Isabel's Words

I can't believe how many words Izzie has in her vocabulary now.  She literally is learning 1-2 new words A DAY!  It's unreal.  Communication with her has changed drastically in the last month.  Here's the words she is using in context now...

hi, bye-bye, night-night, baby, ball, duck, fish, puppy, owl, snake, bubbles, car, book, birdie, more, thank you ("deedoo"), cookie, cheese (both for food and cameras), cracker, broccoli, apples, peas, Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa, Caden, Callie, Carter, T (for Auntie), Pixie, yeah, no, yucky, shoe, uh oh, I, mine, nose, eye, cheek, door, knock, rock, binkie, stuck, good morning, Mickey, show, sit, look ("Wooky!" is a really popular one right now), swing, milk, water, Elmo, one, two, potty, peek (for "hide and seek")...

(disclaimer:  most of these words have an "ee" sound at the end of them right now)

And she's putting phrases together ("more cookie" is a popular one or "I sit" -- she really likes declaring where she is going to be at).   It is so much fun hearing her sweet little voice and so exciting to see her figuring things out in the world around her!

(Ironically, even though she says "peas" she will not say "please".  She still does the sign language for that, and we can't convince her to do otherwise.  The fact that we used to say "Say please" and get excited when she would sign it is hampering our ability to get her to actually SAY please.  "Say peas, Izzie."  "Peas."  "Say please, Izzie."  (silence as she makes the sign).  She'll get there eventually.)

Fourth of July

We had a lovely Fourth of July.  A bunch of friends and their kiddos came over and we had a blast.  A massive water balloon fight (Bryan filled 400 balloons!), playing in the sprinklers, grilling out, parachutes and smoke bombs, ice cream sundaes, yard games, and a lovely fireworks show to top it off. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I realized how independent my daughter is becoming during that party.  There were many times where I wouldn't see her for awhile, and would go find her playing with the kids or running through the sprinkler or grazing off of everyone else's unattended plates, just having fun doing things on her own!  Such a big, grown girl.

We had one funny moment at the end of the night when we were doing the "big" fireworks.  It was after 9 o'clock, but I had let her stay up because I wanted her to see the sparkly stuff.  I kept asking if she wanted to go to bed, and she kept telling me no so I let her enjoy the show.  We were sitting on a blanket in the yard watching Daddy and Uncle J light off the fireworks, when one of those really loud, screaming fireworks went off.  She started crying instantly and waving her hands, saying "Nigh-night! Nigh-night!"  So she went to bed and didn't see so many sparkly ones after all!

Auntie Em brought some cool sunglasses for the kids.  And Izzie loved the water guns Auntie Brittany brought.  She couldn't quite get the hang of it, though, so she would just point it at you and you had to pretend you were getting wet.

Izzie was not impressed with the water balloon fight -- a little too much action and screaming for her tastes -- but once the ammunition was out she really enjoyed running through the sprinkler by herself.

An outfit change (headband made by Auntie Em) once the wet activities were done. 

You must do cheesy decorations on the Fourth.

Look at all those kiddos!  No wonder Izzie had fun!

Her first date with Brayden, her someday husband (so far the marriage is arranged, but we have no doubt they will grow to love each other).  Caden popped by to be a chaperone after he saw them sitting alone.  Brayden seems to be in awe of Izzie's pickle pounding abilities.

Part Three

We spent the last part of the trip in Wichita, just us three.  We picked it because it was a halfway point between Texas and Lincoln, but we had a lot of fun there.

We hit some outlet malls in Oklahoma City on our way to Wichita on Thursday.  Score!  An Ariel for Izzie, as well as her very first pair of Nikes.  Daddy was really excited to buy her those!

Setting up camp at our hotel.  Iz slept like a champ at night and took great naps. But we found out darker was better so she slept in a lot of bathrooms... 

 Another phone!  Hotels rock!

Yummy

Post swimming cookies.  You have to recharge. 

We went to Exploration Place on Friday.  It was AWESOME.  Children's Museum on steroids.  Bryan and I had just as much fun as Izzie.  We were really excited because they had a special dinosaur exhibit...

...but as it turns out, Iz prefers her dinosaurs stuffed or in books.  These were a little too real-life for her tastes.

We could have spent the whole day there -- we didn't even make it to all of the stuff!

Hats and trains...sounds like Daddy's specialty.

Helicopters, airplanes, tractors, oh my!  This girlie had plenty of things to drive.

She love the teeth trivia game, though I wouldn't say we scored very well...

This lovely man wanted to teach us about archaeology.  Iz wanted to dig in the sand.

Back to the hotel for a nap and then for a walk along the river.

There were tons of beautiful paths and sights along the way.  Quite lovely.

Saturday was all about shopping!  When we sensed Izzie's patience was running low, we spent a good hour on baby rides, in the playland, and at Build a Bear.

The experience of making Ralph ended up being more traumatic than fun (she might need to be a bit older next time), but she is quite in love with him now.

Checking over our purchases at the end of a long day.  No surprise she spent a lot of time trying on the new shoes...

Part Two

The second part of our trip was spent in the lovely town of Haslet, TX.  We got to spend a lot of time with Matt and Leslie, and their kiddos James, Pierce and Iris.  Swimming and relaxing and snuggling and sunning.  Much fun was had by all!

Cowboy boots go with every outfit in Texas

 If you're thinking these two look like trouble, you would be correct...

 Pierce was generous with his toys...

But when Pierce is away, the Iz will play...

And this is why I love rompers...

Peek A Boo!

  

We couldn't leave Scout out of the action.  Sweetest big girl puppy ever.

 Sun hats are going to make a comeback after this picture...

No words.  She just rocks it.

Family photo op after a fun day at the beach!

Who doesn't want to snuggle these guys?!?

 Izzie and Iris sharing a secret...

Delicious.  I'll take seconds.

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".