This is from when she got dressed up to go to Target & to the library for storytime & playtime. She was really squirrely today at storytime, but I think she had fun.
This was right after she had breakfast. She lined up her dollies on her picnic table so they could eat. She has been playing with her babies a lot today. 
Well, we stayed home all day. It pretty much rained all day (in January in Wisconsin?!?!). Hey - there were even a couple of tornado touchdowns in a nearby county yesterday (in January in Wisconsin?!?!) Most times she is very good about brushing her teeth, although she needs mom & dad's help to really get them brushed good, but she likes her toothpaste, so she likes brushing them. And now that we got a stepstool for the bathroom, she really thinks it's something new & fun. I like it because I can comb her hair more easily while she brushes.
Today we ran some errands because Isabel slept in to long and mommy missed her spinning class (we'll try to go tomorrow morning instead), then met playgroup at Mc Donald's for lunch and playtime. Then she took a Loooong nap. I thought there would be a 2 year old molar pushed through, but it's not yet....it's sooo close! We played her Starfall program on the computer and she was infatuated with the letter C. We had to do it over & over again. Then we printed off a coloring page for that letter to color, which she had a blast with. She named everything on there, including the letter C.
Today she thought it was fun to stack the toilet paper & knock it dopwn. So, I went with it and brought them out into the living room so that she could play the actk & knock down game with daddy. They had fun. We went swimming at the Y today and it was very crowded. I figure it is a bunch of people with their resolutions that just joined or have the resolution to spend more time witht heir kids. We still had fun. The new schedule at the Y starts tomorrow, so we will be back into a regular routine for things. We like routine. And then we are meeting playgroup at McDonald's for lunch.
Well, we'll start with yesterday. We met some friends at the Y and walked around the track and then had lunch with them while we were there. In the evening we went to storytime at the bookstore. They read stories about winter & we made marshmellow snowman and had hot cocoa. When we got home, Isabel was still not tired (probably from her recent ingestion of sugar) and we had a pillow fight. She definitly enjoyed that.
Today, mommy & daddy took turns going to the Y to workout while Isabel stayed home all day with one or the other. This afternoon she helped mommy make veggie lasagna. Mommy would chop the vegetables and Isabel would put them in a small bowl and then later dump them all in a big bowl. This is what we had for dinner. It was very good. She also watched Peep and we have a short 15 sec. clip of that, sorry for the lack of image, it's more of a sound thing I guess. She loves Peep and always clap when the intro comes on. Sometimes when she is watching it she will start laughing at what is usually going on, that is usually when Quack is falling down or getting hit on the head or something.
No big plans tomorrow. I think we'll go swimming at the Y after dinner. If it is warm & not raining (not raining will be the key) we may go to Concord zoo and feed the animals there. She likes that she can feed them rather than just look. Mommy thinks that is more fun too.
Isabel's grandma (daddy's mommy) had surgery on her back yesterday. She should be home today. We home she feels better soon.
This weekend it was Christmas at Grams & Gramps' place. Grams made Isabel this big frosted sugar cookie that was shaped like a stocking. Of course, Isabel shared it with her mama & papa, but she did have quite a bit of it herself. BTW - her hair looked cuter before she took out her pigtails.
While we were there we went out to the barn to see the cows & calves. She was very excited that she recognized the cows and kept yelling "Cow!" They were all mostly afraid of her, but one calf het her pet it and licked her hand. And she was feeding the cows some hay she picked up. They have lots of barn cats too, but they were afraid of her too.
Here she is at present opening time. She got her nice little cleaning trolley from grams & gramps, so now she can help clean things up. She also got an apron, some books, a savings bond, & a very cute outfit.
This is a train that Aunt Razz made out of Sugar Wafer cookies and marshmellows & lots of candies. I thought it was pretty neat and thought maybe we would try this net year instead of a gingerbread house.
Actually, it wasn't such a cold day out. The Zoo was offering free admission from Dec. 26-31, so we thought we would go check us out. The free admission saved us about $20, but we still had to pay parking, which was $9.
She is now 34 inches. If you look at how she is trending, she is going to be around 3 feet at her 2 year birthday.
She didn't gain any weight this month. It probably didn't help that she has been sick. Plus, she's a toddler now and doesn't want to sit to eat anymore. She just wants to go-go-go & play.
I entered in her number in the boys chart, just to see how differently the percentiles would be. If she were a boy, her height would be in the 84th percentile, rather than 95th percentile. And for weight she would only be in the 51st percentile, rather than the 73rd percentile.
