Isabella's Birthday and her Birthday Party!

On Isabella's birthday, July 11th, we woke up and had some special visitors come over bright and early. Tessa couldn't wait to give Isabella her birthday present so they came by for a minute that morning. She got her a Backyardigan book and DVD which she loved!

Later that morning we met some friends and took her to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. I don't know why we haven't taken her before now, but it seemed fitting since she's old enough to run around and play. She loved the horse carousel and the climbing area where she could slide down the slide. Of course, I had to get her up in it since she couldn't quite reach so I had quite an interesting time wiggling my body through all those small spaces. But it was so fun to watch her smile, laugh, and hear "momma come!"

.

Here's the cake I made her for her actual birthday. It's very simple, strawberry cake with strawberry icing. She says "cake" REALLY well!

It looks like she's not quite sure about the candles, but after we showed her how to blow them out she kept saying, "again, again, again" so we practiced about 5 times before she finally ate into the cake.

Having one of the cupcakes.

Making circles in the icing with her fingers.



She had quite a day without a real birthday party. We booked First Baptist's Family Ministry Center in H'ville this past weekend to have her official party with her friends. They didn't have her birthday weekend opened so we just make it the next one. I don't think she really cared. :)
She had 20 of her family and friends come and had a blast! It was the Backyardigan theme and she got so many presents it was like Christmas in July. I am so appreciative of my family and friends for loving her as I do. I have the best group of people in my life! Thank you to everyone who came and partied with us and showered her with a gift. We love you so much! (and Aunt Amanda, Uncle Greg, Ron (Paw Paw) and Uncle Shawn too! even though you guys couldn't be there. We missed you!)

The group picture was a little hard to get. Everyone did great except, guess who!, the birthday girl. She kicked and screamed and cried. She did not want to sit down and take a picture. She hit Mikayla, poor thing, by slinging her arms around. I felt sooooo bad! Poor Mikayla, I'm so sorry! And then the kids were just so pooped, they looked so tired in the picture. I tried really hard to put on a smile, but I was thinking "OMG, this is sooo not working and Isabella is driving me nuts right now!" :) I got over it very quickly since we went straight to the party room for pizza. Much better! Her cake turned out ok. I wasn't thrilled with two of the characters faces, but everyone else loved it. I guess it was just me wanting everything to be perfect. But it did taste really good!

Angie and Harrison playing.



Peter talking to Abbie and Lillie.


My friends Susan and Krista.

My nephew Alec looking very red faced and tired!

Jackson and Isabella. She loved this area to climb up and down on.

Mom helping Brock get his shoes off and Tessa watching every move she makes.


Hi Tessa!

Smile!

Mom, me and Isabella (not looking too happy). Can we say tired and ready for bed!

Luke and Eli

Jeremiah and Adrienne

Isabella thinking what should we do? Mattie thinking, hum, how about take a break? Mattie was such a great helper with her in that big play area!


Mikayla and Leshia

Gram Gram and Aunt Stephanie



I could add about 100 more pics on here, but that's about all for now. Sorry if I left anybody out. We had such a fun night and I hope everyone else did too! Happy Birthday Isabella! I think you've had quite a bit of partying this year. I hope you loved it my precious!

Since Isabella will be 2 on Saturday we decided to go ahead and give her her birthday gift. Back in the early Spring I found a KidCraft dollhouse with an elevator in it and loved it! It reminded me of when Amanda and I would play with our plastic barbie house that had an elevator in it when we were little. So, I know she's a little too small for it, but I decided to turn it into a bookshelf/dollhouse until she was old enough to use all levels of it. The only problem was finding a place for it in her room! Here's her playing with it the day I got it in her room.

2 year pictures!

Well, I decided to go ahead and get Isabella's 2 year pictures done before school starts next month. She is just 11 days shy of being 2. I was so sure she would sleep at least until 7:00 like she has been all week and be super happy for her pictures, but unfortunately she was up at 5:45! Not the way I had planned it. :) So, her appt. was at 9:00 and I was praying the photographers would get at least 1 good picture of her. That's all I cared about was 1 good one! Thankfully she cooperated somewhat and we got a couple of good ones. After I picked them up I could not believe how drastically different she looks from last year. She went from a brunette to total blonde in a year! I can't imagine what she'll look like in another year. She's changed so much! Here's her from last year and here's a few from today. Hope you like them. I sure do!

