Whomever dreads going to Santa Clarita Valley's 4th of July parades...oh wait, that would be us...were extremely impressed by the entries in our "not so little anymore" town's 4th of July parade this year.
Mackenzie, Mia and Isabelle waiting for the parade to start
Just as we did last year, we headed over to the REP to get our front row seats on the sidewalk right in front of the theatre. However this year we had it put into the Jaycees email blast for everyone to meet us there! 8am rolled around pretty quick that morning but luckily Michael and a few of the Jaycee crew were there setting up and reserving some concrete for all of us :)
Mia and Isabelle telling secrets 
The parade must have lasted almost 2 hours and with Downtown Newhall (where our theatre is at) being the staring point, all of the entries were fresh, peppy and excited to get moving. Our favorite entry was from the Northpark Church....they must have had almost 150 people walking in it with dancing, singing, pushing and pulling "floats" and the piece de le resistance were 3 huge, red, white and blue, Macy's Day Parade style star balloons being walked down the road. It was outstanding! Like I said, the parade was really good this year and with my homemade blueberry and cranberry muffins (red, white and blue-hehe) and mimosas flowing, it was a great start to was going to be (and was) a fun filled 4th of July holiday weekend!
Mike, Mia, Travis, Mackenzie, Papa and Isabelle
Thursday night was our friends Kristen and Phillip's rehearsal dinner. Thier wedding was being held the following day, Saturday the 5th, at our theatre so with getting up early for the parade 4th of July morning...needless to say, our early afternoon pre-BBQ schedule called for a nap! The three of us passed out, got up 2 hours later primed and ready to start our 3rd Annual "4th of July BBQ". This year however, consisted of LOTS of swim diapers, pack and plays, taking turns using Isabelle's highchair :) and of course lots of games of Hillbilly Horseshoes (thanks Fefe)!
Papa throwing Isabelle and giving Mom a heart attack
Johnny, Debbie and Jenny hanging at the pool
After BBQ'ing, eating, playing Hillbilly Horseshoes and swimming (which happened to be Baby Kyle Chapman's first time in the pool-just like Isabelle, Mia and Mackenzie last year), when 8:45pm rolled around we all packed up our blankets, chairs, coolers and the dog and headed over to the park to watch the mall fireworks. What a gorgeous show! Isabelle passed out in my lap about 5 minutes before it ended...at least she enjoyed watching them for a little while. All of the rugrats went down when we got back home which left the rest of the evening for adult time....much needed adult time :)
New Daddy, Dan Chapman with baby Kyle
The gang getting ready for the firework show
Saturday morning was a busy errand running one. With Grandmama and Poppy on their flight home due to arrive that evening (just making it to the beginning of the wedding ceremony) and Michael at the theatre adding the finishing touches to the wedding decor, I was dragging Isabelle all over the place with me. We got most everything completed and with her being a flower girl in the wedding, we had to do a little reworking of her nap schedule so she would be bathed, dressed, ready and at the theatre for pictures by 5:30pm (the wedding started shortly after 7pm).
Our first glimpse of the bride, Kristen, and her first glimpse of her flower girl
The bride, groom and bridal party were picture perfect and the theatre didn't even look like the theatre. They had worked all week on transforming our 81 seat house into this beautiful venue draped with burgundy, coral, black and white fabric with sprays of flowers everywhere. You may ask why did they choose the theatre? Well our theatre just happend to be where Kristen and Phillip's lives together first began. They had met on our stage during the production of Proof in 2006 and the rest, as they say, is history...well for them, it's history in the making :)
Isabelle tootling around before the guests arrived
Isabelle was asked to be the flower girl with no huge intentions being 15 months and all. We didn't know if she would make it down the stairs or not, if she would be able to hold the basket while going down the stairs or not, etc. Kristen and Phillip said to let her do what she wants to do. Needless to say, when Michael had her at the theatre with him, she would be seen practicing walking down the stairs all by herself. So when the time came for her to march down those stairs on Saturday night, we thought to ourselves; either she is going to be shell shocked with all the people there or she is going to ham it up and strut her stuff. For those of you who know Isabelle's Father, guess how she did? You guessed it, after Phillip's nephew, Jon Paul, and his mom got to the bottom of the stairs, out came Isabelle strutting her stuff right down that aisle/stairway all by herself (but I was following close behind). She strutted her stuff so well that I actually had to coax her down the last 4 out of 8 steps because she would stop at the corner of the seat that she had grabbed to help her step down with, look up at the person sitting there, smile and sometimes even start jabbering at them. She was hilarious and everyone was laughing and clapping for her.
