All About Isla (and a little bit of Addison)

It's all about Isla in terms of pictures and videos in this post, but scroll to the bottom for a brief clip of Addison singing the "I Love You" theme song from that horrendous show about the purple dinosaur known as Barney. We certainly don't let her watch that crap, but I think Missy (our daycare provider Brenda's 24 year old daughter) caves and shows Addison clips from YouTube of Barney songs/skits.

We're looking forward to the long weekend ahead of us, and especially forward to our trip to California in less than 2 weeks!

Baby Isla after her bath - she looks different with slicked down hair!

I love sleeping baby pictures

and I think it's hilarious that Isla sleeps on her side mostly

Muliti tasking dad - preparing dinner and Baby Bjorning it!
Isla can face forward in the Bjorn now - does this picture remind you of anything?

http://addisonandisla.blogspot.com/2008/10/almost-rolling-over.html

Baby Macarena

So talkative!

Barney time

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back to Work I Go...

Last week marked my fateful return to work and Isla's 12 week birthday. How did 12 weeks pass so quickly? It's fair to say I was sad to leave the little peanut, but at least she's with her sister at our trusted daycare provider Brenda's house, directly across the street from us. I purposely went back on a Thursday so I could have a nice easy week, and an easy week it was! The first two days were nothing more than getting myself settled in and catching up with various co-workers and peers. I think the real work will start this week...sigh. BUT, it's casual dress ALL next week in honor of the Fall National Meeting on Wednesday (except we all must wear the Target red and khaki on the actual day of the meeting, so embarassing), which is always a great event. There are typically about 5 "stars" who perform, and this year one rumor is that Gwen Stefani will be there. It will be DJ's first time at a Target corporate annual meeting, so he's going to freak.

We think Isla may be starting to roll over now, from her tummy to her back. We thought it was a fluke at first, but she's done it three times now. Addison didn't roll over until 5 months so this is early for us! I will try to catch a video clip. She's very chatty and smiley, both good things. Addison spent her weekend in a pool - Saturday at a pool party at Heather and Guy's, and Sunday at the Rec Center in St. Louis Park. All weekend she's been saying "Mama, I go underwater". She's a big talker with not a lot of game, but she has been getting her face in the water to blow bubbles and scrunches down in the shallow end so that she's submerged up to her chin. She starts swim lessons in October, so let's hope she does go underwater soon! At this point she is more tan than DJ (which isn't hard to accomplish, sorry honey) with a head of blonde highlighted hair to die for! People go nuts over her. One lady recently claimed in a heavy Minnesota accent "Oh, she looks just like a fancy little doll!" I believe this was a compliment, but in any case, she is a doll to me as well :). Unfortunately the little doll had an accident last week and ended up with a big red ow-ie on her upper lip. She was standing on a chair with her binkie in her mouth (long story about why she was standing on a chair and why she had her binkie) when she fell flat on her face and jammed the handle of the binkie up her nose. Sounds worse than it was and the mark is gone now, but it looked horrible. I had to take a picture of it, so scroll down to see it.

Cuddle bug

Don't worry, I'm not nursing her here, just snuggling!

First day back to work...outside Brenda's house not really wanting to drop her off

Isla took a dip in the pool too on Saturday....
as Addison discovered Cheetos puffs

Eating lunch at the pool - don't mind my weird face in the background

Our "fancy little doll"
and the doll with her boo-boo


Tummy time and a 1/4 roll

Chatter box

We were all set to leave the pool party on Saturday, with Addison dressed and ready to go, when all of a sudden she decided she wanted to play in the pool more. This is what happens when a regular diaper gets filled with water.

When Addison gets to pick out a toy, do you think she always goes for dolls and princess things? Nope, this girl likes her trucks and dinosaurs too!

Lake Trelipe

We spent this past weekend at our friend/neighbor Erika's parents' cabin up North on Lake Trelipe with her husband Eric and baby Alex (born a day after Isla). Wow, did we have fun! Unfortunately I accidentally deleted ALL of the great photos and video clips that I had taken from Friday through Saturday afternoon. I lost it all - the waterskiing, the fishing, the boat rides. I am still angry at myself. However, we were able to get a few shots of the rest of the weekend, and it definitely didn't stop us from having a good time.

The trip began with a 4 hour car ride, the Mazda packed to the GILLS! Does anyone (Jamie Shea, I know you do) know how much "stuff" a family of 4, that includes a toddler and an infant, needs to pack for a weekend at a cabin in the woods? Unreal - the Pak n Plays, the diapers, the wipes, the clothes, the toddler cups/utensils, the snacks, the toys, the towels, the baby toiletries, the toddler lifevest, the sunscreen, the bug repellant, the blankies, the binkies...I could go on and on, but I'll stop here, you get the picture. Thank God we also packed the little portable DVD player. We took off at noon, so after a good 90 minute nap Addison woke up and proceeded to switch between watching Elmo's Potty Time and Finding Nemo the rest of the drive. Isla slept the whole way until we stopped at a funky little shop called "Sweets and Such" to get a taste of some of the best ice cream I've ever had! Addison had chocolate peanut butter from head to toe, but it was worth it. Wish I could show you the pictures, but they're gone. :( After feeding Isla, we took off again and made it to the cabin in time to unpack, do some waterskiing and throw some burgers on the grill.

