I haven't posted in almost a month. My goodness, time goes by fast. Not much has been going on lately. I've enjoyed a few snow days off and we've had play dates with friends. It's been fun. Peter was home with Isabella the other day and she got a hold of all the grocery sacks in the cabinet. Of all things to play with, she loved playing with all of them. As you can tell by her big "cheese" face.

Amanda dropped Tessa off at my house so she didn't have to take her to the doctor for Harrison's check up. The girls played and Tessa read Isabella a book. They are just like sisters to each other. So precious.

Here's Peter at work at the zoo. He got to play with the baby tigers one day. He loved it! When he got home he showed me the little scratches all over his arms from them playing with him. They are so cute. I can't wait for nice zoo weather to go and visit him there. He said there are a lot of animals that they don't even showcase that he gets to see. Not fair!

6 Random things about me

I was tagged to list 6 random things about me. I've been asked to do this before, but it seems like I'm a pretty "normal" person and I couldn't ever think of anything my readers might find interesting. Anyway, here's just a few things you might not have known about me otherwise:

1. I was engaged in Istanbul, Turkey in 2000 in a small cafe on a beautiful sunny day that summer.

2. I've run 2 half marathons and several 5Ks. I ran my first half marathon to sponsor a little boy with leukemia through the leukemia/lymphoma cancer society program. It was in Virginia Beach, VA.

3. I've lost several toenails from those marathons! Yes, they've since grown back.

4. I'm a stickler for being on time. I hate running behind or being late for anything. Drives me crazy!

5. I hate washing my face at night before bed, but I make myself do it anyway. I'm usually so tired that I just crawl up in bed and then I'm mad at myself in the morning for not doing it.

6. I love playing volleyball and softball. I feel like I'm a pretty athletic person, but I absolutely cannot play basketball to save my life. I never could figure out how to dribble the ball, run at the same time, all the while trying to make it to the other end of the court to jump up and shoot it in the basket. Not my thing! Maybe it's also because I'm 5'3. :)

Ok, I know those weren't the most exciting to learn about me, but I did my best.

The rest of Christmas and the New Year

Tomorrow I officially start back work for the rest of the school year. I guess I'm looking forward to Spring Break now! I love what I do, but I sure do love being home with Isabella and Peter too. I'll try to keep up with my posts, but we'll see. I'll also have a student teacher with me until March so that's exciting to look forward to.

Well, this Christmas was so much fun with Isabella. She's really coming alive with her personality and expressions. She woke up Christmas morning about 7:00am and we headed upstairs where Santa left her a train table and her Gigi gave her the 50's diner kitchen. She loved them both as you can see here.



These first few pictures are at my dad's house celebrating with everybody. Me, Peter, and Is hanging out. And then Isabella, Tessa, Logan, and Evan at Isabella's new table and chairs. Can you tell they're all having fun?




This is at my brother-in-laws house. The kids Alec, Is, Mattie, Mary and Matthew were singing "Rolling Down the Sandhills" to get Isabella in a group picture smiling. She LOVES that song from the Wiggles! She finally is able to say the "Weeeee" part at the end except she says "Eeeeee" instead. So cute!

This is also one of her favorite gifts. A Bitty Baby high chair from Aunt Stephanie. She loved it!



This video was from today. She's gotten into Mickey's Playhouse show and loves that song "Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggity Dog". I caught her dancing to the music. The Disney Playhouse Live is coming to the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in case anyone was interested this March. Hope you enjoy her dancing. Looks like she may be a little tap girl or ba llet? What do ya think?

Since the last couple of days have been pretty nice we went to Ridgetop park and had some fun. We could not get the "poo" out of her mouth! We tried several times, but she wasn't giving it up. She had fun playing in the leaves and running around everywhere.

As for the New Year, I've been getting into reading the Karen Kingsbury books. So far I've read 3 and working on my 4th. I love them! I guess what I love most is that the characters go through so much in their lives and it shows how God's grace covers them through all their hardships and trials and how the only thing they can depend on is God. They realize their need for Christ and their need for Him to change them from the inside out. That's what our church's ladies group is called "Inside Out". That's really what shows others you're a true Christian. The changes made on the inside show up on the outside. The other things I've been doing lately is praying for mine and Peter's future, his thoughts of going back to school, what church God wants us to plant ourselves in. Lots of things going on right now. It's exciting to see what God has in store for us. I know everything will work out perfectly. Happy New Year to everybody!

Christmas so far.......

