Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween everyone!  We love Halloween, not only for the candy corn, but because it is the beginning of the Holiday Season.  I love pulling out decorations and getting festive.  This year we had a little Halloween get together over at Ruth and Adam's house.  We had about 15 people, so it was a nice size group.  We played games and ate and ate and ate.  After going through many options, Charles and I decided to go the more comfortable route and dress up as island people.  The other costumes varied from vampires, to a 50's couple, to a deviled egg (very clever- he had a white shirt on with a big yellow circle in the middle and had his hair spiked up in two horns like a devil) and so on.  It is fun to see adults dress up on Halloween since it is usually just the kids doing the dressing up.

Ruth and Adam in their 50's attire

Halloween is a whole new experience when you throw a child in the mix.  We had so much fun making sure Isabelle's first Halloween was one to remember, well at least one we will remember.  I got Isabelle's costume last year before she was born.  Of course I had to get her a lady bug costume since we have that theme going on.  Last weekend I thought I was going to have to buy a new costume for her since it has been so hot here, but this week we were pleasantly surprised by a little cooler weather (not Chicago weather by any means) but it has been really pleasant.  Last night we went to the church's Trunk or Treat. For those of you who are not familiar with Trunk or Treating, everyone decorates their trunk and the kids go around and get candy.  Isabelle got a hang of it quick and would race off to the next car as soon as the candy was put in her bag.  We all had a great time.

Isabelle, mommy and our little friend Michaela making rounds at the Trunk or Treat!

How do I look?

Isa and Mommy dancing around in the costume parade!

Notice Isabelle's matching baby doll and backpack?

What? It's cold in Chicago?

Charles is off on another business trip, this time he is in Chicago.  Last night I was driving him to the airport and I mentioned something about the weather being cold in Chicago.  He seemed totally surprised.  As I stared at him in shorts and a t-shirt I asked him if he brought anything to stay warm.  Of course his answer was no,  the one time I didn't pack for him!  He had brought one short sleeve shirt and two long sleeve, thin cotton dress shirts.  I proceeded to tell him how I had just seen forecasts of blizzards somewhere in the middle of America and how most places aren't 80 degree weather at the end of October like Florida.  He said he could handle it, it was too late to turn around and go home, so I dropped him off.  Of course as soon as I got home I looked up the weather and sure enough it is COLD in Chicago.  Lows in the 30's and highs in the 40's most of the time he is there.  Charles called when he got to his hotel and said it was freezing.  He said he nearly froze in the thirty seconds it took to get in the cab and out of the cab.  Everyone was dressed in thick jackets and scarves while Charles had on his t-shirt and shorts.  His meetings are at the hotel he is staying at so we thought all he had to really handle was going to and from the airport...WRONG!  The story gets even better.  At 2:00 am the fire alarm went off in the hotel and everyone had to evacuate.  Charles had to stand outside in the freezing cold air for a half hour!  When does the fire alarm go off in hotels????  Only for Charles!   Poor Charlie!  I told him to go buy a jacket or sweater but he said he is too cold to even go shopping.  He now understands why they call Chicago the windy city.  Hopefully he will survive till Wednesday night when he flies home.  I bet he wont make that mistake again.

The Pumpkin Patch

This week for our Family Home Evening activity we decided to go to the Pumpkin Patch.  Last year we went to pick our pumpkins with our friends Adam and Ruth and their three kids.  So we decided to make it a little tradition and we went again.  It is funny thinking back to last year at Halloween and how my belly looked like I had a big pumpkin under my shirt.  It is a lot better this year having Isabelle with us.  Isabelle was amazed by all of the weird orange balls on the ground.  She tried bouncing some of the small ones, but learned quickly that they didn't bounce.  

I like this little one Momma!

This is so fun!

Isabelle and her little friend Kayla

Isabelle with Austin and Ethan, they are just like brothers to Isabelle

Mystery Tooth

So Isabelle has been teething for a couple weeks now.  Last week one of her top front teeth graced us with its presence.  It was fully in... and it wasn't pretty.  It looked a little more like a fang  pointing in an awkward direction than a front tooth.  My beautiful girl now had something not so beautiful about her.  Fortunately when she smiles you don't usually see the top gums.  Charles was still in Atlanta at the time, so I made sure I prepared him for what he was about to come home and see.  Well Thursday night I put Isabelle to bed early (6:30) and she didn't get up till 8:30 or so the next morning.  To my amazement the tooth had vanished.  Completely gone!  I called my mom and asked if that was possible.  Her theory was that maybe the other front tooth was coming in and it was pushing the gums down back over the tooth or maybe the gums were swollen.  Well now we are about five days later and that tooth is still gone, but a new tooth is coming through in the same spot.  But I am positive that it is not the same tooth because this one looks nice and flat, not pointy at all.  I guess we'll see when it comes all the way in.  In any case I still wonder what happened to the mystery tooth.  Any thoughts?

