Isabella's Playhouse

On Thurs a semi came driving down our street to deliver Isabella's new playhouse. At work we have a rewards program that gives us points and I used some of mine to get Isabella a portable dvd player and this playhouse. I have to admit I haven't always been a huge fan of these plastic structures in people's lawns, but what the heck... especially if Isabella is entertained by it. Jeff put the house together in a couple of phases and by Sat. afternoon, it was finished.

Bedhead

Today Isabella woke up with some of her best bedhead yet!


We ran some errands in the morning and then Grandpa came to visit. Isabella was being very difficult last night and a little again this morning. Once Grandpa was here, she turned really clingy and after he was here for like literally two minutes she was throwing up all over herself and me. Two times. It was strange because it was very obvious she hadn't digested any of her food all day (it was approx 3pm). We put her in the bath and I think she was feeling a little better, but still clingy. Grandpa took us all out for ice cream and she really enjoyed it. I blame her behavior on her teeth again, she has 4 little daggers that have definitely recently just come through. Isabella might just like to regurgitate when Grandpa is around. Remember "Houston, we have a problem..."



Last weekend we went to the North Liberty BBQ and Blues Festival. Isabella had lots of fun at the petting zoo. If the animals weren't too close she had her hands and face right up to the cages. We also met up with the Davis' and some friends of their theirs and ate dinner outside. The weather was really great that night.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We don't always remember to post about everyone's b-day, but Isabella wanted me to make sure we sent Happy Happy Birthday greetings to Grandma Groves in Florida!

Happy Birthday!

Isabella's Class Picture

Here is Isabella's Spring class picture. Once again she is spoiled and gets to sit on the lead teacher's lap, like she did in her last one. We are not sure what she is looking at. I think she looks like a jack-o-lantern the way her eyes are so far to one side. The little girl on the far right in the pink is the one Isabella has bullied in the past. We don't think she's really bullying any more, but the owner of the daycare told Jeff the other day she doesn't let anyone push her around. You can click on the picture to make it bigger and look closer at the kids, they all just crack me up.

We did it!

I should have mentioned this two weeks ago right when we finished, but we actually got done cleaning out the flower bed in our back yard. I seriously didn't think we were going to be able to do it. I started out working little by little and then as a Mother's Day gift, Jeff went crazy and really helped complete the project. At times it felt like we were just digging out grass with our hands! It looks so much nicer out there now. I swear we are going to keep up with it this time. Now there's some more to be done around the outside of the house, but there's no rush, I'm just so happy we got this project completed.

Unfortunately I didn't take very good "before" pictures


Now for the "after" pictures


I know that Jeff's family members who were there for the initial weed pulling must be very impressed! If it wasn't for them, we never would have gotten this project going. Thanks!

Also, Isabella let me put a little ponytail in her hair for the first time ever. She usually tries to rip it out, but this one day last weekend, she kept it in!

The Stroller Incident

I suppose I should come clean, since the story will eventually come out, although I wasn’t hiding anything, just wasn’t feeling like talking about it, but I should share, at least maybe other mamas won’t make the same mistake I did.

Here goes.....

Sunday morning I was going out for a jog with Isabella. I realized the tires were pretty flat on the jogging stroller so I thought I’d better go back to the house and grab some quarters out of my car so I could stop by the gas station and fill up the tires. I pushed her back up the driveway, locked the wheels on her stroller (or so I thought), opened the garage door and went to my car to get the money. When I got back out of my car, I noticed there was no Isabella. She had rolled down the driveway and was rolling backwards down the street. I screamed and ran as fast as I could to get her. I caught up to her as she hit the curb and fell over. She’s fine. Miraculously only her hand was scratched up. We are lucky for some many reasons.

1. We live on a cul-de-sac, so luckily there is hardly any traffic on our street.
2. She didn’t roll out into the next street over, which she easily could have.
3. It was cold that morning, so she was in a thick winter jacket and wrapped in a blanket (extra padding)
4. Somehow it doesn’t appear that she hit her head at all.

We were both, of course, pretty shook up. I did try to get a hold of the doctor on-call and talked to Mercy on-call who told me it sounded like I shouldn’t be concerned but to watch her pupils, watch for crossed eyes, watch for vomiting. I’m still watching her like a hawk. She’s fine.

By the way, did I mention that Jeff drove down the street with his briefcase and banana on the back of his car? He didn't even tell me about it, our neighbor did. When I tried to make fun of him he said "Did the neighbor say anything about our daughter rolling down the street?" Point taken.

Isabella's Spring School Pic

This is all that came back from what sounded like multiple poses and backgrounds. So, we can assume this was the best picture from them all????.... It is "classic Isabella".

Way to Go, Aunt Jillian!

Isabella is so proud of her Aunt Jillian who graduated from Law School at Ohio State this week. (Sure, Iowa would have been a better choice, but at least it is a Big Ten school). Congrats to Jillian on all her achievements and best of luck to her. Good luck on the upcoming bar exam. It should be pretty nice to have a lawyer in the family....

