Practice Makes Perfect

Isabelle has been getting music practice on my keyboard playing in all octaves.

She plays both pianissimo and fortissimo. Sometimes Isabelle adds her own notes to a classic.

Though the chair is barely tall enough, she still manages to reach some buttons above the keys for a little variation as well as some elbow playing.

Her favorite button changes the keys to play animals and other silly sounds. In this video after the ribbit, she says "frog". Usually she gets a percussion beat going too and then dances but I didn't catch that on video.

Sure hope Isabelle continues to love music and eventually learns to play an instrument.

Daddy's Birthday

We celebrated daddy's birthday the weekend before. Isabelle was babysat by a church friend while mommy and daddy went out to eat at a Brazilian Steakhouse. The rest of the weekend was just quality family time. Now that Isabelle has motor control of her hands as well as some eye-hand coordination, she colored for the first time on daddy's birthday card.

The day before daddy's birthday, mommy left for Aunt Alysha's, and Isabelle spent the night without mommy for the first time. Daddy and Isabelle had a great time playing at home. Meanwhile mommy and Aunt Alysha had a great girls time out shopping, eating, and playing video games. Isabelle and daddy did just fine without mommy who would like to get away again.

Tea Time

Isabelle got this tea cart set from someone at our church who had babysat her and probably will again. She loves serving mommy and daddy drinks and snacks.

 
Of course with her imagination, Isabelle has also used the cart for her books, animals, pillows, and recently dumps everything off pushing the cart around the house upside down.

Nap Procrastinator

Some days Isabelle is a nap procrastinator. On this day she continuously threw out her stuffed animals and pacifier.

Then she cried for them, occasionally calling the animals by name, Scooter and Eeyore.

I know I was probably only encouraging her, but it was just too funny not to get pictures and videos. What had brought me in the room in the first place was hearing the music from her zebra. She figured out how to put her foot through the railings to spin the top for the music to play.

That was challenging to get on video but her attempt in this clip amused me.

Later that day on a second attempt for a nap, I forgot to turn the zebra out of reach and was fortunate to catch her doing it with her hands. For a short time after that incident I made sure the zebra was out of reach for naps and bedtime. It has not occurred again yet but since I don't always check the zebra's position, it is bound to happen on another nap procrastinating day.

All Dressed Up

Isabelle has finally grown enough to wear this beautiful dress she got from Great Grandma Bernice and Great Great Aunt Gayle. 

 
The purse I found at Target for $1 matched nicely too. I also found some sparkly bracelets that she puts on and off her arms or carries in her purse along with her cell phone and keys.

Protecting Those Baby Blues

Living in Florida, Isabelle needed a pair of sunglasses. Found some cute ones for $1 at Target. She has one with purple polka dots and one with frogs, of course.

May be a while until she wears them longer then just for taking a picture.

Zoo Again

The zoo never seems to get old especially when there are new baby animals. During this visit Isabelle saw the baby zebra. Reminding her of the jump and spin zebra back home, she really wanted to get closer to ride.

We also had the chance to see the elephant statues closer as they weren't crowded at the time. She was intrigued by their height and the shadows they cast.

Another new exhibit for us since I had just realized it was back there by the cats was the otters.

 I love having a membership at the zoo so we can spend more time at exhibits when we go and not feel like we have to see everything all at once.

Story Time

Isabelle loves to read!

Occasionally she even reads to me.

She's also really good about reading to herself.

Goldie Locks Big Chair

Who needs a chair that is just right

when you can sit in the big chair?

The Latest Hat Fashion

Isabelle insisted that is were her shorts belonged.

Green Bean

Eating a fresh green bean raw.
The hungry hippo couldn't wait for them to be cooked.

Makes a good teether.

Playdate

Isabelle made a new friend in our neighborhood. Keegan is 5 months younger. These are actually pictures his mom took of them playing together.

Isabelle had a great time playing with the "new" toys and new friend. Hope to have many more play dates.

Mommy's Cake Eater

Aunt Alysha made Triple Chocolate Cake for mommy's birthday and we got to take some home.

Isabelle definitely approved Aunt Alysha's delicious baking ability!

St Patrick's Day

Four leaf clover hunting.

Even with leprechaun socks, no luck this year.

