Looking more like Minnesota

Well we were lucky and had much warmer weather than usual all through November and December. Now, it's snowing for the third time this month! We got about six inches last Sunday and now there are snow flurries today. Not much acculmulation though. I just got back inside from shoveling the driveway along with all the 10 year olds in the neighborhood who just got home from school. Made me daydream of the day when I could send Ella or Lily out to do the shoveling! I hear from friends back in California that there was some snow there too, in Malibu Canyon and Valencia! Hope those folks are handling it okay. And there's weird weather down in Texas and the Gulf area too. Very odd.

Anyhoo, I'm not really here to talk about the weather. We are battling our umpteenth cold of the season. Hope all this ends soon! I'm not used to dealing with colds every other week. Not fun.

Last week was the first time since we moved in that I felt like I could relax a little. I didn't unpack or clean during the girls naps. I just watched my tv shows on the DVR and read in "my" room, which is really the guest room. But I'm loving its coziness.

We started potty training Ella in full force last week. There was a Little Mermaid vanity on super sale at Target so I told her we could get it but that she couldn't open it and play with it until she went on the toilet and wore big girl underwear. Well, not to give you all too much information, but the underwear went well for three days and now we're back to pull-ups. I think she got tired of peeing in her pants. But she does use the toilet every now and then. She just goes up on her own and then calls me when she's done. I devised a chart that I taped to the big vanity box (which is currently sitting on the bathroom sink). Everytime she goes, she gets a sticker. When she fills the chart (like 36 boxes) she gets to open the vanity. So far we have about 12 stickers. So at least its a start.

In other news, I signed her up for preschool this week! She's going to go three days a week for three hours a day in the afternoon. She has to be potty trained. So here's hoping she is trained by SEPTEMBER! Jeez, she'll be four, I hope she's trained by then! I think she'll enjoy preschool and I think I will too! :-)

Andrew's parents came for a visit this weekend. We had fun taking them to the Mall of America for a couple hours. We took Ella to Libby Lu (a store bathed in pink and purple made for little girls who want to be princesses) where she got a make-over into a Princess with a tiara and everything. My cousin Cindy's daughter Emilee turned four on Thursday and she had been to Libby Lu. When we went to her birthday party, Ella was envious of Emilee's up-do and tiara. So we thought it would be fun for her get the princess treatment. She loved it! She was so into it and walked around the mall afraid to get her nails all messed up! It was pretty adorable and funny to see Ella so prissy. She's such a tom boy some days and a girly girl other days. At least she's well-rounded.

We also visited the aquarium at the Mall. Ella & Lily still love seeing all the fish every time we go there. On Sunday, we visited Chuck E Cheese where everyone had a great time! See the pictures in the new January album.

Andrew is off in California right now for a couple weeks to work on stuff for the Super Bowl. Then he's off to Miami for the Super Bowl. So we're on our own for a bit. My mom and Dave are coming up this weekend to celebrate my birthday (the big 3-0!) and then Mom is back at the end of next week to help me out with the kids.

So I guess that's all for the current update. Nothing too earth-shattering. :-) Thanks for checking in!

Finally new photos

We finally got the G5 up and running so I added a ton of pictures yesterday. Check out the second half of November, December, and various Christmas celebrations! And I know many of you have been waiting for pictures of the new house so there are a few of those as well. I will add pictures to the new house album as we get more rooms finished and cleaned up. Enjoy!!! Just click on the "Latest Pictures" link in the sidebar.

Winter Wonderland

Well, we finally had a white Christmas. :-) We celebrated our final Christmas last night with my dad and Clare just a few hours before we rang in the New Year. Whew, that was cutting it close. Would have seemed weird to celebrate Christmas 2006 in January 2007. It started snowing yesterday afternoon and snowed for hours, leaving about 3 inches of snow behind. It really is a pretty sight out our patio door.

Happy New Year! Happy 2007!

Andrew and I left the girls at my dad's house last night and are enjoying a lazy kid-free morning. In fact, Andrew is STILL sleeping. We would normally be up hours before now. So, so far we are enjoying 2007. 2006 was a transition year for us sort of filled with stress and the Unknown. While many good things happened, and we always feel blessed by what we have in our children, family, and friends, we are also happy to say good-bye to 2006. We are calling 2007 our "Rebuilding Year". We are looking forward to feeling settled once again and getting into the groove of things.

