Report Card

I took off work on Thursday so that I could go to Izabel's parent-teacher conference and try to get some errands run and the house back in order since I have been spending every afternoon in the hospital. It ended up being a very productive day and even the kids closets got cleaned out!

The conference was really cute. I was worried that Izabel's behavior had gone downhill because of all the stresses at home, but it is just the opposite. She is doing great and even though she still has some timeouts the number has drastically decreased. Her teacher, Ms. Michelle, made a little report card for each student along with pictures of Izzy in class. The report card had Izzy's hand prints on the front. They asked her for her address which she could tell them and her phone number which she could not.

Izzy was Princess for a day on her birthday!

For gross motor skills she has mastered running, hopping and the balance beam. She hasn't really gotten skipping yet but that is a tough one! For fine motor skills she is right handed :( and has mastered cutting, pasting, and writing straight and diagonal lines. Her speech was measured a few weeks ago and that is all age-appropriate.

For social development she got some of the time for cooperates with teachers and shares equipment with peers which of course we expected. She got most of the time for responds positively to correction (an improvement), follows simple directions and participates in group activities.

For academic development she is doing really well. She recognizes every color, shape and upper case letter on the list. She also identified quite a few lower case letters, numbers, and consonant sounds. She can identify and continue patterns with shapes, colors, and sizes and can understand every preposition except for below and beside. She can complete 2 scene sequences and some rhyming words and has good listening skills.

When asked who her favorite friends were she named off everyone in the class. On a fun note, every other kid in the class named Izabel when they were asked that question! Her favorite activites were playdough and playing with dolls. It makes her happy when she is the time keeper and line leader. When she grows up she wants to be a cow and we are going to make so much fun of her for this when she gets older! She likes to go on the farm and on hayrides with her family.

Her teachers said "Izabel is a very happy and friendly child. She is always happy to be at school and has many friends. Izabel enjoys doing individual work and being a helper in class. She has made significant progress with sharing and listening. Izabel is a joy to have in class!" Of course this is all great to hear and the school has been amazingly helpful and understanding with our present circumstances. We are very happy that Izabel is able to go to school here and we are so proud of her!!

Halloween Festivities!

Halloween this year was a crazy time since my mom was not around for the festivities. We tried our best to celebrate anyway because we didn't want the kids to miss out. We started on Friday of Halloween weekend with Izabel's pumpkin patch parade and party at school. My Dad and Aunts went to watch but Noah and I had to work. my Dad video taped it with the camcorder instead of the camera so if I can figure out how to get that up here I will. That night we took a trip to the aquarium for their Halloween event. Candace, Matt and Drew came with us and even though Noah and I were way to exhausted we ended up having a great time! They had lots of activities along with mascots, radio disney, and a puppet show. The kids had a blast and everyone commented on Captain Hook's cute costume!

On Saturday I took the kids to Trevor's house for a Halloween party. She did a great job planning the party and we had a blast hanging out with some of Izzy and Tanner's little friends. They had snacks, a craft, spooky bowling and lots of fun! That evening me and the kids hung out at home while Noah took my Dad to a hockey game. it was a great distraction for both of them.

Halloween was the first time either of my kids had every really trick-or-treated. We have always done the event at the church, but they didn't have it this year so we just went around the neighborhood. Izabel had been practicing saying "trick-or-treat" all week and she knew exactly what to do. Tanner really didn't know what was going on but it only took him a couple houses to figure it out! Once they knew we could go to any houses with a light on they wouldn't let us skip a single one. We were ready to call it a night long before they were. I'm a bad mommy for not getting a picture of all the candy but we had a blast and got way more candy than we needed (don't worry Mom we are saving some of your favorites for you!)

I'm glad the kids were able to have a good time even though life has been hard. We're trying to keep their lives as normal as possible but of course that isn't easy. I hope everyone else had an awesome Halloween in whatever way you decided to celebrate!

P.S. Sorry for all the crappy pictures...I can't find my camera cord so I only have the ones from my phone :(

No Timeouts Today (Yesterday)!

Izabel has been struggling with learning how to share and remember the rules at school. This is a new environment for her and she has never been in a structured setting with other kids. Her teacher has been very patient and has tried a lot of different techniques to help Izabel improve and she has improved a lot in the past couple weeks. Yesterday she came home with a big note on her book bag saying that she had no timeouts! This is a difficult time for all of us right now so we're celebrating whatever we can! Yay Izabel, we're so proud of you!!!

Birthday/Halloween Pictures

Yesterday we had Izabel's 3 year, Tanner's 18 months and both of their Halloween pictures taken! Izabel was really cooperative and Tanner was a little more difficult, but we got some good shots. The new online picture system will not let me download anymore (which is a little upsetting but understandable) so you have to click this link if you want to see them! Enjoy!

A Very Fairy Birthday Party!

Sunday we celebrated Izabel's 3rd birthday with lots of fairy fun! Tinkerbell invaded our house and my little fairy couldn't have been happier. She put on her Tinkerbell costume and danced around the living room pretending to fly. We had lots of friends and family come to help us celebrate.

The food spread included Pixie Punch, Stardust Sandwiches, Toadstools, Fairy Berries, Magic Wands, Tink's Garden and of course Fairy Cupcakes (unfortunately the wings fell off before the party)! Everything was very yummy and super cute if I do say so myself.


