Lately the easiest exercise for both Michael and I is taking Bear and Isabelle out for a walk. We have either the hiker backpack, the wagon or the trusty jogger or stroller that Isabelle rides in. As we have mentioned, Isabelle loves the outdoors, she loves her dog and now, she loves to walk her dog. I have started something new with her that has so far been great...thanks to a wonderful, gentle dog who actually stops if her leash drops.
The other week Isabelle was in the hiking backpack and half way through our walk she started getting fussy and the camel pack nozzle (which she knows how to use and usually needs to be refilled along with her diaper changed when we are done with our walk-hehe) nor the keys were making her happy. I happened to hand her the keys with Bear's leash in my hand and of course, that is what she wanted. I gave in and gave it to her. With Isabelle holding on tight to the leash, I chanted "walking the dog, walking the dog" (think of it being said in Beavis and Buttheads voices, "breakin the law, breakin the law") as she bounced in her seat. Its pretty funny and besides the leash rubbing the side of my neck when she is in the backpack, she does a great job walking Miss B. Perhaps I will just stick with her in the stroller until it gets cooler and I can wear something that will cover my neck. Yeah, that may happen in early December....if we are lucky! This next picture I like to call "Isabelle's Amish Buggy" :)
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!
Time sure does fly! We cannot believe that we have a 1 year old! Do you remember when that marquee read differently, welcoming Isabelle Anessa? I swear it seems like yesterday!
The next order of business was to head home for lunch, a nap and then over to Scooters Jungle (
OK, we need to back track a bit. On Wednesday Isabelle received a birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa O and Aunt Ashley...an electric ATV! We had that thing put together that night and started charging the battery (the first charge needs to be 18 hours) and she played on it the following morning regardless that the battery was not in it. So after Scooters Jungle, we met Tia Tara at our house and decided to take this baby for a spin-literally! Isabelle got right on and Papa was showing her the button to push to make it go. The first time it started to move, Isabelle giggled her butt off! We are still trying to teach her how to make it go and stop and slowly but surely she is getting the hang of it. I would say by the end of April, we will be cruising this bad boy down and around the park!
Friday night Tara and I finished getting everything together and organized in the garage all ready to go. We had to make sure we had Michael prepared for his 7am call to go and confiscate the area we wanted to set up the party at in the park. Since it is a city park, it is first come first serve and there is no way we were not going to get that spot! Michael even volunteered to camp out. Anything for his daughter...or maybe it was so he wouldn't have to hear it from his wife? :)
As you can tell, we got it (Way to go, Papa!). Michael made his first trip over to the park at 6:45am and reserved the spot by hanging fabric that he brought from the theatre, from post to post to enclose the area we would be in. It was BRILLIANT and ohhhhh so cute! (My hubby is so creative sometimes!) From there we had a schedule of when and who was going to pick up what from where, a new nap schedule for Isabelle for the day (we kept her awake until 9pm Friday night and then woke her at 7am-mean Mommy) and had it all put together shortly before 1pm when the party officially started. We did find out one new thing by being at the park on a somewhat breezy day; just like her Mom, Isabelle has allergies. We got to the park and noticed that one of her eyes was red, a little puffy and watering uncontrollably. Then came the nose, EWWW! Tara and Michael ran back to the house to get a few more loads of party supplies along with some Benadryl which within about 20 minutes, did the trick.
All in all we had between 45-50 people come by to wish the Princess a happy birthday. The older kids had a blast playing in the park and we had some arts and crafts for them to do too (crowns for the boys and princess door knob hangers for the girls). The little ones were hanging out with the adults while they were chatting it up or playing in the "ball pool", pushing around Izzy's favorite Disney car, playing on the grass or swinging on the swings.
Almost 2 hours into the party, and just about time for another nap for Isabelle (and a few other friends), it was cake time. We decorated her highchair (aka: her throne) with pink satin fabric and iridescent fringe hanging from the tray. When we were getting ready to light the candle and sing to her, I started to put her in her "throne" and huge crocodile tears came pouring down. She wanted nothing to do with it! So I held her while we thanked everyone for being there and sang happy birthday to her. Part way through "happy birthday", low and behold our little princess decided to start smiling once again and clapping along with everyone. After we finished singing and she hammed it up for the cameras, into the highchair she went without even batting an eye...except to check out the cupcake cake (who ever created this is a genius!). With that, we gave her a cupcake and let her dig in! Papa decided to join in the fun with by smearing a cupcake on his mouth to look like her (big goober!) and of course, she ate the remnants of his cupcake too! 
It was around 3:00 when Isabelle was finally done and Grandmama put her in the stroller and took her back to our place. Shortly after that we decided to start cleaning up and head on out. We invited everyone who was still there to come over to our place to open gifts, eat more food and drink more beer (we were very discreet with it at the park...shhhh, don't tell). Isabelle napped for about an hour and then got up and came downstairs to join the continuation of her party and start opening presents. She was interested in opening about the first two gifts and then it was all left to me. She got soooo much stuff (thank you everyone!). One of Michael's and my favorite gifts was a helmet from Tom and Marcy for her ATV....seriously, don't you love it? LOL! When everything started winding down, we had to make sure we got our infamous rugrat "group shot". We had everyone there but Lexi and Mia. Maybe I can superimpose them? What a superfralicagilisticexpialidocious day we had...especially Princess Isabelle! Happy 1st Birthday baby girl!
P.S. A HUGE congratulations on the upcoming newest addition to the Molloy family! Yeah for Mini Mo 2.0!