Just last week she started making the sign for "more" all on her own. She'll use it if she wants more snack or wants you to read more (usually it's the same book again & again, some books she'll let you read it once & be done.) I had periodically done the more sign with her from the beginning of when I did signs with her, but she never caught on (or maybe never had a need for it.) Anyways, she does it now. And what's cute is that if you aren't giving her more (snacks or stories) and she really wants it, she make the sign with more intensity. It's cute, really. Other signs she used to do she doesn't do much anymore because she either doesn't have a use for them or now has words that replace them. She will still do the sign for tired though.
Santa brought this massage chair mat for the family. Now, I presume he thought it was going to be used mostly by mama & papa, but Isabel loves it just as much. Yesterday she tried it out for a little bit, then mama & papa had their turns, and as soon as papa got off she ran to it and sat on it and turned it on. Now today, papa called me in to see my baby as she sat on it and got it started and was leaning back saying, "Ahhhhh!"
Isabel had fun with her presents from Santa, even if she has been sick all day. She still has this nasty runny nose & chunky cough and I think she has a sore throat, as it looked painful when she coughed a couple times. She didn't eat much for her meal times except fruits & veggies, which I am glad she chose to eat those. And she did eat a good afternoon snack of pretzels, juice, & a yogurt smoothie.
We arrived at our Medford home on Friday night. Our neighbors at the end of the driveway were so kind and made us breakfast both Saturday & Sunday morning, as well as made a crockpot of food for lunch for us and sent us home with a cookie & candy tray. That was just so sweet of Mary! Saturday morning we went to vist out friends Carrie, Kyle, & Gavin for a short while. And in the evening we took our neighbors Cindy & John out for dinner at Buca's. In the pictures above, Isabel is playing with a toy we have left at that home for her to play with. And since it is our holiday home right now, we don't have cable service there & our big tv is here with us, so I had to get out the old 13-inch tv/vcr combo to watch the a couple of cartoons I had on video. It certainly simplifies things when you can't sit in front of the tv (or computer.)
Sunday after breakfast we drove up to grandma & grandpa's house. I am glad we left when we did because the weather got really nasty and the road were awful. We spent the night there and left this morning. Molly was a very good dog the entire time and was very good in the house. Here Isabel is playing with some blocks she got as a present. She does enjoy them. She was also playing with her cousin Travis with them.
Here are pictures from this evening when we opened our presents to each other. Isabel got lots of books, puzzles, & puppets from mama & papa, as well as some new slippers and a LF learning guitar, a bath toy and a new Little Leaps game.
Tomorrow, we'll take pictures as she opens presents from Santa left in her stocking. I am making a nice Christmas dinner just for the three of us. But Christmas won't be over yet, it will continue next weekend.
I took this today as she was sleeping. It was such a long car ride home. The roads weren't too bad once we left MN, but there were still lots of slow downs for cars being taken out of ditches (some probably ended up there yesterday.) She is stuffy & congested and has a cough, so she is kinda cranky and very clingy to mom and the littlest things set her off. She didn't sleep well last night, but she did take 2 naps (60 min & 45 min) on the way home. Thankfully.
She saw my camera and I thought if she is going to grab it & try to get ahold of it, I should at least show her how to use it right and treat it carefully. So, with mommy's help in aiming (she just would look at the viewer & push the button) these are the pictures she tooks with one of daddy's presents. Nevermind my typo I just noticed in the picture. Bah!These are pictures that grandpa took.
The whole family (minue the ones living in Spain). This is daddy's side of the family.
Nevemind my devil red eyes. Isabel was so tired, as she took an hour nap earlier this morning on our drive up, but didn't nap anymore than 5 minutes in the afternoon. She did go to bed early. We all received some very wonderful presents. I will post pictures later of her playing with her cousin Travis.
Here is daddy with 2 of his 3 brothers. They are goofy when they get together.
I just took a quick picture before I needed to get the batteries in the charger. Since we won't have internet access for a couple days you won't see any posts. I might try to put on a post on Sunday or Monday while we are at grandma & grandpa's. So, we'll see.
Here she is putting her play construction hat on Baby Susie and giving her a hug. (Baby Susie is also wearing a cowgirl top - she can do it all!) We went swimming for an hour today at the Y with our playgroup. That was fun. Then she fell asleep in the car on the way home and kept sleeping as I carried her in and took off all her winter clothes and she took a half hour nap. That is the ONLY nap she took today! Something is going on this week with our little girl. I looked up a teething chart and it says she can start getting her lower 2-year old molars at 20 months -- well, she's almost there. She has just been very whiney this week, very clingy, and quick to throw a very emotional tantrum. She has not napped well at all, as a constant runny nose and drooling a lot & taking her pacifier even more and constantly wants to be held. I stuck my finger back there last night (I was brave) and I didn't feel anything on the bottom (I didn't try the top.) So, it may be an interesting drive to MN & weekend.
