When I get older

On the way to dance this afternoon Isabelle strikes up a conversation:

I- Mommy, when you get older do you want to be Dr. Laura? (we were listening to her on the radio at the time)
M- Sure
I- I want to be a guy when I get older
M- Isabelle you cannot be a guy when you get older, you are a girl
I- No, I want to be a man when I get OOLLLDEERRR (I guess she thought if she spoke louder and slower it would make more sense)
M- Isabelle you cannot be a man
I- Because Why?
M- Because God wants you to be a girl
I- Because Why?
M- God make you a little girl instead of a little boy, so when you get older you will be a woman not a man
I- I want to be a man
M- Isabelle you can be anything you want to be, but you cannot be a man
I- Ok, I want to be the moon
M- You can't be the moon
I- Because why?
M- You have to be a person, like a doctor, a nurse, a dentist, a teacher not a thing like a car, or the moon, or a tree
I- I will be a princess
M- Perfect, you can be a princess. I like that!
I- A guy princess
M- Let's just listen to Dr. Laura and we can talk about it later

Speaking of listening to the radio, the other day at lunch Isabelle starts to sing a song but I did not recognize it (at first) so I thought she was just making up words like she does all of the time. She kept saying, "I like it, I like it". Next thing you know she says, "I kiss a girl, I like it, I like, it".. Ahh, we always monitor language but not content! Looks like we are going to be listening to Christian music or XM Disney from now on. First she is singing a song about being a lesbian and now she wants to be a man. I am doing a great job!!

What a week....

Here are some pictures of Isabelle decorating her pumpkins last week. I forgot to post them, but isn't she so funny! She really got a kick out of wearing the pieces herself.

WOW, what a week it has been so far! All I can say is that I am staying home tomorrow with nothing on the schedule!

Monday
Halloween party in the morning at Jaime and Kaitlyn's house. Followed by a screaming fit over taking a nap. A melt down from Mommy about having a house that always seems to be a mess. Clean house, and make dinner for Sandi (Dave's mom) who will be coming over to watch Isabelle while Dave and I are at a Home Owners Association board meeting. (Thank you Mom-Mom) Get home exhausted pass out

Thank goodness for tights, otherwise this could be a very revealing shot! Isabelle and Kaitlyn composing their own song.

It may not seem by this picture that she is thrilled with her pumpkins, but I promise she is. This picture was taken right before the nap melt down.

Tuesday
Jaime and Kaitlyn come over to play for the morning, and enjoy a nice fish stick lunch with them. Discovered Kaitlyn loves fish stick, got to love when you discover a new food that a 2 year old enjoys. Begin cleaning the house again, once again the cleaning never stops. Make a couple new Christmas card templates (check them out they are my site www.WorksofaWink.com). Miss Shady (Isabelle's preschool teacher from Primrose) came over for dinner and to watch Isabelle for us while Dave and I went to a neighbors house. (Thank you Miss Shady!!) Dave and I walk to a neighbors house for a fun filled night of Bunco, I know we are rebels! (It actually is fun, don't hate) Come home and make cupcakes to be decorated for tomorrow's party. Don't let me forget to mention that when we got home Isabelle had an accident (just potty) so we had to give her a bath (at 10pm) before putting her to bed. To top that off I start making cupcakes and realize that I do not have enough cupcake papers, so Dave has to run to Wal-Mart for me in the middle of the night. What a good husband I have..

Isabelle being silly, as usual

Wednesday
Wakeup at 6 am (not normal for me at all, hate the mornings) to decorate cupcakes. Host a party at the house for a play date group I started in the HOA. We had a great turn out and everyone really seemed to have fun. We made picture frames, and spider hand print pictures, ate and watched the kiddos play. Adult conversation, yeah! After everyone left I tried to convince Isabelle that it was nap time but it was not happening. Off to dance class, and then finally home for dinner. A lovely dinner of left-overs, what else can you expect I am exhausted!

I am hoping that I can convince Isabelle to stay in her jammies all day and relax around the house. Although I did open my big mouth on the way to dance and tell her that maybe we could go on a bike ride tomorrow. We will see if she remembers, I am sure she will =) It is amazing how she can remember that but she has a hard time remembering where her beloved toys belong.

We have had a great week so far, as exhausting as it has been. We have shared a lot of great time with old and new friends in the past few days.