Whatever your New Year's resolutions and goals are, we hope you have a wonderful, exciting year ahead of you, and we look forward to sharing in all of life's wonder with our great family and friends.

The Deal of the Century and other things

The title of this post should really be: The Deal of the Century and Is that really MY daughter?

The Deal of the Century
My mom and Dave are visiting for a few days. We actually got our guest room set up now that we've decided Andrew's temporary office is going in our bedroom. The guest room is pretty sparse right now but hey, there's a bed to crash on. AnyWAY, since my mom and Dave were around to watch the girls, Andrew and I braved the Day-After-Christmas-Shoppers and set out on several missions. The first of which was to buy a new tv for the family room (so we don't have to fiddle with the audio cable every five minutes when the tv all of sudden goes mute). We spent an hour at Best Buy and decided on the model. But of course, since Andrew complements my impulsiveness with his very thorough approach to things, we did not buy the tv that day. We'll perhaps be getting it in the next day or so. Okay, I'm completely digressing now. So Mission #2 (and the subject of this post): find a very tall but cheap artificial Christmas tree to put in our family room next year. I was hoping for 50-70% at Michael's or something like that.

We decided to go to the mall/Target before heading to Michael's. Andrew ran over to Sears to compare prices on tvs (again, that thoroughness showing through). I went to run into Target (LOVE that Target is attached to the mall, I think it should be an anchor store at every mall in the universe!) to get a few things. I happen to wander around the Christmas department where EVERYTHING was 50%. We got some icicle lights, 300 for $3! That's a good deal. Then I looked at the remaining Christmas trees. They had a 7.5 foot tree for a pretty good price, but if you buy the display models, you got 75% off! They had a NINE foot tree marked at $149.99. I read the sign a little closer, and it said 75% off the original price, which was $299.99. Okay, who in their right mind, would EVER pay $300 for a tree that lives in your house for one month of the year. I whipped out the cell phone and told Andrew about the various floor models available. He thought the nine foot tree sounded like a really good deal. So he went to move the car closer and came and found me.

On his way, he found someone in a red shirt to help us. Turns out he found the right person for the job. She got the tree down, on a flatbed cart, AND wheeled it over to the checkout area, where she used her walkie talkie to open a lane JUST FOR US!! Then proceeded to help the cashier ring up our tree. She said, okay what was the price? We said, "It was $299.99, but 75% off." She then said to the cashier, "Oh no, its not 75% off, it's 90% off." Um, 90% off!! I believe Andrew and I were both just standing there in shock with our jaws touching the floor. We were quickly processing this. You mean, we got a $300 tree for only $30? No, that can't be right. Oh yes, that is correct! We got a $300 tree for $30!! Then they used their glorious walkie talkies to call someone to help us load it in the car! (Um, am I in Target, or Nordstrom's?) I waited with the guy, our tree, and my cart full of other fabulous buys, and watched as Andrew walked two rows over and got into the car. He had found Rock Star parking in a lot that was completely full all the way to the last spots in Timbuktu! That should have been the first sign that we were going to get a great deal! So thus concludes my novel about our Deal of the Century. Andrew was on a high the rest of the day. He felt like we practically stole the tree we got it for such a good deal. He immediately brought it in the house and now we have two trees sitting in our family room. And I feel like maybe I finally got something back from Target for spending all our money there. ;-)

Is that really MY daughter?
As many of you may know, I am not really a dress person. I tend to wear dress pants and a nice shirt if I can get away with it. And I tend to only dress up when I'm really required to. Just my nature, always has been. My mom had the hardest time getting me to wear dresses as a kid. I hated anything pink or frilly. So naturally, I don't tend to dress my girls in things that are pink or frilly. And they tend to only wear dresses on special occasions. I discovered this summer that Ella does like to wear a dress occasionally and I had a couple cute dresses for her so she was a girly girl a couple times this summer. For Christmas, I had several dresses for the girls to wear to our various get-togethers. Well, since we've had so many in the last week, it seems Ella has gotten used to dresses. She was in search of one to wear today.