Back from ATL

Some of you may already know that Charles has been working up in Atlanta since mid August.  His company had a big project up there and they needed some extra help.  They started off by flying him home on the weekends.  But by the time he got in late Friday night, slept Saturday due to exhaustion and then went to church on Sunday it was time to fly out again.  For any of you who have had your spouse travel for work, you know it's not fun.  Well, we decided that instead of Charles flying home every weekend, Isabelle and I would go up and stay with him in Atlanta.  So Isabelle and I went for a month and stayed with Charles at the Ritz during the week and then we would check out on the weekends and go stay at Carol's house.  The Ritz was, well, Ritzy.  They treated us so well.  When we first got there there was a gift bag for us.  It was a little pink kid shirt that said the Ritz Carlton.  Then when we got up to our room there was another bag in the crib with all sorts of gifts and toys and safety stuff for Isa.  It was so thoughtful.  Isabelle got to know all the workers at the hotel and they all loved her of course.  Isabelle and I spent most of our mornings on walks around downtown Atlanta and then we would have lunch with Charles.  We took the MARTA (subway) to Carol's house in the afternoon.  It was great!  We got to see Charles a lot and we got to spend a ton of time with Carol and her family.  While we were there Carol had a baby shower, which was great.  We also got to go and see Les Miserables, which I absolutely love!!!  I will never get sick of that show.  Of course we watched all of the Gator games, one of which we won't mention.  We went to the corn maze, a pig pickin' at the bishop's house and lots more.  One of the best things we did while we were there was we got to go and do my Grandma's temple work as well as many others on my dad's side of the family.  It was a really special time.  Carol had been working hard on our genealogy and so we had 22 or 23 names that we took to the temple.  Also, while I was there I read the entire Twilight Series.  I am not one to read, but I absolutely loved it and I couldn't put the books down.  I can't wait for the movie to come out next month.  Oh and did I mention shopping????  Yeah.... we did a lot of that too.  But don't worry I saved a lot of money!  I think we hit up all of the sales in Atlanta. Well fortunately for my checkbook Isabelle and I came home last week.  Charles has one more week and then he will be home to stay.  Maybe he'll go back to Atlanta next year and we can go again and have another month of fun.

Isabelle had a great time at DSW, I'm not surprised, what girl doesn't love shoes? 

What do you think of these shoes mom?

One of our many outings was a day at the Atlanta Zoo.

Isabelle was completely fascinated by all the different animals.  She really took a liking to the Panda and I think it liked her because it kept coming right up to the glass next to her.  

The petting zoo was also a lot of fun, Isabelle didn't shy away from the animals one bit.

After the petting zoo, we all had fun playing in the park.

We got to go to a couple of Chloe and Cassie's soccer games and practices while we were there. Isabelle loved watching them play.  The twins have gotten a lot better since the first time we saw them play.

The day after Isabelle turned 10 months she started standing on her own.  She had done it a few other times, but it seemed more like an accident before.  My mom and Mikenzie had come in town for Carol's baby shower so we were excited they could share the big moment for Isabelle. Once she started, she got a hang of it quick and wanted to keep standing.  4 days later I stood Isabelle up to show one of Carol's friends her new trick and she took three steps.  We were all shocked.  Sure enough, she figured out how to walk and kept doing it over and over.  After a half hour or so she had taken 13 steps in a row.  She is a pretty driven child.  Everyone back home was pretty bummed to miss her learning how to walk, but I was glad that we were with Charles and that he didn't miss it.  Now she is walking even more and she does it on her own rather than being prompted to do so, but she still finds the quickest way from point A to B is crawling.  I'm sure that will change very soon.  I took some video of her progress, I just need Charles to come home so he can put together a video of it to show everyone.  

First day standing, she was so proud of herself!

Did I mention she loves to eat?

Carol needs to work on baby-proofing her house, Isabelle found lots of places to play.

Isabelle's new favorite face