Ella's School Report

Here is Ella's school picture. Honestly, I think its pretty good considering she had to sit there posed, with big bright lights and without Mom or Dad there. I had prepped her all morning that she would have to sit and smile pretty like all the other kids. So here's what we got. She looks a little tired I think, but we were at a birthday party that morning. :-) At least she's smiling right?

Andrew and I went to her parent/teacher conference this morning. Overall, she is doing pretty well. This conference is mostly to talk about how she is developing socially and there is another conference in March to talk more about how she's developing academically. There are some things she needs to work on: she's easily distracted (hmm.....Mom, does this ring a bell? Didn't every single one of my report cards say something about that?) :-), she has some trouble remembering directions if they are given far ahead of when the activity happens, and she has a bit of a hard time sitting still. But she has some strengths too! She is very polite and helps her friends clean up after she's done cleaning up her own toys. She is pretty good at sharing with her other friends, and her speech doesn't seem to be an issue at all in the classroom with the other kids. She always tries whatever it is they are doing, and she loves music time. Overall, the teachers said she is always happy and always has a smile on her face which is great to hear!

They asked her a few questions so they could give us the answers. When asked, "What is your favorite thing about school?" Her response was, "We get to make a lot of art." (I saw that one coming!). When asked what her favorite area of the classroom was, she said, "The book area." And when asked what she wanted to be, she said, "A bookstore owner." How great is that!! The teachers said that was one none of the other kids said. And I swear I did not prep her to say that. She definitely takes after me there!

We're so happy to hear she is doing so well and adjusting to school and loving it!

Down to Iowa and Back

The girls and I spent last week visiting Nana and Papi in Cedar Rapids. I was a little nervous about making the four hour drive in the car by myself with the kids. They have been known to be awful on our trips to Wisconsin so I had very low expectations about how well the trip would go. But I learned four hours is much much easier for them than 6.5 hours. I was armed with a couple new movies they had never seen. They ate lunch, watched a movie and promptly slept for a couple hours. Then started watching a new movie and we were there! It was really great! Same thing on the way home.

We had a lot of fun at my mom and Dave's. We spent quite a bit of Sunday outdoors playing in the fall leaves and on the neighbor's swing set. Ella is so funny. I told her in the morning that we were going to take a few pictures outside after Lily's nap. She was all cranky about it at that point. Then when it came time to take the pictures, she was ready. And continued to be ready for a while afterwards. :-) We went next door to play and she kept posing herself and saying, "Picture Mommy!". I actually got some very cute ones. If only she was like that all the time!

We did a lot of shopping while we were there. We played at the mall play area in Cedar Rapids on Monday. We drove a little ways and visited the Coral Ridge Mall on Tuesday where we went to the Barnes and Noble story time and then the Iowa Children's Museum. We went to the museum last year and Ella had a great time, I figured Lily would really be into it this year too. We went to the grocery store, a pizza parlor, the arts and crafts room, a motion room, a hospital, a farm and a visit to Indonesia. The kids really had a great time in each area. After several hours of play, I figured it was time to go home. We were walking out of the mall and Ella said she wanted to play in the play area. Both of them played for another hour! It was 3pm by the time we left! Lily usually naps at 12:30. I can't believe she made it that long without getting cranky.

Wednesday we visited the Cedar Rapids Public Library for a story time about Owls. It included books, songs, and finger games. Ella had a great time! Lily and I walked around and looked at books for most of it. I had an enjoyable kid-free dinner with my friend Molly on Wednesday night and got caught up with her. Thursday and Friday we did a bit of shopping and just played around the house. We returned home excited to see Andrew Friday evening.

All in all, it was a really fun trip. Thanks Mom and Dave! And hope you guys are getting your house back in order. :-)

PS. New photos up in the Oct. & Nov. photo albums.

