Our Halloweenie (you know who the weenie is...)

Our day started at 4:30 a.m., when I staggered into Izzy's room to pick her up and drag her into bed with us for her morning feeding. Fortunately, the only thing that needs to be awake for that is Izzy's mouth. Then, we all got up and dressed, and drove on to post for Chris's company family fun run. Izzy was all bundled up in her pink fleece pants and her tinkerbell jacket. She was super cute, and had fun saying hi to Luke, the boxer puppy, and watching Chris do useless army stretches. Then, we all went on a slow 1.5 mile run, allowing the walkers to pretty much keep up. Luke had to stop for "personal reasons" at least 3 times. And by stop, I mean he did a dead stop and squatted right there. It was pretty funny. Then, we all went home and had bacon, egg, and cheese english muffin sandwiches. Yummy! Chris left for work, and Izzy took a nice long nap, giving me time to finish making his halloween costume. By "make", I mean I sewed a jack-o-lantern face onto an orange shirt. Instant costume. Oh, and by "sewed", I mean carelessly stitched in such a way that if the thread broke, the face would fall off. Hey, some things weren't meant to last. Anyways, by the time Chris got home, it was time to get ready for our first family Halloween party with our playgroup. There were LOTS of costumes. There was a family of Legos, and mom and dad dog catchers with a dog child. Lots of cute ones! Our family were the Pumpkin Packs. We were all pumpkins. Izzy's costume had had some dress rehearsals which had ended in Izzy pulling passionately at her costume in an attempt to rip it from her body, so I made some minor modifications to it, severing the bottom elastic, and adding a piece of elastic between her legs, so that it would stay down. In the end, it was a cute costume, but looked a little bit like a bell pumpkin. Here are some pictures of the event:

Izzy and Chris, hanging out.


After some pizza, there was a donut contest. Izzy was super excited by the donuts, but they hung JUST out of reach...


I picked her up to get her a little closer, and before I could say donut, Izzy had snagged one, and was holding on for dear life. The game was to get the donut with your mouth, but tell that to a 13 1/2 month-er. Plus, she had grabbed the donut NEXT to the one we had been working on, but she didn't care. She ripped it off the string, and shoved it into her mouth. For the next hour, she crawled around with half a donut clenched in her powdery little paw, taking nibbles every now and then.


The evening ended with trick or treating in the neighborhood. Izzy would walk up to the people and by the end of the night, even would hold out her bag for people to put candy in.


Towards the end of trick or treating, the bag was so heavy, Izzy would hold it out, and it would slowly drop down, because she wasn't strong enough to hold it up. It was pretty funny.


All in all, we had a pretty good Halloween. We, I mean Izzy, even got some good candy!

Here's where I've been...

Becca came to visit. I was too busy to blog. And before that, I didn't feel like blogging, and darn it, I'm not a slave to blogspot.

In other news, on October 20, Izzy finally started walking. She'd been teasing us for weeks with the "one step and sit" trick, but finally, she just started going.

In other other news, today, while Izzy was walking, she tripped over her own feet and slammed her head into the bottom of the coffee table. She's got a big bump and a bit of a bruise. I called the nurse help line, and Chris picked on me for being so cautious. What else is new...

Izzy's first pumpkin patch

A few weekends ago, Chris, Izzy, and I packed up the car and went out to Willcox to meet people from my playgroup at the pumpkin patch. We went to Apple Annie's farm to pick our pumpkins. Izzy was skeptical at first, but them warmed up to all the nature. We took a hayride out to the pumpkin fields and walked amongst the gorgeous pumpkins. Surprisingly, Arizona can grow some nice big orange pumpkins! Izzy picked out two pumpkins that she liked, and we pulled them off the vine and took them home with us. Here are some pictures of the adventure.

This pumpkin is nearly as big as Izzy, and it wasn't even close to the biggest we saw. She had fun patting it and poking it and walking around it.


Here are some more big pumpkins. We took this picture right before Izzy got really interested in a bug on the pumpkins. Yuk.


The farm had some hay bales set up for kids to play on, so Chris just couldn't resist. Izzy had fun, too.