Andrew was upstairs with her, she saw some hanging in Lily's closet and wanted to wear one of those because I didn't have any hanging in her closet. There was one dress that Ella wore to Lily's baptism almost a YEAR ago and Andrew helped her put it on. It is practically a miniskirt now, where it went to mid-calf at the baptism. Then, she insisted she MUST have tights on. Well, her one and only pair of tights are still dirty from Christmas day. She proceeded to meltdown because she couldn't wear tights. UM, really, is that MY daughter? I don't hardly even wear pantyhose when I do happen to wear a skirt or a dress. And MY daughter is screaming her head off because we don't have a pair of tights for her to wear? She settled on socks. Now, about an hour later, she is currently asking Andrew for something else to wear, she wants pants on now. Okay, now THAT is MY daughter. :-)

I know this post is forever long already, but I do want to throw out two congrats. 1) to Heather, Peter and Matthew for welcoming little Max to their family on December 16th! We are all so happy he arrived healthy and safely. And 2) Matt and Allison, congrats on your new little arrival, Lilah, on December 26th, three weeks early! We can't wait to meet both of your new little ones!

Everything "Christmasy"

We moved in on Sunday the 10th and have been unpacking ever since. Things are at least liveable now and the girls are getting acclimated to their new rooms. I have invested an ungodly amount in Target products this week. When will I actually buy stock so maybe I can earn something back?!

Andrew celebrated his 30th birthday on Monday. The actual day was a little unceremonial, but he did get a new house for his birthday so no complaining. :-) We actually celebrated Saturday night by going out to the Green Mill restaurant with my dad, Clare and Grandma Mazie.

Sometimes it really is the little things that make you happy. Kind of like those Mastercard commercials. This would be our version:

Cost of a new house in MN: an amount much more reasonable than a house in Southern California

Cost of moving: too much STRESS

Being in a new house for Christmas: Priceless

Having your own non-coin operated washer & dryer for the first time in 11 years!: WAY BEYOND Priceless

Anyway getting back to the title of this post....Ella loves the word "Christmasy". To her, anything and everything holiday related is Christmasy. Including Santa. She could say Santa last year, but not this year. He's just Christmasy. Holiday lights on houses at night: Christmasy. Packages under the tree: Christmasy. It's actually quite cute.

I had a funny conversation with her the other day. She's been a little less than good lately. I'm just going to blame it on transitions in her life right now, and not the fact that she is just very defiant with me. So I was having a little talk with her the other day about how Santa only brings gifts to little girls and boys who are GOOD. And that it was especially important to be very good right before Christmas because Santa was still paying attention. And if she wasn't good, he wouldn't bring her any gifts. (Gina: I almost used your "I'm gonna call Santa and tell him not to bring any gifts." trick)

Later on, we went to the grocery store and she was particularly well behaved. I told her how much I appreciated her good behavior and her response to me was, "uh huh, Christmasy." (I had not mentioned Santa at all in this conversation). So then I said to her, "Oh, so are you only going to be good in December now, until Santa comes?" She said, "All right, Christmasy." That will teach me. She's way too smart! :-)

Lily is hanging around too, she just sort of goes with the flow. She loves all the holiday lights when we drive around at night. She points and "oohs" and "ahhs" appropriately. They both love the Christmas tree in our family room. Ella helped me put the nonbreakable ornaments on the bottom of the tree. Right now I have a gate around the table the tree is on so they won't open the gifts prematurely. Ahem, like they did at Aunt Gail's house last Saturday. (SORRY, Aunt Gail!)

Andrew took the girls to Madison to vist with Aunt Gail and all the Isaacson clan. They had a great time! And we look forward to visiting with everyone again this Saturday for Isaacson Christmas. I can't believe Christmas is almost here already! Hopefully things will really slow down for us after the New Year. I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit. We'll see! ;-)

Since I'm sure I won't get another post in before, we hope everyone has a fabulous holiday (whatever holiday you celebrate) and ring in the New Year with gusto!

Cheers!

Deal is sealed!!!

We have a new house!! I haven't said anything very solid on here about our new house for many reasons. One, I didn't want to jinx anything, and two, its has been the most up and down rollercoaster we have ever been on. The short version of the story: we had a buyer in CA, so we put in an offer on the house of our dreams here in MN. The buyer backed out and we had to scramble to find a new buyer within a week or risk losing the MN house. We were lucky enough to find a new buyer. But various paperwork issues and errors happened and the closing of the house kept getting moved forward and backward and then delayed three weeks and then back to being a week away. It was a nightmare of Elm Street proportions!! But today as of 1pm, we are the official new owners of a beautiful home in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. And it was all worth it! Poor Andrew has been so stressed dealing with all the minute details of this process. I can't say I have the first clue about half the stuff he was negoitating about. But he did a wonderful job, and I am so thankful to have him! Now, its my turn to do the hard work of unpacking and figuring out where all of our mountains of stuff will go in the new house!

