Anemones and Swifers

Just a quick Ella update.

Can you believe that Ella can say the word ANEMONE? She has this Nemo book with buttons you press and one of them says a little saying and ends with "I live in an anemone." After it finishes, Ella always says, "anemone". Andrew and I both just looked at each other flabbergasted when we first heard it. This is from the girl who won't even call me "Mommy".

She also likes to clean things up, a surprising quality in a two year old. She likes to get the Swifer or the broom out of the closet and "clean". Granted, she won't clean up her room, but she likes to keep the rest of the house clean.

New website feature!

If you look in the sidebar on the right you'll notice a new feature: Isaacson Movies

If you click on it, you'll be directed to a new website that hosts our latest movies. I'll also post raw video clips from time to time since we don't have a lot of extra time these days for editing fun movies. There are two movies uploaded right now "Lily's First Days" and "The Many Faces of Ella". They are Quicktime movies and you'll have to be a little patient with them. They load the whole movie and then just start playing on their own (there's no control bar for the movie).

I hope to post a little Halloween footage in the near future as well as Halloween photos on our Shutterfly site so check back by the end of next week!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Hope everyone has a fun weekend for Halloween! We are having my dad, Clare and Sam (Clare's son) come visit us this weekend. But our Halloween fun started last weekend. We took the girls to this play area at the mall for a Halloween party! Several of Ella's playgroup friends were there. We all had a blast. I'll upload some more pictures after this weekend, but here are two so you can see the girls in their costumes (just ignore the fact that Ella is pulling her dress up. ;-).

I think Ella has a busier social calendar than we do, I suppose that will be the norm now until she leaves the house all grown up. She has a Halloween birthday party to go to on Sunday so we'll get more pictures then and we may try to go trick or treating on Monday, we'll see.

There are also a few Halloween displays around here we may check out this weekend. One of them is at the house of one of the producers of The Simpsons. If you're curious check it out here: Boney Island.

Our Darling Ella

I said I would post about Ella's latest shenanigans. Well, she had a doozy this week. So I put the gate up in her bedroom doorway when I'm going to take a shower. Well, I happen to talk to my mom on the phone for about ten minutes on Wednesday before I was going to jump in the shower. Ella seemed to be playing nicely in her room while I did this. Maybe too nicely....it was awful quiet. So before I went to jump in the shower, I peeked in through the doorway. And what do I see? My darling daughter with a tube of Desitin (that would be gooey white diaper rash cream) in her hand! And the evidence of her "quiet play" ALL over her face, arms, legs, and not to mention smeared all over her room (for those of you familiar--the little table, her blue chair, the dresser, crib, her kitchen, and several spots on the carpet!) So guess who got to take a bath before i could take my shower?

So as if that little episode wasn't bad enough. The next morning she was upstairs with us. And she stealthily reached into the pack n play where we had Lily's Desitin, grabbed it, then quietly, nonchalantly made her way downstairs. About five minutes later Andrew came downstairs and peeked in her room and all of sudden I hear, "Ella, where did you get that?!" Luckily this time she just had it on her hands and face and hadn't done much damage to the room yet.

Ironically, I think this sort of behavior may be genetic. I believe I may have heard a story a time or two from my own mother about how she came into my room when I was little and I had Desitin all over my face and the crib. ;-)

More pictures

I know I keep saying I will post pictures and then days go by and I don't do it. ;-) So now the aquarium pictures are up. They are mostly of Ella and Andrew. There are a couple new pictures of Lily too.

Things are calming down

I just realized it's been quite awhile since I posted anything new. Andrew went back to work yesterday after having two great weeks off. It was so nice having the four of us home. And definitely not something that happens on a regular basis. I think it was the most time Andrew and I have spent together since our college days!

Lily is doing great! She is a really good sleeper (even though Ella's little screaming fits!) and a good eater. When she's awake she has wide wide eyes, checking out the world around her. Ella is super sweet with her. She asks to hold her and gives her kisses. She likes to make sure Lily has her nuk (even though Lily isn't really into the pacifier). Ella also brings her toys and books for me to read to the both of them.

Aside from adjusting to the big sister part, Ella is doing fairly well. Actually, she's pretty much the way she was before Lily came home. She took full advantage of Andrew while he was home, getting him to do things Mommy wouldn't let her do. And she had her meltdown moments.

While Andrew was home, he took Ella to the zoo and the park. For his last day home on Tuesday, the four of us ventured down to Long Beach and visited the Aquarium of the Pacific to see the "fishies". Ella LOVED it! She ran from window to window looking at all the fish. Her favorite was the "Dory" window. I'll post some pictures in our October 2005 album.

The first day back yesterday went very well. She was great for the first half of the day and a little irritable for the second half, but that's pretty much normal routine for her. ;-)

Congratulations!

