Baby dolls and Baseballs: Updates

It seems like these two have grown up so much over the summer. Here's the latest and greatest on each of them:

Isabelle - This girl loves to sing. It seems like she's always singing. Sometimes she makes up her own words to songs too. This summer, we have spent a lot of time in the car rocking out - on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's and just running around town. Isabelle knows all the words to We Are Young and Call Me Maybe. I think those are her favorites. She also likes "the Buzz Lightyear" song. (Justin Beiber - Boyfriend. Yeah, I know. Beiber...ugh. But its kinda catchy.) She loves listening to 'mom songs' but I have to watch it. I have my Ipod hooked up in the car and I didn't download the clean versions to any songs. (A lot of them were pre-parenthood.) Oops. She loves Starships by Nicki Manaj but even the clean version is naughty. Besides singing, Isabelle plays by herself a lot more now. Its fun to listen to her with her animals, telling stories and imagining things up, its funny. She has quite the imagination. She talks all the time. About anything. She is also becoming more self sufficient. Isabelle loves to dress herself now and usually doesn't need much help. She changes her clothes about 3-4 times a day too. And she must always wear a 'pretty dress.' Not sure where she gets all this girliness from (I guess I used to be girly too, once upon a time, to an extent. That's the key, to an extent.) She only has a few 'pretty dresses' so we do laundry often. And she has a whole drawer full of shorts and skirts that she isn't wearing at all anymore. Not even the skirts!! (Not even the ones Grandma and Grandma Arla spent so much time making!) I asked her the other day why she doesn't wear the skirts and she said "Because princesses wear pretty dresses." (She also told me she wants to be a princess when she grows up.) Oh my. Isabelle loves to boss around her brother. They play pretty well together, usually just running around the house. They play 'going to school' and its so cute because she makes Ethan wear her butterfly purse around his neck. One night last week, when I was at work, Isabelle was standing at the side of the bed, staring at Daniel. He got up, asked her what was going on and she ran into the kitchen and back to her room, threw a puzzle backwards over her head and on the floor. Then she went to the bathroom on her little potty chair and fell asleep on it. Daniel had to call her name a few times before she woke up and got her back to bed. Funny. I think she was sleep walking.

She has only asked to help me make cookies just once - and this was that time.

Tracing her name

"I love Adventureland!"

She found a marker...

There's so many times I find her half in - half out of bed. She cracks me up!

Ethan - He is 21 months old tomorrow! This kid is always moving. Always. He is all over the place. He doesn't sit still at the table unless he's strapped in. Even then, he's got his feet on the table, pushing himself backwards. In the tub, he's standing up and then sitting down fast so he splashes all over. He jumps in his crib, he jumps off the couches. He climbs up on our bed. He throws toys down the basement stairs. He throws toys off the deck. He gets time out for a lot of these things. The only one that I think he has stopped is jumping off the couches. (HA! As I review this post and add pics before posting it a whole year later on 9/17/13, he is still jumping off the couches.) At least when I am in charge. He is a busy boy! Ethan's speech has really taken off over the summer. Last spring, he was able to say the basics: mama, daddy, milk, hot, no, up.... now he says all kinds of things and I can understand him!! He can say: outside, slide, eat, hat (obsessed with hats) shoes, snack, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, toes, Woody, blue, yellow, down, hi, thank you, sorry. Ethan's also been saying a few words together too, like "I don't know" "There he is" or "Where are you?" and "I love you". I was completely surprised to learn that he can also identify letters and say them too. We have an ABC puzzle that he was identifying them on. Wow, I guess Leap Frog and Super Why have really paid off! He has been running up to signs or banners or what ever is around and pointing at the letters. That probably started off with Daniel's IOWA shirts. Oh yeah, he can say Iowa too. This kid amazes me. And his teachers at daycare. They couldn't believe it when he started saying the letters on one of their sweatshirts! One of the ladies asked me how he got so smart. Hmm, I don't know. Daniel takes the credit for it. He says they work on that puzzle all the time but I still think its from Super Why! His favorite toys are his Woody doll, cars, and even the dad from Isabelle's dollhouse. I think that is hilarious! He carries him around all the time! Woody's hat has been missing for a long time. When you ask Ethan where it is, he replies in his little sweet voice, "I no know."