Gearing up for Turkey Day!

Well, we have all the groceries bought, the turkey is resting peacefully in the refrigerator, the roasting pan is on the counter. I'm picking up two Marie Callendar pies (pumpkin and cherry) tomorrow. I bought them from Ella's babysitter's son. They had a fundraiser at school, so not only did I get the pies for the same price as if I went to the restaurant and bought them, part of the cost went to the school. Now that's Thanks giving!

I have to say Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year. I love everything about the meal and stuffing myself without feeling an ounce of guilt. Plus the Macy's parade, football, and that nice sleepy feeling you get for the rest of the day from all the tryptophan in the turkey. Although according to the "how stuff works" website, it's not really the tryptophan that makes you sleepy. If you're the curious type, check out: "Is there something in turkey that makes you sleepy?"

Anyway, we are really looking forward to our visit with our friends Erin and DJ. Andrew and DJ are planning on playing golf on Wednesday afternoon, while Erin and I get organized for our cooking extravaganza. Then on Thursday morning, Andrew will get the bird ready and start baking it while we sit and relax until all the side dishes need to be made. Then the rest of the day will be spent with good spirits (yay, a good excuse for some wine!) and good friends.

I'm also excited because I plan on decorating the house for Christmas this weekend. I want to maximize decoration time since we'll be traveling for Christmas. Also my mom and Dave are coming to visit Dec. 1-5 so I'd like to have the house ready for their visit.

As we think about everything we are thankful for this year, and with the holidays approaching, let's remember there are those less fortunate than us. Please think of giving a little. Toys for Tots is a great charity. Barnes and Noble also has a nice charitable opportunity. Our local store has a holiday book donation drive. You can buy a book for a child of a specific age (ie: Girl, age 2) and that book will be given to a child fitting that description for Christmas. I bought one last weekend with Ella in mind. I hope they are doing this particular drive in the future because I'd like for her to help me pick out the book and for it to come from her. This way maybe she'll realize she's fortunate to receive all the things she does and that some kids have a lot less than her. Plus, I love the educational value of giving a child a book.

Okay, I'll get down from my soapbox now.

Also, please keep my cousin, Michael in your thoughts and prayers has he gets ready to leave for Iraq. He is in the army and is leaving next month to go there for a year. We hope for a quick year and his safe return!

We hope all of our friends and family have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are so thankful to have all of you in our lives!

Mega Millions and Smiles

We don't typically play the lottery, at least not on a regular basis.
But sometimes, you just gotta buy a ticket. Last Friday, the Mega
Millions jackpot was $263 million dollars. So, feeling lucky, Andrew
stopped on his way home from work and bought some tickets. He always
plays one ticket with our important dates (birthdays, anniversary,
etc) and then one ticket with computer chosen numbers. We had $5 worth
of tickets. And won absolutely nothing.

Since no one won the jackpot on Friday, we decided to go for it this
Tuesday and the $315 million jackpot. He used the same approach with
his choice of numbers. So last night, we watched and wrote the numbers
down. Then grabbed our tickets and started comparing. Whoo hoo, one
number. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Whoo hoo, one number, AND the MEGA
NUMBER! We won $3! We were one of only 110,019 people to win $3.

We didn't win the millions but we were close. The winning ticket was
sold at a store in Anaheim! At least we were in the same state.

In other news, I woke up this morning and said to Lily, "Good Morning
sweetie pie!" And she looked right at me and gave me an enormous
smile!! I was so excited. Her first real, non-gassy smile! Of course,
she wouldn't really do it again for the camera. But we'll get it one
of these days. ;-)

New photos!

I just got done uploading new pictures to our Shutterfly site. Check out the November 2005 photo album when you have a chance. I'll be updating the album throughout the month as well!

Tom and Pat visited us this past weekend. It was a little bit calmer than the previous weekend. Thursday evening we attempted to eat at the Elephant Bar restaurant (a favorite of ours to take visitors to). The evening was capped off by Ella having a small meltdown in the restaurant. So it wasn't the most pleasant experience. On the other hand, Lily slept the whole meal so that was a plus. ;-)

Friday morning, Tom and Pat watched the girls so I could have a little time to myself (spent browsing at Barnes and Noble). Then we spent the rest of the day around the house. Grand Tom and Grand Pat took Ella for a walk and got Baskin Robbins for everyone. Yum! And we finally got around to carving our pumpkins that had been sitting on our balcony for about a week. Check out Carving Pumpkins to see the results.

Saturday we took a trip to the Brand Library park. The library building has a lot of great architecture and foliage around it. A perfect setting for a California Christmas card picture. Although Ella wasn't real cooperative all weekend with having her picture taken (notice her absence above and in the pumpkin picture with Tom and Pat in the carving movie), we did manage to get a halfway decent picture of the four of us and the six of us. Ella is only slightly scowling. Not too bad.