Bananas Over Bananas

Time to get this blog jump started again. Life got busy for a while. I hope up coming blogs will prove that. These next blogs I had outlined what I wanted to post with the titles, pictures and videos already in place. Just needed a chance for writing descriptions, which will now be shortened, and actually post them. Hope you will enjoy them again even though they are so old.

Though we haven't had any in a while, at this time Isabelle was bananas over bananas.

Of course she was saying "nana" before I started filming.

Once she got the banana she ran around the house attempting to open it.

I finally caught her and got her in the highchair.

See how badly she wanted that banana with her huffing and puffing? That was the first time she had a banana that wasn't cut up.

And I finally got her to say "nana" again.

Mommy's Actual Birthday

On my actual birthday we just hung out at home. In the morning, Jon brought Isabelle in the bedroom with cards from each of them. Later that day I got a basket of pretty flowers from Jon that I never took a moment to photograph. That evening while Jon ran some errands, Isabelle and I spent some time outside. With her beach chair and toys, she was spotting planes. Notice that she is wearing Oscar the Grouch socks especially picked out by me that day as she was being pretty grouchy.

We attempted bubbles for the first time. I blew some for her but with the light breeze she wasn't able to play with them. Isabelle was very interested in the wand so I let her at it.

With her spoon skills intact she knew to dip the wand in the bottle. I wisely decided to hang on to the large bottle to keep her from knocking it over.

The wand kept falling back inside the bottle and was not easy to fish back out especially one handed. I have since bought a smaller bottle that we can use the longer wand with and refill the liquid when needed.

I thought perhaps if Isabelle waved the wand she would make her own bubbles and showed her how to do that. Instead she had bubble liquid flying everywhere. Though not on this video, she did make one small bubble this way. Lots more bubble practice to come.

Once the bubble liquid was rinsed off our hands, bucket play resumed. She kept walking off through the bushes, waving goodbye, and going around the corner of the house.

Getting through the last over grown bushes slowed her down as she didn't want the branches to touch her.

Isabelle the explorer also decided to check out the palm tree trunk.

Although my actually birthday had no extravagant events, I had a great day. I especially enjoyed those precious moments with Isabelle.

Birthday Beach Walk

The day before my birthday we all went to Fernandina Beach for the afternoon. It was such beautiful weather that we were able to enjoy lunch outside at a cute cafe downtown and do a little walking around too. Being from Nebraska I have had quite a few snowy birthdays so now that we are in Florida I wanted to go to the beach for my birthday. It was our first beach outing of the year and a different experience with a walking Isabelle. Unfortunately, this beach walk was pretty short as it was breezy and cooler by the water.



Definitely looking forward to many more beach walks.

Tumbling

While at Aunt Alysha's during mommy's weekend birthday celebration, Isabelle once again enjoyed her time there.

She learned to crawl up the stairs chasing after the cat. Since our home is one level, we don't have to worry about stairs. Unfortunately when no one was paying attention, Isabelle made it half way up the stairs and then tumbled all the way down. Good thing the stairs are carpeted. Except for being a little shook up, she was fine. Now there is a gate up when we visit to prevent that again.

Isabelle enjoyed playing in the backyard with the dump truck filling it with grass, leaves, and dirt.

Notice that she is driving the truck backwards but then decides carrying it is easier until the plane distracted her.

Sure hope to have many more fun times at Aunt Alysha's.

Celebrating Mommy's Birthday

Wow, so glad I jotted some notes down shortly after my birthday as it is now a month later when I am finally writing this. The weekend birthday celebration didn't get off to a great start as we headed to Aunt Alysha's and realized too late that Isabelle's overnight bag wasn't in the car but on the kitchen table at home. At least we didn't forget Isabelle. Between Target and Walmart we were able to get the necessities. Jon and I dropped Isabelle off at Aunt Alysha's and proceeded on down to Orlando to Medieval Times for dinner and a show.

I had been to it before but this was Jon's first time. We both enjoyed our time out even though our knight was unsuccessful in the tournament. This clip shows our knight fighting the bad guy. You may want to turn your volume down as the crowd really gets into the drama.

Love the sparks flying and how realistic the fight looks. I think my favorite event was the jousting with the splinting wood. Again, turn down the volume.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, we picked out a horse for Isabelle named Prince that has become one of her snuggle animals. I highly recommend attending one of these types of dinner and a show.

