Anniversary weekend and change coming

I am so excited for this weekend! Dh and I are celebrating our 5 yr wedding anniversary!!! We are going back up North to my in laws cabin on Saturday for a few days, then on Monday we are leaving Izzy with them and heading to michigan wine country and we are goign to stay 2 nights at a B&B that we stayed at last yr. I am so excited!!!!! It is so pretty up there and the b&b has the BEST breakfast!! We are going to visit some wineries and taste some wine :) Eat at a fancy place for dinner one night and just relax! I can't wait!!!!

In other news, I am thinking about putting Izzy in daycare one or two days a week versus having the babysitter we have now that comes to our house. I feel like as she gets older she needs to be exposed to more things. A friend of mine loves where she takes her son and it is really close to my house. They dont' have any minimums so it sounds like I could put her there as little as one day a week. I need to get over there and check it out and see how much it costs etc. Right now i have a babysitter that comes to the house once a week (who i love dont' get me wrong) and then one day a week I take Iz to my moms....I am pretty sure my mom woudl be really disappointed if I took away her day but at the same time it would be so much easier to put her at hte place right by my house. Who knows I need to do some research and see how much money we are talking etc. I am also going to enroll Iz in a mother toddler play/music class once a week. I am already dreading the weather turning colder and not being able to be outside and do a lot of the activites we do now. I am still working the two days a week and really enjoying it. It is a great balance for me. I just switched my work days from tues/thurs to tues/wed so i can pick up my 11 yr old niece from school every thursday. Having had her a full day a week this summer we have really bonded and I think it is really important to keep giving her that time with me, plus she loves being with Izzy and is a huge helper.

So lots of changes coming I think but hopefully they will work out.

Garden Girl

We were up North last weekend at DH's parents cabin and we had such a nice time. Before Izzy I used to LOVE going up there for the weekend, it is really pretty and peaceful. I would relax, read and enjoy some wine and cards with DH's parents. Well last summer when we went there with Izzy I HATED it!! Izzy didn't sleep good and was kinda crabby. But this year, oh what a difference! She LOVED it. They have a very large garden with beans, pickles, corn potatoes, carrots, squash etc. Izzy was a big help at helping to pick beans. She also got to ride on the lawnmower tractor with her grandparents. She just loved all the time outside. And she slept GREAT. The first night it was hard to get her down but once she was down, she slept 13 hrs, and took a great nap on Saturday and slept 13 hrs again Sat night! Couldn't have asked for better! Even the car ride wasn't too bad but on the way home it normally takes 3-31/2 hrs and it took over 4 b/c of construction.

Here are some of the photos from the trip

18 month well check up and Ice cream!

Well I took Izzy her 18 month check up today and the doctor was very pleased. She said she is where she should be developmentally and kept commenting on what a great personality she has and how sweet she is. That makes me so happy!

She weighed 24 lbs (40%) and was 32 3/4" long (70%)

I don't have a ton of time to post but I wanted to post these pictures from last week of her enjoying an ice cream cone! What pure JOY!!!! Yum Yum she loves her ice cream (sounds like hi meem)

Amazing BM!

I don't have a lot of time to blog as I REALLY need to clean up this house a bit because we are having our sub block party tomorrow and will have people over. Since I just put Izzy down for a nap I have about an 1 1/2 to clean like crazy!!! But I had to take time out to post an e-mail from our BM C. I just recently sent her a bunch of the professional pictures we had taken of Izzy at 15 months. She just received them and this is what she said. I have tears in my eyes

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!! First of all, i want to say that i am so thankful for meeting and having y'all as a part of my life. I thank you very much for having such a open adoption with me i appreciate it very very very much. :-} I got the pictures in the mail today. She is soooooooooooooo beautiful!! I can't believe how tall she is. She's very big. She looks very happy in all the pictures even with the one with her little tongue sticking out. HA HA HA HA. Thank you once again. I love them all. I went back to work just this week and it's smooth right now. Tell Chris i say hello and give the Princess a hug and BIG kiss for me tell her that i love her too. I will talk to u soon. Take Care and god bless. LOve AlwAYs, C

