A Shout out from Isabelle

She's saying hello to her Nanama in India....

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She's almost walking!

Can you believe it??

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Three Down

Today we have our third house “showing” in four days. It’s not that bad, in that 1.) they are close together 2.) The house is already clean from the previous showings, so there is not much to do! There is something to be said for a house that is showcase clean 
On the other hand, we have to live in a house that is showcase clean! Not an easy task. So, we go out to eat a lot. Who wants to cook in a house like that? I al ways figured those beautiful houses you see in magazines and lust after must be heck to live in. After all, it’s a lot of pressure to keep your house that pristine. I am beginning to wonder if my new kitchen looks as cool as it does in my head if I will REALLY want to use it. You know, wear, tear, dirt, grease!? Hmmmm…I hope Conrad isn’t reading this. He may rethink the granite countertops…
I do have some thoughts on home showings. You have to leave your home and complete strangers come parading through assessing your home (not to mention your style, taste, cleanliness, and probably your value system, as in, “Why wouldn’t they invest the money to get rid of these wretched linoleum floors??”) Not even your real estate agent is there most of the time. But THEIR real estate agent (who I will be paying a fine fine price to)is there.
Then I wonder HOW interested is someone who comes to see your house? Is this someone who is just browsing or someone who is a serious buyer? Did they see our home and were wildly interested or did the agent see it fit into their budget and geographic location criteria and shove it down their throats? Who knows?! My friends Scott and Kirsten sold their house on the first showing, with less than one week on the market! Now that’s the way we like it!

Fairwell to Good Friends

For the first six or so years I lived in Columbus, the Lord led me to a small church on the west side called Grace Community Church. The Pastor and his wife were round-a-bout friend from ORU. We had a great time serving together and really just doing life together. And over the past six years or so have been some of my dearest and most faithful friends.

A year or so ago, Conrad and I felt like it was time to move on to something new, but my friendship with them has continued. They were really like family to me. Before I was married and I needed a “rent-a-husband” (to fix things or carry things) Kirsten loaned out Scott (or I guess I should say, Scott loaned himself out!) without reservation and was there every time! When Conrad and I married, Scott performed the ceremony and Kirsten helped me with wedding details. When I was sick or sad, Kirsten was always there to talk or cry with. I have told her before, but I believe that she was one of the truest examples of a friend I have ever had.

I say all of that to say this weekend, after 11 years of faithful and wholehearted service at Grace, they picked up and moved to the other side of the country. Scott took a job on staff at Next Level Church in Florida! I am so excited for them in the next phase of their lives. I love you guys! We'll see you on our next Disney Vacation!

Almost Done Convalescing

Just thought I would let you know that the surgery went well. I was out of the hospital, rather delicately, and home by 6pm. Although I was still out of it for a while! The pain medication was wonderful, until it started making me throw up on Saturday…odd. So I opted for the pain vs. the nausea.

Isabelle is kind of confused as to why Mommy can’t pick her up or take care of her too much. I think this almost cured her of her mommy preference….so sad. And, as I was laying in bed on Friday thinking to myself what a bad time this would be to have a house showing, we get our first call telling us that we have a showing on Sunday! No joke!! So my wonderful mom and husband got to work without me and the house looked great on Sunday! Actually I had no idea my husband was so meticulous when he had to be!

So today is my last day off of work. I was going to go back to work, but after an evening at the mall, having to be out of the house for the showing…I was really tuckered out and couldn’t quite manage it.

Thanks for praying for me this weekend!

Going Under

So tommorrow I go under the knife. Yes indeed, tommorrow afternoon is my first ever surgery of any kind. Gall bladder removal. Surgery at one and I should be home by 6. At least that's what they tell me!

I just thought I'd let you know so that you can pray for me. Oma and Opa are coming down tonight to help out with Isabelle for the next couple of days. I know Isabelle will love it. She's so cute these days. I have been practicing some movement worship stuff for our upcoming Missions Camp at church and she watches me and bobs her whole body up and down as hard as she can. Maybe she'll be musically inclined?? :)

This is a picture of Isabelle and her Papaw Clynis...

Weekend at Oma’s

This past week has been such a whirlwind week! Conrad was out of town so we had to do quite a bit of juggling with my clinic schedule and him being away. So we ended up spending some time at my parents at the beginning of the week and leaving Isabelle there an extra night.

