I helped Isabel write her letter to Santa tonight. I downloaded this template and then changed the words to fit her and she colored all over it.
This is a picture from today as we were on our way out the door to playgroup. She has on her winter jacket, scarf, hat, & boots. No need for snow pants yet, but we have them. In pink too! Well, we also have a set of everything (except boots) in red. I bought stuff for her at the end of last winter figuring she would be in a 2T. The boots I got lucky on because they were in a "lot" of shoes I bought and they happen to fit her.
This was a picture from Monday actually. I just never got around to posting it. She brought daddy a couple pairs of his shoes to wear and since he can only wear one at a time he told her to wear a pair.
I do stand corrected when I say she isn't kicking the ball yet. Today when we were playing I asked her to kick the ball and she did it perfectly. She was so very proud of herself.
We went swimming today before supper. She just loves swimming so much. The past couple weeks she dunks her own head under water, well, she dunks under to her forehead, so almost all the way. She does this all on her own and thinks it's fun. It's good that she likes it because we won't struggle with her having to swim under water or jump into the water once she starts lessons again.
I am waiting to start lessons again until there is some skill being taught. Classes at this point are just to get them comfortable with the water, and she is certainly that. And since we go often there is no need to pay for lessons at this point. From what I can tell it will be good to start her next summer/fall.
We just started her in the booster seat. She still fits fine in the high chair, but we needed to change things up because she was very insistant that I sing to her out of this nursery rhyme book every time she eats and didn't have the patience to let mom eat first. The book sits on the shelf under her highchair seat. So, we thought if we tried her booster seat she might not ask for the book. She tried, but I told her it wasn't by us. We have music playing the background, hoping that would help too. And now that she is at the table she gets to eat with a plate. She's been eating with a fork for quite a while. She has been drinking with a cup now & again, but I have never given her a full cup for the entire meal. Normally I would just put little bits in. She did great with it.
Just another picture from today. It is a very poofy skirt. We went to check out a church today and then went for a quick lunch afterward. Daddy is not too sure about whether or not he likes it. I liked it and Isabel seemed to do fine in the Nursery.
You can check out a couple of the blogs some of our friends in M&T have:
As we look ahead to next week, things get back to normal. Mommy is meeting another mommy to go to Spinning Class while the kids go to Kidcare (hopefully she does better, as she has to go Tuesday when mommy has yoga class). Tomorrow afternoon we are going to M&T playgroup. I already mentioned our highlights for Tuesday. Wednesday we are going to Betty Brinn's with M&T playgroup. Thursday we have a playdate with Leah & Ryan. Friday we have M&T playgroup in the morning. Saturday afternoon is the Christmas parade in town. So, back to business as usual.
Well, decorating the cookies did prove to be very messy indeed. She started stirring the frosting to mix in the green coloring, but then decided to taste it and consequently deided that tasting was better than stirring. And the sprinkles & colored sugars really need smaller holes on top. She got stuff everywhere, but she had fun.
I do hope I can get the green out of her poncho. She got the poncho from mom's dear friend Linda (she made it!). She also has lots of colors on her white onesie as well. I think mom will make the cookies for the cookie exchange all on her own (w/o help from baby.)
This year we went with a Living Christmas Tree. The tree itself is about 4.5 feet tall (well, shorter after we trimmed the top so that the star didn't lean over.) I had brought back some beads and unbreables xmas balls & a star I used on the xmas tree when I lived in my first apartment with Jeni. The tree sits on it's big root ball filled with dirt (burlap covered) and in a pot. We put a black pastic bag around the the pot so that any water wouldn't leak out onto the floor. Then in the spring we can plant this (whereever our permanent house will be) or donate it to a park or give it to someone we know to plant.) It's out little thing we are doing to have a greener Christmas.
Isabel was playing with the beads just like she does with her scarves. She had fun.
Another nice thing about the living tree is that we will have the pine smell, but since it stays living, we won't be cleaning up pine needles. And the fact that it sits up higher on a root ball means that it's harder for Isabel (or the cats) to take ornaments off the tree.
Decorating the tree was a new experience for Isabel, as she was too young last year. Daddy strung on the LED lights (we only need 1 strand of 50 lights on our tree) and the beads and placed the star on top, but Isabel helped hang the xmas balls & candy canes.
We are going to be turning out xmas cards into ornaments to hang on the tree as we get them. I thought that would be a neat way to display them and decorate the tree.
The top picture I took in the dark using the night function on my camera. You can see the lights better in that picture. Christmas trees always looks better in person than in pictures. I will try taking one during the daylight, which makes a tree look better in photos too. Anyways, I used a little glittery Christmas scarf (batting) that I already had to cover the root ball. It is easy enough to pull that up to water the tree. One could just as easily use fabric or some tree skirt they have too.