Isabelle drinking her juice, snacking on Goldfish and watching a Baby Einstein DVD on Michael's computer
After the bride came down the aisle (who looked absolutely gorgeous!) and right before the ceremony started, little miss wiggle worm decided she wanted nothing to do with sitting on my lap so before a peep was made, we made our quick exit through the "ring bearer and flower girl preplanned escape route", plopped her back in front of the computer in Michael's office to watch the rest of the Baby Einstein DVD and I ran back and forth to catch as much of the ceremony that I could. Michael was the MC that night and was running the lights and sound so unfortunately, it was all me with our little one which thankfully wasn't bad at all. The ceremony was beautiful and all I have to say is that I caught the best part...the kiss! It was so surreal watching it though; two of our actors, on stage tying the knot. The night moved forward into the toasts, first dances, cake cutting, garter & bouquet toss, etc, ending around 2:30am. Isabelle was a trooper and stayed awake until a little after 10pm, falling asleep in my arms in the office then put into her pack and play for the evening. Michael and I got to have a few dances together and when Isabelle woke up a few hours later she was brought out to the dance floor by her Papa to share a dance with us before I took her home.
Isabelle Anessa, the flower girl
All I have to say is what a fabulous, wonderful and memorable weekend we had! Thank you again Kristen and Phillip, for allowing us to be a part of your big day and here is to a lifetime of happiness!
Although it seems like she is having fun when Olivia (the lifeguard) has Isabelle on her back, that is actually her least favorite "lesson". 
This is how Isabelle and my night turned out last night after walking with our neighbor, Rose. Rosie and I didn't quite finish our conversation so we decided to take it into her house. So a glass of wine and an hour or so later, Isabelle and I were getting ready to head out to get my little one in the bath when Rose came up with a great idea. Since Sofia needed to take a bath or shower too, why don't we just throw both girls in the tub and continue our gossip session? 
I ran back to our place to get a diaper and Isabelle's pj's and when I got back, the tub was full of bubbles and ready to go. It was great fun and now Rose and I are all caught up and bonus....we had squeaky clean girls all ready for bed :) Thanks gals! 
Since we were all blessed with Isabelle having a pain free teething process for her first 8 teeth, three days ago we did not think that she was hmmm lets call it "moody", because she was cutting her molars. Now she had been drooling quite a bit but she wasn't gnawing on her hands, furniture, her dog, sidewalks, trees or anything else that really triggered us to think that this is what it was. If anything we thought that her ear infection and cold she had 2 weeks ago might be coming back!
The next morning I called and got her a doctors appointment just in case it was more than just her teeth. In a very good mood, Isabelle went to daycare for a few hours and when Michael picked her up to take her to the doctor's, she had eaten, took a good nap and didn't fuss once. The doctor gave her a clean bill of health and off we went. That night she was in bed at 8:00pm and slept till 8:30am the next morning...right back to her old routine :)
Now when you get a really big laugh out of her, you can see three out of the four newest editions to her mouth. Did you all get that? Three out of four...yes, we still have one more of that set to go plus whenever the other molars and her eyeteeth decide to come in! OUCH!
My Mother's Day weekend started on Friday at 2:30pm when Isabelle and Michael came to the office and kidnapped me for the rest of the afternoon. They took me for a drive up to Ventura so we could reenact Michael and Isabelle's "week before an Opening Weekend at the theatre" routine. The two of them will drive down to Ventura in the morning and drop off the theatre's postcards at our mail house for the show that is opening the following weekend.
From there, they drive out to the pier and have lunch at a restaurant called Erik Erickson's where Isabelle just loves their bread and rice (go carbs!) and her Papa orders jalapeno fish and chips. We did a little bit of strolling on the pier. It was windy overcast and chilly but it didn't matter since we were together as a family. Isabelle was enthralled with the seagulls and the fisherman so I grabbed my camera and started snapping away. 
At dinner, I tried the jalapeno fish and chips and they were to die for! I can't wait to share that "routine" with them again :) We had such a nice family afternoon together and Michael took the evening off (double bonus) so we got to just hang out, which we haven't been able to do in quite sometime. This was the best start to a great weekend.
Like I mentioned, it was a 2.5-3 hour drive. Um yeah....for those of you who have toddlers, especially ones who are walking, I am sure you can imagine how our drive went. Isabelle was fine for the first hour and a half with looking at books, dancing in her car seat to her kids songs, listening to Mom and I talking and listening to us when we were talking to her. But then...boredom set in. She wanted nothing to do with the car seat anymore and she wasn't going to nap like we thought she would. She was fussing a bit, wiggling around and pointing at things that we thought she wanted and when we gave them to her she didn't want them anymore. So we stopped for about 5-10 minutes at a rest area and let her wander around, check out the dogs and of course, check out all of the flowers and plants (our little nature granola girl). With a little over an hour left to go, we plopped her back into her car seat and low and behold, her books became interesting again and about 20 minutes before we got to Avila Beach, she fell asleep...nice timing. 
