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The Wedding Crasher

Last weekend was my cousin Shannon's wedding. Shannon is a real Do-It-Yourself'er and she had a beautiful wedding. Just a note, she also designed her own wedding dress and had a seamstress in China make it for her at a fraction of the cost the same dress would have been here! Love that ebay...

It was a lovely wedding and everything was Tiffany Blue, including the cake. But I think Isabelle loved the wedding more than anyone ...else. She ran around like a wild woman for the entire reception. Back and forth, back and forth. She danced like crazy everytime the music started. I'm sure she had never heard music like that in her life, and well, in the words of Gloria Estevan, the rhythm is gonna get ya

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Night time Prayers

Conrad and I divide up bedtime duties with the girls each night. This usually looks like me putting Grace to bed and Conrad putting Isabelle to bed. We all used to pray together each night, but as Isabelle has jumped into the toddler stage with both feet, bedtime routine has become more fast and furious and we end up praying with the girls separately before they sleep.

Each night Conrad prays for Isabelle then they pray for Grace and Mommy, then all her grandparents, etc. Then if he doesn’t round out the end of the prayer for Isabelle again, she immediately asks, “What about me?” and you have to pray for her again. So last night, at the end of prayer, Conrad asked Isabelle, “What about me?” So Isabelle prays the following bedtime prayer:
“Dear God, Thank you for good food. Amen.”

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Sisters

At night, before Isabelle goes to bed, she often refuses to give me a goodnight kiss, but she’ll always request to kiss Grace. She calls her Gacie Yu (For some weird reason we call her Gracie Lou and Isabelle is just mimicking us). When she comes down from her bedroom in the mornings, she’ll crawl up next to Grace and say, “Hi Bootiful.” In this soft little “talking to babies” voice that she hears me use when talking to Grace. And Grace just lights up when Isabelle is around. She might as well be a little sunflower following the Sun around. Now if I can only get her to stop sitting on Grace, we could keep Grace’s future therapy sessions to a minimum.

Brookstone Potty Break

Yesterday my parents, Grandma, and Aunt Brenda were visiting us for President’s Day. Isabelle was, of course, in her glory, surrounded by her crowd of admirers. We packed everyone up and traversed to the mall for some fun and shopping. At one point we sat down so I could nurse Grace. Oma, Opa, Aunt Brenda, and Isabelle decided to go to Brookstone to check out their newest gadgets.

When they got to the store, my Dad decided to sit in one of their massage chairs to check it out. Isabelle, who is potty training, came up to him and asked, “What you doing, Opa? Going Potty?” Immediately followed by, “I go potty too.” And started to pull down her pants and pull up’s. My parents all jumped up, “Noooo!” and my mom and Aunt Brenda pulled her out of the store toward the bathrooms, as she’s yelling, “NOOOOOOO!!! Want to go potty with Opa!!!!”

Is she playing Stairway to Heaven?

We wonder if we have a child prodigy on our hands...a musical prodigy would be highly unlikely coming from the decidedly UNmusical family she does. Heck, we don't even have a CD player in our house!

The Reward System

I started getting really overwhelmed with all of the little tasks we were trying to teach Isabelle to do and if I was overwhelmed, I can just imagine what our two year old was feeling. I had also been looking forward to implementing this particular parenting approach that I had heard so many of my mom friends talk about working well for their kids: The Reward Chart.

As I was praying one night: about potty training, no less, I remembered the Chart approach. I got up and threw together a simple chart with a few items on it such as “I went potty today” ,“I took a nap today,” and “I picked up my toys today.” I then ran to the dollar store and bought 1000 stickers for $1. And I have to tell you, it has been working great! She brushes her teeth, pottys, and picks up her toys like a champ, all for the pleasure of choosing and sticking a lil’ sticker.

This last week I added “I read my Bible today.” I know she can’t read yet, but she has a great kids bible and we can read it together every day. And I think there is no better time to build daily QT discipline than now, right? Now, if only I were motivated by stickers….

Giggles of Grace

She's almost laughing!

Slumber Party

Last weekend we had our first “Slumber Party” at the Michael House. We hosted Abby and Lyssa, daughters of our friends, Matt and Denise. These girls grew up in Romania as Missionary Kids and are such good kids! When we first met them, Isabelle was just a baby, and after they left our house, Conrad and I said, “Wow, we have to get child rearing tips from these guys, their kids are great to have around!”

When Denise told me that her and Matt were planning a date night, I invited Abby and Lyssa to come and spend the night with us! We were planning on going bowling, but the bowling alley just wasn’t working with us and had planned “Buck a Beer” night and the alley was full…not to mention probably not exactly our scene with four kids in tow.

We settled for dinner at McDonlads, and back home for movies and cookies. The evening went off without a hitch and Isabelle ADORES these two, as you can see from the look on her face. I think they had fun, not to mention, their mom said they came home having perfected imitating Conrad’s accent. Abby imitates him talking to Isabelle, “You do nothing on the potty, Isabelle. Go now!” Conrad says, “What accent?”

Snow Day

As so many of you from the frozen tundra's of north North America are experiencing, we have been getting tons of snow and freezing temperatures here in Ohio! I have already paid neighborhood kids twice to shovel our driveway and Conrad did it a third time!

This time he did it, we decided to bundle Isabelle up and let her play in the snow. She had a blast! And I can't wait to take her sledding sometime in the near future.