Happy Birthday GG!

Isabella would like to wish a whopping Happy 90th Birthday to her great-grandma Dorothy (GG). We were unable to attend the big shindig in Michigan on Sunday, but we are planning a trip to Michigan sometime this summer.
Here she is with a baby Bella. Isabella is only about 2 months old in this pic.

Artwork

I have to admit, when Isabella brings home her artwork from daycare, I'm not all that impressed. I'm not impressed because I'm pretty sure she didn't really do much of it. Or, maybe she's just an extremely talented artist. But really, she's only about 16 months old. Here are here cookie cutter painting and birdseed projects.



But when she bring home her handprints, I KNOW she did that. And my heart melts.

A visit from Aiden

We had the pleasure of getting to watch Aiden last Sat. evening while his parents went out to eat for a work thing. I missed out on about the 1st hour of Isabella and Aiden's playdate because I was attending a friend's baby shower, but it sounded like Jeff got along fine with the two of them. Aiden got a little upset when he realized his parents were gone, but that didn't last long. By the time I got there, the two kiddos were just running around and playing together. It was really cute. They only got into one minor squabble over the croc walker, but that was about it. It was a good opportunity for Isabella to learn how to share her things. In addition to all the indoor playing they did, the kids also got to go outside and blow bubbles and take two walks around the cul-de-sac

Here they are laughing and running around. Check out the near the end of the video where Aiden accidentally pulls Isabella down and she grabs her leg and goes limping off. She's a bit dramatic sometimes.



Also shot a video of them playing in the chair.



And at the end of the night when Aiden was asked to give Isabella a hug, he went right in for the kiss instead. No kidding!! These two are going to die of embarrassment when they get older and we get these pictures out.

Thank you Maria!

I've been meaning to post a huge thank you to Maria you came over at the spur of the moment and babysat Isabella a couple of weeks ago. We had Cindy scheduled to come over at 6:30 pm to babysit while we went to trivia and she called at 5pm to say she was really sick. Luckily, Maria was able to come over and it sounded like they had such a great time. We were quite surprised since Isabella gives the scowl face to everyone, but when we left, she was playing happily and when we got back home Maria said she was great. And she feel asleep easily. Yay! Thanks, Maria!!!

We did normal for our trivia team. We placed about 25th out of 50 teams. I had my one answer to contribute to the team. I recognized a Johnny Depp movie poster as "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". That was about the extent of my contribution.

Sleeping on a cot...

... is what Isabella is doing during naptime now at daycare. Yep, she's out of her crib there and on to the cot. I believe it is because some younger kids transitioned over and they get the cribs now. It might also explain why the lead teacher had to have a mini-conference with me today about Isabella's behavior. Yes, our Isabella! I guess she's getting a little pushy when she doesn't get all the attention she wants. She pushes other kids, she pulls their hair when they are sitting on a teacher's lap to get them to move so she can climb on. She's also mainly zeroing in on one other child. They didn't tell me who it was, but I think I know. Jeff saw her push this little girl the other day when he dropped her off. So, not a huge concern yet. I'm sure she'll adjust soon to the newer kids and start sharing again.

Back to the cots, though, they must be amazing. She had two really long naps this week at daycare for her. When I was inquiring about the cot, they said she settles right in with her blankie and binky. '"Ummm, binky?" I asked (thinking Jeff took that away from daycare weeks ago, I thought she really was done). "Yes" they replied. "She knows when she has her blankie and her binky it is time for her nap". When I talked to Jeff about it later he said he did take her pacifier, said to the person who runs the place, "should I let them know I'm taking it" and she said "no, if she's not using one at home, just go ahead and take it", but another one seemed to reappear in her bin the next day.

I'm going to start working on getting a good picture of Isabella's scowl-face. It is her signature look these days and everyone is getting a kick out of it.


I took her to the Children's Spring Party at work and pre-warned my co-workers about the scowl-face and true to form, she gave it to everyone there. She went beyond scowl-face at the Easter Bunny that was there. He was at the end of a long hallway to her it was like walking down death row. Every step was slower and more hesistant. We just grabbed her chocolate bunny and ran. She did actually enjoy Sparkles the clown that was there. She sat on my lap the whole time and his magic show was about a 1/2 an hour. She was also mainly interested in the popcorn she was eating for the very first time as well, so that had kept her entertained.

Egg Hunt at Paetec Children's Party


Checking out her loot

Easter Activities

Isabella would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter!

Easter weekend was going to be pretty laid back, but we decided to jam-pack a lot of activities into it.