Catching up...again

I can't seem to keep up with "Keeping up with the Isaacsons". :-) A lot of random things to report on. First, October 28th we went to the Vikings/Eagles football game at the Metrodome. Andrew's company created a new opening video and several new graphics for the team this year. He has a contact on the inside who got us field passes and awesome seats in the Legends Club. And since they've been season ticket holders for about ten years, we thought we would take along my cousins Cindy and Shawn. We all had a fantastic time despite the fact that the Vikings are hopeless this year. Shawn was like a little kid in a candy store down on the field before the game. He kept getting chased by security guards during the warm-up for stopping in the end zone to take pictures (you're supposed to keep moving). We all indulged in free catered food and drinks too. Definitely the way to spend a few hours watching a losing team. We also got to meet some of the cheerleaders and Ragnar the Viking mascot guy. There will be more pictures in the October album soon!

The next weekend Andrew went to Buffalo and met up with Benjamin for the Bills/Bengals game. They had a great time hanging out in the control room for the game. I think the most exciting part for Andrew was that he had 9 football games on a screen so he could keep track of his fantasy football team. ;-) You can see photos from their outing at Ben's website here.We had a really nice weekend at home this weekend. Ella has started swim classes through the Parks & Rec. I signed her up for Saturday mornings so Andrew can take her. It's a fun Daddy/Daughter thing for them to do. They go get breakfast first and then head over to the pool. Ella really seems to be enjoying it. So far the instructors have just been getting the kids used to the water.

We took the kids to see Bee Movie Saturday. It was pretty entertaining for all of us. Unfortunately, Lily is still a bit young to want to sit and watch the whole movie so she and Andrew ventured to the lobby a couple times. I liked all the pop culture references and it was pretty funny for adults as well as kids. Then we came home and rearranged the living room and started (finally!) to hang some stuff up on the wall in there. It's really starting to look finished in there now.

On Sunday, we headed over to Grandma Betty's house to visit with her, my Aunt Jean and Aunt Carol and Mark. Carol and Mark made a really delicious lasagna (thanks again!) and we watched the first half of the Viking/Packer game. We tried to take a picture of the four of us in front of our house in honor of the football game. The girls are not thrilled in the picture, I think its just because they are sad that the Packers are going to kick the Vikings butt. Whenever I look at it, that old Sesame Street song "Which one of these is not like the other?" comes to mind. ;-) I had fun giving Andrew crap for his shirt on the way to Grandma's house. I told him I had to get it all out before the game because we all knew the Packers would wallop the Vikings.

After getting home from Grandma's we set out to start putting up our Christmas lights. We got about 2/3rds of the way done. Good thing, I think that was our last nice warm day for a bit. As soon as we finish, we'll post a picture. I refuse to turn them on before Thanksgiving though. It really bugs me how it seems that Thanksgiving doesn't even exist anymore. The day after Halloween (if not before), all the Halloween/Harvest stuff is gone from the stores and holiday decorations are already up. Poor Ella thinks its Christmas already. I keep reminding her we have to celebrate Thanksgiving first, then Christmas. She can't help but be confused when Santa has already made his mall debut!!! What the heck?! Remember the time when you watched the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade and the first sign of Christmas was Santa at the very end? Jeez.

Happy Halloween

It's finally Halloween!! Yeah! Or "Candy Day" as Ella and Lily might refer to it. We started the day off by going to Ella's speech appointment. Many of the therapists were dressed up so Ella got a kick out of that. And her whole speech session revolved around Halloween. We are focusing on the "H" sound or "ha" right now. So Halloween was a perfect word for the day. :-)

We played at My Gym this afternoon as we do every Wednesday. I'm beginning to get to know a couple moms there a little better. It's nice to have some other people to chat with every once in a while.

And then it was supposed to be dinner time and trick or treating. Well, Ella fell asleep ten minutes before dinner was ready despite my efforts to keep her awake. And she absolutely did not want to wake up to eat. Great. I had to convince her to wake up to go get candy! So our pictures out in front of the house did not turn out the greatest. She is crying in most of them. So I didn't get my perfect picture, but they still turned out cute. I really wanted to get one of Andrew and Ella together where you can see her face and their whole costumes. Oh well. ;-)

They had a great time collecting candy even though it was pretty cold. I handed out hand-fulls of candy to about 11 kids and we still have a ton left. Our house is not situated in a really great place for trick or treating. Andrew thinks we should hand out whole candy bars next year. Maybe bring some more people in that way. :-)