So everyone gathered to see the sole grandchild. I miss her so much when I’m not with her, but I think everyone involved, her at the top of the list, has fun. Well wouldn’t you? They put her on the ground, she crawls about two feet, she sits up and claps her hands and smiles, and all half a dozen people around her, smile, clap, and yell “Yeah!” with her. Every grunt, sound, movement, smile, laugh, and giggle is rewarded with undivided attention and genuine appreciate. She was in heaven.

But I must add myself to the group of Isabelle admirers. I think all of the attention caused a slew of changes in this baby. Let me highlight for you some changes in Isabelle over the past two weeks:

 She went from totally stationary to crawling to pulling herself up and letting go for 2 or 3 seconds at a time!
 She went from goo goo ga to saying, “Bye Bye” and waving, and saying “Uh Oh” all the time!

And, of course, she now has, down pat, the temper tantrum. Head tossed back, back arched, red faced, screaming bloody murder at the top of her voice. An old friend of mine used to call it the “I am God” back arch. So the games begin….

A Glutton for Pampering

Saturday I went and cashed in my mothers day gift for a whole day of Spa treatments…pure heaven. My friend Heidi and I both got a full hour massage, facial, mani, and pedi. LOVED it! I think this really should be something that every girl does on a regular basis…monthly, if not weekly. Do you think Conrad would go for that?

Conrad spent the day with Isabelle. They had some special bonding time…er..well, actually I think she slept through most of the day with Daddy. But she was bright and chipper for the rest of the day with us. And she is such a little flirt. We went to have Dosa for dinner and she just stared and stared at the guy in the restaurant, until he finally looked at her and she beamed her best little grin. So far, she has found to be true her personal belief that the world revolves around her.

At the advice of our realtor, we then decided to paint our master bathroom…blak…nothing is more tedious than painting a bathroom. And it really makes me look forward to a whole house full of white rooms…and particularly lots of bathrooms (dripping with sarcasm). But, the bathroom looks fabulous, despite all of our obvious flaws around the edges. By the way HOW do you paint behind the toilet?? I have no idea! And what is the proper order of things: caulk then paint or paint then caulk? I think we chose the wrong route.

But, it ended up that a whole evening of inhaling paint really irritated my pesky cold and I was up most of the night coughing and hacking. Good times. Overall a great weekend tho.

Pop or Soda

This is an age old question in my subculture. I guess when you have a large group of people from different parts of the country or world, it always comes down to pop or soda. So I thought the below survey was interesting:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The West
The Northeast
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Daycare Dilemma, Part II

As I’ve mentioned before, Isabelle’s daycare is closing at the end of the month. We, luckily, got her a spot at another church daycare in our town. But, we also interviewed a stay at home mom yesterday. I think we’ll probably stay with the church daycare, even though it’s MORE expensive than our present daycare and TWICE as much as stay at home care.

You know, it’s just really scary out there these days. The thought that we wouldn’t personally know who’s caring for our child, that we don’t have a relationship with them, that we don’t know who is in and out of their home all day really made the decision for us. I know that scary things can happen in daycare’s too. But at least daycare’s have a certain amount of safeguards in place. This one seems really nice and Christ focused in a lot of ways. But it’s still not as ideal as the one in my church, where I knew everyone and trusted everyone!!

God knows. We do trust Him with Isabelle. We do pray over her daily that she is protected and secure, no matter if she is with us or not. We believe that God will keep her, and she will not be a magnet for the crazies in the world, nor a victim of ANYTHING!

But pray with us, as we walk out this Trust for our Little One and day care. We want a smooth transition from this daycare to the next….and then the NEXT when we move to the other side of town. Wouldn’t it be perfect if someone we knew from church decided to do homecare…AND lived near our house?? Or better yet, Conrad got a bigwig high paying exec job and I could stay home with Isabelle most of the day!

Strep Throat

So there was a notice on the door of the daycare that Strep Throat has been going around…and lucky me, I got it. So this morning I spent with my (Eastern European) Doctor, Dr. J. I really like her, actually. We have only been there one other time, but she was very personable and spent a lot of time chatting with me about my concerns and symptoms. How rare is that these days? That is the sad part about moving to the other side of town…we are going to have to find new doctors for everything! And just when we were getting used to the ones we had!

