And She's Off

And running! Lily started officially walking on Friday, August 18th. Here is a little movie from that night and then this week so you can see just how much she has improved in a short time. The movie is still from our small digital camera so again, the quality may not be the best. We finally got our video camera back from Best Buy. SO look for better quality movies in the future!

Enjoy!

History Repeats Itself....

Probably no explanation needed. But the top picture is Andrew and his brother, Benjamin. And the bottom, Ella & Lily practically in the same pose.

Happy Anniversary!

Actually, our fifth wedding anniversary was last Friday. The anniversary I am referring to here is the one-year anniversary of when I started the blog. I have to say I feel like its been longer than a year. But I guess that's just because we had the website before. It's amazing how much blogging knowledge I've gained in the last year. And how many other people have copied us! ;-) Technology and communicating through technology interest me and so here we are still plugging along.

We spent some time two weekends ago in Wisconsin to help Andrew's Grandpa Milt celebrate his 90th birthday (a little bit early, his birthday is in December, but they thought a summer party would be much more fun!). We enjoyed seeing all the Isaacson clan (except for Todd-we missed you, but working in Houston with the space shuttle is a pretty good excuse). After the weekend, we left the girls with Tom and Pat for the entire week! This was a new experience for all of us. We've left the girls for a day or two. But a whole week was very surreal. Walking through the airport without all the extra baby stuff was amazing and we thought to ourselves, was flying this easy before we had kids? It seemed like such a piece of cake! And I enjoyed watching movies and reading for the entire flight. The house was eerily quiet when I got home. I was on the computer and kept waiting to hear someone cry to signal naptime was over. After Monday though, I sort of got in the swing of things like leaving the house without having to remember 20 things. And I came and went all day running errands, shopping, etc. Andrew and I went to Nick and Stef's Steakhouse downtown on Wed. night to celebrate our anniversary. The food was delicious and the view was really cool with all the buildings and lights at night.

The true purpose of the week without the girls was to pack up all the stuff we don't use on a daily basis. I packed up 12-15 boxes and rented another storage unit. We moved a bunch of stuff over there. The place looks really big now! Someone better buy this place soon before we all go nuts!

By the end of the week, we were definitely missing the girls and ready to see them again! We took the red-eye back to WI on Friday night and Lily met us in the driveway waving excitedly to us. It was so cute. And when Ella woke up she came right to me and cuddled. Both girls were very happy to see us again! We all flew back home Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day recuperating from the time change and lack of sleep. Things are back to normal around here today. And will be pretty calm for the next few weeks.

We are thinking of getting a St. Joseph statue and burying it under our for sale sign. Apparently that is supposed to bring good luck to house sellers. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Reading for the Record

You all know how much I enjoy reading and hope that Ella & Lily will enjoy books just as much as I do. Today, August 24th, there is a campaign going on called "Reading for the Record". You can go to www.readfortherecord.org and register. Then read "The Little Engine that Could" to a little one you know. They are trying to set a record for the number of people reading the same book in one day. It is to promote reading to your child and the website gives you tips on how to read to keep your little one involved and interested.

All right, looks like I have a new topic to add to my soapbox platform. :-)

Ella's Birthday Candles

I'm playing with a new blog feature. Here is Ella's birthday movie in a different format. This is so easy that maybe you'll get to see more video clips from now on.

The movie quality is low because its from our digital camera instead of our video camera which is currently being fixed at Best Buy. Look for more videos in the future!

Further Ramblings...

So not much exciting has happened in the last week or so. We went to a birthday party for Ella's friend, Olivia, last weekend and a BBQ at Kate and Pete's house. The food was sooo delicious. Ella and Lily had fun playing with everyone all weekend. On Monday, we did a usual trip to Target. But it was more eventful than most Target visits. Another celeb sighting for you to add to your list. Jennie Garth was there! I would guess many of my blog readers will have no clue who she is. However, I also know that Camille and Jenn W. will be highly jealous of me if they read this. Jennie Garth was one of the stars of the tv show, Beverly Hills, 90210. Sad to say, but I watched this show until the very end. Ironically, I also spotted Brian Austin Green (another 90210 alum) at the same Target a few years back. Anyway, I glanced her way and then thought to myself, "She looks a lot like Jennie Garth." I did a double take which she noticed. And it was her. She is ginormously pregnant right now and she had her two older girls in a cart and was pushing it around with no nanny in sight. I gawked for a minute and then went on my merry way. It's funny when I first moved here, I would have been elated at this star sighting, but now its sort of like, they are real people too, who shop at Target and they just have this job where they end up on tv or movie screens. No big deal. The funny thing is that I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she forwarded me a link to this. That was the day I saw her at Target! I just can't even imagine someone following me around in their car, taking pictures of me as I'm just out and about on a normal day. And paying attention to what I had in my shopping cart!