We headed over to B-pa and Gramma's house after going up and down our street. We visited a few of their neighbors and then surveyed the candy stash. Lucky for me and Andrew (hee hee), I removed all remnants of any peanut/peanut butter candy from their pumpkins (due to Lily's peanut allergy). We'll find a good place for that candy to go. ;-)

The girls each delved into their pumpkins picking out several pieces to munch on before we convinced them to save some for tomorrow. When we asked Ella what her favorite part of today was, she responded, "The candy!!" Now they are sleeping soundly in their beds with visions of candy corns and pumpkins dancing in their heads.
Happy Halloween to all of you! Hope you had a great time!

Pumpkins Galore

Remember when we were kids and Halloween consisted of waiting until the 31st, maybe getting to wear your costume to school and then braving cold weather to trick or treat at night? Well, Halloween really has become a month long process! No complaints here though, we all love Halloween around our house. We put decorations up the first of the month, we have visited THREE different pumpkin patches, went to a pumpkin festival at Ella's school and a neighborhood halloween party. All BEFORE October 31st! It was beautiful the past two nights but looks to be pretty chilly with a strong wind for trick or treating tonight.

But hey, with global warming Halloween should be pretty tropical before we know it! (there was sarcasm there, in case you missed it.) ;-)

Below are some pictures from our various Halloween activities. Enjoy! Click on the images to make them slightly bigger. And look for actual Halloween pictures (and more pumpkin pictures on Shutterfly) in the next day or two. Costumes revealed then!

Our glitter pumpkins! The blue one on the left is a Cinderella pumpkin,
the middle one is the Prince and the white one on the right is
a Sleeping Beauty pumpkin, according to Miss Ella anyway. :-)

The pumpkin the girls carved with Daddy.
Ella had fun blowing the candle out repeatedly
(that's good practice for her oral motor
skills for speech too!)

Ella at the Pumpkin Fest with her
favorite friend from school, Arpita.
They share a locker together.

Decorating pumpkins at Pumpkin Fest

Here they are!
Mine/Lily's on the left and Ella's on the right.
She says hers is B-pa (because of the mustache)
and the left one is Gramma Clare. :-)

PS. Perhaps you've noticed a certain head tilt in many of Ella's pictures. This is her "photo" posture. And you'll notice, Lily is starting to adopt it as well. I have no idea where they get this stuff from. Andrew claims she gets the head tilt from me. Not sure I agree with that. I'm just glad she's smiling for pictures now, head tilt or no head tilt. Fine by me! :-)

Bad Moon Rising

Okay, did I walk under a ladder, open an umbrella in the house, or have a black cat cross my path and not know it? It is getting close to Halloween, maybe the cat's the thing? There is one as decoration in the townhouse across the street from us. I say all this because since Sunday we have had something bad luck-wise happen pretty much every day I think. It all started with a terrible dream I had Saturday night. I hardly ever remember my dreams but this one was vivid and very realistic. Sort of threw me for a loop. Then a small rock hit our windshield on Sunday while we were driving. It made a tiny crack, which will only get bigger as the temperature gets lower (supposed to be our last nice day today!), leading to having to get a new windshield. Monday was reasonably normal. Then Tuesday I didn't feel very good, thought I was coming down with Ella's cold. But I must have fought it off.

Tuesday night the hard drive of my computer was fried. And I was just six days PAST the end of my warranty. Luckily they waved that at the Apple Store and fixed it for free. However, I had to get a new hard drive, thereby losing ALL information from my computer. Including applications that were added after the factory install. Andrew called me from the store and asked me how important the stuff was on my computer, and gave me a dollar amount to compare its worth. I told him it wasn't worth it for them to try and recover the info. I've only had this computer for a year. And when I thought about it, most of the information I use these days is internet-based. My email, blogger, photos are pretty much on Shutterfly. I was sad to lose all my internet bookmarks and all those pleasant preloaded things you type into various webpages and they just pop up later on, like you address, etc. (are those called cookies?). I told Andrew it was just hugely annoying but nothing life or death. Thankfully, I had just printed out my christmas card list in August for Ella's birthday thank yous so I have the updated spreadsheet printed out at least.