So a shot of penicillin and some Claritin later and I’m back at my desk, feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck. Good times. Dr J told me that I wasn’t contagious and I could return to work. And I am trying desperately to conserve my sick time since I will be having my gall bladder removed at the end of the month…ick! And as many of you mom’s know out there…sick time is no longer your own. My sick time I now use for my sick child and my “sick” time is spent at my desk, trying to quietly avoid interacting with others.


Strep seemed to have passed Isabelle and Conrad right on by. As you can see, she’s happy as a clam in her new dress, compliments of Grandma Margie.

Future Water Bug

We had a busy weekend here at the Michael house. We started the dreaded house repairs, which ends up, we did pretty well. Okay, before you get too awfully impressed…we learned to spackle and caulk. But overall we were rather impressed with ourselves.
On Saturday we took Isabelle to her first pool outing. We put her in her spiffy new bathing suit that my mom bought her, complete with matching hat (consequently, the bathing suit and hat also match the dress I got her for her first pictures. So yes, you’ve seen it before!). She looked so cute. The water was still a bit chilly, as it’s only the beginning of the season, so she was a bit apprehensive at first. After she got used to the water, boy did she take off. She LOVED it. She splashed and kicked and had a grand ole time. We only stayed for a few minutes, but we had fun!

Memorial Weekend Rehash

I enjoyed reading what some of my friends wrote about their Memorial weekend’s in review so I thought I’d also tell you a bit about ours. You already know about our house buying venture. That has been a trip.

Tonight the real estate agent came over on Wednesday night and took pictures so that we could put our house on the market (see pictures in post). So much of our weekend consisted of cleaning and de-cluttering. As many of you know already, I despise clutter, so I actually enjoyed taking things down and boxing them away. Some of them, I thought, I might as well throw away anyway! But then I thought I have a bigger house to decorate, so I thought I’ll revisit those boxes another day to decide.

On Sunday after church, we hooked up with my Grandma, who was visited my Uncle and Aunt and cousins in the Columbus area and took her to see the model of our new house then she traveled with us to my parents…and back home for her. We had a cookout at my Aunt Brenda’s house with all of the Memorial day fixin’s. It was nice to see the whole fam.

Then on Monday we went to the Pier in Huron and took a walk. I spent much of my childhood living in Huron, so the Pier and Lake Erie is always very nostalgic for me. It was the first time we had taken Isabelle to the Lake. She was in awe of all the people and the boats and the water. She sat forward in her stroller the whole time taking everything in.

Then my parents took us to Damon’s, which is a great place up there because it sits right in a marina, on the water…consequently, right by Cedar Point. We had a wonderful dinner and all of the servers came out to admire Isabelle. Of course, she’s in seventh heaven with an audience. One waitress said, “We see lot’s of beautiful babies here, but I think yours is the prettiest.” Well, we think so, what we are her parents…so what do we know!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was our second wedding anniversary! Wow! What a wonderful two years we have had. I am in awe when I think about how blessed I have been. I love my husband more than I can describe in words...he is by far, God's greatest gift to me. Here is the beautiful roses Conrad got me for our anniversary. I didn't take a picture of the workout pants I got him...some how they are just not as pretty as the roses.

We had a wonderful weekend...and actually signed the contract for our new home! Yeah! Here is a picture of Conrad on our little plot of earth...where our house will be. And below it is a picture of the model we are getting building....

She's Crawling!

Yes, Isabelle has been crawling the last couple of days. She still will only crawl if she absolutely has too! She is so funny. If she is going after something, she'll go halfway to it, get down on her tummy and stretch and reach the rest of the way to get it!

On another note, I have some sad news, that I eluded to in a previous post...Isabelle's daycare is closing down. It's a great daycare and we are really bummed to see it close. Luckily we got one of the last spots at another church a few miles from home. But, we are also interviewing a stay at home mom for the job. Pray for us, as I know it's going to be tramatic for me (and her) to leave her in an unfamiliar place.

Have a great memorial weekend!

Pimped Out House

I know I have been a blogging slacker lately, but the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. First of all, we found out about some impending changes that highly affect us. These changes propelled us to think about other changes. (and no, I’m not pregnant) Cryptic, huh? Okay, I’ll explain some.

We live on one side of Columbus, and our church is on the other side. We work kind of in the middle. We want to move to the other side. Besides, the school districts are better, and, as far as we know now, we will probably do the public school thing eventually. Right now, it takes us about 45 minutes to get to church! It makes getting too involved difficult.

