New Fav Picture

My mom took this picture with her phone on friday. First of all I can't believe she figured out how to take a photo with her phone let alone be able to send it to me via txt message. Very impressive!!!

I cropped it a little but other than that I didn't touch a thing. It has got to be on my top 10 of izzy pictures. I just love it.

I just love love love it.

Lunch Bunch

My girl is continuing to grow up WAY too fast and she proved it again this morning.

I have her in the "fun day friday" program at the local Y. It is part of their preschool program and it is just an extra "fun" day that they offer in addition to their m/w or tu/thurs preschool. I decided in January that she needed something small to start her on the path of some independence from us and get her interacting with peers/teachers but I wasnt ready to put her in preschool yet . So I put her in just the "fun day friday"

She has done SOOO well in this little program. I have been really pleasently pleased. Every week of the session they have a theme for that friday. Last week was swimming (they go to the indoor zero entry pool) and this week was fitness day. They also have gone to the library, sledding, etc. Well the program goes from 9:30-noon every friday. they have an optional "lunch bunch" from 12-1 which means you pack their lunch and they eat with their friends and you don't have to pick them up til 1. Well normally Grandma or nana pick her up at noon since i am at work...until today

This morning Izzy was very clear she wanted to pack her lunch! She kept saying.."I need to pack my lunch" so I asked her again..are you sure you don't want to eat with nana...she said YES! So we packed her a lunch for the first time.

I just talked to my mom who picked her up and apparently she had a great time eating lunch and even gave one of her "friends" a big hug when she left! My baby needs to slow down! I can't handle it!

So i guess iz and I better go shopping next week and get her her very own lunchbox for her "lunch bunch" because I have a feeling she will be making this request more often!

Big Girl Room Phase One

(Her new bed, gotta love our cat making herself at home)

Well we hit a big milestone over the weekend. Sunday we took apart izzy's toddler bed/crib and put up her twin! I am so excited yet so sad at the same time. It is really starting to set in that we are done with babies, the crib is now in pieces in the basement along with all of our other baby stuff. I know I need to get rid of most of it, as it is taking up so much space but I haven't been able to yet. I know that we are not going to adopt again (unless for some crazy circumstance the Bm came to us and said she was pg and wanted us to take it) so I know that we are 99.9% sure we are done..and I really do feel blessed adn mostly complete with izzy...it just does make me a little sad.

On a happy note her bed is so cute! We put the bedspread and sheets from our neice that she no longer uses and I must say I LOVE IT! So bright and fun. We still need to repaint the walls (purple and green) and replace the carpet eventually. Izzy's grandma (my mil) is actually working on a new quilt for the bed...she loves to quilt and I felt bad not letting her make one even though the pottery barn teen one on the bed now is so cute (it does have some stains that wont come out and it is super thin) So grandma is giong to make a custom one with flowers and butterflies..and regular quilt blogs. I don't know exactly what it will look like but I know it will be more traditional than the one on her bed now which is pretty modern but I know izzy will like whatever she makes. She is also going to make it as a duvet so I can put a down comforter in it.

Izzy has been goign to bed and sleeping just fine in her new bed, she even napped yesterday in it without much of a fight. We got her a new step stool to help her get in her bed since it is so tall. She loves climbing in and out herself and reading stories in it before we go to bed. She doesn't even ask to be rocked anymore since we read stories in her bed. Stories are done we kiss her and say goodnight!

My baby is growing up, I am so proud of her

Successful Trip

Well we survived our florida trip and I am happy to report that it went MUCH better than I could have hoped. Izzy was an excellent traveler..really she could not have been better! Even with missing our flight down there due to terrible road conditions/traffic on the way to the airport.

We had a great time with Stu and Wendy and Izzy warmed up to them pretty quickly. It was nice to see them interact with her especially Stu who I would say is not much of a little kid person but he was great with her. Certain things he did would bring back some childhood memories of mine like when he asked if he could brush her hair. He was always so gentle when he brushed my hair and it was very sweet to see Izzy let him brush her hair (and of course she sat way stiller than she ever does for me :) )

I am actually sad that we won't be seeing them again for at least a year. We hopefully will get oru Skype fixed and be able to see them that way. but it isn't the same...especially since izzy does not cooperate or at least hasn't in the past. Maybe now that she spent more time with them she will actually talk to them but I am not sure. She is not a fan of chatting on the phone much let alone over a computer

I really enjoyed talking with Wendy. We would stay up late every nigth and talk for hours while everyone else was asleep. I got to hear the full story of how her and stu got to emailing and eventually meeting and marrying..it was quite a story.

I am always amazed at different of a person Stu is now than who he was when I was a child. I am sure some of it has to do with that I am grown up so I look at things totally differently but not all of it. I am so happy that he found Wendy and for the first time ever in his life i would say is happy and has truely found his place in the world. I know he really struggled with this before.

We had decent weather, not super warm, not warm enough to swim outside but still plenty warm to soak up some sun and play outside which of course izzy just loved! I don't think I quite realized how much she missed being outside.

The weather is finally starting to get a little better here, we actually played outside a bit yesterday...spring can't come soon enough!!!

Snow Day Fun

Monday we had our second snow day this winter. This was the first one that fell on a day that I don't work so Izzy and I spent the day together at and around the house. Let me start by saying I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day..between shoveling and keeping her busy (with no nap) i was pooped.