Today we are having Thanksgiving dinner with another family from M&T group. So, it's a nice low-key day with very minimal travel.
Here she is pictures with her favorite things she is thanksful for (except mommy & daddy aren't in the picture). I didn't stage this picture, they really are her favorite things.
Sometimes you just need to try, even though you know you shouldn't.
BTW - there is very little sound to this video, but the sluide shows do have audio.
You build them up, just so you can knock them down. All the fun is in the knocking down.
78 Weeks Old
This morning we had Isabel's 18-month well-check. She will actually be 18 month on Tuesday. Anyways, she had a little growth spurt this last month and grew a half inch and still keeping her in the 95th percentile. Her head circumference is 18.75 inches, which is in the 75th percentile.
Her weight is 26 pounds 4 ounces. She dropped a little from last month, but the doctor said that is normal when they start getting really active, just as long as she doesn't keep dropping. Plus, they just wanted to see that she gained since her last well-check visit, which was 15 months. Her weight is now in the 75th percentile.
They do an autism screener at the 18-month visit and she does not have any of the signs of autism. As someone who has worked with autistic kids and has a degree in the field, there was no doubt that she was not autistic, but they do the screener regardless.
The only thing the doc was first concerned with is that she is not saying 15-20 words on a regular basis, but when I told her she does other signs that are not parts of the words she uses, then the doc was fine. She didn't care if they were words or signs, but that Isabel was communicating 15-20 words in some way and that she was imitating our words.
Isabel has really been imitating our speech a lot lately. Now we really have to watch what we say. By continuing to imitate us she will learn the actual words and have a larger vocabulary. I am not worried about her vocabulary. She is going to have a huge vocabulary due to all the reading we do. Each day we read a minimum of 15-20 books. Yes, we really do read that many. She always gets 5-6 books before nap & bed time and then there are other times through the days she will bring books to me to read. I usually have to read her a couple books while I am getting her dressed in the morning and it's not uncommon for daddy to have to read her a couple when he gets her jammies on. We read a lot in this house.
She does get certain sounds stuck in her head that she keeps practicing over & over again. At one point she was saying "O-sha" a lot. Now it sounds like she is saying "gabba gabba".....sounds like gobble, gobble, as if she was practicing for Thanksgiving.
Well, it's naptime now and we have some reading to do. She should take a nice long nap (hopefully) since we went swimming at the Y for an hour after our appt.
We skipped storytime because mommy was cleaning today, but we did meet Noah & Michelle at playroom at the Y and had fun. It is probably the last time we'll play with them until the baby comes.
I made her some squishy bags from a recipe in the book Toddler's Busy Book. I also did another thing out of there below, where I traced our feet and then she colored them & everything else. :)
We won't have pictures on here again until Sunday. We're all heading back to MN because we have some thigs to take care of. It is a last minute thing.
I was trying to teach her to put on her socks. She doesn't actually try to take off her clothes much. Every once in a whileshe might take her arm out of a big sweater (just because it's so easy) or she might pull off a sock while in her crib, but that is really about it. She seems content staying in her clothes.
This picture was taken this morning. We comb hair & brush teeth after breakfast, so that is why the funky hair. Anyways, we had waffles & split a banana for breakfast. I cut hers up in to little chucks and left a whole half on my plate. She indiciated she wanted mine (as she wasn't eating her chunks) and I gave mine to her and she proceeded to eat it. All of it! What you see here is her having crammed the last part into her mouth and her clapping because she is proud of herself for eating all of mom's half of banana. I got the chunks.
This is daddy & Isabel at the kids concert last night. It was 45 minutes long, which is perfect for a kids concert. The first half hour she just watched and we weren't sure what she thought of it, but by the last 15 minutes she was tapping her hands on her lap ad moving her feet to the beat. She jus takes a while to warm up to things. So, she had fun. I thought it was nice. The group is playing again next month in our town, so we'll go see them again then.
700 posts....That is sure a lot! Well, anways. I took just this one picture on Sunday of her when we were playing dress up or as we like to call it, "Playing Scarves"
I got this packet of little advertisement cards and I gave them to her and she thought they were so fun to play with.
This evening she was hilarious. She got all sorts of hyper and was squealing (although I could do without some of the high pitch squeals) with enjoyment. She kept rolling around on the ballon and I kept pryaing it wouldn't pop, because then I would have a kid who hit her head on the floor and was scared by the noise. It never did end up popping. She didn't got to bed very early for grandma & grandpa, so maybe she will sleep in for daylight savings.