We returned that night to Aunt Alysha's with Isabelle already sleeping. The next day we lounged around getting spoiled with a breakfast of pancakes and triple chocolate cake after lunch. As a gift, Alysha sent home a pot of pink tulips that bloomed beautifully through my birthday. I am attempting to save the bulbs in hopes that they will bloom again.

We are so thankful that Alysha is close enough to have fun weekends like this occasionally. Even with the forgotten luggage, my weekend birthday celebration was great.

Tickle Me Isabelle

Isabelle loves to be chased, wrestled, tickled, and giggled to exhaustion (sometimes her, but usually us). Often she will even lay on the floor expecting someone to come tickle her. Occasionally she even resorts to crawling as she has seen mommy or daddy crawling to chase her.

Far more amusing to have our own Tickle Me Isabelle then Tickle Me Elmo, or in her case the Tickle Me Ernie she has.

Mommy's New Clothes

Isabelle displays typical girl qualities in loving clothes. While inspecting mommy's new clothes, she in particularly showed curiosity in the bra.
Though I know it will come too quickly, Isabelle has quite a few years before she needs to figure that out.

Laundry Training Part 2

I wanted to share this clip as well but it was too lengthy for the other post. Isabelle even hands her clothes to me to put them in the washer. This is easy for her to do as her hamper is collapsible.

Got to love how she hands me one sock at a time for quite a while. The concept of putting things away is also sinking in as she proceeds to put her hamper away in her room at the end. There will be more laundry training to come.

Laundry Training Part 1

Isabelle likes to help me with laundry in many ways. For a long time now she has been pushing the laundry cart between the laundry room and our closet with a little steering on my part. When heavily loaded, the cart is difficult for her to maneuver on carpet but rolls easier on tile. Here are some clips that show her pushing the cart for a short while before getting frustrated with the carpet and then parking it into the laundry room.

Isabelle also helps close the dryer door and even sometimes gets it latched. At the end of this clip you can hear her say "all done".

It is so nice to have my little helper make the almost daily tasks more fun.

Spoon Skills

Isabelle is becoming more independent. She has been taking her loaded eating utensil from us and feeding herself for some time now. This night she chose to do the loading too and I was brave enough to let her do it with such a messy item, yogurt. The mess has stayed confined to her tray and self so far.

I love how Isabelle uses both hands to work the spoon in this video. She feeds herself well with either hand once there is food on the utensil. Still don't know if she will be right handed, left handed, or ambidextrous. Her spoon skills have improved enough that she is eating cereal from a bowl with a tiny amount of milk. Often she resorts back to the hands especially when frustrated that things are not going the way she wants with her utensil or if she is too hungry to patiently use the utensil. That makes for even messier yogurt eating. Guess its about time to break out the finger painting projects!

Pray, Praise, and Give Thanks

Leading by example works especially on a toddler who soaks in everything so easily. For the last couple of months I have been saying a prayer at all Isabelle's meal times. She has now joined in occasionally saying some of the words and always folding her hands. Isabelle has learned that before she starts to eat to fold her hands and wait for me to say, "Thank you Jesus for my food. Amen.".

Listen carefully in this video for her saying, "Thank you Jesus.". One time she actually did say "Thank you Jesus food." but I guess I didn't get that recorded.

Thought this was a cute clip too. Since Isabelle generally starts eating before we do, when daddy and I say our prayer for our meal she often joins in again.

Isabelle also has a bed time prayer that daddy and I usually say together before we lay her down for the night. Many should recognize at least a variation of this, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Angels watch me through the night, and keep me safe 'til morning light. Amen.".

Though not often displayed by visual example, Isabelle also will fold her hands occasionally throughout the day praying as well. If I notice I will say, "Thank you Jesus." again because there is so much more to be thankful for beyond our food. Sometimes I have noticed that those moments indicate that she is ready to eat or ready to go to sleep. She will also fold her hands when daddy or I are folding our hands when we are relaxing. Daddy and I discussed that we must have been taught to fold our hands when we were sitting perhaps to keep us from fighting with our siblings or to keep out of other trouble.

We are still working on folding her hands during church but those prayers tend to be too long for her toddler attention span.