Andrew and I were also able to get out just the two of us to do a little shopping. We decided to run errands together instead of doing something like going to a movie. Funny, how your priorities change. A few years ago, we would have loved to go to a movie (in fact we went almost every weekend before kids). But now, it seems kind of a waste of time to sit next to each other and not talk, staring blankly ahead. Don't get me wrong, I still love to go see a good movie. It just seems like more fun to actually spend time talking with Andrew than just sitting there with him. ;-)

Saturday evening, we invited Andrew's cousin Ed, Yolie and Patrick over for pizza and to meet Lily. We had a really nice visit with them. It was nice to get caught up with Ed and Yolie. We don't see them as often as we should for them only living 45 minutes away from us!

Sunday, we all piled into the Pilot (it kind of feels like you're riding in a school bus with all those people in it, especially when you're sitting in the waaay back and you go over bumps. You fly up in your seat just like on a school bus!) and went to the Glendale Galleria. Ella ran around the play area a bit and then we all headed over to the Disney store where Pat stocked up on stuff for both Ella and Lily. We just spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching football. We got to see some of Hornet's graphics for the Jets on television. I guess the Hornet crew who were at the game also got on television. But we deleted the game from the DVR before we had a chance to see them. ;-(

Tom and Pat had a safe trip back on Monday. And now we are looking forward to our next visitors, Erin and DJ for Thanksgiving!

Warren called...

As many of you know, yesterday was Election Day. If you've been paying attention to the national news, you may have heard there were four major ballot initiatives by the Govenator. All of which were totally shot down by the voting public. The last several weeks have been a barrage of political commercials and phone calls around here. We tend to not answer the phone when an unknown number comes up. These ever tenacious callers leave us nice long-winded messages in response to our machine picking up. Well, Andrew finally listened to two of them when he was cleaning off the machine this morning. And whose voice did we hear? Warren Beatty! I got all excited. I said to Andrew, "You mean Warren called our house, and if I'd picked up the phone I could have talked to him?"

Well, turns out after we played it again, it was just a recording. I guess they didn't expect anyone to pick up the phone in all of Southern California. ;-)

Cute movie

Since Benjamin was kind enough to plug our website on his blog, I thought I would return the favor. ;-) He posted a cute little movie of Ella from last Easter. Here's a link to it: Ella Easter Movie. That's Andrew's Aunt Gail playing with Ella in the video.

Christmas is coming!

Now, I don't want people to think we like Christmas because of the gifts. But since it's inevitable that someone, somewhere is going to buy a gift for one of us, I thought I would make life easier this year. I have created Amazon wish lists for all four of us. And all you have to do is click on the link in the sidebar. Once there, just click on our name and the list will pop up.

Many of the items on our lists can be bought in stores other than amazon.com. If you purchase something from the list from somewhere else, just shoot me an email and I'll mark it off the list. If you happen to get something for me, just email Andrew and he'll mark it off my list. I also have the preferences set so we can't see what someone has bought for the whole month of December.

Please let me know if you have any questions. We'll keep the lists on here even after Christmas and update them about one month before each of our birthdays.

Lots of Visitors

Last weekend my dad, Clare and Sam came to visit us and meet Lily. Even though we originally thought the trip would just be laid back and relaxing, we ended up packing a lot into the weekend!

On Friday, they babysat the girls for me so I could get a much needed haircut. What a nice break for me! And when I came home everyone was happy and cheery! Then we took a trip to Target. Okay, so maybe Friday was more relaxing then exciting, but you gotta love Target! I should probably buy stock as often as I spend money there.

Saturday, my dad, Andrew, Ella, Lily and I went up to Kenneth Village, a little shopping area in our neighborhood. They were having a fall festival with food, drinks, bounce houses, and a children's costume parade. You can check it out through the Fall Festival video clips on our new movie website. If you watch the clips, see if you can spot Jaws and also the macaroni and cheese. We think they were the best costumes.

In the afternoon on Saturday we ventured over to Pasadena and walked around the Huntington Library and Gardens. It's a pretty cool place. They have vegetation from all over the world and orgranized the gardens so that you're walking through different areas. For example, there's the desert area, subtropical, etc. They also have an awesome Japanese garden with a koi pond and bonsai trees. BONSAI!

Sunday, Andrew took everyone (I stayed home with the kids) on a driving sightseeing tour of LA. Our usual trip: the studios, Hollywood, and then Rodeo Drive. Sam was in search of the most expensive pair of jeans he could find (not to buy, just to look). They found $650 at Dolce and Gabbana. I'm sure there are even more expensive jeans out there too! Sunday afternoon, my dad, Ella, Lily, Andrew and I went to a Halloween birthday party for one of Ella's playmates. There are some video clips from there also on the movie website.

Sam's birthday is on Halloween but we celebrated a day early and went out to dinner at Maurizio's Italian restaurant here in Glendale. It was Lily's first trip out to a restaurant. Aside from wanting to be held the whole time and not sitting in her carseat, she did great. Ella did pretty well too. ;-)

Monday we all just relaxed and hung out at home. And they made it back to MN safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon. Next up, we have Tom and Pat visiting this weekend!

Happy November everyone!

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?!