At Mike's parent's egg hunt, she would pick one up at a time and eat the candy before moving along. She figured it out too quickly.


On Sunday we went to Mike's parents for their Easter party. We had a fantastic dinner, colored eggs, went on an egg hunt and saw what the Easter bunny left. All the grandkids had a blast.

Isabelle loved coloring the eggs. She like to have lots of eggs in the dye. She kept adding them and adding them. It was really fun to have a kid enjoy Easter.

San Francisco

We got to go visit Mike's grandmother in San Francisco with Mike's parents. We had a great time. We would get up usually late in the morning and head out to breakfast. We would do some sight seeing and then go hang out at Mike's Grandmother's apartment for the late afternoon, dinner, and evening. We were always late getting to our condo. Isabelle was a trooper! I could not believe how good she was. She was really good in the restaraunts and for going to bed at 11pm with no real nap every day, she was a dream boat!

Isabelle's favorite part was the sea lions at Pier 39. We had to call them seals because when she heard sea lion, she would growl like a lion. It was pretty funny. She also loved all the pigeons and dogs everywhere. She was constantly pointing and yelling at the animals. We also went to this really cool music box/arcade museum. It's old player pianos and super old arcade type things. With a dollar worth of quaters (and following others around) we had a great afternoon. Isabelle loved dancing to all the music. It was really cute.


Every night we took the cable car home and Isabelle would fall asleep. She sat so well on the cable cars, but wanted to play all over the buses and trollies. We tried to take the cable car as much as possible. Plus it was so much more fun! I don't know how people there have children. We had 4 adults for our 1 baby and it was crazy. I couldn't imagine being a mom in San Francisco.


The weather was absolutely beautiful. The last day was the only day that could even kind of be considered hazy. We could see Alcatraz and the golden gate bridge every day.


This is San Francisco from Alcratraz. I really enjoyed the tour and found it facinating.


Here we are with Mike's grandmother, Isabel, at Ghiridelli Square. It was a really great opportunity to get to know her better and for her to get to know her great-grandaughter and name sake. Grandmother's apartment is right next to Ghiridelli Square. Numerous times a day we stopped in for a free chocolate sample. I never got tired of it! We had such a fun trip and really enjoyed everything!

Boise and a new nephew

In February, my brother and his wife had a little boy. There was a gap of a few days in between mom's so I got to go help. I got to stay at their house with the girls and play mommy while Danny worked, and Karen spent time with Nick. They have 5 year old, Kali, and 18 month old, Sydney, and I took Isabelle with me. I had so much fun!

Sydney and Isabelle are the easiest 1 year olds I've ever met. There were almost no fights and they just played happily. The only downside, was they kept waking each other up earlier and earlier in the mornings. The two 9-9:30 awakers, were getting up as early as 6:50. It was not pretty. Late afternoon nap got earlier and earlier!


The first night, after all the girls were in bed, Danny took me to the NICU to see Nick. I got to hold him and feed him a bottle. He's so tiny!!!


Isabelle absolutely LOVED Sydney's toddler bed. I've started my search to find a cheap one on KSL or Craigslist.

They were so cute to watch.


One afternoon, I loaded up the girls and picked Karen up from the hospital to go to a park for a little while. It was FREEZING!!!! Isabelle didn't have a great time, and this was before she discovered parks are fun, but Sydney loved it and Karen and Kali enjoyed the change in scenery.


I stayed a day longer than planned so I could see my mom. I kept talking about Grandma coming. When my mom walked in the door, Isabelle looked confused for a moment, because this was not the person she usually called grandma. She warmed up VERY quickly and then realized she has 2 grandmas and they both love to hug and kiss her and play with her and read her stories!


Once Nick came home, Isabelle had to be so helpful. She had to be close and see what was going on. It was really funny to watch.

Pictures yet to come...

The last month has been busy. We had our scout Blue and Gold banquet (I'm a den leader) and then the next morning I left for Boise to help with a new baby in the family. Danny, my brother, and Karen finally had a sweet baby boy! While Nick was in the NICU, I got to stay home with Kali, Sydney and Isabelle. Us girls had a grand old time. I also got to overlap with my mom for a day. It was great to see her, even though it wasn't long enough. Pictures yet to come.

I was home for a few short days to get laundry under control and repacked for another trip to San Francisco. Mike's parents took us to get to know his grandmother a little better. We spent a week in the "Foggy" city. I don't believe all that foggy city stuff, there was only one day that could even kind of be considered "hazy." We had beautiful weather and enjoyed the company. Pictures yet to come.