Oh, you are probably thinking that is it. Nothing else bad/unlucky could happen this week, right? Well, guess again. I got up this morning, went to get Lily some orange juice and the fridge was completely warm. NOT COLD at all!! And the freezer was completely defrosted! And guess what, to top it off, I had just gone to the store yesterday!! So it was stocked full! UGH! We did some troubleshooting and figured out that it has an automatic defrost mode and just runs it every now and then. Well, it must have locked up on the defrost mode and the temperature just never came back on. So we unplugged the fridge and plugged it back in and then we were able to adjust it back to cold. It seems fine again, except that I have to empty the entire fridge and freezer and go buy all those groceries again! There's always a silver lining right? On the bright side, we didn't have to buy a new fridge.

Andrew asked me this morning, "Is it a full moon or something?" And the odd thing, YES, it is!!! When he said that and I thought about all the stuff that happened in the last week, nothing earth-shattering, but yes, very annoying, I couldn't believe it! I never really believe all those superstitions or anything, but now, hmm......might be rethinking that. So here's to hoping all of you did not feel the effects of the full moon in quite the same way.

(Sidenote: I guess I should believe in the power of the full moon because there was a full moon when Lily was born. And I had to wait 2 hours to start my scheduled induction, because so many women were having babies all the rooms were full. And I had to wait a while to be moved to a postpartum room too. They were even putting women on a different floor because they didn't have enough rooms in the maternity wing. One of the nurses told us, it was because of the full moon. They always had more women give birth during the full moon. Lucky for us, we had good luck with the full moon that time around. :-)

The Lily Report

I think after this post, I'll be all caught up. I really shouldn't neglect the blog as much as I do. We're way too busy to keep up!

Lily had her two-year checkup two weeks ago. She is in the 90th percentile for weight and 97th for height which the doctor thought was a nice proportion. She's doing great with everything else. Right on target or above (especially with her talking, thankfully!). The only concern with her (of mine, not the doctor's) is she thinks and acts older than she is and I think she tries to do things above her level especially in gross motor skills like running, climbing, etc. She tries to keep up with Ella and she's just not quite ready yet with her coordination and balance. And sometimes its seems that she's extraordinarily clumsy. We made a trip to urgent care a week and half ago because she knocked her eye (between her eyelid and her eyebrow) on the edge of the coffee table. It wasn't very hard, she hardly cried, and it hardly bled. But it was sort of wide. So I took her in and she got three stitches. She was an exceptionally brave girl and laid very still for the doctor to put the stitches in. And was equally calm when Aunt Lisa took them out this weekend. (Thanks Lisa!!) Her eye looks great now. But you might notice the stitches or some bruising in some of the October pictures. Just thought I should explain. ;-)

I took the girls to get haircuts on Thursday. Ella's was just a trim, but Lily got a new do! Her hair is really weird. Very curly on the bottom in back and not at all on the top or sides which sort of leads to quite the mop top look most of the time. So I had the stylist cut quite a bit off and shape it into a stacked look in the back and sort of a bob cut. I think it turned out really cute! And I think it will look much nicer as it grows out.

Well I think that's about it. We actually have a weekend at home with Andrew this week so we're planning on doing stuff around the house. Maybe buying shelving and getting our mountain of boxes organized in the basement! And maybe visiting the pumpkin patch by our house.

Hope you all have a good weekend!

School Days

Ella's First Field Trip
Ella is LOVING school! She can't wait for it. And Tuesdays are her favorite day of the week! Every time she talks about a day of the week, she talks about Tuesdays. And a couple weeks ago, Tuesday was that much more exciting. She went on her first school field trip! She was so excited to ride a school bus, or as she said, "A big big big BIG bus!" They went to an apple orchard in Jordan, MN. Her favorite part beside the bus ride, was the donuts for a snack on the bus. She had a donut with sprinkles!

It was a bit cold that day so I'm not sure how much she enjoyed the wagon ride, but she liked picking the apples "right from the tree". She picked a baby one for Lily and a regular sized one for me. She had so much fun, she fell asleep on the bus ride home. Sorry no pictures. Siblings were encouraged to NOT attend so I couldn't chaperone this one. Maybe next time!

