This is very late....I know!

Izzy had a wonderful Christmas! I think she finally knows who Santa is after several visits with him this Season. On Christmas Eve, Santa brought Izzy a present early at Bebe and Grandad's house. She acted better around him when he was handing her toys! The next morning, Izzy woke up to Bebe, Grandad, Aunt SaySay and Uncle Matty, and a new kitchen from Santa. She was so excited that she screamed! We got it all on video! She was so excited about her new kitchen, that I had to open up the rest of her presents. After a huge breakfast, we loaded up the car and headed for Arkansas to surprise Nawna and Grampy. Christmas continued for the next two days in El Dorado! Isabella had so much fun playing with stickers with Aunt Jennifer and Melissa while Jeremy and I played video games with Loren and Jared. Enjoy the pictures, I know they're a little late!

Check out Izzy's hair on Christmas morning!

We had to explain to Izzy that this basket was for her new baby doll!

"With Mom...."

"Without Mom!"

Hamilton has grown so much!

The Black Eye!

(She has a cracker in her mouth.)

Izzy has her first, and hopefully last, black eye! She tripped over her pajama pants right before bed Saturday night, and hit under her eye on the trunk upstairs. After several tears, some from her, but mostly from me, I moved the piece of furniture out of the room. Izzy was very brave. The eye turned blue instantly, and looked worse the next morning. Jeremy had to talk me into going to church that morning. I didn't want anyone to see her. She looked awful! Her eye was almost swollen shut. I felt like I had to scream before we walked into every room, "she fell on a trunk"! Everyone was great at church. They told me their stories of raising kids and it made me feel so much better! So.....when your child falls for the first time, you know who to call to make you feel better! Children are tougher than we think, new parents!

"My Life"....Mommy Diaries!

Izzy is potty trained! We have taught Izzy to go "number 2" on the potty! Yes, that is so exciting, but I have to tell you the story of what happened this morning. You might want to hold off on potty training after you hear this. Or better yet, send your child to the grandparents house for this stage of life! We just got in from Arkansas real late lastnight. We arrive to a clean house, because we are having life group over on Sunday. So we have a ton of luggage to unpack and I am trying to keep the house very clean until then. If you guys know me, this really stresses me out. Well, Izzy showes me that she needs to use the potty, so I run over to her, strip her down and set her on the pot in front of the t.v. with a book. She finishes, so I do the "yeah Izzy" dance. Meanwhile, she is standing there without a diaper and a messy bottom. So I quickly run to get some wipes. (Yes, I should have already thought about that, but I didn't!) So I get back to one of my dogs, eating out of the pot like it is a treat! I scream of course, run the dog to it's room just in time to see Izzy standing so proudly up against the window waving her arms like she loves to do. Now I have to clean off the window seal, pick up the pot out of the floor so the other dog doesn't get into it, and put a diaper on my child before she does number 1 in the floor. I bet you can already guess what is going to happen next..... Camry, my other dog has discovered the "treat" in the floor. In case your wondering, Camry is our good dog, I never thought she would do that, but she did. So the story can go on. I finally got everything cleaned up. Izzy got a diaper on in time, and the dogs are going to the groomer today. The house is sanitized again, but not before I had a huge laugh. I thought this story might amuse some of you moms out there. Please tell me you have had mornings like this!

Kauai!!!

Finally! (I know!) I am finally posting our Hawaii trip pictures. We had so much fun! Luckily, it was raining the first day we were there, so we rented some cars and went driving up the coast. We got to take some beautiful pictures of the canyon, and waterfalls! The weather was perfect the rest of the time, so we spent a lot of time at the pool or lagoon. The last night of the trip, we all went to a luau. We had wonderful food and saw a great hawaiin show. We were pretty bummed to hear that the dinner was moved inside. There was a exchange of words with the hotel manager, because we paid to see the show outside. He said that it was moved because of rain, but we weren't buying it! We felt a bit stupid when a huge storm came in the middle of the show! I guess he knew more about his islands weather than we do! Amazingly enough, they still danced with fire inside the hotel! John and Daniel got scared that they might have to go on duty because the ceiling caught on fire! It went out quickly though. Between John becoming part of the show, and Jeremy and I going up on stage to dance, it was a pretty good show! (I might have to post the video. Jeremy got a few laughs from his hula dancing skills!) The trip went by so fast! We had a ton of fun hanging out with the Boyds because we rarley get to see them. Check out their blogs as well for more pictures! Waimea canyon waterfall

Poi farms (nasty stuff, don't try it!)

Luau pictures

Lagoon at the hotel

Lunch at a local restaurant. We had to go back because they had wonderful fish tacos, and icecream pie!

The girls at the luau!

The guys boogie boarding at the beach. The waves were huge!

Waimea canyon, where Jurassic Park was filmed!

Early Halloween

Jeremy and I are going to Kauai and are going to miss Izzy's second Halloween. We have tried to enjoy as much of October as we can before we go. Here are some pictures of us at the pumpkin patch, and a Halloween party. She turned out to be an adorable ladybug!

(Yep, that's black icing all over her face!)

Here are a few pictures from our San Francisco trip. Izzy was sick the whole time, but we still had fun. Izzy was so tired, she fell asleep in her stroller....so cute!

Izzy walking!

Izzy is finally walking! She cut her first tooth and took her first five steps on the same day. We got a cute video today. Just FYI, Izzy loves to take the dogs out for a walk. I know the leash in the video might seem random. Those of you that haven't seen her in a while will notice she is talking more, as well. Hope you guys find this video as cute as we do!

Izzy's Birthday Weekend!

We were so blessed to have all of Jeremy's family to come stay with us this past weekend! So, we celebrated Izzy's birthday all day Saturday. Izzy had so much fun playing with her new toys. NawNaw and Grampy got her a drum set, and a leap pad book. As you can tell, Izzy learned fast how to hit the drum. Jeremy and I got her a pony. (It had to be girly, of course!) Once Jeremy, and Jared put it together, she loved it! Jennifer, Clint, Jared and Loren brought her a princess little people castle. Melissa got some adorable pictures of Izzy playing with the castle. It soon became the centerpiece for a table at the party that night. Finally, Melissa, Jason, and Hamilton got her a finger puppet set. Izzy loves playing with all her new toys!

I was worried about Izzy being too tired for her party that night. Surprisingly, she took two long naps that day! Jeremy, and the family went shopping during the day, while Loren stayed home with Izzy, and I. Mom came over to help us get the house decorated. Mom made the house look beautiful! Loren was a huge help babysitting Izzy! Melissa took great pictures of the house decorated......

About 45 friends and family came to Izzy's party. She had her own special cake to eat. We tried to get her to stuff it all in her mouth, but she just picked at it. She loved having everyone sing to her. After eating cake, Izzy opened all her presents. (She got way too many by the way!) Everyone was too generous! You can see in some of the pictures below that Izzy has about 15 bows in her hair. Kristen gave all those to her. I love bows!!!

Right before the party, we sat Izzy on the table to get pictures of her in her party dress. Everyone was taking pictures! Izzy was so excited, she started turning around on the table. It was so cute! She just isn't loved enough!

The party was so much fun! Thank you everyone for coming!