Community Fall Festival

We had our Fall Festival on Friday and it was a blast. There was pumpkin carving, Trunk-or-Treat, a Costume Contest, etc. I think everyone had a really good time, and Isabelle's costume came out so well. What an undertaking it is to actually make a costume, but I had fun and Isabelle loved it! She tells everyone that she is Abby Caddaby whether she is wearing her costume or not.

Here is a picture of Isabelle and Daddy at the Festival. I am sorry this is the only picture I have of her in her costume, because I was busy running the festival and had no time for pictures. I promise I will get more up as the week progresses. We have 2 more Halloween Parties to attend this week, as well as our Trunk-or-Treating on Halloween night.

Birthday Cards

The challenge this week was to make a card for Melissa, my sister-in-law, who is turning 30. But also to include Leonard, Dave's uncle, who is also celebrating a milestone birthday 70! How do you make an invitations for two people to share, who have 40 years difference in age, and are the opposite sex. This is how:

I made this card for another Elmo Party, Elmo seems to be a hit this year!

Full Force Terrible 2's!

I knew it was inevitable that my sweet little angel would turn into a nightmare, the day has arrived! I think she has pushed Dave and I to our breaking point, so she will be spending the majority of her waking hours in time out.

First of all, she has turned into a little teenager. Suddenly she has turned into a back talker, her new favorite saying, "IN A MINUTE". I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am of hearing "in a minute", every time you ask her to do something. How do you teach a 2 year old not to be a smarty pants? Hopefully time out can cure that.

She has been sleeping in her big bedroom lately which I thought would cut back on the mischievousness. Wrong Mom! Now she sneaks out her big room and into the old bedroom where she gets into everything! Tuesday I go upstairs because it sounded like she was a sleep on the baby monitor but I could hear the pitter patter of little feet. I find Isabelle in her old room, clothes all over the room, and it reaks of baby lotion. Then she tells me that all of her babies needed lotion, so she took it upon her self to lube up all of the babies with a hefty helping of lotion. How sweet!

Wednesday I hear water running upstairs and find the bathroom completelty soaked, the counter, the floor, towels, books, etc.

Thursday Dave gets home from work and decides to go get her up from her "nap". I say "nap" because that is not really what it is, really all she is doing is playing around for a few hours there is no sleep involved. When going up to her room he finds that she has again been in her old room and pulled out every last one of the wipes out of their container and threw them all over the room, along with a bunch of clothes. It get's better wait.... She also took toothpaste and squirted it all over her bed. Urghhh.

Now Isabelle is going to be locked in her rooms for naps. I am going to put a child safety gate in front of her door, and a potty seat in her room. What more could she need?

Being mom to a two year old is rewarding in so many ways, good thing is that my patients has really improved. I am sure that I will look back on this when she is older and say how cute it was, but for now I will just continue to mop, clean up toothpaste, and wipe lotion off of all of Isabelle's babies.

Christmas Cards

Here are a couple of Christmas Cards that I did this week:



These pictures are courtesy of yet another wonderful photographer friend of mine, Jill Laber of Live.Laugh.Love Photography.

http://www.livelovelaughphotography.com/

Baby Graci

I have decided to start posting some of my work on my blog so everyone can see what I've been working on.

www.WorksofaWink.com

I would like to introduce to you Baby Graci, isn't she a doll??



The photographs we taken by a friend of mine in the community, Laura of Watermelon Photography. Check out her work she does some amazing stuff:

http://laurawatermelon-photography.blogspot.com/

Collin Is Two!!

All week long Isabelle has been looking forward to going to Collin's birthday party, she just loves birthday parties! Saturday morning I woke up early and whipped up some Elmo cupcakes for the birthday boy with Isabelle's help. She is really good at licking the beaters, and mommy always makes an extra cupcake for her to decorate all by herself.



On the way we had to make a stop at Costco and Isabelle was so upset, all she cared about doing was going to Collin's party! I told her we needed to get a hot dog for lunch, "No Collin's Party, eat later". Her priorities were set and there was no changing her mind!

We had a great time at the party as always, here are some of the pictures I took:

Mamaw and Isabelle (this is such an awesome picture- Click on it to make it bigger) The birthday boy.. Happy Birthday Collin!