Ella's First School Project
Every month Ella's school focuses on a different topic. Last month it was "All About Me" where they were getting to know each other. This month the topic is: Creepy Crawlers. They are learning all about bugs. Ella likes bugs quite a bit so she's pretty into it. They were looking at a caterpiller when I picked her up the other day. Now, we have a family project to work on. She has to make a bug. Any kind of bug, real or imagined. We went to the library and got a book about real bugs and a story about a little boy and pretend bugs. I let her pick what kind of bug she wanted to make. She chose an Indian Moon Moth (inspired from the book on the right). So we went to Michael's and picked up a bunch of stuff. Andrew and I only helped Ella with the shape and the pipe cleaners. She did everything else all by herself! I made a moon moth too (pictured on the bottom in the picture on the right). It kept me from micromanaging Ella as she did hers. :-) We are very proud of our bugs and Ella can't wait to take it to school on TUESDAY! She wanted to bring Mommy's too, but I think I've convinced her that Ms. Laurie would probably only be interested in hers.

Fun in Wisconsin

We spent a long weekend in Racine last week with Andrew's family. We drove there Wednesday night. Boy, what a difference driving at night with the kids! It only took us 5 hours and 45 minutes with 2 stops! That is much much better than the previous trip which was 7 hours 30 minutes with SEVEN stops. The only problem with driving at night is that the girls nap and then they think its time to party when we get there which is around 12:30am. I'm ready to sleep.

Anyhoo, rambling today. We had a very nice visit with Bubba and Grand Pat. We went to Swan's Farm to pick out pumpkins. There were pumpkins galore! Everywhere you turned, as well as farm animals, a couple corn mazes. It was very quaint and not too commercialized (like Emma Krumbee's last year). The girls really got a kick out of all the animals. The goats all thought we were going to feed them and one by one ambled over to where we were standing. The swans "talked" at the girls. The llamas stood up just for the girls. It was all a hoot! They loved picking out their pumpkins and Ella turned hers into "The Prince" and "The Princess" with Grand Pat by putting glitter on them. We also had fun at Chuck E Cheese one day.

Then Saturday we went to Andrew's cousin Dyan's wedding to her longtime beau, Damian. They had a very nice ceremony in which surprisingly, the girls were perfect angels! They were quiet and listened. Ella stood up when everyone else stood up and wanted her own hymnal to follow along during the songs. I had an endless supply of snacks in my bag to help Lily stay occupied. I told Ella and Lily we were going to see a pretty princess in a white dress (since they don't quite understand the idea of bride yet). So Ella kept saying, "I want to see the Princess." Or "I like the Princess, she's pretty." It was very sweet.

They were also very good at the reception. They both ate the food and then got the party rolling by dancing. They partied until Ella came over to me and said, "I'm ready to go." All righty then. We took the girls home where Andrew's cousin Amanda watched the girls and put them to bed so we could enjoy visiting with people for awhile longer. Thank you Amanda! And congratulations to Dyan and Damian!

Uncle Jerry walking Cousin Dyan

down the aisle

The Kiss

The Entire Isaacson Clan

ALL of the Isaacsons were in this picture.
It's very rare that we are all together
at one time.

Marathons and Birthdays

Two weekends ago we had Nana and Papi visit as well as Uncle Ben. We had fun visiting and ate a pre-marathon carb-loading dinner at Buca di Beppo. On Sunday, Andrew and Benjamin got up before the crack of dawn to head to the start of the Twin Cities Marathon. So it's October right? It should be pretty good marathon weather, right? Should be crisp, cool, maybe a little rain. Nooo, it was sunny and 70 degrees in the morning, reaching 80 degrees by the end of the race. Despite the weather, Ben got off to a great start.