Hopefully we will have our Christmas cards out in the next week with our new address on them! As soon as we get settled, we welcome visitors anytime!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us and offered kind words and positive statements during this transition time! And a special thank you to my dad and Clare for letting us invade their home for the last two and half months! Hopefully we'll get some photos posted very soon!

More Holiday Fun

I know I posted this last year but I feel like it deserves to be watched again! Ella thought it was pretty cool when she watched it this year.

Deck the Halls

Although I haven't been posting much lately, its not for lack of stuff to talk about. The girls and I have been a little bored running errands and everyday things. But we've thrown in a few fun holiday excursions. Last week, we visited the Mall of America to see the World's Largest Gingerbread House, a replica of the Polar Express train engine, and well, the good man himself, Santa. I was glad we didn't have to wait in a long line for the Gingerbread house because I thought it would be more than one room on the inside. It was pretty cool on the outside with real gingerbread and candy glued to it. They were handing out candy canes as you walked in and Ella matched her candy cane up to each and every one glued to the outside. We were met by a couple elves in a candy factory on the inside where I was most excited by the giant tin of Dots (my favorite candy) sitting on the floor. We just looked at Santa from afar because there was a long line and Ella had already visited with Kris Kringle at the Eden Prairie mall and told him her wish list (She wants a "whoo hoo". That's choo choo or a Thomas train in Ella-speak).

We also visited the aquarium again (did I mention we're all members now--each with our own photo member card, including Lily). :-) And this time Ella actually took her time and really looked at everything. Usually she likes to run through the whole thing just to get to the gift shop and play area. And we actually learned something new. Did you know that there are sting rays that live in fresh water? I thought that was quite interesting.

Last Satureday, we went to Lockhead Martin, where my stepmom Clare works, for their family holiday party. Everything was decorated with big balloon arches and balloon candy canes, hersey kisses, stars, and more. All the kids got their picture taken with Santa (except for Lily who is petrified even if you take one step closer to the jolly old man). Ella also made a reindeer ornament, correction: I made a reindeer ornament and Ella watched me. She also had both cheeks and her nose painted, frosted a cookie all by herself, and colored a holiday card. Lily sort of wandered around enjoying the atmosphere. They both received a cuddly little bear blanket and a very nice book about Lily the rabbit and her friend Honey Bear which I thought was quite appropriate for our Lily and her lovey Bear. All in all, we had a great time!

We look forward to perhaps putting up our own tree in our own house in the very near future! But that is all I'll say about that for now so I don't jinx anything. More on that later.... ;-)

Standing on my soapbox....again

It's the holiday season again and that means that your local Barnes and Noble may be doing a children's book drive. Yesterday, the girls and I went for the last storytime before Christmas. (And the last time to play with the Thomas trains before they put the table away for the holidays.) In the spirit of the season and giving, Ella helped me pick out a Barbie Mermaidia book for a three year old little girl. I explained to her that some little girls' mommies didn't have the money to buy them books so we were picking out a book to give to one of those little girls. She really seemed to understood me and thought someone would like the Barbie book. Lily and I picked out a Lift-the-flap shape/color book for a 2 year old little girl.

I encourage all of you to get in the spirit of the season and purchase a book for a well-deserving little kid!

A New Venture!

Hornet Inc. has created another new company called Webrides TV. They rocked the gaming world when they created gametrailers.com (which was sold to Mtv) and now they are doing a similar thing for car enthusiasts! They just launched this fall, please check out their new website: www.webridestv.com to see what its all about!

Ah, the lovely holiday season

Anyone else notice I've been neglecting the blog lately? ;-) Things have been a bit hectic for us around here lately. The weekend after Halloween, the girls and I packed up the car and drove down to Iowa to visit Nana Mary and Papi Dave. This was the first time I drove anywhere with the girls on my own (well longer than driving to the beach from our condo in Glendale anyway). They did very well actually. I was quite pleasantly surprised. I loaded up the backseat with stuff to entertain them and bags of snacks to hand back and the four hours went by relatively quickly.

While in Cedar Rapids, we visited the Iowa Children's Museum where Ella and Lily had a blast. They pretended to grocery shop in a pint-sized store, Ella served us up some pizza at a play restaurant, there was an art studio, a motion room, an animal discovery area, as well as an awesome play house and farm (of course, it's Iowa!). They also had this very cool sand area where the sand was a special mixture of sand and some kind of wax or putty, so you could sculpt with it. Ella loved that!