We've had a lot of family in this past week. Peter's dad came in town from Michigan and stayed with us for about a week and then his sister and her girls came in on Friday night from Illinois. They stayed all weekend and we had Christmas with them at our house. Mattie is 9 and Mary is 6. They had a blast playing with Isabella and she had a blast with them. So much so that she actually slept past 5:30 every morning they were there! Yippee! I couldnt' believe she slept till 7:30 one morning. Never has she slept in that late. I was really excited. I enjoyed a cup of coffee for about 30 minutes before she ever got up. Oh how nice that was. Peter had the day off today and we took a trip out to Opryland hotel. We go out there every year, but this year seemed less thrilling to me than ever. Maybe because it was in the daytime and there was no one there hardly at all. Isabella loved it though. She loved the water, the lights, and the hanging hot air balloons. She just oohhed and aahhed. I guess the less crowd the better for her. She ran all over the place. We did have a good time, but I just wish they would change a few things up each year. Anyway, we've got a lot of Christmas visits coming up for the week ahead. I'm trying to keep all things in perspective though. It's all about Jesus and our greatest love we'll ever know. That's what it's all about. Merry Christmas to everybody that visits my blog. Have a safe and blessed week.

Christmas pictures

Ok, so I finally made it to get Isabella's pictures taken. I picked a last minute place, Sears, and I really didn't care much for their service. I probably will not be back there again. We waited forever and they were so short handed. I'm thinking "Why would you book so many people if you don't have enough workers to help them?" Not a happy camper. Oh well, I got a few shots that weren't so bad. She of course, never smiles when I want her too. I guess I need to teach her the "show me your teeth" trick for the next photo shoot. Anyway, here's what I got.
No smile, then a teeny weeny crack of a smile:




Dad put some old photos of Amanda and me in our birthday cards this year. Here's a few of my favorites. I can really see Isabella in a lot of the ones of me. Especially the one where I'm sitting on the basketball. She makes that same face a lot. I love my old baby pictures.

Don't ya just love the huge eyes in this one. I was smaller than Amanda when we were babies. She always had so much more hair than I did. Not fair!

Computer Time!

I know a lot of you have little ones and they probably try to get on the computer with you. Well, I found a cute website that they may like. It's www.kneebouncers.com. All Isabella has to do is click on any keys on the keyboard and she can play all kinds of games. I found it back in the summer and she's played them ever since. Anyway, just thought you might want to check it out. Here's pictures of me letting her play the games.

Hiding places

Peter and I were talking the other night and we realized we had something in common. Our stuff keeps disappearing and we're finding things in weird places. After talking we realized there's the little culprit that's 17 months old today who is driving us crazy and making us laugh like you wouldn't believe. For instance, Peter put on his shoes for work the other day and Is had stuck cheese puffs down them. Little did he know! He had orange socks after that one. So, she brushes her teeth as she should (most of the time) and she found a way to get to my toothbrush. I could not find it for a really long time. I did purchase another one by the way. Well, I eventually found it in the back of my bathroom cabinet. We've found sippy cups in cabinets and we've lost close to 10 pacifiers, which we have yet to discover where they are. I once found one stuck down her pudding cup when she was eating dinner one night. Luckily I spotted that one before it was thrown away. I was getting Is ready for church the other day and couldn't find her white tights. I remembered Peter telling me he saw them somewhere so I asked him where they were. He said "She put them in your jewelry case drawer and closed it." That was a funny one! So I get home the other day and Peter said she was tall enough to actually pull the drawers out of my jewelry cabinet and got a hold of several pairs of earrings. Peter asked me where I thought they ended up. My heart dropped, I thought where in the world would she put them? He smiled a lovely smile and said "the toilet!". He found about 4 earrings sitting in the bottom of the toilet. Guess I forgot to put the lid down that time! I'm telling ya, we've got quite a character on our hands! Who knows what she's up to next. :)


Well, I was talking to my friend Courtney the other day and told her I'd post a few things I'd learned over the past weeks with Isabella sick and all. I'm sure if you have a child or two you may already know these tricks, but I'm just learning them. I hope it may help someone else in case you ever need to know.

1. If your child is throwing up use a medicine syringe to make them drink water. Even if they throw it up. They're supposed to get at least 1 teaspoon every thirty minutes. (or gatorade/pedialyte) That's for her age.

2. If your child is throwing up, put layers of sheets on their bed. If they throw up in the middle of the night you can always take a layer off instead of having to lift the mattress and change the sheets in the middle of the night. (layer-sheet, blanket, sheet, blanket, sheet, etc.)

3. Isabella threw up pedialyte drinks and popcicles every time she tried them. My doctor told me to let her pick out her own gatorade drink at the store and let her drink that or water. It worked really well to get her to at least drink something.


Well, that's all I can remember to share right now. If I think of others I'll let you know.