Izzy is 4!

Happy Birthday beautiful girl! I can't believe you are 4 years old! You such a special girl I want to capture some of what you are like at 4 yrs old.

You are so happy as you have continued to be throughout your life. You have this ability to share your happiness with everyone around you and everyone that knows you falls in love! I have watched even people who i would not classify as much of kid people, totally become taken by you. You certainly have a way with people. (once you warm of from being shy if you don't know someone)

You LOVE music and dancing. You always request your songs in the car and in addition to some Disney favorites like Mulan and Lion King music, you have started to like some more popular music as long as it is up beat. You like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Sugarland and sing along to the one you know. One of your favorite things to do is have a dance party and get in your favorite dress up clothes and dance and jump around.

You have really blossomed with your coloring ability lately and you are much better at coloring in the lines than you were even a few weeks ago. You can't write your name quite yet but you can write your I's very well and you are good at tracing your name if we write the dots out. I am sure before long you will be writing out your name..at least Izzy which is much easier than Isabelle

You crack me up with some of the things you say. You already have the ability to "yes mom" me when I tell you to please do something. If I ask you to do something and you are too busy you will tell me "in a minute okay"

You have an incredible memory especially for geography. You can go past a place in the car once and remember it the next time you go by.I swear you are better at geography than me!

You have turned into quite the girly girl and i am not sure how seeing that I am not exactly much of a girly girl. You are OBSESSED with makeup, and must have over 50 tubes of lipgloss. If you see me putting on eye shadow you insist that you have some too. You often times won't leave the house to go out with out packing up a purse filled with various lipgloss. I think you like to smell it more than apply it although you do wear it quite often. You have told me many times that "I like pretty things, mommy do you like pretty things?". Purple is by far your favorite color and I can always tell at school which project is yoru because it is always either done in purple or has many purple accents.

Although you are mostly girl, you do like to do some activites with your daddy. You love to help daddy fix anything, and he will set you up in his shop in the basement with a piece of wood with some screw started and you will use the screw driver to screw them the rest of the way. Your other favorite activity you ask Daddy to do is wrestle. She showed you how to get on all 4's under him and he will wrestle you...you love this game!

We are so proud of the girl you are becoming. Do us a favor though slow down! Love you Izzy!!!

Izzy's 4th Bday Party

Izzy's party was a success! I think all the kids (and adults) had a great time. Izzy was very clear that she wanted to wear her hello kitty party dress, which my mom bought, and i must admit is pretty darn cute. She wore it at a couple parties in december..a girl must wear a party dress at a party :)

We had the party at an indoor playscape near our house. We had our favorite neighbor friends and izzy's grandparents. The kids all played hard on the climbing structure and enjoyed some pizza and a hello kitty cake from our local bakery that was delicous. By the end of the 2 hrs Izzy was exahasuted but got a second wind when we got home and she got to play with all her cool new presents.

She got her very first remote control car (strawberry shortcake), a make up kit, some new games, clothes, books, a book reader, calico critters and a microphone stand that you can hook up to a audio source. She loved playing with everything when she got home and put on quite a concert with her new microphone. She is quite the diva/rockstar in training. Too cute!

It was a great party and tomorrow she officially turns 4 and I can't believe it!

I have been thinking lots about C lately, and am waiting for the photobook of the last year to come in the mail so I can send it to her. This time of year especially makes me think of her, and how grateful I am and how I hope she is proud of the girl Izzy has become and how very loved she is by everyone she meets.

We are so very blessed!

Bday Plans

Well I am in total denial that Izzy is really only 6 days from being 4! Time goes way too fast that is for sure.
I finally decided and planned her bday party. We are doing it at a local indoor playscape by our house. We invited our neighbor friends and grandparents. Hopefully it will turn out to be fun. The kids range from age from 1-8. It will definately cost me more money than doing it at home but to be honest I think it will be worth it to not have to deal with all 12 kids in my house and cleaning up the mess afterwards.

This year we are also ordering the cake from the bakery. Izzy and I went last week and she picked a hello kitty cake. I hope it comes out cute. it isn't anything super fancy but i am sure it will taste great. Milford bakery makes awesome cakes.

All i have left to do is get party favors and I am thinking of getting the small size color wonder sets. They should work for everyone except maybe the 1 yr olds but they have older siblings so i have no doubt they will get used.