We at started the day by getting out her water table and bring teh snow inside for some fun before heading out to play in it. This was the first time I had done this and while she liked it and had fun with it, it didn't keep her as independantly entertained as I had hoped it would....(we struggle with this, she really doesn't play by herself..ever, always wants you to entertain her or sit with her etc..part of having an only child i guess)

Then we decided we would head out and enjoy the snow outside. We got buddled up and had a blast, I quickly gave up on teh shoveling, the snow was so heavy it was ridiculous. So we played and then went next store to see if her neighbor friend who is a year older thna her wanted to come out and play too. The neighbor prefered to stay in but asked izzy to join her. So we ended up spending majority of the day at their house while the dad (my friend K) and I tag team parented..worked otu well. He snow blowed, I watched the kids and then he let me run to my house to get laundry switched and a few things done while Iz stayed over there.

It was a fun day. We are so lucky to have such awesome neighbors that we love to hang out with both with kids and without. Here are some pictures.

A little nervous...

Well Izzy and I leave for Florida thursday morning. We are going to spend some time with my brother who lives there, and some of my other family that are all renting a 4 bedroom house.

I am starting to get very nervous for lots of reasons. Reason number 1, DH is NOT coming with us. He is goign to stay home and do some projects around the house(i hope!) because when we first booked this trip we didn't want to spend the extra money on the plane ticket plus he didn't want to take more time off work....so he isn't coming with us. So i am anxious about the flight solo, but I know we will be okay. My biggest concern is just being able to lug everything through the airport solo...and hoping izzy will ride in teh umberella stroller...I am going to go to the store today and buy a few new books/activites to keep izzy busy on the plane, that along with the dvd player we shoudl be okay.

Reason #2 I am anxious is there will be a little family tension. I have kind of a complicated family history, my parents divorced when i was 5...then my mom (and dad, lets call him Stu) both got remarried when I was 7. The amazing man my mom married Gerry, is who i call dad and who I work for and have a wonderful relationship with. My 1st dad Stuart, well that is where it gets complicated. He gave up his parental rights when I was 14 to both my brother and I because bascially he was sick of fighting my mom with child support amoungst other things....so he ended up moving to hawaii then austraila after meeting his 3rd and current wife....as you can imagine those events caused a bit of trouble/hurt feelings in my childhood(too put it mildly). I have since made peace with Stuart. We have discussed the events of the past and moved beyond them, however I would still not call the our relationship a father/daughter one, but he and his wife Wendy clearly love me and Izzy VERY much. My younger brother however has not made the same peace with Stu and is still angry, and resentful and chooses not to have any sort of relationship with him.

So now my grandparents (stu's parents (who my brother does have a relationship with) and Stu and Wendy decided to rent this 4 bedroom house for 2 weeks and it is located about 20 minutes from where my brother lives..... My brother has decided that he is willing to visit Stu and wendy but only out at a resturant not at the house (where izzy and i will be staying) So I am already stressed about trying to manage visiting enough with my brother and not making him or anyone too uncomfortable. That combined with knowing Izyz and I are staying with Stu and Wendy (and my grandparents ) for 4 straight nights with no DH as support or buffer I am getting stressed. At least I will have my own car so if we need to get away for a while we can...but I am just hoping it goes well and that not only cna i see my brother but that all that "bonding" time doesn't feel akward. I haven't seen stu and wendy in a year and even then we didnt' stay with them, we stayed at a hotel so we didn't seem them 24/7.....

Okay now that my blood pressure is high from typing and thinking about all that I need to take a deep breathe. It will be okay. It will work out. It is Thursday-Monday how bad can it be..and hopefully the weather will be decent, so far it doesn't look great for swimming weather but at least it will be a lot warmer than here.

Wish me luck!!!!

Valentines Day Fun

Yesterday was a "mommy day" for me and izzy and after her swim lesson I wanted to do something fun and different for valentines day. I am not really very creative and I don't do enough activities with Izzy so after seeing this craft idea on another blog i thought it woudl be a fun and easy one to do.
(finished craft, couldn't get the stuipd picture to move under the paragraph below)

So after swimming Izzy and I made sugar cookies (yes I cheated and used store bought dough that we rolled out and used the heart shaped cookie cutters). On as an aside on the store bought dough, Izzy totally called me out on it. She pointed to my kitchen aid mixer that sits on teh counter and said " You are suposed to make cookies in there, with eggs and sugar and flour"! Can you tell she makes lots cookies from scratch with Grandma?

We decorated them and then put them in baggies and took them to our neighbor friends. Izzy was very helpful at cutting out the cookies and then shaking large quantities of suger on them. Here is a picture of her sitting in front of the oven watching them while eating the piece of bologna i said she had to eat before she could have a cookie. I thought the finished cookies came out cute even though they didn't hold their heart shape all that well.


The finished cookies, each friend got a big one and a little one along with tinkerbell store bought valentines





Then later in teh afternoon after her non-nap. We made some handmade valentines for her two sets of grandparents and for daddy. This craft I saw on Journey to Josie, a while back and thought it was so cute, creative and most importantly easy. So I painted izzy's hands and then we made the prints in the shape of a heart. While I finished them with the writing, izzy painted pictures with the paints. I think they came out cute and she had a lot of fun doing it with me. I really need to make more of an effort to do more stuff like this.