Along the way, Isabelle has discovered the zoo, parks, and the beginning of terrible twos. She couldn't control herself around the animals, making so many animal sounds, and kicking her legs like crazy. It was hilarious. She also finally realized parks are fun and slides aren't scary. She now leaves the park kicking and screaming, "No no no!!!" Pictures yet to come.

I'll finally get around to downloading the camera hopefully this week and give a little more detailed account of our adventures.

Our Little Busy Jabber-walkie

Not much has been going on as far as events go in our household, but Isabelle is full of change and more entertainment than Mike and I ever dreamed of. She has turned into quite the little girl and is no longer my little baby. She walks around the house talking and running constantly, hence Mike has nicknamed her Jabber-walkie. Her vocabulary has gotten HUGE! She now knows 15+ animal sounds, some sign language, and so many words! I taught her just a little sign language to get us by until her important words were intelligible. This cut down her tantrums tremendously. She's learned lots of new "tricks" as I like to call them. My favorite one is to watch her fold her arms and bow her head for prayers. She's usually pretty good (as far as little kids go), unless Jake is being distracting. When we say "Amen" she says it and throws her arms up. It's so cute! She's starting to be very independent and knows what she wants. It's so funny to watch such a little body give you the evil eyes and shake their head at you. I often have to turn my head away from her to smile when she's being funny...ie naughty.

Some of her other cute and silly things include:
1. She will eat as many flour tortillas a day as I let her. Just a plain nasty flour tortilla. It could be worse!
2. She will eat as many fruit snacks as she can get ahold of and can open them herself. If the pantry got left open (before I moved the fruit snacks), she would grab a bunch and hide them somewhere. Then throughout the day she would walk by with ANOTHER pack of fruit snacks. She's tricky!
3. She calls me "Dew-ee" (Julie) now.
4. She knows "please" in sign language which is nice when she wants something and is learning to be polite, but now she just comes up to me saying "please" over and over again in sign language, but I have no idea what she wants.
5. She successfully unlocked Mike's phone and called 911 and even "talked" to them. Cell phones are now banned.
6. After we get her shoes on, she immediately goes to the bathroom for hair bows.
7. She has figured out water comes out of the fridge with a tall enough cup. It's mostly in her face, but she still tries anyway. I'm just waiting for the day I find a flooded kitchen. Our ice/water dispencer doesn't have a lock on it. It's going to be a fun couple of months.
8. She has come up with some intersting new sleeping positions, but continues to still use her blanket as a binky. She can be in a dead sleep and if you take that blanket out of her mouth, it's not a pretty sight.

9. Her new favorite thing is buckets. She even says bucket! She has 3 different buckets she plays with during the day filling them with all sorts of random things. This use of buckets also explains how our toothpaste made it downstairs, and my kitchen magnets made it upstairs, along with MANY other odd moments. Any time Mike finds something so oddly out of place, he always looks at me first. He's starting to get the hang of the fact that I'm not the only one that moves things now. :)

10. She asks to go outside all the time. This was 8:00 at night and she was determined to go outside. She gets her hat on and attempts to get her boots and coat on and stands at the door yelling "Ou-side."


Motherhood has already been so rewarding and we're only 15 months in. Isabelle is such a delightful kid. She's learning so quickly and I know I don't realize half of what's going on in that little busy body. She will slow down for a few minutes with me as long as I have a book to read her. I just love her more and more every second!

SNOW!

We finally got Isabelle out in the snow a couple of weeks ago. She absolutely LOVED it! She helped her dad shovel the driveway by touching, throwing, and eating the snow. Now she brings me her boots to go out and play. She is definitely her father's child when it comes to the snow.

Happy New Year (Only a month late)

We spent the night at Mike's parents, along with his sister, Sharon, and her family.

We had fondue for dinner and it was delicious! It's a great meal to piece on all night til midnight! Mike's dad got a little impatient with the oil heating up and decided to use some outside help. The torch got used later to roast marshmallows.


We played board games and the Wii for a very entertaining evening.


Isabelle wanted nothing to do with the new year's hat. She just screamed. Needless to say, she went to bed and didn't make it to midnight.


We were stuffed from the fondue but still had room for the bubbly at midnight. We celebrated at 10pm (New York's midnight) with the kids and then celebrated again at midnight our time.