Road Trip!

Well, this will be part one of our trip.  The rest of the trip will have to come later, as I'm sure there are way too many pics for one post.  We took a 1500 mile road trip a few weeks ago, and it was marvelous!  Iz was a stupendous traveller, and we had a great time with family and friends.

We left on a Friday and spent the night in KC, and then it was off to Arkansas Saturday morning.  We were able to spend the weekend with Bryan's grandparents, and had a lot of fun relaxing and eating and exploring!  After that, it was off to Texas for a few days to see the Cruzes, and then we spent a few days together as a family on the way home.

Award for Best Toddler Traveller goes to...  Okay, probably not Iz because there's most likely some 16 month old somewhere that managed to whip his parents up smoothies and serenade them in Italian while driving 24 hours... but this girlie did awesome!  Lots of sleeping and snacks, and an occasional Mickey Mouse show and she was happy as a clam!

Her favorite thing about the hotel room?  The phone.  Hands down.

At Gigi and Grandpa's lake

Throwing rocks with Daddy

Gigi had her at "Puzzle"

Church on Sunday morning

A little hike Sunday afternoon

New Things

Two new things in Izzie's life last week...swimming and mustangs.  We had our first swimming lesson last Wednesday, and our second one last night.  She screamed for pretty much the entire first lesson.  She was not impressed by the singing or the games or the fact that she was being forced to participate in them (with Daddy, of course).  But last night went better--she cried much less and actually had fun with some of the activities.  The only redeeming factor for the place is that they let her play with balls in the water.  If it weren't for that, I'm pretty sure she would have walked out.

" A game with balls?  Not too bad..."

"I have to crawl all the way up here and put it away?  CHILD LABOR!"

"I'm sorry, you want me to do what?  Fall in the pool?  No, thank you.  I'm fine right here."

These floaties under her arms lasted about 5 seconds...

And then--OH, THE TORTURE--she had to float on her back and go under a tunnel.

We also bought a Power Wheels Mustang convertible last week.  For those of you who don't know, Bryan LOVES mustangs.  He has wanted to buy Izzie one since she was born (and I have secretly wanted to buy her any Power Wheel to fulfill my childhood dream of having one), but they are super expensive and she is too little.  But we found a great deal on one at a garage sale down the street, and couldn't pass it up.  Luckily, cousin Caden was with us, or I have no idea how I would have gotten it home.  It was pretty cute to see him and her cruising down the sidewalk in that thing.

Though she's not quite big enough to ride, she loves to sit in the passenger seat and play with the radio.  She also likes to copy Caden and pop the hood to "fix it".  

This is the Face...

This is the face of our big, grown, almost 16 month old girl!

A girl who says...ball, baby, Mommy, Daddy, puppy, book, more, cheese, yeah, no, acky (gross), broccoli, shoes, hockey, apple, one, car, bird, outside, quack, Mickey Mouse, cracker, cookie...

A girl who is starting to test Mommy and Daddy's boundaries and patience.  Hitting and sassiness are becoming an issue.  As a result, this girl gets multiple time outs a day.  But doggone-it if she doesn't come hug me when they're over.  So this is also the face of a girl who knows how to play Mommy.

A girl who usually doesn't like to be cuddled or play quiet.  She likes to stomp and roar and yell and eat dirt (yes, eat) and get bruises and run and wrestle.  (This is a favorite book.  She picked it out at the book fair when she was 9 months old and still loves it.  ROAR!)

A girl who can be the sweetest, loveliest thing in the world.  Here she is attempting to give Maya and Pixie love (she just gets semi-close and then tries to lay her head on them).  They are usually unimpressed but tolerate her nonetheless.

A girl who is starting to get how to do things and can follow simple directions.  But she wants to do things herself and do them right.  If you tell her to put the book away, she will happily run over to the shelf and put it away.  But watch out if there isn't room for it--this chick will freak out!

A girl who loves to play and be silly.  "How much does Mommy love you?  SO MUCH!"  Daddy taught her this trick awhile ago, and it's one of our favorites.

A girl who continues to find more ways to make Mommy and Daddy fall in love with her every day.  Just look at that face!  