The next morning Addison woke up at the crack of dawn, so we headed down to the dock to throw rocks for what felt like hours while Eric and Erika slept in (and by sleeping in I mean until like 8:30 or something), taking advantage of Alex's first sleep-through-the-night. We hung out on the dock and on the boat that day, and Addison surprised us all by having absolutely NO fear of large, scaly, live, wriggling "fishies". She loved to hold them in her hands, clamp them to her chest and give them a big hug. Unbelievable! Eric, a very experienced fisherman, said he's never seen a 2 year old so unafraid of live fish. Isla was a super-sweetie, so calm and happy the whole time. She enjoyed a dip or two in the water as well. We all got up on the waterskis (adults, that is) as Addison cheered us on, yelling words of encouragement from the dock.

We had some great food and tons of laughs, and Eric and Erika were the consummate hosts. We headed home on Sunday, which was another easy car ride with lots of sleeping from the kids, and strategized the whole way about 5 year plans and how the hell could we figure out how to get ourselves a cabin on a lake! For now though, maybe we will see about renting something on a lake for a week each summer. Between that and our annual trips with my family to Faria Beach in Ventura and to Palm Springs that we hope to continue as tradition, there should be lots of good family vacation memories for all.

Isla's first boat ride

Alex and Isla - best buds already

Fishing with Isla

Addison and her "fishie"!

Erika and Alex
Good Daddies

Huge dork

The dock and steps up to the cabin

Isla's first dip in the lake

Skinny dipping together already? Scandalous!

My little fisherwoman - Eric gave her a Dora the Explorer plastic fishing pole

Throwing rocks

Notice the rock in hand
DJ gathering rocks to throw
and Addison thanking him for it

This was Addison before Eric and DJ took her out on the boat Saturday evening to go fishing. Eric had given her a fake fishing lure, which she called a dolphin - she's looking for her dolphin in this clip

Smiley Isla

On the ride home Addison fell asleep with her "snake" in hand - a fake worm used as fish bate that Eric gave her

Five Word Sentence

In all of my child-related reference books it says that a 2 year old "may be able to speak in 2-3 word sentences." Well, Addison does that and more! I caught a little clip of her spouting out a 5 word sentence. I'll set up the situation for you:

I was sitting in the glider in the nursery feeding Isla when Addison grabbed the phone and joined us. She began pushing buttons and pretending to talk, like she always does. She pressed the "talk" button, then "speaker" and it was off the hook long enough to start beep, beep, beeping pretty loudly. She looked at me with her big eyes and an open mouth and started laughing. I hit the off button and put the phone down on the footstool. What came next is below...

What she's saying is "This button scared me now", referring to the yellow "speaker" button. Ha! I was cracking up, so of course she kept repeating herself. It's just another part of her new dramatics of exploring the emotion of fear. She's really into acting scared of random, non-scary things. But 5 words is the most we've heard from her so far. Pretty cool!

Isla's 2 Month Stats

The big 2 month check-up, shots and all, is over and done with. Isla weighed in at a hefty 11 pounds 8 ounces! This puts her in the 50-75th percentile, with a head circumference to match. Sounds great, right? Well it is, but here is where it gets funny. The little munchkin is only 21 inches long...25th percentile. She's a short little chubster! These measurements are very similar to Addison's height and weight when she was 2 months old. Our pediatrician was chuckling, commenting on how strong the short genes are in my family. I said "Dr. Luckow, I have told you a number of times now...any female born out of this body will have these proportions." She's even more curious than I am to know if the same would hold true for a boy. Stop pressuring me doc!

Isla did OK with her shots, but me, not so much. I cried like a baby to see her scream in pain for the first time. So sad. She was a little fussy that evening, but back to her good-natured self the next day. We also marked her 2 month month birthday by moving her into her crib in the nursery and out of our room. No issues there at all, thank goodness. The little cutie is a funny baby who mostly sleeps on her side. We put her down on her back and she immediately cranks her body to the right. Whatever works!

All smiles before her shots

Sisterly love

Callie love

In this picture she's laying on her back with arms over her head...

and in this one she's on her side

Isla's fun and funky wall initials, courtesy of super-crafty and creative Grandma Pam

We live in the most wonderfully close-knit cliche of a neighborhood. Tonight was National Night Out which is Minnesota's version of block parties. Each neighborhood has it's own little gathering, streets blocked off and all, typically held at one family's house/yard/deck in potluck style. We had a great time - we love our neighbors and they love taking care of our kids. I didn't hold Isla once, nor did I worry about feeding Addison dinner. The kids follow her around like she's the Pied Piper, and thankfully tonight they were intent on feeding her and getting her to drink water. The picture below was taken as we were trying to get out of there and the kids were asking Addison to repeat their names. She kept calling Cole "Poop", which was the most hilarious thing any of them had heard, so she kept repeating it over and over. Aye yi yi!