Isabelle and Collin digging in Tosha's flower beds



Isabelle and Collin geared up with the help of Ashley and rode on Conner's skateboard. They were naturals.

Big Brother Conner


The after effects of the party. Isabelle was covered in Cheeto powder, she was eating Cheetos on the way home when she passed out.

When the Child's away the Parents will...

DO NOTHING! Awww, how relaxing it was to do absolutely nothing! To celebrate our anniversary Dave and I decided to spend a little Mommy Daddy time together last week, so we sent Isabelle packing. Just kidding, she went to visit Mamaw and Papaw for a few days and then spent Saturday with her Pops (my dad). She had so much fun, and of course came back exhausted.

Dave and I really had a relaxing time. We spent some time in the media room catching up on some movies, we went out to eat and ate slowly.. Weird concept that eating slowly, can't tell you the last time we did that. We also had a few couples over for game night, which was also really relaxing. By the time we got Isabelle back, I was not sure how I was going to adjust back to the hustle and bustle of raising a toddler.

I have to tell you I missed her sooo much. As much as I enjoy the quiet, I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world.

Here are some pictures that Pop's took while he was playing with Isabelle. (Isabelle looks like a hippie)



Pops and Isabelle are really into motorcycles, so he could not resist buying them matching motorcycle shirts. Then he called me later to tell me that Isabelle's eyes were hurting so he had to buy her some sunglasses. He also had to get her a Dallas Cowboys necklace. She played that man like a fiddle. Thank you Papaw, Mamaw, and Pops for taking care of my precious baby.

Our Anniversary

Wedding Day an a picture from our honeymoon in Jamaica

Today is Dave and my four year anniversary, I cannot believe that it has already been 4 years. So many wonderful things have happened to us that the years have just flown by.

To tell you a little about Dave and I, we met online. I know it is a little weird but hey Match.com really works =) We chatted online for over a month before we finally decided that we would meet. I was selling cars at Classic Chevrolet in and he was still working for Inovis. We decided that we would meet for drinks after I got off of work, so we met at Esparza's in downtown Grapevine. We ordered margaritas, and for those of you have been to Esparzas they have some seriously potenant margaritas made with Everclear. So we both order, finish our drinks and Dave asked if I would like another. I was already feeling a buzz but didn't want him to think I was a light weight so I said sure. After the second one I was incredibly buzzed, on the verge of drunk, when Dave asked if I would like another. What's a girl to do, you don't want to look bad so I said ok. Three margaritas later I was so drunk, and what I did not realize was that the margaritas on the rocks (which is what Dave was drinking) was nothing compared to their frozen ones. So I asked Dave if he wanted to go to the movies, thinking this might give me an opportunity to sober up. We go to the movies (Dave drove) and they were closed. Urghh! I ended up driving home (I know, I know bad choice hopefully Isabelle never reads this). Come to find out later Dave had 3 other dates that same week, but I was the lucky winner.

It didn't really take Dave and I very long to decide that we were the ones for each other. Our first date was August 21st and we were in engaged on March 1st. Dave was such a gentleman (as always) and asked for my dad's permission. We went and picked out rings together but Dave would not let me have mine until he could think of the perfect way to ask. I have no patients and so finally he gave in and proposed to me on bending knee right in the middle of the mall. It was so sweet, yet I am sure he was a little embarrased. When we went to the church and told our pastor that we wanted to get married and we planned on living together so that we could save for the wedding (rather than paying for an apartment and a house). Our pastor was completely against the idea and said that he would not marry us if we were living in sin, that was not the way to start a marriage. Dave being the most wonderful man in the world moved out of his house, I moved into his house, and he moved in with his parents. This was a long 7 months for us, but it was important for us to start out marriage off on the right track.

Our wedding was beautiful and everything that we both wanted. After the wedding we took off to Negril, Jamaica. We spent 7 days at Couples Swept Away in Negril, it was the most perfect honeymoon that we could have asked for. It is our dream to go back, we are shooting for our 10 year anniversary.

After being married we quickly built a house and started our family. It is amazing how quickly your life can change in the matter of a few years. We now have a beautiful daughter and wonderful marriage. Dave is the greatest dad and husband in the world, he has been a better man that I could have ever imaged. He is not only my husband but my best friend. He puts up with me when I am crying, when I am moody, and knows exactly what to say to turn it around for me. Dave is supports our family financially and emotionally. I can only hope that when Isabelle get's older (much older) that she can find a man that she loves as much as I love her dad, and a man that can be even half the man as Dave.

