Izzy Turns 3!

My baby girl is officially 3 years old as of yesterday! She had a great birthday despite having a
little bit of a cold/cough. She had some little friends and family over for pizza and ice cream cone
cupcakes. I decorated the adults cones, but the kids had a blast doing their own. That was a big hit!


Here are some picture
highlights of the big day(they are in no special order because the editor won't let me move them around, very frustrating)

3 years ago today

3 years ago today I know just where I was and it was a day I will never forget. A day that has forever changed our lives. Today was the day we got the call from the agency that we had been picked! (and little did we know our baby girl would be born 2 short days later!) I will always remember that I was with my mom at her eye doctor appointment when I noticed I had missed a call from the agency and from DH. I of course rushed to call DH and think as soon as he picked up i say "WHATS GOING ON!?, I MISSED A CALL FROM THE AGENCY!, DID THEY CALL YOU?"

What an amazing journey that day and the next couple were for us. We received the overnight packet of information the next day, and couldn't believe our eyes, it was too good to be true, then the very next day our baby was born and we were booking flights to Texas!

AMAZING, I still get chills when I think about it. We are so very very blessed, we have the most beautiful daughter and are a family, something 3 years and 1 day ago I didn't know if or when that would happen.

I am lame

Izzy's birthday is Sunday. We have about 6 kids coming over(all neighbors) and their parents along with our families. I have no theme for the party, no activities planned, no goodie bags figured out...i am a lame mom!!

I keep asking Izzy what kind of party she wants and everytime it is a different answer...therefore I have done nothing. The only thing I know for sure is I am making cupcake cones for dessert! They are so cute. I am thinking about just frosting them to look like ice cream and then letting the kids put their own toppings on. (thinking sprinkles, m&m's, crushed oreo's etc) I tell my DH this adn you know what he says "who is going to be on clean up duty after that activitiy!" Seriously!!! Kids make messes, it is what they do ...BIG DEAL it is part of how they learn...way to suck out the little motivation/creativity I was feeling!

The party is from 12-2 and we are ordering pizza for lunch. I know I will pick up some balloons and some stuff for party favors but so far no good ideas. I am a total procrastinator and waiting till Friday when Izzy will be with Grandma to go shopping and get some supplies.

Urgh I hate being lame and uncreative...any ideas for me?

New Year, New Commitments

Well it is 2010 and instead of calling them resolutions (which i think never really happen) I wanted to write about some of the things I am going to commit to in 2010.

• Get Izzy in a swim class so that she can be more independant in the water and learn the very important skill of how to swim---she is enrolled and starts Thursday in her first official group swim lesson without me in the water
• Commit to more socialization and experiences for Izzy and pick a preschool for the fall--I am enrolling her in a Friday morning program through the Y's preschool that is called Funday friday ..mostly playbased but it is a start. Goes from 9:30-12.
• Workout a minimum of 3 days a week-I am still trying to figure out a regular schedule and get used to the much smaller more limited Y versus LT but I will get there
• Try new healthy recipes once a month on a minimum-I have done one so far this week and have another planned for Friday
• Pack my lunch at work at least 2 days a week so I can eat more healthy
• Better prioritize my time at work and hire another person to help me with the administrative stuff that bogs me down from doing more marketing which is what I enjoy more
• Spend more quality time at night with my hubby-we get too caught up in just vegging on teh couch at night and watching too much tv and not talking and interacting enough--i said this last year and didn't do it and this year I will
• Commit to actually doing some research and completing some sort of intervention with my parents to help them help themselves. My mom is very depressed and is a compulsive shopper/hoarder and she and my dad need help. I have a therapist name to call and my brother will plan on flying home to help me. It is long overdue
• Start telling Izzy her adoption story so that she can start to understand...i have no idea how to go about this but I know that when I grew up there was never a time I didnt know i was adopted and I think this was critical in me being happy and at peace with it. I don't ever want to hide it from izzy and she knows who her birthparents are by their pictures but she doesn't know they are her birthparents, she just knows their names....i think she is of an age where we can start explaining it and she will start to understand
• Have some girl time with no kids at least once a month and schedule a girls weekend sometime in 2010. I think the first half will be obtainable but I have always talked about a girls weekend but have yet to follow through. I will this year even if it is me and one other girl friend

That is my list for now. I am sure I will have more. Can't wait to see what this year has in store for me

oh blog i have missed you

It has been forever since I have blogged! I don't even know where to start..our cruise, christmas, izzy update? Too much I feel a little overwhelmed. I think I will do a breif paragraph on each instead of all seperate posts.

The Cruise
Well we survivied! The weather was by far the best part. It was gorgeous everyday. We played at the beach and the pool and loved the weather. I will for sure NEVER cruise again with a toddler and the next time (if there is one) that I cruise I will pay for the balcony room. 110% worth every penny. Our windowless shoebox felt very cramped especially with three of us and Iz sleeping in our bed everynight! Other than the weather, I enjoyed seeing izzy spend time with my younger brother and with her two cousins that we dont' see near as much as we should. Definately not very relaxing but i really did enjoy the weather.

Christmas
Christmas was good this year, all of us were a little under the weather (pick up some germs on the lovely ship) but we made the most of it. I think Izzy enjoyed her gifts although she didn't get super duper excited about anything particular other than the candy in her stocking. She does like playing with her doctor kit and her tea set the most I would say. I really think she does not care much for the "dollie" (which is what she asked for from santa) I got her a super cute bitty baby honestly she could care less...maybe it will grow on her. Her favorite gift my parents brought over just the otehr day and it is her own little music player that came loaded with a bunch of kids songs and you can also load your own with the usb cord. She loves this..she can work it all by herself and seems to enjoy it the most. I loved watching her dance to the music.

