Give Me A Call

This picture caught me off guard because Izzy looks so grown up. Miles away from the small baby I still see when I look at her. She is getting bigger everyday. She could easily be toliet trained by this point but as she puts it "I don't want to." To her it's that simple. I don't want to. This morning when I dropped her off at daycare she said, "Have fun at the mall Mom. Give me a call." I halfway expected her to whip out a cellphone. She picks up on things so quickly that I have to be a lot more careful on what comes out of my mouth. Which for those who know me best know this is hard.

Bye Bye Daddy

This picture looked a lot better on my 1" phone screen but nonetheless, I thought it was fairly sweet. Isabelle loves her dad so much that most of the time I feel as though they are part of a secret club that I am not a member of. "Your not my best friend. My daddy's my best friend" comes out of Izzy's mouth no less than 5 times a day. We were cleaning on the garage on Sunday when Chase yelled at Izzy for not listening. She ran crying through the house and I went after her. I asked her, "Am I your best friend now?" She said, "No, my daddy's my best friend but I'm very angry right now." This kid makes me laugh. I guess 2nd place will have to be good enough for now...

Grandma Great Turns 73!

Grandma Great turned 73 on Monday. I tried calling her all morning and her line was busy. So many people called her that she couldn’t even take a break between phone calls. I finally got through around 11 only to find out that I was the 15th person to call. We decided that it would be fun to visit Ashton that night so Chase, Isabelle & Braxton and I drove up to have dinner with her. I felt bad that she had to cook but we volunteered to take her out and she refused. She really wanted to cook. She bought me some of my favorite dressing to complete the meal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat it because it was Kraft and they started using miracle whip in their ranch which is completely disgusting (I'm picky, I can't help it). But the act is very reflective on the person that my grandmother is. She is very loving and giving and I never could relate to people that don’t know their grandparents very well because I value mine so much. I can’t think of one of my major life events that my Grandma hasn’t had a front row seat for. I used to think it was because she only had three grandkids and most others have more than that that they need to divide their attention on. But really it comes down to her being the person she is. If she had a hundred grandkids, she would be focused on all of them. On her birthday, she took Izzy and Braxton out to the barn to feed the cats. Braxton came running back inside the house and said, “We have to save Grandma Great from Izzy!” Unfortunately, Izzy had put Grandma Great into timeout in the barn and was hanging on the chain so that she couldn’t open the door. But on a completely different level from that, we do have to save Grandma Great from Izzy (& all of her family) because she would give any of us everything she had. Her thoughtfulness shines through in all aspects of her life which is exactly why she had call after call from different people on her birthday. She’s a great friend to all, a perfect ally to have and a wonderful grandma.

No Nap Izzy

This is what happens when you don't enforce nap time with your child for an entire week. It's not pretty. Chase is so active when he's home that Izzy gets caught up in the excitement and doesn't sleep. He filmed this yesterday and Izzy thinks its hysterical. Last night she watched it over and over again, laughing at herself, thinking it was so funny. The rest of the world knows that this is a form of torture. There is nothing worse than a screaming child, especially when you are trying to drive.

Easter 2009

I got another one of those little surprises when I left work on Friday. Izzy and Chase were walking to the back door to meet me. Chase wasn’t supposed to be home until Sunday evening, so I was kind of dreading another weekend of entertaining myself. So you can imagine how excited I was. The weekend was essentially uneventful but it was nice to spend some time with my hubby. Chase took Izzy to the park to Easter Egg Hunt. I refused to go because I couldn’t stomach the thought of dealing with all of those kids. We had Radu and Paula over for dinner which was so much fun. I even cooked dinner, which I was proud of. As soon as he found out I was cooking, Chase began saying that we should just take them out. I told him I could do it but he was a nonbeliever. He even pulled out the Pizza Hut coupons 30 minutes before they arrived as a backup. But I did it! I thought it turned out good and everyone ate it, so I took it as a good sign. Paula asked Chase why he was so quiet during dinner and then followed it up with this statement, “Is it the food poisoning setting in?” I hope she was just joking. On Easter, Izzy actually tried to sleep in but Chase couldn’t take it anymore and woke her up. She was excited to see what the Easter Bunny brought her for “Christmas”. Anytime she gets any kind of gift these days, she assumes its Christmas.

Izzy did dress herself, I promise.

Once Izzy saw that Grandpa was going for a ride on Easter, she has to be involved. She could of cared less about her attire, she just wanted to ride.

Gordy never gives up.

Izzy's Baby

I honestly feel as though these days I’m in pure survival mode. I know this is sad because I still have three months to go but essentially being a single parent at home has worn on me harder than I could have ever imagined. That being said, Izzy and I are starting to fall into a routine, which is good for high spirited children and their incredibly tired pregnant mothers. Every morning we wake up and play for a few minutes and then I turn on Sesame Street for Izzy while I get in the shower. This morning I heard Izzy screaming for me. I jumped out of the shower and went running into my room and she had the most serious look on her face. She was holding her shirt up and said, “Mommy, come here and give me your hands.” At this point I’m a little freaked out because she had this strange look on her face but I gave her my hands, which she put on her belly. Then she said, “Can you feel it? My baby broder Ewwellot is moving!” It was so cute but I was trying not to laugh because it was so real to her. I then felt her little belly growl and I realized she thought she had a baby in there because I’m always trying to get her to feel my belly. I told her that her belly was emptier than a gay club on straight night but that kind of went over her head. A bowl of cereal later we were good to go. I only wish I had my camera because it was so sweet.