After eating we got to the business of opening presents. Izabel was a very lucky girl. She got tons of games and puzzles, a Tinkerbell blanket and pillow, cute clothes and jammies, a new movie, a computer game, dress up clothes and shoes, and some books. She also got three months worth of gymnastics lessons from Mommy and Daddy and she already loves it! Every gift was perfect for her and everyone knew her so well. Thank you so much for to everyone!


After presents Izabel blew out her candle all on her own and ate her cupcake before heading outside with the other kids to play. She had a great time and LOVED all the attention she got! She's already beat Daddy at Candy Land twice and she begs to play her new games from the moment she gets up in the morning to the moment she goes to bed at night!



Our fairy festival was quite a success or as Tinkerbell would say....flitterrific!

3 YEARS OLD and 18 MONTHS!

My babies are not really babies anymore! I know in the long run they are still really little, but looking back over the last 3 years it's hard to even remember them being infants.

Izabel is THREE!!! I can't believe it. She seems so grown up now and so much more like a little girl than a baby/toddler. She's so tiny and still wears 18 month clothing. That is getting harder now since she needs pants and 18 month pants are too short so she is wearing a lot of leggings and boots!

Izzy started school this past month and has been loving it! She's spent plenty of time in time-out but she seems to be getting the picture that you have to share and be nice! Hopefully some of those lessons will rub off at home too :) Other than the sharing she has been doing amazing with her lessons. She is the head of the class when it comes to knowing all her shapes, colors, letters and numbers. She always has advanced work on the back of her worksheets because she finishes them before everyone else. I love that they keep teaching her new things instead of waiting for everyone else to catch up. Right now she is working on writing her name and she is so close! I'm sure we'll start seeing it soon. I started hanging up some of our favorite pictures in the kitchen and she loves coming in and showing us her art hanging on the wall. She is so proud and it's so cute to see!


Yesterday Izabel started gymnastics. I bought her a leotard and she liked it but when I tried to put it on her before class she started screaming that she didn't want to go. I thought it was going to be a really rough hour at the gym, but once we got there her attitude changed completely. She walked right in with all of the other kids and did everything the coach asked of her with ease. She was all smiles the whole time and it was so funny watching her because she is about half the size of all the other kids in her class! She will now go every Monday evening for the next three months and we'll see how much she likes it after that and decide if she wants to continue.


She has gotten so chatty and asks why about everything she can possibly think of! She also sings all the time whether it is something she learned in school or something she made up. She loves to play with her babies and color and she loves Tinkerbell (hence the Tinkerbell birthday party and costume for Halloween)! She also loves football and is a big ODU and Kecoughtan fan! We take her to most of the games and she cheers the whole time! She's doing real puzzles now and she loves to read stories. Her favorite books right now are Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat and the Hat. Her speech has really improved, but we are having that assessed next week just to be sure everything is good. For now she is doing amazingly and I couldn't be prouder to be her mom!


Izabel - You are getting so big so fast and we love how grown up you have become, but miss our little baby girl! You are so amazing and smart and we know you will grow up to be a wonderful and beautiful person! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL - MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

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Tanner is 18 months old today! The beauty of having a scheduled c-section is that you get to pick the day so we had them on the same day 18 months apart. Tanner is of course a toddler now and he gets into everything. He also has a crazy temper that we're really going to have to work on. He's started to get really fed up with Izabel taking all of his toys so we break up a lot of fights. He loves that Izabel goes to school every morning and he gets all of the attention to himself half a day! I think it is going to be really good for him and I am happy that he is getting this time.


He is such a snuggler and I can't get enough of him! I literally just want to squeeze him when I walk in the door, he is so cute! He's started dancing and running which are both hilarious. His eating has really slowed down and he is still in between 12 and 18 month clothes, but I've been moving him to 18 months as the weather changes. He loves to go anywhere and still enjoys riding in the wagon for family walks. He watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs the other night and laughed out loud through most of it. We enjoyed watching him more than the movie!
He'll pretty much play with anything, but of course Izabel's toys are more appealing. He has also started doing the peg puzzles and is getting pretty good at them. He loves to be outside and play and pretty much go anywhere. He also loves reading books whenever he can read one without Izabel interrupting him!


Words can not express how cute and loveable this little boy is! We'll love you forever Tanner!!

First Day of School!

I can't believe I am even typing this but today was Izabel's first day of preschool! This was the first time she has ever been away from one of us and in a structured school environment and she had a great time!

I took her to school this morning around 7:00am and walked her in. Of course we took some pictures (that I will add to this post soon) in front of the school first. I took her in and tried to get her to sit down and eat breakfast but she just wanted to cling to me. Then I tried to get her to play but she wasn't interested so I told her to sit down for a minute so I could go give her teachers her shot records. When I came back she was eating with a little girl named Sadie (love that name) and doing fine. I said goodbye and gave her a kiss and walked away. She never cried but I came pretty close! It's never been so hard to leave her before!

My mom and Tanner picked her up at 11:45am and I talked to her on the phone to hear about her day. She colored a great apple (staying in the lines), played with play dough, played outside, went potty, ate apples for snack, and made some friends but she couldn't remember their names. She said she is excited to go back tomorrow so I'm really happy it's going so well so far! Here's to hoping tomorrow goes well too! My little girl is so grown-up now!!!

*Question for the moms out there - Izabel came home with the schools fall fundraiser catalog. I don't mind buying something that I can actually use, but Noah has a big problem buying and selling stuff for a school that we pay a fortune in tuition for every month. What are your thoughts on fundraisers for expensive private schools?