I love you Dave, Happy Anniversary.

Abby Caddaby

This year for Halloween I decided that I was going to make Isabelle's costume. My dad thinks I am turning into Bree Van de Camp from Desperate Housewives with all of my baking, running the Social Committee, and sewing but whatever. So Isabelle and I (mainly me) decided that she would be Abby Caddaby for Halloween. I know, I know, who is Abby Caddaby? I have had three people ask me that already today, she is a puppet from Sesame Street. She is one of Elmo's best buddies. Back to the point, so I bought the fabric a few weeks ago but have been terrified to start because I have no pattern and I was not 100% sure I could pull this off.

So today I finally sat down and tackled the beast and I have to say I am pretty pleased. The outfit is far from flawless, so I wouldn't go marketing it yet but I think she looks so cute. She is still missing her purple and pink hair, as well as her wand but they are to come soon.

Dave thinks that I am insane. Right after I finished I just had to show someone my creation so I called my friend Jaime. Thank goodness Jaime and Kaitlyn were home so we walked over and showed off my little Abby Caddaby. I am not crazy Dave, just excited!

This is Abby

Big Bed

Isabelle has reached another milestone in life, sleeping in a big bed. Dave and I have been talking to her for a little while about moving into the guest room and sleeping in a big bed. She has been a little reluctant but not completely against the idea. I have been waiting to decorate the room until she is a little more open to the idea. Well today at nap time she decided that she was ready and took her first nap ever in her Big Bed. Tonight when bedtime rolled around she decided that she wanted to sleep in the Big Bed. (We have always called Isabelle's toddler bed a Big GIRL Bed, so when we speak of the regular bed it is called only a Big Bed per Isabelle's request- I mean demand)

A flash from the past- I remember the first night that Isabelle ever slept in her own room, in her crib. She had been sleeping in a bassinet in our room for months and Dave was pushing to move her upstairs. As a mother I knew I would not be able to check to make sure she was till breathing every 30 minutes like I did when she was downstairs, so I was so sad. We took Isabelle up, changed her clothes, her diaper, and then swaddled her up as tight as could be. I asked Dave to take a picture of how sad Isabelle and I would be now that we weren't sleeping in the same room. As you can see she was thrilled, I was still sad. Tonight I asked for a picture of her in her Big Bed and it was like a flash back to the day that she spent her first night upstairs. What happened to my teeney, tiny, little baby =(

My Favorite Picture

This has to be my favorite picture so far this fall. Isabelle doing what she does best, hugging! She is such a sweet little girl, look at how happy she is.

I don't know why but this picture looks a little blurry on the blog =(

Our trip to the Big Orange Pumpkin Farm

This weekend we went with the Meraz family to The Big Orange Pumpkin Farm in Celina. Isabelle was so excited when she found out that Daddy was going to go. Isabelle and I do a lot of stuff during the week while Daddy is at work, so when Daddy gets to come it is a real treat.

The farm was really neat with a petting zoo, hay ride, a little train, and lot of pumpkins. Isabelle had a good time, I think she is getting allergies though and so her nose and eyes were beginning to bother her. She started to get a little antsy toward the end. We still had a lot of fun.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Isabelle's New Buddy

Isabelle and I have been so busy lately. When I first quit my job we really did not have a lot of stuff to do, we just hung around the house and watched each other grow =) Things have changed and we are happening people now. So in our new adventures we have made new friends, and two of the newest ones are Cindy and Gabby. Cindy is Gabby's mom and we met her in our home owners associations play date group. Gabby is about 18 months, a little younger than Isabelle but they still have a great time playing.

Family and Friends we proudly introduce Gabby!!


Here are some more pictures from our play date. We have this really incredible park near our house that has the neatest playground ever. It is huge, and they also have a splash park. Isabelle would not go in the splash park because it was a little cold the day we went.

Are you a Pumpkin?

I got this email from my father-in-law and just loved it.

A woman was asked by a coworker, "What is it like to be a Christian?"
The coworker replied, "It is like being a pumpkin."
God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.
He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see."