Go away please

Yesterday Isabella spent the day with Angela Ebert while Liza was away at her local leaders conference and I was at work. She had a great time with Angela and with her three kids when they got home from school. Angela told me that when she put Isabella down for a nap, Isabella said "Go away please" when she was ready to go to sleep. Tonight, Isabella and I went to Burger King and played on the play scape. While we were playing, she decided that she wanted to go down the slide by herself, so she looked at me and said, again, "Go away please!" I thought it was funny. She's getting a bit more independent, but is still polite.

Pictures from our camping trip

To see a short video of our camping trip, click here.

Here are some pictures from our camping trip.

All of us in our tent.

Chris and Zach at the campsite.

Chris & Isabella looking at the falls.

Isabella climbing a tree with her friend, Bella.

Liza, Zach and Isabella at the campfire.

Zach hangs out in a camping chair.

Our first camping trip

Six families from our Sunday School class went camping together last night. We have never been with the kids, so I was hopeful and thought much of the time would be fun, but knew sleep could be non-existent.

We got out there and set up our tent. Isabella couldn't figure out that if she went in the tent she would have to take her shoes off, and then put them back on. We only did that 10 times. And then she promptly had an accident all the way down to her shoes. Thankfully we still had her pool socks in the car. Isabella loves her new sleeping bag and was very excited to sleep in it and to eat hot dogs which was her mantra as soon as the tent was put up.

Zach stayed up later than usual, but I fed him and he went right to sleep in the pack-n-play. Isabella ate 4 marshmallows and played with the other kids, but went to sleep easily while listening to her VeggieTales on the portable speakers and iPod. Zach started "talking" at 4:45 a.m. and of course Isabella woke up. I couldn't feed Zach back to sleep, so we talked and played quietly in the tent, trying to not wake Daddy. Isabella finally got antsy so we got out and got dressed, Zach had food, we went to the bathroom, and discovered others of our friends had awakened. We enjoyed breakfast burritos by the fire and despite the somewhat short night, called the trip successful.

We are looking forward to going again. Happy Birthday to me. I'm sure Chris will be posting some photos.

Date with Daddy

Today I was at home with Isabella and Zach in the morning. After Zach got up, we all went to Target to find some Ruby Slippers for Isabella's costume. When we were done, she saw Starbucks at the front of the store and wanted to stop for coffee. We stopped and had coffee together. (Her's is 99% milk with a dash of iced coffee, but she doesn't mind. She "yikes it.")

Later I went to pick them up from Ashley's house where they stayed for the afternoon, and Zach was showing off. He's taken a couple of crawl "steps" but hasn't quite got it yet. But, as you can tell from the picture, he is working hard at it.

Some comments

Isabella makes me laugh. I wish you could hear her sometimes.

When I was taking Zach upstairs to put him to bed, Isabella (while eating her donut with sprinkles) called out "I yove you Yach! I yove you."

When we were putting her to bed, Chris asked Isabella who we were going to pray for. She said "Nobody." So Chris started to pray and said "We pray for nobody." She interrupted with "Yesbody." And then she prayed for her usual suspects as well as her babysitters Georgeanne, Haley, and Tiffany. She loves them.

Trike

Belle has had a bike that her Aunt Kim (Tata) and Uncle Mark gave her for her birthday, but she has been too little to ride it.

She also has a trike (pink) that her Grandma and Grandpa DeGarmo gave her. She loves sitting on it, but she has not been able to ride it. A while back (about a week or so) we went to Babies R Us and there was a little trike there. She got on it and I told her what to do. She finally figured out how to push each foot in turn to make it go forward. I captured some video on my phone and you can see it here.

She was really excited as she got it going saying "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" all the way. By the time I got the video going, she was more focused on what she was doing... now she can ride her pink trike at home as well. I think she'll have to get a little taller to ride the bike, but she still likes to get on it whenever she can...

Park

Today, Daddy, Belle and Zach went for a walk at the park in the Arboretum and went to see the cows. Zach hid under the blanket since it was a bit chilly in the shadows...

And Belle rode the cow. She also played with a little girl in the park and got her pant's seat nice and muddy. It's hard to have fun if you're not getting dirty...

Mouthful

Today as I (Chris) was getting Isabella ready for her nap, we were talking about middle names (inspired by Morgan, her older cousin.) I told her that her middle name was DiAnne and that Nonny's (my mom) middle name is Dianne too. She thought that was cool. I then told her that Nonny's first name is Shari. "Can you say Shari Dianne?" I asked. "No," she replied, "That's a mouthful." I had to laugh.

Fire truck

Tonight Isabella and I (Chris) went out looking for dishwashers. Yes, ours has gone on the fritz (actually it is pouring water out the front corner, so we can't really run it.) Despite the suggestion of some relatives that dawn and a dish rag are the cheapest replacements, we went looking for a new dishwasher tonight. We pulled up to Sears Grand and I got out of my car, looked two rows over and saw the hood of a car explode upwards and a fire start to consume the car. Isabella saw the fire and wanted to know what was going on. I called 911 and they said the fire truck would be on route.

Isabella and I moved quickly up to the store and watched as the a guy in a tow truck pulled up, jumped out with a fire extinguisher and put the fire out. She was pretty excited. "Man blow out fire!" We went in and looked at dishwashers and then came back out in time to see the fire truck that showed up. Isabella was fascinated. She waved to the firemen then said, "Tell mommy about fire truck when get home!" And that is just what she did. I'm betting she'll be talking about it for a long time...

Zach's latest weight

Zach had his wellness visit today, and as I suspected, he overtook his 9-month-old cousin, Marissa, in the weight category. He weighs 17 pounds, 12 ounces and is 26 5/8 inches long (I'm a little surprised that nurse is willing to be that precise in light of how they measure babies.) He seems so big, but still only registers in the 50% for weight and height. His head is a little bigger at 80%. He did so well considering they made us wait an extra long time so he was starving by the time the nurse came in to do his shots. Isabella was very good also, although she did bang her head against the wall while spinning around making herself "bizzy".