On Sat. the weather was absolutely beautiful. In the morning we went to the Easter Egg hunt that was at the park in our neighborhood. I had heard about Isabella’s amazing egg hunt skills and wanted to check it out for myself. Unfortunately there was a lot more competition at this one.

Isabella scopes out the competition

As soon as it started I would say all the eggs were gone in 3 minutes! Isabella was in the 0-3 yrs section and I saw some moms holding their children and picking up the eggs themselves and I thought that was odd. Isabella got 3 eggs and seemed pretty happy with it.

Isabella with her loot of 3 eggs

We have some video of it, some of it was staged, I took the eggs out of her baskets and put them back down again so she could pick them up again.

After the hunt everyone was invited inside to get a prize egg. Isabella got some bubbles. Next we were off to Sycamore mall where they were having some Easter activities. On our way there we ran across a garage sale (our first one of the season!!). I got some good piano music and then we picked up a bigger plastic sled for Isabella out of the “free stuff” pile. At the mall, we saw some real bunnies (Isabella was afraid) and the Easter bunny (Isabella was really afraid).

We ate lunch at Pizza Ranch and headed home for her nap.

As soon as Isabella woke up we were out the door again for an Easter event the City of Coralville was having. I was shocked at how many people were there.

We arrived halfway through the event and they were out of their registration packets and done with all the egg hunts. Most of the activities were a little too old for Isabella (face painting, mask making, balloon animals, holding a bunny (no way!) inflatable jumping toys) but the day was so nice we just enjoyed the park and the weather.

Later on we dyed eggs. We let Isabella color on her own egg, but she probably wasn't pressing hard enough because it didn't show up in the dye.

On Easter we went to church. We were excited to see the familiar faces of Julie, Jeremy and Ellie there. Isabella enjoyed the fun things in her Easter basket.

Then Grandpa Groves came to visit around 11am. We set up an Easter egg hunt for Isabella in the backyard, but she wasn’t too interested in it this time (maybe egg hunted-out…) She doesn’t really care to be in the grass around our house. She’d run out and get one egg and then she’d have to go back and stand on the cement for a while.

Then Grandpa took us to brunch at Mondo’s which was very yummy. Isabella was more interested in people watching than eating. Her favorite food there was grapes, which was a little disappointing as she has grapes all the time and Mondo’s was serving some really fancy food.

Dropping toys on your nose is not a smart thing to do

Isabella had a little more of an incident at daycare this week. I think it happened Monday while I was in NYC. She was pulling a toy off a shelf and it fell on her. It sounds like there was some blood. We took a picture, you can kind of see the scab in two spots - her nose was a little sensitive for a few days.

What are you trying to tell me?

Isabella has been signing a new sign. She puts her hands in a fist and spreads out her fingers, like a light blinking. I noticed she does it when she wants to dance or have me turn on the tv so she can dance. I took a video of it since I was trying to figure out what it was. I looked through her sign language book for music, dance, sing, tv and it wasn't any of those. So I asked at daycare and they said it was from "The Wheels on the Bus" the part where the lights go blink, blink, blink. So she does that when she wants to sign and dance now. So cute!

She also gives us a view of her belly in the video.

Easter Bunny

Wow, I laughed hard when I came home and found this picture lying on the kitchen table.


When Jeff and Isabella were shopping at Wal-mart over the weekend Jeff saw that they were taking free pictures with the Easter Bunny. Sounds like Isabella got pretty scared of the Easter Bunny. I would have too, that bunny looks a little weird.

Mama's home.... finally!

Just wanted to let everyone know I made it home from NYC even though it was a day late. I can't possibly go into all the craziness of flights delayed/canceled right now, but we were supposed to leave on Friday, but didn't leave until Sat. and we were supposed to come back on Monday, but didn't make it back until Tues. It also involves telling our cab driver to turn around and take us back to Manhattan just as we were leaving and me having a boarding pass from Newark airport to Memphis even though I wasn't at either of those places today and lots of other crazy stuff.

So, it was just Jeff and Isabella for another day. Things went very well, from what I can tell. Maybe a little too well... when I picked her up from daycare she wasn't happy to see me AT ALL. Her daycare teachers were prodding her to be nice to me since I hadn't seen her in a few days and it almost got to be embarrassing. I couldn't even get her coat on her to leave the building, luckily it wasn't very cold out. Then, once we were home, she was being naughty and wouldn't pay any attention to me and she would hardly let me pick her up. However, once Jeff was home and we were all together she snapped out of it. She even gave me a lots of hugs. Finally.