New Hair Do

So, I've heard from all my family members that Isabella's hair is just like mine was when I was her age. I had my step-sister cut her hair this week and the only cut that would work with her fine, thin hair was bangs and blunt. So, here's the comparison. I think her new do looks so cute on her, but of course I would. Anything would look cute on that sweet face! She's definitely got her daddy's eyes!

Isabella a few weeks shy of being 2 years old.

Me and my precious!



Another side view of her hairdo.



Me at the age of 3.

Family Reunion & fun pics

My mom's father's side of the family has not all gotten together for a reunion in about 11 years! And some didn't even come to that one 11 years ago, so it had been a really long time since I've seen some of my family and very distant family members. I had Great-great Uncles, 4th cousins, and too many more to count at Mom's house yesterday. She worked her hiney off getting things together for it and it was awesome! The whole family appreciates everything you did Mom to pull this off for us! You're amazing! There were about 90 people there and a lot couldn't make it. It was a full house when it rained, but thankfully it stopped many times for us to enjoy the pool and outside patio for the kids to play and the adults to eat. What a great time we had!

Everybody eating great, yummy food!



The kids looking over the patio.



Mom, the photographer, took over 600 pictures!


Isabella and Tessa eating their popcicles. Or as Isabella calls them, "goggles".


Another pic of everybody eating.


My last post was about how much Isabella loved the Backyardigans. Here are some more pictures of her LOVING on them and then some precious random ones of her. She also loves her "choo choos". She sleeps with them at nap time and bed time. My little sweetie is getting so big!








Peter took Isabella to the zoo the other day on his day off. Not much of a day off for him if he's going to the zoo huh? They had a great daddy daughter day!

Worn out after the zoo trip and fell asleep on her Princess couch.

She'll be 2 too soon!!!

I cannot believe how quickly Isabella's 2nd birthday is coming! Time has gone by so fast. She's now talking all the time, able to tell me what she wants, and doesn't want. She is copying us a lot more now. Just getting so big! So I started thinking about what I would want to do for her birthday this July. For a while now I was thinking of having Isabella a "zoo" themed birthday party. I was so excited about it because I knew Peter could get me some really neat decorations from the zoo. She loves her tiger and giraffe animals that she sleeps with so I was really excited to have this as her birthday party. But the past few weeks she's been so into the Backyardigans that I decided to change my mind. I had bought her a Tasha doll a while back and she loves it! She takes it everywhere, to church, the grocery, to bed with her, anywhere she can. She watches the DVDs at home and at mom's so I thought I'd take her to party city and see what they had. We went into the Backyardigan section and she went nuts yelling "Shasha" which is meant to be Tasha. They had the other dolls and I needed my camera so bad! She smiles like I've never seen before! Oh my goodness, you'd have thought I'd given her a million dollars. So, that did it. We are officially going to have a Backyardigan 2nd birthday party in July. Yes, I'm a little early getting this stuff together but we're going on vacation for 2 weeks and I want it all done by the time we get back. Here are a couple of pictures from the party city trip.

She was a little tired in the pictures so she wouldn't give me any smiles, but she would not let me leave the store without all the "yardigan" dolls. They didn't have Austin though. I'll have to find him somewhere else I'm sure.

Mother's Day

I don't even know where to start since I last posted. I have been extremely busy with the end of the school year that I've hardly had anytime to do anything else. We had the Kindergarten Graduation this past Friday and it went awesome! The kids were so happy with how their program went and the reception in my room was a huge success. There were a gagillion (if that's even a word) people in my room! I get extremely nervous to talk in front of a room full of adults so I was beyond nervous this time. But it went very well and they all enjoyed themselves and it's on the countdown now. There's only 3 days left with the kids this year. It went by really fast! What a great year I've had.

This past mother's day was great. I love my sweet mom so much! I wish I could give her the moon, but I can't. What a sweet, beautiful person she is. I love her so much. A bunch of us went to eat at Mimi's Cafe for Mother's Day. All the cousins had fun together and we all ate and just had a great time.

Curtis, Harrison, Isabella, Abbie, Lillie, and Tessa:

Amanda and Harrison playing, and Harrison, Paula, and Greg

My Grandmother and my Aunt Sheila

Tessa and Isabella acting silly and yelling in the restaurant.
They love to see who can squeal the loudest!

Isabella, Lillie, me, and Abbie