little isabelle

There been lots of talk about Mr. Lincoln on the blog lately and I wanted to do a little update about Isabelle.

She says, "Yee haw, chester's dead!"

Ohhhh Isabelle. My best little friend in the whole world. Age three is awesome. She is learning so much, and her little mind is so curious and she is constantly talking/singing/asking questions. Every night when me and Jazz go to sleep we talk about our day, and we always have cute stories about things Isabelle has said and done. I could write books about our everyday life and how adorable she is, sappy I know but it is true. I had no idea that I would love my kids as much as I do- Isabelle is such a sweetheart but also very spunky and stubborn.

Lately she has started saying "riiight, right right" when she asks me a question and I answer, like she knew it all along but she forgot. Also like she is forty five.

"That would be a great idea"- her answer to making cookies or doing anything fun (like going to gwammas)

"My body is telling me I am hungry for cookies." Also, "my body is telling me I am so hungry for outside."

Did I already tell this story? We were having family prayer and I guess my prayer was a little lengthy for her because before I was finished she said "Amen. I said AMEN!" Like, let's be done already! She always prays for the cutest things. One day she purchased some treasures with my mom, and later she said in her prayer, "thankful for all the things I got with gwamma and the one that changes color like blue and purple." Another time she said, "please bless my elephant sammich" before lunch (sometimes I cookie cut out her pb and j sammy. ovbs.)

A couple times lately we have gotten ready for nap time and she has said, "No mom, I don't need to be tucked in, I'm going to bed by myself. Goodnight." Usually means she wants to play in her room without me knowing...When she wakes up in the morning she usually plays or reads in her room for awhile before coming out. We find her pajama-less and sitting in her chair with a book.

I said, "Isabelle, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Her answer- "Ummmm..... just izzie."

When she wants to go to Grandma's house she says. "Mom are you going on a date soon? you should go on a date." She loves being over there and has told me several times that she would like to stay there forever. When I tell her we get to drive to Gwammas she says "OHHHH  SANK YOU MOM." You are welcome, kid. When we do leave them for a night out, she always says, "Don't worry mom, I will take good care of baby winc." Such a good big sister. They are so sweet together. When we go to get Lincoln after his nap she likes to open the door first and sing "Good moooooorning merry sunshine good morning to you!"

Other gems:
     "Oh mom you are frackin me up."
     "Mom- I has a wedgie I think my bum is leaking out." (!!!!!!)
     "I can't know" instead of "I don't know"
     "Can I have butter on my cheese."
     "Interesting...interesting..."
     "There's gonna be a necklace in there!" (giving a wrapped gift)
     "I dweemed about my family! And the snake swimming pool!" (we have an inflatable kids pool.)
     "We can get out my clothes and eeny meenie mo them."

I know I put this on facebook but I must record it here because it was SO AWESOME. I was putting Isabelle to bed a couple of weeks ago and she was very tired, nearly asleep and her said, "Mom, some day I will be big and I will have my own phone and you will hand me dollars." I seriously about died.

In our church, once you are three years old you graduate from the nursery into the Sunbeam class in primary.  Isabelle moved into her new class at the first of the year and, once she got past an initial shy phase, is really doing well. She loves her teachers and she loves her little church friends. I am so lucky that I get to teach the kids music during primary time, and there she sits in the front row with a big smiley face and her cute hair and her arms folded all reverently.

Isabelle loves to dip her food in anything. She loves to read Cinderella and Peter Pan and also Yertle the Turtle. She loves to dress up, she loves to play pretend with her kitchen and her babies. She is very specific about the way she does things (polka dot blanket, then the pink one, THEN the tiny green softie one) and has an opinion on what she wants to wear. She loves to be fancy and have her nails painted with me. She knows lots of songs but her recent favorite are I am a Child of God, the ABC song, and the "nite nite" song. I love listening to her before she falls asleep sing the "nite nite song" to all of our family members, extended family, friends, and finally to any objects in her bedroom. (Nite nite closet...nite nite closet nite nite closet, its time to say good night.)