These are all good reasons to pray and I hope we can continue to lead by example.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV) -- "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Mamma Mia

Isabelle loves pasta! We usually do other shapes of pasta but this night we finally had spaghetti again. So Isabelle got to experience spaghetti noodles for the first time. She seemed quite confused and at times frustrated on how to eat them but did eventually manage to eat some.


Sorry the video doesn't show her eating any but her playing with the noddles is amusing.

Even with all that crazy hand movement, there was no spaghetti on the ceiling, walls, or floor. Glad I didn't put any sauce with it though! I think Isabelle would prefer I stick to giving her the other shapes of pasta for now.

Shoes Fetcher

When it is time to go somewhere, someone just needs to say "shoes" and Isabelle will retrieve her shoes saying "shs" repeatedly on the way to the front door where they are located. This works most of the time for her to get the correct everyday shoes and not her dressier shoes. She'll plop down on the ground, either trying to put them on herself or waiting as patiently as a toddler can to have someone else put them on her. Isabelle has also learned that the only way she is going to be able to go outside is if I have my shoes too. Once she has her shoes on, she proceeds to get mine. This works when they are a matching pair and not two lefties or two righties of different pairs.

There are other times that Isabelle will displace the shoes around the house possibly trying to tell us she would like to go somewhere.

Isabelle knows when we come back inside that she needs her shoes off as well and plops down again waiting for them to be removed.

Shoes are currently so interesting to Isabelle that going down a shoe aisle at a store gets her quite excited. She motions for her current shoes to be taken off and wants to try on the new ones. Maybe there should be a new catch phrase. Instead of "like a kid in a candy store" it should be "like Isabelle in a shoe aisle".

Little Stinker

Though Isabelle resembles a boy, I just had to buy this shirt and she just had to wear it this day when she was sporting a curly mohawk.


Sometimes the smell is coming from daddy, but usually it is Isabelle.

Snuggle Animals

Since we removed Isabelle's bedtime bottle quite a while ago now, I thought it was a good time to replace that comfort item with a stuffed animal. I chose the hypoallergenic, washable Eeyore she got from my awesome friend, Joshua. I like that she can take it anywhere and I can still get it clean afterward. Isabelle also chose a puppy from daddy's collected Ty Beanie Babies named Scooter. And the latest addition is a horse from mommy and daddy's Medieval Times outing that is named Prince, more on this outing in another post to come. She is nearly inseparable with these buddies now especially at bedtime and naps.


Isabelle will even let us know when it is time to sleep by calling for "Scoo-ter, Eyoeyo, Prs", finding them, and heading for her bed. I will work on getting a video to hear her calling them. With her imagination ever developing she also plays "nigh nigh". Having a multitude of choices with the ginormous Care Bear collection and many other random ones, I foresee Isabelle choosing more snuggle animals in the future.

DinoAlive

Once again the zoo has not disappointed us. DinoAlive is the latest exhibit that was available free for early viewing to members at the beginning of the month. Isabelle and I headed out one early evening just for that hoping to make it out of the zoo in about 30 minutes as we had Bible study that night too. I knew the exhibit was at the far back of the zoo but I didn't know many other members would be in the line to get in as well. On top of that it took 15 minutes to see the first two dinosaurs. The rest of the way had a wider path that we were able to get through a little more quickly but still had to power walk out of the zoo to book it to church. The exhibit was quite impressively live like with these animatronics moving and sound effects. Contrary to the pictures below, thankfully Isabelle was not scared, unlike some of the other kids. She seemed to enjoy herself pointing when they moved and saying her "see", "oh", and "wow wow".

I do like Isabelle's faces. Maybe she's thinking, "are you sure he only eats plants?" and "I'm more concerned about those dinosaurs behind you, mommy, with their sharp claws!". At the end of the exhibit there were those tiny dinosaurs appropriately tearing up Barney.

Of course there was the infamous T-Rex and babies in the nest. Again Isabelle shows a face of concern of "why are we standing within chomping distance?".

We enjoyed the free DinoAlive exhibit and would gladly pay next time if anyone in the area cares to join us for the fun adventure!

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

While Isabelle plays outside in the patio, I try to get caught up in what's happening in the real world by reading the headline stories of interest. Of course the comics are a must as well. On one occasion Isabelle decided she needed to sit in a chair and look through the newspaper too. Either she was reading up about our local elections or searching for the comics unsuccessfully.

No harm in an early start at keeping up with the current world news.