How awesome is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This wonderful woman has been through so much in her young life and I feel so much love for her. It makes me happy beyond words to read those kind words from her and know that she feels the same for us that we feel for her. Our adoption story is such a blessing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

18 months

Well Izzy turned 18 months last thursday! I really can't believe it! She is such a big girl, defintely not a baby anymore! Her words have really started to come along the last month or so . Some of her newest are

Nana

High Chair

Buh Bye

Ball

Dora (sounds like dada)

ice cream(sounds more like hi meem)

Duck

Bubbles

Belly Button (sounds like bebe buh)

She is just such a little person I can't even handle it! She loves imitating what she sees us do, like every tuesday i write the babysitter a check and she likes to take the check book and pen (with the cap on) and write a check. She also likes to file her nails on teh nail file. She is still a pretty good eater, although she is getting a little pickier. Her favorite food is still Cheese, followed probably by hotdogs and ice cream :-) She has finally settled into the one nap routine pretty nicely and will normally nap 1 1/2 hrs-2 hrs which is GREAT. She still goes to sleep around 7 and wakes up between 7 and 7:30 although Sunday morning she slept until 9:30 and I thought she was dead!, she has NEVER slept that late! We have also taken her the last two weeks on our friends pontoon boat and she LOVES it. As long as she has her snacks and gets to go swimming she is a happy girl! She doesn't even fuss much about the life jacket.

I am lacking in new pictures because we had forgotten our camera at a friends house and just got it back on Saturday. Here are a few I have taken with my phone the last 2 weeks.

Book Review

I just finished an amazing book and I had to blog about it. My neighbor loaned it to me. The book is called With or Without You and it is written by Deborah J. Wolf, it is her first book. The story is mainly about a mother and her relationship with her two daughters, one is 15 and the other I think is 12. One of the daughters gets pregnant and decides to place the baby for adoption. I think I would have enjoyed this book even if there was no adoption theme but because there was and it hit so close to home I enjoyed it much more. The characters take on a life of their own and I just loved the writing style. I shed some tears and some smiles. If you want a heartwarming easy read for the summer I recomend it. For those of you who have been touched by adoption I think you will enjoy it even more and pleased with the way the adoption was portrayed. The author has two adopted children and it says in the chat with the author that the adoption story isn't related to either of her childrens adoptions. I am off to search the net to see if i can find a myspace or facebook or blog for the author and leave a comment.......

Terrible Mother!

Well I won the worst mother of the year today! I took Izzy grocery shopping, loaded the car with groceries, put Izzy in the car, took the keys from her and threw them on my front seat, shut her door and went OH SH**!!!!!!! Yep Izzy had pressed the lock button on the keys, so I had locked her in the carseat in the car with no windows open and it is80 degress out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I called my good friend/neighbor first who is a teacher and home for the summer, she is not reac able...I start to freak out, (at this point Izzy is still happy in car playing with her crocs) My husband is a good half hour away and i am stuck. SO i called my other neighboor and asked her if her mom was at teh house with her daughter and luckily she was so I explain to Lydia the neighbor that I need her moms help. Her mom calls me I tell her how to get in my house, where the spare key is and wait. THIS WAS THE LONGEST 10 min or whatever it was OF MY LIFE!!!! After 5 mins or so Izzy is now screaming and reaching for me and I was doing all I could do to keep it together. What a horrible feeling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had a couple people ask me if i needed help, i explained my problem, both of the women said they have done it before, but at the time it isn't making me feel better. Thank god the grocery store is only about 5 mintues away. LYdia's mom came and I got izzy out and poor kid was so worked up and sweaty!!!! I felt TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Note to self, always keep phone in my pocket, (thank god i had done that!) and never close the door with keys and kid in it even if i think it is unlocked!!