Isabelle loves to be outside. She loves to go for walks or wagon rides and we always have to bring a bag to collect treasures like dandelions and rocks. (sorry neighbors.) We have a little route that we go on, and she has regular stops on the way like the communal mailboxes and that one house with a real cat in the window and the cement bench in the yard on the corner. She loves to be in the front and sings "We're following the leader" from peter pan. She always says, "What a beee-u-tiful day to be owside."

safety first.

These pictures are from ballet class last week. She loves her dance class, it is the best part of her week.

She is doing her bum dance. Paying attention, of course.

I love her little legs! And her neck and her crooked arm and her ponytail.

 

blurry, but cute.

Love, love, love her.

1/25/213

It is freezing outside today and Lincoln is SO MAD we didn't go on our post lunch walk around the neighborhood.

We have a routine going after Jazz leaves for work, me and Isabelle and Mr. Lincoln and it feels comfortable again. Like I guess I am used to having two children now? Only a year into this whole thing. I don't feel constantly behind as I used to feel, and going places doesn't require four hours of planning and preparation. Laundry gets done and dishes washed. Food prepared and eaten. We can usually navigate costco and safeway without any major meltdowns. We live and thrive on a rough draft schedule of the day, meals and naps and playtime. Everyday I ask Isabelle what she wants to do, and usually we can accommodate her. (Except Disneyland. She would go every single day.)

Usually Jazz heads off to work and Isabelle joins me in bed to warm up since at some point she has discarded her pajamas. Soon Lincoln is awake and we all have breakfast together. Yogurt, bread and strawberries for Isabelle, our dainty dipper. Oatmeal or cheerios for Linc. Eggs for me. I clean up while the kids play and then we get the kids dressed and ready for the day. More playtime, Linc naps so I can shower. (bless you child.) Lincoln wakes up! Lunch. Errands or a big long walk around the neighborhood. Time for afternoon nap horray hallelujah. Kids go to sleep, I eat lunch and catch up on a show or whatever. I savor that time, I love being a mother but it is soooo nice to have a rest mid way through the day. For whatever reason if the naps don't work out great it makes the day longity-long long longers, you know? Mama needs a break. I'm sure now that I feel like I have the hang of it, Linc will drop his morning nap and Isabelle will grow out of an afternoon nap and I'll be behind again.

Don't get me wrong. There are days that we don't change out of pajamas and I find cheerios cemented to the floor and I'm so tired that we play the "pretend mom is sleeping" game or "can you count to a hundred" game. Both winners.

Also, I'm working on printing my blog into a book through blurb. Has anyone done this? I always say I'm going to do it and then I don't. It's a big project and I'm like five years behind and turns out it is actually really time consuming. Tons of rearranging pictures and moving words around and separating entries and blurggg. I downloaded just the year 2012 to do first- and its like 400+ pages to sort through. It will be worth it? Someone tell me it will be worth it. It IS fun to go back and read, and I'm thinking it will be great to have an actual tangible copy around the house.

Other notes.

How long can I leave Lincoln's red party balloons up.

When do I have to grow out my trendy bangs. I mean, especially since Mrs. Obama just got hers. I'm still good, right?

Lincoln is walking 99 percent of the time.

Isabelle is crazy saucy cute 99 percent of the time.

Disneyland is on the books. Feels good.

Amen.

insta-update vol. 14

 

early morning tea/ this spot is for the mommas

 

big day/babyhawk

 

perfection/ brosis

 

linc's bday!/outside 

 

outside again/chip n linc

 

bowtie and elbow cardigan/ "I am a cow-durrrrrrl!"

Lincoln Michael 12 months

Last post related to Lincoln turning one I promise. He is just SO CUTE.

Lincoln at 12 months: 21 1/2 pounds, thirty something inches long, and a whole lotta personality. Wearing size 12-18 month clothes, size 4-5 diapers. Tops the charts on the crazy cute scale though, I just want to kiss his face all day long.

Lincoln loves to be active and follows me around all day long. He loves to close all the doors, climb up on anything he can reach, and put any toys into bins or buckets. Every morning I go to get him and he hands me his stuffed things from his bed- mr. fox, jonesy, and zork- like he needs them unloaded before he gets out. He is a snuggly happy baby that most of the time sleeps through the night. Lately he wants a gallon of milk at about 5-6 am then he is good to go for awhile. Linc loves to be chased, and his "home base" is his grey chair, always giggle laughs his way back to his seat. Also, he can high five! He loves to bop his head around and "dance" anytime there is music on or when I am singing (glorious made up songs = my specialty). Says dada and "mah" for more. I think there is mama somewhere in his babbling...