More details on NYC and Jeff's weekend later.

Easter Egg Hunt

Isabella experienced her first Easter Egg Hunt this morning. The Iowa City/Coralville Jaycees hold it annually in Lower City Park in Iowa City. Isabella was one of probably 6 children ,that included Aiden , that went through a field of about a 1,000 eggs. I think Isabella enjoyed noone being near her eggs as she has become quite possessive as of late. Isabella was a quick learner, picking eggs up and dumping them into her basket. There were several times I saw Isabella throw the eggs right through the handle of the basket completely missing her basket. She was so fixated on getting to the next egg she did not even notice. Here is a picture of Isabella in action, unfortunately I could not get the camera to take a video.

Alumni Basketball Tournament 2009

Last weekend was the Alumni Tournament so Jeff headed to Dubuque Friday night to play the first game at 8:30pm. We were hesitant about going with Isabella because she doesn't do well sleeping in her pack n play in a hotel so once we found out the game wasn't until 8:30 on Friday we knew there was no point in taking her Friday night. So, Amanda had the idea that the boys would go Friday night and we could head up Sat morning with the kids. Can you believe this was only the second time Jeff spent the night away from Isabella??? It was fine, obviously, Jeff didn't even end up leaving until 6pm on Friday and then Sat. morning at 9am we were at the Davis's picking up Amanda and Aiden.

Can you tell how excited Isabella was to have a friend in the backseat with her?




About 20 minutes later, both kids were napping and they slept all the way to Dbq.





The guys won their game on Friday night and were not scheduled to play their next game until 2:30pm. We ate lunch at Perkins and then headed over to the game. It was a bit more difficult to keep Isabella entertained during the game. Normally when we watch Jeff play basketball she sits well thru the first half and then she's a little antsy. This time we were there early for the game, the game started late and there were more people around so it was a little different. Plus it was during her normal naptime. The boys won, and were scheduled to play again at 5:30. We rushed the kids back to the hotel in hopes of a nap. Isabella was out by 4:30, napping in her pack n play for a 1/2 hour but then woke up and around 5, I tried to get her to nap more by holding her. Aiden slept til 6:15. We missed the 5:30 game, even though it started late, we still needed to feed the kids dinner, etc. So we hung out in the hotel lobby, fed the kids and let them run around and play.



Isabella tried to keep up with Aiden - she puts one hand up in the air and kind of seems like she's going "wait, wait" as she follows him around. But then I saw her go up to Aiden with her little hand up, I thought she was just reaching out to him and she pushed him right down. I was a little shocked.

Here is Aiden pulling Isabella in the hotel cart.



The guys won their 5:30 game and then it was off to the Breithaupts for a get- together. However, by this time it was 8:00pm, already past Isabella's bedtime. But since her schedule was all off anyway, we still went. We let Isabella play until we left at 10:30pm! There were lots of kids there and lots of stuff in the basement to play with, like a playhouse and slide, so Isabella had a great time! Overnight was kind of a blur, we set up the pack n play right next to the bed so when she woke up, I didn't have to get out of bed to pat her back. She slept until midnight and from then on she was kind of fussy. Jeff brought her into bed for a few hours and she slept better, but it was still kind of off and on.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. Then we went swimming. Isabella wasn't too thrilled about being at the pool, but we haven't taken her to one since last summer.


She was pretty excited to walk down the hotel hallway.




The boys lost the championship game that day, it was tied and at the last second the other team made a basket. Isabella and Aiden watched from their strollers.

Being kind of bummed about the loss I didn't get the camera out after the game when the court was rushed by about a bazillion children. It was pretty funny. Isabella was carrying around a basketball all around the court and was being very protective of it (or not sharing). Julia Kilgore (almost 4) did get it from her once and said "catch" and threw it at Isabella, but it just hit her in the nose. Then I told Isabella to give Julia a hug and she did, about 4 times, it was super cute.

You can view all the pictures from the whole weekend here: Alumni 2009

Poor little Elliot!

We have to give a shout out to our friend Elliot who fell and broke his arm on Wed. This morning he had a cast put on and he has to have it on for 5 weeks! That is going to be very tough for a little 3 year old. Plus, his mama (Jesse) and I are leaving for NYC until Monday.



Yes, it will just be Isabella and Daddy for the weekend. I'll get to visit Nancy, cousin Gus, and Stacey in NYC. Isabella and Jeff will have a great weekend, I'm sure. I'll be missing them soooo much though!