Isabelle vs. Gordy: Round 100

Gordy definitely has had his fill of Izzy. He has gotten so grouchy with her lately that I'm actually scared to leave the two of them alone. At this point, I have to lock Gordy with me in the bathroom while I shower because he is so snippy. I can't say that I blame him though because the kid is hard on him. We took the puppy to the river this weekend and of course Isabelle had to walk him. It was a tug of war the entire time. He was pulling her then she was pulling him. Gordy hates the water and doesn't like to get to close and she would try to make him look over the edge. It was painful to watch. Last night, he snipped at her for no reason other than the fact that she was trying to get on my bed where he was already laying. Does anyone out there want a grouchy chihuahua who is not friendly with kids?

Poor Marley

My sister and her family just wrapped up a two week stint here in Southeast Idaho. I haven't seen my little niece since October so it was very exciting. The poor girl is on the short and round side of the spectrum so her clothes never fit just right. Her little booty is always hanging out. It's funny because I bought Izzy a pair of jeans for $2 at Macy's back in the day that were on clearance because they didn't pass inspection. They never quite fit Isabelle right and she was constantly pulling them up which made them look too short for her. These days though, they are the best fitting pair of jeans Marley owns. She is very sweet though. She would sit on my lap and let me play with her hair, which Isabelle never does. She is also a little more peaceful than my child. One night during their visit, Heidi put both girls in timeout together because they wouldn't stop pounding on the baby gate even though they were asked several times to stop. My mom came into the room and tried to save them by saying, "Anyone who's sorry raise your hand to get out." Marley immediately went to raise her hand and Isabelle slapped it down and said, "No Marley, I'm serious." My child would rather meet death than apologize for anything. Marley definitely goes with the flow of things. I'm praying that my next child has a few of these traits!

Hell Night

Last night, I feel as though I was seriously almost pushed off the edge of a huge cliff. It was one of those nights where I thought I couldn’t possibly take it for one more second and I wanted to get in my car and drive until I found some place where I don't know anyone. Izzy was in one of those moods where she was ready to see how far she could take things. From the moment I got home, she was acting naughty but it just kept getting worse. I was on the phone and she was trying to talk to me. I couldn’t respond, so she looked right at me and dumped my drink on the carpet. She had the I’ll show you look in her eye. This landed her in the bathtub, which actually gave me 5 minutes to clean up the spill. She jumped out and I was fighting with her over her hair, when she said, “I need a diaper right now.” I ran her to the bathroom, where she sat for a few minutes whining about a diaper. Nothing was happening, so I took her off and went to find a pull up. I came back into the living room and she was crouching like a dog, releasing her bowels two inches from where I just scrubbed up pop. This is where I thought that I might start to snap. I ran through the house looking for wipes (which I have an entire box of but couldn’t find) when I gave up and just brought paper towels in. She was using the tie that my brother-in-law let Chase borrow for a wedding as toilet paper (I swear to goodness Ryan that I will replace it with something better. I’m so sorry). I’m not even joking that this is when I started to see red I was so upset. I finally clean her and the carpet up and bring out her pajamas. Of course, she doesn’t want to wear what I found so she starts screaming and fighting me. She then proceeds to bite me. I put her in time out and then marched her to bed. Unfortunately, her mattress hasn’t arrived yet and we are currently sharing my bed. I was so angry that I slept on the couch. I could hear her screaming all the way across the house for more than 30 minutes. It is moments like this where I start questioning everything good in my life and only focus on the bad. I’m only human…

A Chuck Email

So I was at work yesterday, minding my own business, diligently trying to work with the most unuser friendly program in the entire world, when this email pops up in my inbox.

You might have to click on it to be able to see it in a larger size, but it's an email from my dad that only includes a subject line of:
when you talk to mom have her buy me a bag of chips to bring to work tomorrow thanks

Naturally, I reply with this.

Katie: I assumed this was some kind of weird joke but I told her anyway.
Chuck: NO JOKE i'M TOO BUSY TO CALL HER THANKS A BIG BAG FOR TEAM LUNCH
Yes, my father emailed me to call my mother and ask her to buy him some chips to take to work the next day. I honestly thought he was joking because why would a 50+ year old man who not only has to pass a Maverick on his way home from work that day but AGAIN the next morning on his way to work need his wife to buy him a bag of chips? I was trying to imagine how I would react in this situation and I have to say that I most likely wouldn't be as accommodating as my mother who amiably brought home a bag of Tostidos. I guess after 25 years, this is some kind of sign of true love? I hope so...
But I haven't told you the real kicker yet. This is the part of the story where it starts to get good. Guess who stopped at Maverick on his way home that very night for a case of beer?