Chris and Izzy tried hiding behind some corn stalks...


And here's our attempt at being creative and fun.

Banana - the new hair gel

In the mornings, after I feed Izzy some yogurt, I plunk down some fruit and leave her while I go change into running clothes. Usually, it's some peaches or strawberries or grapes, but the other morning it was bananas. She loves bananas, so I had no qualms about what she would do with them (shove them in her mouth one after the other). After I changed, I went to check on her, and lo and behold, she had found a new use for bananas. She had them everywhere! I don't think she ate any of them. She just mushed them all in her hair and on her face and even in her ear.

Izzy, happy as a clam with banana everywhere. (Izzy, not the clam).


Here's an upclose shot of the chunks of banana literally squashed into her hair.


So, when she was done (with what?), I got a wet cloth and tried to wash it out. I scrubbed. I pulled. I rubbed. I even did a squiggle (whatever that is). And this is what I was left with.


Yeah, she was pretty pleased with herself. Now, I don't claim to be the best mom in the world, but I thought I had cleaned her up pretty well. Alas, I was gravely mistaken. About two hours later, her hair STILL looked like this. It had dried to a shiny little banana helmet.

Introducing...Percy!!!

Izzy has been showing an interest in walking lately. And by interest, I mean that she "cruises" (which baby websites define as moving around on two legs while holding on to things.) So, I thought, hey, this is the perfect time for her to get one of those push toys that she can walk with. Oh, and she also LOVES things that move around. A few weeks ago, we went to the gym play area for kids, and she spent a hour pushing around a dump truck. And recently, she has started pushing boxes around the living room. So, with her new progress in mind, we went to Wal-Mart to look at push toys. We saw this awesome one that was a John Deere tractor. And we saw a pretty cool Radio Flyer thing. But in the end, Percy won. He was so cute, and while we were looking at him, he started playing music, and of course, Izzy started dancing, so that clinched it for us. Percy was being liberated.

Once home, we set him up. (By "we," I mean "me".) Immediately, Izzy started playing with him. When she touched his nose, he would play music. And once she new how to start the music, she tried to reach OVER the handle to touch his nose. That resulted in her holding on to the handle and walking behind it, while trying to get to his nose. Ultimately, that did not work so well for her. She basically just ran behind it, and eventually fell to her knees. But it was awesome to see her walking/running. And now, she knows that she can push it while holding on to the handle. She also likes to hide her food underneath the handle so that she can find it later. She gets that from me.

This is Izzy, reaching for Percy's nose.


And here she is, walking behind him.


Pretty quickly, though, she is on her knees, pushing Percy around the room.


And here's a shot of Izzy just about to start running behind Percy, not on purpose.

Where have I been? Let me tell you...

So, once we got home from our vacation, and settled back in, this is what happened:

1. I got a terrible cough that kept me up at night, and even had Chris come home from work because it's impossible to take care of a one year old while coughing so hard that I throw up.

2. Izzy got some sort of head/chest cold, to include a runny nose and a yukky cough and a fever.

3. Izzy popped 4 teeth all at the same time. That includes the diaper rash that often accompanies the teeth.

So, for the past few weeks, I have been exhausted and worn out, and for awhile, I would have sworn that my child was nothing more than one long cry.

But, the teeth are in, the diaper rash is gone, the colds are gone, and I am back. Kind of.

Izzy's Birthday Party

We finally had Izzy's cake party on Monday night after our vacation. I made a monkey cake for her, and we hung up everyone's pictures. The pictures are pretty self explanatory.

I'm a cute monkey cake.


Half me mouf ith gone...but I'm sthill cute.


nnn mmmm...buu immm stii cuuu.


bbbbblllllllhhhhhhhhnmmmm.


After some initial reticence, Izzy really dug in. She had both hands going, and by the end, I think she had some frosting in her hair and cake shoved in her ear.



Here's a pic of Chris with Izzy, and all the party-goers.


And a family shot.


p.s. on a sad note, the cute monkey cake was burned to death after I forgot I was storing it in the oven, and preheated it. Also burned in the sad conflagration, the orange plate that the monkey cake was living on.