We also went outlet shopping and enjoyed my mom's awesome home cooking (you know, real cooking, not what I normally do). I also visited with my friend Molly and got caught up with her which was fun. Oh, and Ella got her hair cut for only the second time by a real stylist! I usually trim it up for her. But my mom was getting her hair done and Ella was very intrigued so we asked her if she wanted to have her hair cut. She said, "All right." So she got in the chair and sat like a little princess while Kelly put the drape on her and trimmed her hair. She didn't move a muscle the whole time! Not exactly what she does when I try to cut her hair. So maybe my trimmin' days are over!

The drive back to MN went just about as well as the first so all in all it was a very successful trip. The girls were excited to be home with all their familiar toys and see Daddy and B-pa (Grandpa) again .

Andrew left for Los Angeles after just finishing up a trip to Miami. He was checking out the stadium in Miami for the Super Bowl. Hornet will be doing the Super Bowl graphics again this year. He worked in the office while in LA and packed up the rest of our stuff. Now we just need a moving date and we're all set. The date keeps getting pushed back a week for various reasons. Right now, we're hoping for the middle of December. The holidays are going to be really interesting for us this year!

But for now we are focusing on the Thanksgiving holiday this week! We are hosting my mom's family and Andrew's parents, brother and and his wife. There will be 13 of us! So our biggest Thanksgiving yet. And I can't wait to chow down on some yummy food! Oh, and of course be thankful for all we have! By the way, just want to throw kudos out to Erin and DJ (our guests of Thanksgivings past) because they are also hosting Thanksgiving this year. And we'll miss you guys a LOT!

Happy Turkey Day to everyone!

PS. I had planned to write a tirade about how commercial the holidays are and that I can't believe department stores had Christmas stuff out weeks before Halloween! (I'm not kidding, Halloween/Thanksgiving on one side of the aisle and Christmas on the other as you were walking in the store). But I'll save my thoughts for next year, probably when they start putting Christmas stuff out before Labor Day!

Oh and one more P.S. Just wanted to throw a congrats out there to my good friend Sarah (and a faithful blog reader) on the birth of her second baby, a beautiful little girl named Thea! Congrats Sarah, Shawn, and big brother Collin!!

Happy Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween this year! Ella was so into it! I've been building it up for two months now. I got the kids books about halloween with pictures to show it was about pumpkins, and ghosts, and of course candy. We watched Dora Halloween over and over again. Both the kids are so excited when they see anything "pumpkin" now. We also practiced trick or treating where Ella would pretend to knock on my door and I would answer, she'd say "i see please" (her word for candy is i see). I would give her a toy or something in her bucket and she would say "thank you".

Last night we got them dressed in their costumes. Ella was SO EXCITED she could hardly contain herself. And we headed out the door with her walking by Andrew and Lily riding in the wagon. We went up and down my dad's block. And then because it was so cold out, we went over to Eden Prairie mall. You could go to each of the stores there and trick or treat. It lasted as long as their candy did. By the time we got there, over half the stores were out of candy. But maybe that was a good thing, Ella got a good enough stash as it was. I don't think she nor mom and dad need ALL that candy around the house!

Hopefully I'll have our pumpkin patch pictures and Halloween uploaded by this weekend. Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween! (I'll add picures to the post this afternoon when Blogger isn't being so snarky.)

Time Change

Wow, it seems like time really flies faster here in Minnesota. Not sure why that is, I don't think the girls and I are busier than we were in California. The girls have really gotten acclimated to Gramma and B-Pa's house (Ella has tried saying "Grandpa" but has decided she likes "B-Pa" better. So my dad is now known as B-Pa). We have done some fun things the last couple weeks. We visited the Mall of America one day just to kill some time. Ella loved seeing the Rain Forest Cafe store, playing around in Pottery Barn Kids, and a really nice Disney Store.

We also visited Emma Krumbee's Farm where we saw a bunch of scarecrows and picked out pumpkins. It was a little more commercialized than we had hoped it would be. You had to pay $1 to play each kiddie game! But Emma sure does make a mean apple pie! We picked one up from the bakery on our way out.

Andrew's parents came to visit this weekend. We had a really nice visit and they said the drive (about 6 hours) wasn't so bad. We mostly just hung out with them and the girls. But we did go look at the two houses we had narrowed down in our search. It was fun to show them to everyone. We may have more house news in the near future, but I don't want to jinx anything just yet.