He also loves bath time (dumping water on the floor), especially with Isabelle, and sits right by her so he doesn't miss anything. Oh man he LOVES Isabelle, he wants to be around her all the time. She still calls him "winc" and my favorite "linc-y doo dah day." She sings the yankee doodle song but replaces yankee with "winc-y." So cute. We were going on a date and she said, "don't worry, I will take good care of baby winc." Mellllt.

This month Lincoln has discovered the outside. He brings me his shoes or his jacket and throws it in my lap with a loud "uhhhh." like let's go already. We walk, hand in hand and he stops to pick up rocks and leaves and sticks and gets all dirty crawling around which is slightly different than my sweet dainty Isabelle. I guess I have to get on board with that? Embrace the dirt? His little steps are so little and wobbly and his right hand stays up in the air by his head so he can balance. Walks or wagon rides or sitting on the trike, he doesn't mind as long as he is outside. We have had beautiful 70 degree weather and have really enjoyed the sunshine.

Probably to no ones surprise, Lincoln is stubborn. I'm noticing this as a theme in my children. He is very strong willed and will definitely let you know what he wants. He is still tricky to feed- something that he devours one day he won't touch the next. I just put a bunch of stuff on his tray and let him eat what he wants.. then I sneak bites of nutritious foods in when I can. Loves oranges, cheese, sweet potato chunks, and any kind of fruit. And cookies, naturally. 

Stuck.

Stuck again.

the party.

Saturday we threw Lincoln a birthday party to celebrate his wonderful first year. When I was trying to decide on a theme for his party, I was going over all of Lincoln's favorite things... more than anything he loves to play/throw/bounce balls. So we did a big red ball party with chalkboard accents. Also this is a major photo overload. (I always say that?) Major, major.

address/phone number blurred since internet = weird.

Big red balls! Giant chalkboard! Linc is longer than 3 inches but I forgot to measure him before I took pics.

circular rkt hybrids, red velvet and vanilla cupcakes

oreo cream cheese balls. so amazing and easy and I'm pretty sure I ate most of these. 

teeny glasses of milk!

cookies/donut holes with milk

morgan's secret strawberries

All his monthly pics in a row. Really fun to see him grow. Rhyming was unintentional there.

Poor Jazz had to blow up quite a few balloons/punching balls/beachballs.

favors: giant red jawbreakers and some other circular candy. My fav part is the ball ribbon closure. Kids also got to take home a punching balloon and a red beachball.

We invited our favorite friends and family members to eat a lot of treats and hang out with Lincoln for a few hours. Linc was less than pleased to have his nap cut short but got over it pretty quickly when he saw all the action happening. 

Bribed him with a cookie.

lil snack.

Lincoln loves grandpa. Will walk right past me to get to him. 

lady cousins

Everybody ate for awhile and enjoyed the treats and meatballs before we opened some presents. Lincoln was about one percent interested in unwrapping gifts, he mostly wanted to sit in his grey chair and observe. 

That is, until this beauty was brought in:

new favorite toy award goes again to Grandma and Grandpa

hilarious.

After awhile we sang to Lincoln and gave him a piece of chocolate cake. I was fully expecting him to dive right in but I have to say he wasn't thrilled. Actually I put some in his mouth and he spit it out. Clearly we are not related. Most of the frosting ended up on the floor.

Why are people singing and staring at me.

Most ticklish baby everrrrr.

Iz and Linc, on door patrol.

Having an afternoon with our peeps in honor of Lincoln was really fun. (And fun for me to have a project!) I love when we all get together and the kids run around and play and the grown ups try to have regular conversations and eat treats. Everybody wins. Later that night, we were getting the kids ready for bed and Isabelle leaned in and hugged Lincoln tightly and said, "oh mewy fristmas baby winc. we wuv you." I think she had the right idea.. Linc we are so happy you are here! Happy Birthday little love.