Izzy Update
I feel bad i have not dedicated a solo post on what she is up to in her last month of being 2. I really can't beleive she is almost 3!!! Time sure flies and my little baby is growing up. We are thinking about redoing her room for her birthday, new paint, carpet and the twin size bed. We will see if we actually get to doing it in the next month. I am excited because i think it will be super cute, i just don't know if we will have time to pull it off.

The highlights of what is new with izzy are....she has been doing a bit better with the potty, and only wears pull ups at night and even that i think we could stop, she wakes up dry 90% of the time...we still however have serious #2 issues...she still is terrified of pooping and will only poop in a pull up. I would be fine with this if she would do it regularly but even with the mirilax she is holding it because she doesn't want to go. Poor kid was so miserable last night we had to take her to urgent care just to make sure nothing more serious was gonig on because her stomach hurt so much from holding the poop in. They took an xray and you could see the stool and pockets of gas in there ...she did have a bowel movement when we got home and then was like a different child, happy as could be. I really wish she would just let her body do what it needs to do. It is so frustrating because I feel like there is nothing that I can do to help her and I wish she would get past it already!

Sleeping has been better and worse. The process of going to sleep is much improved since we got home. She rarely gets out of bed when we put her down, and other than whining about not closing the door all the way she is really good...until sometime in the middle of the night when she comes down stairs and falls asleep on my floor or screams for me at teh top of the stairs. Some night she doesn't do it until early morning, like 6ish in which case we just put her in our bed...and other nights it is between 2-4 and if we know she has come down to our room we take her back to her bed and she will stay there till 7ish. I must say that the times we put her in bed like this morning and she snuggles with me and falls back asleep i really do enjoy it. I knwo she isn't going to be little forever so I am trying not to make a huge deal out of it. I am sure it is a phase and she will go through it when she is ready...

I have so much more to talk about but this is enough for now. I have a couple cute pictures to post and hopefully will get some of the x-mas eve pictures from my inlaws, our battery died after i took one picture of iz in her dress by the tree and I had forgotten the extra battery.

I don't think I have any more time to blog as I can hear izzy rolling around in her bed. I don't think she is going to nap today because i didn't get down until so late but at least she is enjoying (as am i) some quiet time in her room by herself. That is all I ask for :)

More soon I promise..i just had to get some of it off my chest

Getting ready for the cruise

Well our big family vacation is fast approaching, we leave for Florida a week from Friday and the ship sails a week from Saturday!!!!

I am excited for the weather but still stressed about packing, and how izzy is going to deal. With all the bedtime struggles we are having I can only imagine what is going to happen in that tiny closet of a room on the ship........the bonus though is Nana and Grandpa will be just across the hall and have already stated they plan on doing some babysitting at night. We will be packing the monitor!

Since our cruise has 2 formal nights and 2 smart casual nights I got to do a little dress shopping for miss izzy. I found the prettiest black/white and red dress for her I am so excited. Now we have to purchase some dress shoes, she has none. Even though this cruise is "free" (parents paid for actual cruise, we had airfare and extras on ship) it is going to end up costing us lots of money in new clothes :) DH bought some needed dress pants. I am going to bring 2 dresses i already have, neither of them are really "formal" but in my opinion good enough, i am not buying a formal dress for myself to wear once and never have chance to wear again....I would like to find a cute pair of pants or a skirt to wear with some cute tops i have for the smart casual nights but so far i have struck out. I have never been the most fashion forward so I struggle sometimes in taht department.

I am a bit stressed about packing, with all the extra dress clothes for dinner and stuff to keep izzy busy I think it will be a bit of a challenge to back reasonably...

I am also going to head to target or toy store in next couple days to buy a few new books/little toys to try to entertain busy izzy....thank god for portable dvd players i think that will be our most powerful weapon on teh plane and even at nigth time in the room.

I am excited about the weather, should be in the mid 80's in all the island stops...i am really looking forward to being able to relax at least one afternoon by the pool with my book while someone else chases around the kiddo!

Lets hope all goes well.

Bedtime Battle Update

Well I am happy to report things are a bit better so far with bedtime (we will see if i curse myself) After some googling and talking to friends we started the super nanny technigue of putting her right back in bed everytime she got out and not looking at or talking to her while we do it. The first night was AWFUL, same night as my previous post, it ended up taking 3 hours!!! till she went to sleep....last night it took less than an hour and today for her nap she really didn't put up a fight at all. The other change we made was put the cd player back in her room and put on the "Isabelle Lullaby music" that we got as a baby gift. It puts her name in a lot of the songs adn also has twinkle twinkle which is one of her favorites. It runs about 20-25 mins. Last night after it stopped she got out of bed, i put her back in and she asked for me to turn it on again, which I did. So I think she lieks the music...she is a big fan of "my songs" as she call it, any toddler music.

The new problem we ahve is now she wakes up too early and gets out of bed. This morning for the first time she was up at 5:30 and actually came all the way down into our bed..which she hasn't done before. DH put her in bed with us b/c he was too lazy to take her back to her bed...which he/I should have done and didn't oh well.

So my debate, do i get a toddler handle for her door so she can't get out or do i just deal with the life fact that she can get out of her bed and come downstairs on her own?

Also I am hoping that we have made some strides in teh potty deparment last couple days. She has been in underwear even at naps and kept them dry (one bonus of her potty stall before sleeping) We still have pooping issues, yesterday she pooped in her underwear.....which was so gross, i have gone to just throwing them away, they are not that expensive. But today she has tried two different times to poop on potty and actually sat there for quite a while trying, she didn't go but at least it is a step in teh right direction.

I am feeling much more postive and much less frustrated. Thank you to those that commented on my previous post. This too shall pass and before I know it she will be 16 and telling me she hates me !