So we decided that if we were going to move, we were going to move into a little bigger home so we can stay there for….well, for a while. You never really know with us tho. So, for the past couple of weeks we have been looking and looking and looking. Finally we found what we want. Actually we found a lot of houses that we want…but it also had to fit within our budget. We are going to build, and that will give us time to sell present home. We are praying for SOME kind of profit to put down on a home. As you probably know, it’s definitely a buyers market and not a sellers. So it works for us on one end, but not the other.

We spent the weekend going from one model home to the next. We probably drug our patient baby through fifteen different models! We found a few offering good deals and we liked their homes. On Sunday, we were driving around church and (quite on accident) ended up at a small community, probably with homes smaller than we’d like. But as we were looking at the model and talking to the sales guy, he told us he’d give us $50,000 in upgrades/options on any home purchase in a near neighborhood with larger homes…what?? No way! But, alas, it’s true, and so far, we’ve decided on a cool multi-level home that has about 3000 square feet. And it will be totally pimped out.

Whoo hoo!

Beautiful Flowers

This was my first mother's day present from Isabelle...

Celebrating my first Mother’s Day

We went to visit my family for the weekend and to celebrate mother’s day. We had a nice dinner with my parents and with my Aunt Brenda and Uncle Thornton on Saturday night. Isabelle is really getting into food, but HATES baby food. I think we ruined her, maybe a bit early. She will eat bits and pieces of anything you give her. Saturday she even had her first French fry.

On Sunday, we went to church with the fam, then went to the hospital to visit my Grandpa, then back to my parents for dinner with the whole family. It was a nice big Payne dinner, with everyone tittering beforehand about IF there will be enough food. (I never wonder WHY I am chubby…even though most everyone in my family is thin, they cook..and eat..like it’s their last meal...it must be a southern thing). But all of the women are always overly concerned about there being enough food at a gathering. Keep in mind, we usually have upwards of 15 dishes and 3 or 4 desserts at your run-of-the-mill family gathering (that is not like, Christmas. That’s a whole other ballgame). Sunday we only had two desserts…I know, highly disappointing.

But Isabelle was the belle of the ball, as usual, with her smiles and giggles. She did great the whole day, then slept hard for the two hour trip home. On Friday Isabelle brought home a Mothers day flower for me from Daycare. And Conrad got me a Massage and facial...geezzz…he ALWAYS gets the perfect gift:)

Sleepless in Ohio

Last night Isabelle decided to stay awake. Actually I don’t think she decided, I think perhaps her crowning teeth were keeping her awake! But that, of course, means we stayed awake last night too! She has been fussy for a couple of weeks now. Conrad has taken to calling her a koala bear, because she clings to me like a koala to a tree.

This poor kid tossed and turned and kicked and cried ALL NIGHT LONG. After a few hours we brought her in bed with us and she, in turn, just kicked us. Luckily I have a husband who has endless patience in the middle of the night with no sleep! So when my patience runs out, he comes to our rescue! Eventually tho, Conrad spent a couple of hours on the couch (after I did) *Sigh* I’m staring down the barrel at a very long day….

No matter what the night looked like tho, she always wakes up happy!

Happy 9 months Isabelle!

My mom came to visit us this weekend. It had been three weeks since she had seen "us" (i.e. Isabelle, her only grandchild) and she was having withdrawl. We had been waiting for her to come so that we could get some yard work done. We did a bit the weekend before, but it is rather difficult with a baby. She only has so much patience with us when we take her outside and sequester her to her stroller or play station while we work around her. She simply does not get WHY she wouldn't be the center of activity.

This weekend while Isabelle enjoyed completely undivided attention from her Oma, we removed mulch from the front flower beds, weeded, drove back the wayward grass, trimmed the bushes, mowed the grass, finished putting up the patio furniture. By Sunday, we were so sore we could barely walk. You really use muscles in gardening that you normally don't use.


Anyway, moving on to Monday. Monday Isabelle had her 9 month check-up...today she is 9 months!! I can't believe it! To give you her stats: she is 28 1/4 inch (that is 75 percentile), 16 pounds 8 ounces (20 percentile), and 17 1/2 on head cir. (which is 50 percentile). Indeed, I have a tall skinny child...how? I'll never know.