The spa was beautiful all tucked away back in the mountains. Mom stayed with sleeping Isabelle while Tara and I went and had our massages...our well deserved massages. When we got out, Tara literally ran out to the parking lot to get her "Macho Nacho" and to let Mom go in for her massage, since our room was not ready yet (everyone was busy with the VIP guests-"The Girls Next Door" were filming an episode while we were there). So Isabelle, for her second time, Tara and I went walking around to check out the grounds. We played chase on the grass, looked at all of the flowers and leaves and had a little snack while we waited.
When we finally got the keys to our room, we loaded up a golf cart with all of our stuff and were driven out over a bridge, that is over the main road, and into the boonies to our suite. This was definitely a Natural Spa! We were staying in "Mellow" or Suite 11...one of the handful of prefabricated houses on stilts! It was crazy! The guy driving us to our room told us that they had a flood about 4 years ago and a river was running right where we were driving. I guess in that case, stilted rooms are a good idea. At least they can stay open during a flood or bad rainstorm and they wont get shut down for flood repairs!
We unpacked, played with Isabelle and waited for Mom to get back then schlepped ourselves out to dinner in Avila Beach on a pier (yes, another pier) at a restaurant called Olde Port Inn (
Isabelle was so excited to see this big ol' sea lion and didn't want to leave but the shopping Outlets were calling our names! We did a little shopping there and then decided to head back so we could get Isabelle to bed and chill for the rest of the evening. The next morning we got up, played around with Isabelle on the bed, got ready, packed up and were on the road by 11. Mom and I stopped at Coco's for breakfast where we all, including Isabelle, had a good breakfast which almost lasted us the entire way home. About 40 minutes after we left Coco's, Isabelle fell asleep for a little over an hour. When she woke up she seemed fine but then starting to get fussy again. Mom tried playing with her, reading to her and then all of a sudden, up came breakfast! Needless to say, a 30 minute pit stop was in order. We got her and her car seat all cleaned up (except the smell-yuck) and continued home. She was back to her old self after that!
It was April 15th, Tax Day and two "Grandmama Wednesday watch days" ago (yes this post is a little late) and as her and Isabelle were having their last few minutes of play time outside before coming back to the office for the hand off, Isabelle’s feet got going a little faster then she could handle and SMACK….down she went. Now Grandmama said there wasn’t a blood curdling scream but there were definitely crocodile tears. She took a look at Isabelle and saw no bumps or scrapes, wiped her hands off and got her ready to go. When I came downstairs at the office to get her I asked my Mom what had happened to Isabelle's nose? It looked like she had on a pair of sunglasses and someone hit her in the face. She told me about the fall but didn't see anything accept for dirty hands. I said that it looked like she broke her fall with her face! At least Isabelle was in good spirits, squawking away and getting into everything...you know, her normal self. But for precautionary measures, I gave her some Tylenol when we got home and right before she went to bed.
When Michael saw her the following morning he was sure it was broken and that she would get a black eye or two but when he touched and moved her nose, she didn't mind. As the days went by she luckily never got a black eye and the bruise faded to yellow and then was gone.
Much like an older child, Bear was our first "baby" and admittedly, was spoiled rotten. So when I got pregnant it was only natural for us to wonder how having a new baby in the house would affect Bear. We have heard horror stories about animals getting so jealous of the child that they actually turn on them. We read up on everything and did everything we could to get her ready for Isabelle's homecoming. We had a bag of diapers opened for her to sniff at, one of her beds in the nursery (where she actually did sleep from time to time), etc. The day came to introduce Bear to "her sister" and we were as prepared as we thought we could be. Bear sniffed around at her for a bit, accidentally tromped on her a few times (nothing that hurt Isabelle), went through a pouting stage but then we think she realized that Isabelle is here to stay and that we love her so she'd better embrace her too. 
Over the past few months when we are out on our walks, Bear has become very protective of us...well, Isabelle. When other dogs walk by, Bear's tuff goes up and she walks right next to the stroller until it passes. I swear, we were so lucky to have found her and are forever grateful to whomever was crazy enough to give her up. What a great catch! As you can see by the pics, she and Isabelle are real buddies and we honestly don't ever see that changing.
Here are her stats: Isabelle is 29" tall (52nd percentile), her head is 46.5cm (80th percentile-imagine that!) and she has met and exceeded all of the milestones for a 12 month old however, she is only 19 lbs which puts her in the 17th percentile for weight. Dr. Diab joked with us saying that at least she is going up and not down (she was in the 12th percentile at her 9 month check up). We were so sure that she would be over 20 lbs since we have changed her diet and have been feeding her more but we are guessing that with all of her walking, she is just burning those calories right off (not good now but she will love that later, if it stays that way). He advised that we keep feeding her what we are eating and more often (no more baby food) and also start giving her a Pediasure supplement once a day which he is positive will help chunk her up. We shall see. Meanwhile will be waiting another month or so to flip those car seats. Better safe than sorry!