We just wanted to throw out congratulations to Andrew's brother, Benjamin. After six months of training, he ran in his first marathon this morning! He didn't quite make his goal, but we think the fact that he ran and completed 26 miles is a huge feat!!! I can't even run one mile!

We are so proud of him!

Comparing Our Girls

Ella is on the left and Lily is on the right. I tried to find two pictures that were similar.

Lily Pictures

Okay, I finally have the pictures uploaded! Enjoy!

We're Home!

Hi Everyone!

Well we brought little Lily Grace home from the hospital this afternoon! We are all settling in pretty well so far. Just to give everyone a recap. We checked into the hospital Wednesday morning at 8am and I was supposed to be induced then. We had to wait around for a room because there were so many ladies having babies that day! It was about 10:10 when they got my IV started and things progressed well. I got my epidural pretty early on (my theory is why should I feel any pain if I don't have to!) and things were smooth sailing. Then all of sudden I felt a lot of pressure. The nurse told me to go ahead and try pushing to see how things were going. She pretty much immediately told me to stop and went and called the doctor. Dr. Sofia left a patient in the exam room to come deliver Lily! I pushed all of about five minutes or two contractions and she was here at 3:41pm! So it was about 5 1/2 hours from beginning to end. Ella was still quicker at 4 hours 50 minutes but she was also a week late.

We spent a little extra time in the hospital this time because Lily was go big at 9lbs, 1oz. They wanted to make sure she was getting enough to eat etc. She's doing great! All of her checkups and tests went well. She looks sooo much like Ella did when she was born (I'll have to post a comparison picture soon!).

Ella is a great big sister so far. She has tried to give Lily toys when she was crying and to give her the pacifier. She doesn't seem too jealous yet. Just seems to have accepted that this is the way things are right now. We'll see if they continue to go well.

Oh, and Lily has webbed toes on both her feet just like me and Andrew! (Ella didn't get the webbed toe trait) Lily also liked sucking her thumb when she was first born. She was having trouble finding it later though and we've had her "burrito" wrapped in a blanket most of the time. And she hasn't latched onto the pacifier quite the same way as Ella. So it remains to be seen if she finds that thumb again.

Thank you to everyone for all their well wishes and congratulations! And check the latest pictures link on the right for more pictures of all of us!

Like Father, Like Daughter

The Return of the Ginormous Belly!

39 weeks pregnant with Ella on the left, and pregnant with Baby #2 on the right.

Who knew my belly could get larger than it was with Ella?!

The Ella Report

Since a lot has been focused on her little sister lately (and she's not even here yet), I thought I would give a little update about our sweet little Ella. She had her two-year checkup at the beginning of August. She was in the 50% for weight and 90% for height. So maybe we have a little basketball (or volleyball) player on our hands. She also has excellent hand-eye coordination and fantastic motor skills (I'm not a proud parent or anything).

Her verbal skills are really starting to come along as well. Although we might like her to say useful things like: juice, food, etc. She has chosen what she says carefully and it works for her. Her current favorite words and phrase are: "Ah man" if something doesn't go her way; "Heeey" for when we change the television channel from cartoons to football; "uh oh" for everything if she drops it or breaks it; and "boop" for going #2 in her diaper.

She also says "baby" now and seems to fully understand that there is a baby in Mommy's tummy. She comes over and lovingly pats (okay, she smacks) my belly. She also gives the baby stickers by putting them on my shirt near my belly and brings small toys over and sets them on my belly. So it's nice that she is sharing with the baby already. ;-)

Her latest shenanigans involve jumping from various pieces of furniture to the floor and doing a tuck 'n roll type landing. She also likes to try to do somersaults but mostly just ends up looking through her legs as her head sits on the ground. She doesn't fully grasp the rolling over part of it yet.

We are thinking of sending her to NAA (Nemo Addicts Anonymous) because she is completely obsessed with anything and everything that has Nemo, a Nemo character, or even a fish resembling a Nemo character. Although, she does like to have a daily dose of watching A Bug's Life. Nothing seems to get her reved up like Nemo.

New pics

I've uploaded pictures from our baby shower onto the photo site if you want to take a look!

False Alarm

Well, we almost thought we were heading to the hospital at 3am Saturday morning. I started having a few contractions on Friday night around 10:30pm. They started increasing and getting stronger by 2am. They were 2 minutes apart for 45 minutes. We called the doctor and while we were waiting for him to call back, we quickly ran around the house packing a bag for me and a bag for Ella (we are dropping her off at a friend's when the big moment arrives). The doctor said it sounded like I was in early labor and if we were concerned at all to go to the hospital. Then all of sudden the contractions started to subside. So we decided to wait at home and see what happened and they eventually stopped.

It was a good fire drill for us though! And we realized how completely unprepared we were for the baby's arrival this early. So we have spent the weekend getting better prepared.