I have a whole different view of the paparazzi now that I've been living here for awhile. It would just suck to know that going out in my sweats with no makeup, hair air-dried, and someone is going to take a picture of me and put it on the internet. Really its amazing people care that much. I know, I know. I subscribe to People magazine and for some reason I am entertained by reading the latest celeb gossip or seeing these pictures that are taken. It's like they are royalty or something. Why do we care? They are just regular people living their lives. I warned you I was going to ramble today.

So getting back to us, the regular people. Lily is almost walking!! She stands up all on her own and just looks around like she is thinking about taking those steps but is still a little leary about it. Last night she took 4-5 steps all on her own! It's amazing how fast she is growing up. She also seems to be getting attached to one of her bear blankets. It was on the floor last night and she started dragging it around whereever she went (don't worry my floors are spotless for house showings). :-) It was pretty darn cute! Speaking of house showings....

We were supposed to have an offer put in last weekend but it has yet to show up. Not sure what's going on with that. We have some more people coming by tonight. Actually at a really inconvenient time, right before the girls are supposed to go to bed. But I'm trying not to be too annoyed about it. Some day the house will sell and we'll actually move....

Thus ends another post of my ramblings.....until next time. :-)

More birthday fun!

I know it's been forever since I have posted a movie. Here's one of Ella doing the cake thing and blowing out her candles at her birthday party. You can see she is a little apprehensive about what is going on. And Andrew and I agree that it was a good idea to not sing "Happy Birthday" this year. I haven't had a chance to actually update the "Movies" site. So just click here to view the clip.

What's special about today?

That's right boys and girls, it's Ella's THIRD birthday today! And I think she had a great day. We started off the morning by giving her some fun new Princess jelly sandals and getting the snacks ready for her party (veggies & dip, fruit, cheese & crackers, pb&J sandwiches, pita & hummus). Then we all piled into the car, stopped at the Burbank Ralphs to pick up her awesome Ariel cake and we were off to Sweet Little Faces (aka SLF), a play area at the Burbank mall for her party.

When we got to SLF Ella's eyes lit up because there were balloons set up already and the tablecloths had balloons on them. "Wahoon, Wahoon!" She and Lily jumped right into playing while the two SLF hostesses helped me put the food out on the tables. After that, they took over and Andrew and I just visited with everyone and had fun playing with the kids. There were 10 kids Ella's age and 6 Lily's age along with various parents and friends. The kids weren't really into the games they had planned so they brought out face painting. Well, Ella LOVED that! She had her face painted like a cat, then had a butterfly on one hand, cherries on the other. Some balloons on her wrist. THEN, her little friend Olivia wanted to paint something on her face, so Ella got a big blue splotch on her cheek. I personally think it was an abstract version of a cat. ;-)

Ella sort of had a meltdown last year when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her so we had the hostesses tell everyone we were going to just all yell, "Happy Birthday Ella" on the count of three and that worked like a charm. She's so good, she knew to try and blow the candles out right after they said Happy Birthday. It took her a couple tries to get all three. But she did it all by herself this year!

After the SLF people cleaned EVERYTHING up FOR us(!), we said good-bye to all our friends. We came home thinking Ella and Lily would both crash from all the excitement, but Ella announced she wanted to go to the "bayou" with Daddy. That's her word for any body of water: lake, ocean, pool, etc. So they went swimming. Then, she took her nap. When she woke up, she found the gift fairy had left all her birthday gifts in the living room. She started ripping into them. Made appropriate "oohs", "ahhs" and "whoa" noises as she flung the paper off each gift. She paid attention to it long enough for me to say, "We'll open up all the toys after you've opened everything up." Well that sent her into a flurry and she just opened everything lightning quick. She really liked everything she got. We took a ton of pictures which I plan to upload tonight. So please check out the "Ella's Third Birthday" album on our photo site for pictures of the entire day.

I think Ella really enjoyed her day and I have to say, having her party at the play area was the best idea I've ever had. It was so much less stressful to have the SLF people in charge of everything and all we had to do was show up. It was great! The day was also bittersweet as Andrew and I realized we would be leaving soon and we would miss all the wonderful friends we've made here very much. Ella & Lily have a lot friends here as well. It will be an all new experience starting over. We also can't believe that Ella is three years old already. She is not really a toddler anymore and she is growing up so much. Well, that ends another eventful day in the Isaacson household. Tomorrow, we have an open house again for our condo and we're off to finally see the movie Cars and sit through it this time!