Hope everyone has a fun Halloween tomorrow! We'll be trick or treating with the girls. I'll post pictures as soon as I can! In the meantime, there are new Shutterfly pictures up for September and half of October!

It's beginning to look alot like.....hey, wait a minute!

Yes, it looked like Christmas around here for about 24 hours. It SNOWED on Oct. 11th! Okay, I knew it would be cold here, and I knew there would be snow. But on Oct. 11th! Not fair! I didn't even have winter coats for the girls yet. Here are a bunch of pictures of Ella discovering the snow falling. She has seen it and played in it before, but hadn't experienced it while it was falling. She was very intrigued. She would watch it out the window, and when it would stop, she would ask, "Hey, where'd it go?". When it would start up again, she'd say, "Oh, there it is!"











We also decorated the front of the house for Halloween. Gramma Clare bought some decorations at the store and said, "Go crazy." So here's a picture of it. There are also some ghosts hanging from the trees. Ella helped me stuff the pumpkin bags and the bags for the pumpkin man. She loves looking out the front door every night to discover the lights have been turned on. Just wait until Christmas this year! :-)


The last two pictures are of the girls being cozy inside one morning right after they woke up and Lily reading her new book called "Prancing Dancing Lily". Both she and Ella really LOVE this new book and others they received from a friend. ;-)

This week hasn't been too exciting yet. Ella is getting over a cold and I believe Lily is just getting it. The weather has been cold and rainy so no playing outside. We spent an hour and half killing time at the bookstore today. We are hoping to visit the pumpkin patch (check it out here) and some see some scarecrows on Saturday. And Andrew and I will be house hunting on Sunday. Yippee! Speaking of houses, we received an incredibly lowball, insanely lowball offer on our condo. We're countering but I'm not holding my breath that anything will come of it. But cross your fingers just in case! Coming soon: more Shutterfly pictures!

Election humor for you

I will update for real soon. However, please check out this link when you have a free moment. Andrew's brother, Benjamin and his wife, Jenelle received a political message on their answering machine. The funny part is what was said after the caller thought she had hung up. Listen to the clip here.

Just an update

I'm having technical difficulties with Shutterfly right now. I got a new laptop so I could take advantage of my dad's wireless network. And well, the shutterfly plugin that allows me to add tons of pictures at once is not suitable for the laptop's processor. They haven't created a plugin that works with it yet. :-( So unfortunately I can't upload our latest pictures. Andrew will be bringing our old computer with him when he arrives in MN next weekend so hopefully I'll be able to get new pictures up then.

We had a very fun time at Claire's wedding. Ella & Lily stopped by the reception for a little while and were pretty well behaved. My mom got her perfect Christmas card picture (which is why we are so coordinated!) and so did we. We figured why not, since we were all dressed up anyway. I've known Claire since sixth grade as well as Erin and Allison (also in the this picture). Allison was a bridesmaid and Erin and I were greeters and handed out programs at the church. Claire and her new husband Jeff really had a nice wedding and are perfect for each other! Congratulations Claire & Jeff! We hope we get to hang out with them more often now that we are in MN.

We had a nice first week here. We tried out some new parks, the Barnes and Noble storytime, and of course Target. We've also taken advantage of all the walking paths around here! Although we did lose Bear (Lily's lovey) on one of the walks and I panicked for a few minutes. But whew, we found him, thankfully. We played in the leaves with Grandpa on Saturday. And one of Lily's favorite pasttimes these days is playing in the kitty bed. She LOVES it! I'm thinking may need to buy her own. Poor Gracie the cat hasn't slept in there since we arrived!

Up next week, decorating the front yard for Halloween, Toddler Tuesday at the Mall of America, a visit to Great-Grandma Betty's, and more random fun! And best of all the return of Andrew next weekend! Yeah!

The look of fall

My favorite time of the year is Labor Day until New Year's.
And I have to admit, it's even better now that we're back in
Minnesota. A REAL fall!! Yippee! The changing color of the
trees, the falling of the leaves, the rain pouring down. Here
are some fun pictures of fall in my dad's neighborhood and
the girls playing in leaves for the first time!

So you say it's your birthday!

