Today was Isabella's first day of preschool at St. Catherine's. She of course was super excited to go! I had to get Isabella up a little early so we could get to daily mass at 8 and then preschool at 8:30. We started the day off with smoothies and this morning Isabella was freezing after having it. I tried to get some pictures of her in her adorable outfit but it wasn't easy since she was shivering. It doesn't help that we have been trying to keep the house at 65 degrees to save some money on our energy bill. We may have to rethink the smoothies in the morning. :)
This outfit reminds me of a picture of my brother when he was going off to school. I didn't actually intend to do it, but even her backpack coordinated. It is black and white hearts on the other side. So she was black, pink and white from head to toe! She wore her dark wash jeggings too, they are adorable on her!
We are looking forward to doing preschool for the rest of the year. Luckily she is just as excited when I pick her up as when she gets dropped off. We are also going to try to make it to mass on Wednesday and Friday. Today Nick was home so it was just Isabella and me, but on Friday we will have Jack with us. Keep us in your prayers that Jack is on his best behavior. I always feel so bad when the kids are loud, although I talked to the deacon and he told me to bring him and not to worry, so that makes me feel better.
Jack turned 18 months old today. We headed to the doctor for a check-up and not surprisingly he is still huge! He is 34.5 inches long and 31 lbs! That puts him in the 95% still. He is a big (little) dude. He is growing by leaps and bounds in other ways too! He is singing lots of songs (words and all), he is stringing whole sentences together of 3 and 4 words, and he is just acting more like a little kid each day (where has my baby gone?). When the doctor came in today Jack immediately said "Hi doctor!" The doctor was surprised...he said "you shouldn't be putting two words together quite yet" and then when Jack was ready to be done he said "All done, Bye Bye Doctor. Thank you!" Jack also says "No thank you" and "yes please" I love it! He really wants to be like his big sister and he so he tries to say most things she does. He and Isabella understand every word that each other says. If I don't know something Isabella is right there to interpret for me. They are really starting to play and act like siblings. It is amazing the changes that have happened in just the last week. At this rate...I wonder what age 2 will bring us. He is adorable and we are enjoying every minute with him (well maybe not every minute). With his cute talking also comes a lot of screaming and "Mine! Mine!" and "No!!" He is also teething. He had the front four for the longest time and then suddenly got his molars and just in the last week he cut the two top canines.
Video of him saying "Bubble bath"
Please excuse Jack's messy face and the mouth full of food, but I just love this video. Jack is singing Mr. Sun (which I did not recognize at the time), but I love that Isabella knows and Jack seems exasperated that I even had to ask:
So here was our Valentine's Day and Jack's half-birthday celebration. Nick is still recovering from his flu so we didn't have any fancy plans for us. I did pick us up breakfast sandwiches from McDonald's and I made orange sweet rolls for us all. They each got a little Valentine treat and a Wonderpets coloring book with stickers. They are both obsessed with Wonderpets lately.
After breakfast we headed to the doctor and did some fun Valentine's day treat shopping. We went to AC Moore and picked up a couple crafts to paint and then headed to the Dollar Tree and got 2 balloons and a couple books and some little baby animals. The kids were thrilled and it only cost me 7 dollars. Then after dinner we sang "Happy half Birthday" to Jack and ate some cake. I skipped making one because I didn't want that much cake hanging around the house for the next week.
Video of us singing and Jack saying "Happy Valentine's Day" After watching this again I feel like it looks like I ignore little Isabella :). It is just so hard to get video of Jack doing things because if I ask him to do something Isabella is always quick to jump in and do it for him.
Just realized I originally posted the wrong video here. This is them enjoying the treat!
We were also so happy to celebrate Grandma's birthday with her. We started the day by going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Michele came along too. We had a great breakfast and of course we had to check out all the fun toys there.
That evening we headed to Duck's Grill and Bar and had a wonderful dinner together.
Isabella took some great photos of all of us. Here is some of her work.
Jack really enjoyed his cheeseburger..check out that ketchup face smile!
We came back home for cake and presents. Isabella gave Grandma her card that she made. She was very proud of it. She wrote "Grandma" "I love you" and "Bella." She also dictated her message to me. It was adorable...I think Grandma liked it.
Grandma must have been tired when we left because she spent the whole week playing! It was beautiful weather and we got outside as much as possible. We walked down to the playground and played dragons, princesses, the 3 billy goat's gruff and more! Then grandma came up with the "circle of power" game. It involved the ribbon being waved in a circle and Isabella getting stuck in it. Isabella thought it was hilarious.
Grandma got a couple of chairs in the mail while we were there and Grandma made a playhouse for Isabella and Jack. When Grandpa got home he helped us to perfect it. And of course Grandpa included a doggie door.
We just could not stay inside when it was so beautiful outside. It was such a great break from the cold PA weather.
Jack did a great job walking up and down these steps by himself. He is growing so fast!
Here is Isabella pretending to be a bunny rabbit....another great idea of grandma's.
There were a lot of these (helicopters) in the air over Grandma and Grandpa's house and Jack loved them. It is funny how commonplace they become there but when you haven't lived there in a while you notice each one that goes by. There were also a lot of Osprey too...those were very cool to see.
Grandpa is back in to juicing and he showed Isabella the ropes while we were visiting. She thought it was pretty neat. She really enjoyed it. It was cute to watch Isabella with Grandpa.
We traveled to Virginia to spend Nonna's birthday with her. Nick and Jenn made a fantastic meal for Nonna for her birthday and we got to share in it! Here is a picture of a little girl who just loves birthdays. I don't think she distinguishes yet between hers and others...every birthday is equally as exciting.
Isabella was Nonna's little helper and helped her blow out the candles and open all her gifts.