We saw him at mile 8 and 17 and then met up with Andrew's parents and Aunt Gail at Mile 22. Even at 17 he was still doing all right, but the route starts to go uphill from there. He was having a hard time by the time we saw him at 22 but he was determined and finished the race at 4 hours, 37 minutes (a bit behind his goal/personal best). But didn't seem too worse for wear the rest of the day. There were people who didn't finish the race due to the heat and we saw a woman collaspe right in front of us (there were people there to help her). It wasn't as bad as the Chicago Marathon on the same day, but definitely not prime marathon conditions and I'm not sure Ben wants to run this race again anytime soon. :-)

As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, we had Lily's birthday party in the afternoon. She chose a Finding Nemo theme so we had the house decked out with crepe paper and balloons. The kids searched for fish around the house and then got to decorate them. We "returned them to the sea" by attaching them to a wave on the wall. Lily LOVED opening her gifts. And not in the way most kids do. She didn't rip open each one with a flurry and toss it aside to get to the next one like most kids her age do. She actually opened each card first. Took time to look at it and enjoy each picture. She then opened each present carefully and was excited by each new thing. She looked at the front and back of each box and then handed them down to be put in the pile. It was a lot of fun to see her savor each one!

After the gifts, we sang "Happy Birthday" and she blew the candles out before we finished singing. We didn't even have to tell her what to do, she just started blowing! :-) Her cake was a cupcake cake. We got it at Super Target. You can get any regular birthday design done on top of cupcakes. When I saw that, I knew we were going to do that. Genius! No cutting the cake, kids love cupcakes (as well as adults). We couldn't go wrong.

Ella and Lily spent the rest of the night opening her toys and playing with them. And Holly and Uncle Ben spent the rest of the night opening the toys, unwinding the annoying wires, and pulling them out of iron clad packaging. I hate toy packaging! But they sure had a good time with the new toys and continued their fun the next day with our friends Arie and Jody when we had a playdate at our house.

All in all, I think Lily really enjoyed her birthday. If you ask her how old she is, she won't say two, she says, "Five!". Sometimes she acts like it too! Such a sweet little girl!

New Photos

I have a lot to post about (Lily's Birthday, Ben's marathon, Ella's first field trip, Lily's trip to urgent care, a visit to Racine) but all I got done tonight was uploading new photos. Please visit our photo link for new photos in the September album as well as new albums: Lily's Birthday and October 2007.

And I promise new posts very soon!

Zoos, Bears, and Gyms

I have a lot to post about so I'll probably put them into several posts. I'm currently posting from Racine, Wisconsin. We're here to attend Andrew's cousin Dyan's wedding tomorrow. There will be more on that and our time here in the future.

We had a lot of fun with B-pa at Como Zoo in St. Paul. The zoo is a free zoo and therefore, fairly small compared to the MN Zoo. Ella and Lily ran through it pretty quickly the first time, but we went around and looked at all the animals again and took more time. The highlights were watching the polar bear swim underwater and the seals/sea lions. The polar bear was doing laps in his pool and they had a glass window to watch him. He would swim right up to the glass and then flip around and go back. Ella's face was about 2 inches from the bear. She and Lily both thought that was the neatest thing. My dad used to take me to Como when I was little, the zoo seemed a lot bigger to me then. ;-) We used to go see Sparky the sea lion (I think they are probably on Sparky XXV by now). Ella wanted her picture taken by the statue. It was fun to take Ella and Lily to a place that I really enjoyed as a kid.

We had a friend come home from preschool with Ella two weeks ago. His name is P.B. Bear and he spends time with a different family each week and then the kids record what they do with P. B. in a journal by drawing pictures of their adventures. Ella LOVED playing with him. He helped us decorate our front window for Halloween, went to Barnes and Noble story time (where another little boy--not in Ella's class--recognized P. B.) and visited My Gym for open playtime. Ella attends a class at My Gym on Friday mornings and then both she and Lily can play at open gym on Wednesday afternoons. They both have a great time there. Ella amazes me with her athletic ability and her determination. One day, she was very focused on the monkey bars, she was determined she was going to go all the way across by herself. She tried over and over again, but didn't quite make it. Then on Friday, during her class she tried again and this time she did it! She was so excited. She also swings on the high bar and walks on the balance beam among other fun things. I think the gym is really good for Lily too because she attempts to do things she usually is afraid of and it helps her with her coordination and balance. We don't have her in a class right now, but maybe in the future. :-)