The party is Sunday and Izzy's bday is Monday. I am looking forward to celebrating with my big girl! I really can't believe it! Pictures and her official 4 yr update coming soon

Christmas and other Random Ramblings

I have not been a great blogger in 2010. I would say that i resolve to be better at this in 2011 but unfortunately with all that is going on, I can't promise that other than to say I will do my best!

We had a great Christmas this year. It was very fun to see Izzy get so into Santa and opening her presents. She was so funny on Christmas Eve, she told DH to be sure not to light a fire in the fire place because she wanted to make sure Santa did not burn his "tushie"!!!

As usual Izzy made out in the present department. She asked for Calico Critters, makeup and new Sunglasses and she of course got it all with many other things. Being that I am Jewish she got a few Hanukah presents as well which included the Just Dance game for Kids for Wii which I must admit is pretty fun and it is a great way for her to burn some energy in the cold winter months! Even DH gets up and does it a little with her and he HATES to dance :) The other Hannukah gift she got (and then got some games for it for X-mas) was teh Fisher Price iXL. This little game player has been PERFECT for her especially in the car. It was totally designed well for her age group, i didn't even have to show her how to use most of it, she figured it out on her own. Her favorite part is that it is part mp3 player so I can load her songs to it so she can sing along. Which seemed to be one of her favorite Christmas songs. She LOVES The Chipmunk Song and the Jackson 5 version of Santa Claus is coming to town. She sings at the top of her lungs! We have gotten some great video of her singing and dancing along to it as well.

I am in total denial that she will be 4 in 3 weeks! I can't believe it has been 4 years already. As always this time of year i always think about C, and wonder how she is doing. I did get a brief email from her just before Christmas which was nice. She of course wished us a very merry christmas and the best of wishes. I am working on getting together my packet of pictures and a letter together to send to teh agency for our 4 year update.

I am trying to decide what to do about Izzy's bday party. There is a part of me that really doesn't want to do ti at our house again, but can't come up with many fantastic venues to do it that don't cost a fortune. I better make a decision soon her Bday is fast approaching!

I promise to do a 4 year update with all of the things that Izzy is up to lately so that I document her as she is right now before she changes and I forget.

Izzy's Photos

Here are the rest of the AMAZING pictures Jen took! I am beyond happy with how all the pictures came out. Jen is so very very talented. Now i just have to figure out how to frame and where to hang all of these amazing shots.

Photo Shoot Sneak Peek

I have a very very very talented friend. My friend Jen is one of the best photographers I have ever seen. She not only takes amazing pictures but her eye for editing is incredible. I asked Jen if she would take a couple of pictures of Izzy that i could use for our holiday card. So Izzy and I headed over to her house after school today to take some shots in her backyard.

I was a little worried because izzy was having a bit of an off day that is for sure. Cried at school like she did the first week and was even a little off at Jen's. Here is where I know Jen is pure magic, in less than I would say 20 mins she had taken a bunch of pictures of izzy that came out amazing! I had tons of fun shopping for clothes just for this occasion and could not be more pleased with how the colors and outfits showed in the pictures.

Here is a sneak peak of Jen's favorite shot. My baby looks so grown up I almost can't stand it!

Happy Halloween

Halloween 2010 is officially over. It was a good time this year although I would say Izzy was definately nervous and scared about going trick or treating. This year she has been terrified of any decorations that move or talk.

She spent all day playing with the girls next store so she was exhausted come dinner time. There was a part of me that wondered if she was even going to make it out trick or treating. We had some friends and family over so she did perk up right before we went out. She started out fine but after about 10-12 houses she started getting scared. I think it was the combination of a house that was playng music of scary sounds and our friend's 7 year old had on a scream mask that had a pump and blood would run through it. She was fine with the mask until the blood...so needless to say she was done at that point.

We came back home and she watched tv with my parents before going to bed at about 7:45. Poor kid was exhausted. I did enjoy taking her out trick or treating for the first time ever, normally I stay home to hand out candy...hubby offered to do it this year so I could take her. My dad came with us too.

Hopefully next year she will get more excited about it :) She looked cute as Tinkerbell even with the extra layers because it was FREEZING! We handed out candy on the driveway with the firepit which was a big hit. The kids trick or treating would say thank you for the fire we are freezing! I would do that again next year.

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!