MS Walk

We participated in the MS Walk for Auntie this last weekend.  It was storming quite a bit that morning, but the rain managed to hold off for the start of the race.  The mommies and kids did the mile walk (though we'll use the term "mile" loosely as it started pouring so we turned around before we actually made it to the half mile mark) and the daddies ran the 5K.

Obviously Caden and Avery had the best seat in the house!  

Iz was really happy to see her friend Henry from school!

Trust Your Judgement...

Only 15 months in to this parenting gig, I have realized that the little, nagging voice inside my mind should probably carry more weight when I'm making decisions...

 "Letting her run around naked and unpotty-trained 

is going to end up biting me in the buns."  But she is so cute and

fresh post-bath--I can't resist letting those buns run around!

"If I let her play with one pot, she will want them all! 

It won't take long before my kitchen floor is a disaster

zone."  Yet, here we are.  And it got worse than this.

"I shouldn't let her play with my shoes.  She will end

up breaking them or her ankles."  How funny, though, right?

Well, although she hasn't broken any shoes or ankles, that one came back to bite me in a new way.  She now sees my shoes as her toys, or worse yet, her own.  The other day, when she had a fit about wearing her tennis shoes, I said, "Fine.  If you don't want to wear these shoes, you don't have to.  But you need to go get new shoes."  She came back with my tennis shoes.  The fit got worse when she realized that was a no-go.

And I thought this picture was so cute.  I giggled and told her we were probably breaking a health code.  But again, she is so cute after her bath it is hard to resist...

However, as I snapped the above photo, I noticed a look on her face.  And a grunt.  And I won't go into detail about what happened next, but suffice it to say we definitely would have had several health code violations.

Nevertheless, I think we'll keep her.  Thanks for making me a mommy, Munch!

The Zoo!

We have a membership for the zoo this year, and I have a feeling we will be using it a lot!  We went for the first time two weeks ago, and Iz loved it.  (She went last year, but spent most of her time sleeping and staring at her stroller.)  We of course had to buy her some souvenirs on the way out--first official zoo trip!  Who doesn't need a ball shaped like a ladybug and a miniature ring-tailed lemur?

Getting some texting done before the trip.

She biked there with Daddy--her first long bike trip!

 We fed the goats, so it was time for some hand washing! Actually, Mommy 

fed the goats (and got bit!).  Izzie fed one goat, and then got mad 

that he stole the food from her.

She couldn't figure out this glass.  She kept trying to peek her

head around the corner to see how she could get to the penguins.

Give this girl a book and some goldfish

 crackers and she'll be good for awhile!

We went on a walk to the nearby park a few days later.  This chick knows how to relax in the wagon, that's for sure.  She had a lot of fun playing on all the equipment, too.  She's getting to be such a big girl!  (For the record, we do not require that she wear her helmet while in the wagon.  She still insists on it anytime we're outside.  Luckily, we convinced her to take it off once at the park.)

School fun!

Isabel had a walk-a-thon a few weeks ago to raise money for her school's nature center.  She worked pretty hard to raise money (actually--all she had to do was throw her envelope at a couple sets of grandparents and they threw money back at her), and as a result she earned some prizes.  We now are the proud owners of a nature explore bag, a magnifying glass, and a measuring tape.  Yes, we are that lucky.

Here are some pics from the walk-a-thon.  It was supposed to be outside so they could collect nature objects during the walk, but it was snowing (thanks, lame spring!) so they went to the gym instead.  As Bryan so nicely put it in his email (he attended as I was stuck at work with state testing), "Walking is easy.  Walking in the right direction...not so much.  No matter--she looks good doing it!"  And at pick up after school, Miss Alissa was laughing as she explained Izzie's behavior at the event.  She said all the other kids were really proud to show their parents how to walk in a straight line, and Izzie was really proud to show her Daddy how she could be EVERYWHERE.  They had the kids wear handkerchiefs on their heads...which made our little one look like a homeless house cleaner.  Cutest and sweetest one ever, of course.

(Can't you just hear hear... "Uhhh.  Can I 

clean your tub for a couple bucks?)

(This is her best friend, Harper.  She is exactly one month younger

than Iz.  One month.  We might be a size or two ahead...)

And this is a picture from just yesterday.  Izzie and sweet cousin Avery on a walk outside (on one of the few warm days we've had this spring).  We love that school!