We get to celebrate sometime this summer.

Here's a pic of the first time Aunt Jill held Isabella.

A visit from Grandma Groves

We got to spend Mother's Day weekend with Grandma! She flew up from Florida on Friday and went back home on Tues. We had lots of fun with her. Grandma got to spends lots of time playing with Isabella. On Sat. Jeff and I went to even more garage sales (score on the cozy coupe)
and we got lots of work done in the flower bed. Grandma left in the afternoon to drive to Cedar Falls to visit her friend Colleen who isn't doing so well (prayers for Colleen, please).

On Sat. night we had a fun time at Shane Lemke's graduation party.

Sunday was a trip to Lowe's, lunch at Gus's resturant, more yard work and grilling out for dinner. After Isabella went to bed we played dominoes. Jeff beat us very badly - he won every single round (it was Mother's Day... ahem). The next night during a rematch - we realized we were missing 3 dominoes! I think that means that Jeff's sweep the night before doesn't count!

Monday I worked in the morning, but in the afternoon we ran errands and went to the park. Jeff made pizza for dinner. It was a great weekend. Grandma kept Isabella entertained all weekend long! Isabella also said (and signed) "thank you". It was so crazy because it was out of the blue at a totally appropriate time (Grandma had just given her more cheerios). She's also said "football" and her new favorite words are "shoes" and "up". We expect more visits like this from Grandma now that there is a direct flight from Tampa to Cedar Rapids.

Smooth talker

Two weekends in a row Isabella sweet-talked each of her grandmothers into allowing her to nap on them for the second half of her nap. I imagine there wasn't too much arm twisting to the grandmas, one peep from her crib and she was in their arms :)

Isabella is even wearing the same outfit!

A little sleepy

Poor Isabella has caught a pretty bad cold. On Monday her nose started running a lot. On Tues, she basically skipped her nap at daycare and fell asleep while eating dinner. I thought she was just really tired, not really sick.



On Wed. she was sent home early from daycare with a slight fever. But when Jeff picked her up she was as happy as a clam, and when I got home a little after noon so Jeff could go back to work, she was completely surrounded by toys and happily playing. I think she's on the mend.

Happy 60th Birthday, Grandpa Jack!!!

Isabella's Grandma Linda and Grandpa Jack came for the weekend and we all had a wonderful time. On Friday night we went out to eat with Uncle John and Aunt Kristy. On Sat. Grandma, Grandpa, Isabella, Jeff and I all went out on a garage sale excursion.
It was Coralville's city wide garage sales and although we came home with a lot of good finds, I was a little disappointed.
We mainly got Isabella some clothes, which she really doesn't need, but I can't pass up items of clothing that are 10 cents - 1 dollar. And if it is cute and in good condition, I can't pass it up. Also, shoes for 50 cents, it is so crazy sometimes. She mainly needs summer hats, summer shoes and outdoor toys, and I didn't see much of that so that is why I was a little disappointed.
Grandpa Jack documented the outing with pictures, and it is kind of funny to see pictures of yourself at garage sales.

(we ended up with both the items we are inspecting here...)

I think we all had a good time though, and Isabella enjoyed herself as well. She proved she was tuckered out by taking a 3hr + nap that afternoon!



Grandma and Grandpa babysit while Jeff and I went to Kevin and Maria's wedding.
We stopped back home between the wedding and reception and things were running smoothly. Aunt Loo and Uncle Bill came to visit from Madison as a surprise for Grandpa Jack's b-day. We left the whole crew at our place with Isabella (including Uncle John and Aunt Kristy) while we went to the wedding reception. It sounds like everyone had a fun time with Isabella. And we had a fun time without Isabella at the reception.

On Sunday we all went to brunch for Grandpa's b-day.

We walked outside at the Iowa River Power Company and Isabella chased after some dogs (her latest obsession) - pointing and saying "dag, dag" whenever she sees one.

We sat at special table in the restaraunt overlooking the water and ate all the yummy food.

After a quick trip to Kinnick Stadium and checking out Uncle John and Aunt Kristy's new house in North Liberty we headed back to our place to hang out.
It turned into a game of catch, kite flying, bubble blowing, weeding party.

We decided our flower bed needed major help and started a weeding process but only got about 10 percent of it done. I swear I'm going to keep working on it.... I hate looking at that and I haven't done anything with it ever, so it needs some help.



It was a fun, fun weekend and I have to say Isabella was an absolute angel all weekend long. She warmed right up to everyone, she needed no timeouts, she didn't make me frustrated one single time. It was great!!


Also, in our latest attempt to get Isabella to wear hairbows, we showed her how good they look in Daddy's hair.

She actually wanted it in her hair after that. I wonder if I can get Jeff to use that as his Facebook photo....


I'm way behind on posting pictures to Flickr, but should be able to catch up soon!!!