Okay, I'm a day late on this one, so sue me! :-) Lily's FIRST birthday was officially yesterday, but we chose to celebrate today to give us a little more time to get organized. She was very happy and bubbly as usual all day yesterday. It was almost as if she just knew it was her birthday. She would smile and laugh whenever we said, "Lily's the birthday girl today!". We got the girls a big slide from Toys R Us as sort of a birthday/moving gift. They were so excited when we brought it out. Hopefully they will enjoy it through the winter months in the basement and outside in the summer.

Tonight we celebrated Lily's birthday with my mom and Dave, my dad and Clare and Grandma Mazie. We ordered pizza and celebrated with a Dora cake. Lily stuck her hand in the cake before we even got the candle lit! :-) She was a little perplexed while we sang Happy Birthday and Ella was crying and hiding under the table (do we really sing that bad? I'm sure the answer to that is, yes. I'll post a video in the next few days and America can be the judge.). Lily cried after we were finished singing. But she was sort of interested when we put the cake on her tray. She had a few licks of frosting and then dug into the cake. After awhile she just picked the cake up with both hands and took little bites off it (like a squirrel). She actually was quite neat eating, until she rubbed her eye and got it all over her face. Then, she decided it would be fun to finger paint on the tray with the frosting. All very cute! And captured in digital pictures that I'll also upload in a few days.

Ella and I helped her open a few gifts and she played a little bit in her new Dora car (Ella also got a police car--with her birthday gift cards). Lily also enjoyed pushing her new baby doll stroller all around the house.

After her bath, she promptly fell into a blissful birthday sleep. Happy Birthday to our little one-year old! We can't believe its been that long already. The year has gone by so quickly. We have loved every minute with Lily and look forward to all her amazing feats!

Sidenote: we took Lily to her one-year checkup and she is 23 lbs. and 32" tall! That's 90th percentile for weight and over 100% for height. She's a tall girl! And their baby books are packed but I know that Ella was about 20lbs and 30" at her first year checkup. Lily really is amazing when it comes to language. Her favorite word is "bubble". She loves to say it. She calls balloons "Bubbles" which I think is the cutest thing ever. She also says "thank you" in CONTEXT after you give her something!

Other than that, things are getting organized and we're still getting settled here. We will be going to my friend Claire's wedding tomorrow so look for pictures from that as well. AND, my brother-in-law, Benjamin is running in the Portland Marathon on Sunday morning. So good luck wishes sent to him. If you're curious about his progress throughout the race you can check out his running blog. I'll be his guest poster for the day and sending updates every two miles or so.

Hope you are all doing well!

Bittersweet Farewells

When we first moved to Los Angeles and for the first couple years, I didn't really let myself get close to people because we always knew we would be moving back to the Midwest at some point and I wanted to spare myself the inevitable good-bye. Well, obviously when you know people for a certain amount of time, you're going to get to know them, and find people you really like to hang out with. After I had Ella and chose to stay home with her, I realized that I needed contact with the outside world and preferably adults. I found a playgroup online that was very informal. There were no requirements for joining and you could go to whatever you felt like, however often. Sounded good to me! I never expected to meet such good friends through that group! I guess when you see people 2-3 times a week plus a weekend event every now and then for 2 1/2 years, you're bound to grow pretty close to them.

Andrew and I decided at the beginning of September that Sept. 27th would be the big day, officially. So began the good-byes. And it seemed we couldn't just do one big shindig. We had to drag it out for more than two weeks. We did our best to spend one last outing with all of our good friends in Los Angeles. Starting with one last Mom's Night Out for me with The Tot Lot (our current playgroup). We had a fondue party at Melissa's house and played The 80's Game where I got to show off all my completely trivial pop culture knowledge (Like that Michael Bolton sang Down in the Boondocks and Bo Diddley did a "You don't know Diddley" commercial for Nike). From there, we moved to one last Wednesday playdate. (our regular weekly scheduled playdate) That week's playdate was at Petco. Ella and her friends went on a guided tour around the store and were able to touch/hold various animals such as rats, birds, and chinchillas.

Friday, I met up with my friend Shelly at a great children's bookstore in Studio City called Storyopolis where Ella and Lily enjoyed storytime and then we grabbed a bite to eat at California Pizza Kitchen. We met Kate, Pete, and Liam at the "sand" park in Burbank on Saturday morning for one last outing to our favorite park. Kate and I worked together at the Autry. She started there as my assistant and now she's running the place and has been there longer than I worked there!