We almost missed our baby shower! Some friends of ours threw us a little shower on Saturday afternoon. It was so nice of them and they really went all out. They had all kinds of great food, games, gifts, and cake! It was a family shower so the significant others and kiddos were there too. I'll post pictures on our photo site in the next couple days.

And HAPPY GRANDPARENTS DAY to all the grandparents out there!

Check it out!

For the past four months I have been redesigning my dad's website for his condo business. And it's just gone LIVE! Check it out if you want to: Gary's Big Sky Condos

Let me know what you think! And if you are at all interested in visiting Big Sky, Montana for either a summer or skiing vacation, you should contact him! It's a great place to vacation.

Okay, that's the end of my shameless promotion.... ;-)

Hopefully, only four weeks to go...

Ironically, I'm wearing the same shirt in both pictures. I didn't plan that, I swear....I'm carrying much more basketball-like this time, so my belly looks a little larger than with Ella. But I have gained less weight overall. So, we'll see what we end up with. ;-) (left picture is Ella, right is Baby #2)

Labor Day Fun!

Hope all of you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend and were able to relax on Monday. We had a nice weekend with Tom and Pat visiting. Their time was filled with fun trips to entertain Ella intermixed with house projects. Tom has trouble sitting still when he comes to visit so we always try to find a little project for him (and Andrew) to work on while he's here. Although, we are pretty much all projected out now. Next time, he comes to visit he may just be forced to relax.

This trip's project was putting new faucets in our bathroom. We pretty much added all new fixtures in there except for the lovely gold and white faucets installed by the previous owner. They just aren't my style and well, just didn't match anything else in there. So we got new faucets. Of course, everything with a household project cannot run smoothly, so after working on it all weekend, the sinks are finally done. You can see the faucets here: Before and After.

Aside from household fun, I took Tom, Pat and Ella to the LA Zoo on Friday morning for a couple hours. As usual, Ella liked to just be free and run around as opposed to really looking at the animals. But she did spot a few of them. We were fortunate enough to hear quite a choir concert from one group of monkeys. On Saturday, we visited a place called the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena. It's for kids ages 2-7, but a lot of it really was for older kids. They had a babbling brook set up that you could wade in and Ella loved that! She was a tad bit angry with us when we told her it was time to go (after being there for at least an hour!)

Saturday night, Andrew and I were able to actually go out and enjoy a long peaceful dinner just the two of us while Tom and Pat babysat for Ella. We also went to see the Wedding Crashers (I'm sure we're the last people in America to see that movie this summer). We both really enjoyed it and found it pretty funny.

We went shopping at the Galleria (our mall here in Glendale) for a few hours and managed to find some good Labor Day sales. Monday, we went to the Hilton where Tom and Pat were staying and went swimming. So all in all, we jammed just about everything we could into one holiday weekend!

Check the Latest Pictures link on the right in a few days for new pictures!

Practicing to be a Big Sister

I babysat a friend's little boy on Monday for a few hours. Ella had the chance to see what it will be like to have a baby in the house. He is almost five months and cute as can be. Ella was very intrigued in the beginning. She thought he was fun, brought him her toys and showed him how they all worked. He just watched her in amazement. She also helped him by giving him his nuk back. Everything was just fine and dandy for about the first 45 minutes. Then, I needed to give him a bottle.

Well, Ella wasn't entirely happy about this situation. As soon as I was on the couch feeding him, she was by me, pulling my finger wanting me to follow her and her get her something. When I told her I had to feed the baby right then and I would get her what she wanted as soon as he was done, she got a little upset. ;-) From then on, she saw him as more of a nuisance than a cute little friend.

My friend came over again yesterday so we could hang out and chat for a bit. Ella was helpful and liked the baby again. (Just as long as I wasn't the one giving him so much attention). So, things should get really interesting around here in a few weeks. I think she'll adjust fine and be a good little helper with the baby. But it might take a little bit of time for her to realize that I can't give her 100% of my undivided attention all the time. I fully expected this to be her reaction so I'm not too surprised. It was actually nice to get a little preview before the baby arrives! Makes me feel a tiny bit more prepared for the transition we will be making.

New Site for News!

Welcome to the new web home for our latest news! We also have a new site for our latest family pictures! I've decided to make things a little more user-friendly for myself. So www.hollyandandrew.com will bring you to this website and there will be a link to our new shutterfly website for pictures which is http://theisaacsons.shutterfly.com/action/.

With the new baby coming in just a mere five weeks (unless she makes an early/late arrival) I am anticipating a lack of extra time on my hands. So I thought it would be more fun to try out some new ways of communicating with everyone on the internet. And hopefully both the blog and the new pictures site will make publishing our latest news a lot easier and quicker for me.

And maybe I'll be able to talk Andrew into spending a few minutes every now and then to give you an update on Hornet and whatever else he is up to. ;-)

Hope everyone likes the new sites!