We opened a couple of presents tonight just because we wanted to have them for the trip. Plus there will be plenty of presents to open this weekend & on Christmas & next weekend. She opened her travel-size magna doodle. She loves it. Although she doesn't get why she can make marks on anything else with the "pen". That will come in handy as an extra car toy these next 2 weekends. She also opened her new baby doll, but that was only because the box got all wet from when I watered the tree and we wanted to make sure I didn't wreck anything. She doesn't have a name yet. When I ask Isabel what her name is, as she says is "Awwwwwwww." And we all opened our new pajamas. I thought it would be nice to wear our new pjs at the start of our xmas celebrations. So, we'll take them to MN with us. Mommy also got to open the present of a car food/beverage cooler/warmer. That will come in handy to store our sandwiches, etc. as we make our journey. I always pack stuff, but if you don't dirnk/eat it right away it starts to warm up and then it might not be as appetizing.
So, tomorrow we head back to MN to our home there. We'll get there early Friday evening and stay through Sunday morning. Then we are going to the Cities to grandma & grandpa's house. That afternoon we are taking cousin Travis to an indoor waterpark with us as part of his xmas present. We'll spend a couple hours there and then we'll head back to grandma & grandpa's to enjoy the xmas festivities there. We're spending the night there and then Monday (24th) morning, we'll head back to WI and do our own xmas thing -- just the three of us. Next weekend we travel north to grams & gramps to do the xmas thing with them.
If you watch the You Tube video you will see her giving love to Baby Ella. In the pictures above, she is giving love to Baby Henry. We have three kinds of loving displays in our family, two you have heard of: hugs & kisses. But we also have Bonka. Daddy made up Bonka with Isabel and now we all do it all the time. It is where we lovingly "bonk" our foreheads together. Isabel loves to bonka. Sometimes she just doesn't want to give kisses, but she'll usually give a bonka (it's very gentle!)
These are pictures from Friday. She wore her holiday out that she wore in her 18 months portrait & to Thanksgiving. We have different dresses for the other Christmas events. Mommy took a stab at making a bow for her and you can see the one I came up with. Grandma is making some for her and we'll see those this weekend.
We had our friends Carrie, Leah & Ryan over today to build gingerbread houses. It was sure messy and the kids ingested a lot of sugar. We had fun though. We used a pattern I found online that used graham crackers and I also made royal icing (the "glue") and we used lots of different candies. 
I wasn't so sure the kids would eat the lunch I made after all the candy, but they did. You can see our finished product. Isabel handed me M&M's & skittles to use, plus she dumped a bunch of "snow" (coconut) on the house. The icing made it all nice & hard. Now we'll put it out & watch her pick all the candy off to eat.
We took her out sledding this afternoon. It was ok until dad dumped in the snow. Then she was mad at him and didn't want to go by him. But he made it up to her by playing her computer game with her.
This is a really short clip. Sorry, it's on it's side. I don't have time to figure out how to flip it. Guess I need to remember to always hold the camera horizontal.
Isabel is a good little helper. Here she is helping me set the table. Actually, she set the whole table. I give her a piece and tell her which spot it goes and she sets it there. She even put the napkins on. Granted I have to straighten it all out, but things are where they are supposed to be and she helps out nicely.
We met her friend Maggie & Drew here today for playgroup. I wasn't sure if she was too young for this, but it was perfect. She knows what she can do and was very good about self monitoring, although I need to be right there by her. She had so much fun. We will definitly go back when it works into our schedule. They have a card that you get stamped everytime you go and after 5 times your 6th time is free, which is cool. It costs $5 for her to go play for 1.5 hours. The have open gyms on Tu, W, & F (but W is during naptime.)
Well, I really don't want it to snow that much, but that verse was in my head.
The last few weeks she likes to put a napkin on her chest/lap. I don't always do that. Sometimes the napkin sits by my plate, but she has learned to put a napkin on her lap and loves to do that.
Here she is trying to figure out the remote. She stayed home all day with daddy. I only got out for a bit to go grocery shopping (which I hate doing during December - I stocked up so I hopefully don't need to go for a week or two now, except maybe to Kwik Trip for some basics.)