Saturday evening, we took Andrew's boss, Greg and his wife, Kelly out to eat at my favorite restaurant, Taverna Tony's in Malibu. We really enjoyed their company and are so appreciative of the opportunity for Andrew to continue on with Famous/Hornet here in Minnesota. Sunday evening, we visited with our friends the Pickenpaughs and the Smocks with homemade pizza and the kids running around the backyard. It was a really fun, relaxing night. And finally, the last, yes, I said LAST good-bye, was our last "Mondays at the Park" outing with the Tot Lot where 9 of the 11 members came to wish us well. Ella ended the evening by giving everyone hugs and high fives. Even Lily gave out some hugs too!

After all of that, I spent Tuesday packing, organizing and being in frenzy mode to get everything ready. And Wednesday morning Sept. 27th, only 15 minutes behind our estimated departure time from the house, we left with 6 bags to be checked, 5 carry-ons, 2 car seats, 2 kids, 1 double stroller, and ourselves (We left the partridge in a pear tree in California). We had a near perfect travel experience. We were able to get everything on the shuttle bus and utilized Northwest's curbside check-in. The girls napped for half the flight and were well behaved for the rest of it. My dad and Clare (in two vehicles to fit all our stuff!) picked us up from the airport and we arrived here at their house in Bloomington without incident! Whew. Minnesota! Here we come!

Tidbits

Well lots of little things to report these days. First we had a scary day on Wednesday. We were at our playdate at Griffith Park and Lily tried part of a cracker with peanut butter on it. You're supposed to be a year old for peanut butter and she has two weeks to go so it didn't seem like a big deal. Then not ten minutes later, she had a large bump on her lip and hive-like spots on her face. I tried calling her doctor and they weren't much help so we just made a trip to the ER. They didn't do much for her except make sure she was breathing fine and they got us in right away. By the time we left two hours later she looked about 85% better. They just said to give her Benadryl. She was fine the next day. But we have to be really careful from now on with her because each time she's exposed the reaction can come on quicker and more severe. Very scary! Not something I want to deal with again anytime soon!

On a much lighter note, Ella hit a major milestone (at least in my eyes!) on Monday. While Lily was taking her morning nap, Ella asked me to come sit by her on the floor, she crawled into my lap and asked me to read her a book! She actually sat there and listened and pointed things out and let me read the words! Then she wanted me to read her four more books after that! Okay this might not sound like a milestone to most people, but this is quite amazing for Ella. Since she was a baby, she would always have to be in charge, turning the pages, never wanting me to read any of the story. And you know how I love books, so I am really hoping the girls turn out to be readers. I was so thrilled she actually wanted to be read to. I think the storytimes I've been bringing her to have really helped.

We also took Ella to the doctor a couple weeks ago to have her ears checked just to make sure everything was working right. Since her speech seemed slightly delayed we just wanted to make sure there was no physical problem keeping her from talking. And she is fine. The doctor said she was on track and pretty normal for her age. And she really has had a language explosion the last couple weeks. We hardly have any temper tantrums at all anymore. It's so nice! Guess we're just biding our time until Lily hits the terrible twos. :-)

In Hollywood excitement this week. I am a fan of Grey's Anatomy and I know some of you are as well. They were filming at the Autry Museum on Wednesday. There were swanky stars trailers and gaffer trucks, catering, people walking around in hospital garb. It was pretty cool. I even got to see the guy who plays George dressed in his scrubs and lab jacket walking around. If I can tell which episode they filmed there, I'll let ya know. Also, for anyone who is a fan of the show Cold Case. The season premiere episode was filmed in the Burbank mall. I was there a couple months ago and they had parts of the mall cordoned off with signs saying they would be shooting somewhat graphic material that day that may not be appropriate for smaller children. They were building fake walls and there were signs that read "Woodland Valley Mall". Definitely going to miss the excitement of seeing filming going on once we get to MN.

And I guess my final tidbit is that even though we haven't sold the condo yet. We're heading East. We're going to stay with my dad and Clare for a little while (and hope the condo sells very soon) and have the movers come get our stuff sometime the beginning of October. We have one guy who is pretty interested in our place, but just isn't ready "to commit" yet and wants to mull it over another couple WEEKS! Geez, just make a decision already! So anyway, we're ready to move on and we're coming to terms with the reality of leaving here and starting to say good-bye to good friends. I can't think about it too much because it makes me sad. I'd rather just sort of be in denial and think I'll see ya in a while.

And with that I think I'll end today's post. Hope you are all doing well and starting to get into the spirit of fall with slightly cooler weather and football season starting!

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!