Holiday Cookie Exchange

My parents group met at our house on Saurday to have our first holiday cookie exchange and potluck. The turn out was amazing! All the families that joined us were wonderful and the kids all got along great. I think Izzy had so much she was wiped out by 1:00pm and took a super long nap.

Here is Miss Popular posing for daddy's camera.

She's playing with Ryan and the left and Rylan on her right. There was a reason why we had her play room set up the way we did. It was the perfect place to host playtime. All the kids loved her toys and it really kept them busy for several hours. We had plenty of toys to go around. It was a great turn out and we all made some new friends that we hope to see more of in the future.

Life in Prison

My sentence was delivered at 10am in the morning today. The last few weeks, like every company out there, OSH has been going through lay offs. This week, lay offs hit very close to home. My division announced their final re-organizational structure and some people had to be let go which was very suprising. Just in the last week, our senior vice president stood up in front of us and said that we would be fine and there would be no one leaving. I mean, today, I saw evil corporate leadership at work. Where did business ethics go? Anyhow, I had gone to work this morning ready to face my fate in being laid off. I was actually very happy. I would take it as a sign to be home and spend more time with Isabel. I didn't think it was the end of the world. At 10am my senior vp called me and he and my boss told me that they were promoting me! You would think I would be happy right? Except that I got a pathetic raise and more work, I would still be working for my boss, the most horrible person I have ever met. Honestly, if Hitler didn't have that gay thing going on, she would be his match. If she were not racist then she would be equally matched with Kim Jong-il. This is a woman who has serious mental and emotional issues. You know those Law and Order Special Victims episodes that you watch with and wonder where all these emotional issues come from in those psychopaths and rapists??? Yea, well they stem from middle class Caucasian America. I literally wanted to die in my chair as they were telling me this. I would have a lead buyer role but it felt like as if someone stabbed you but you didn't die, instead you were paralyzed. All the times I've gone to HR and senior leadership in the past two years have utterly failed. To have my boss watch me squirm as she sits on her high horse makes me sick to my stomach. I don't think I have ever felt so low. This economy seriously needs to get better soon, I need out!

Izzy and Her Play Group

Izzy had her first play date with her meet up group last week. She and the other little ones were so cute. It was a wonderful turn out and we met some really nice people. Auntie Cindy came to help out and also to play. We ended staying at the mall even after play time was over to do a little shopping.

At this age, the little ones don't know how to interact with each other. Most of the interaction consists of staring at each other and just observing.

Izzy has started brushing her teeth a few weeks ago. She is totally good at it and knows that there's a routine every night before we go to bed. She actually has two tooth brushes. One manual one for her to brush and an electric one that I use while she's distracted. There's also the "Brush Your Teeth" song that we sing. It's hilarious!

Happy Halloween!

We couldn't decide what to dress her up as this year and luckily I was in Crazy 8 one day and saw this one piece costume. It was simple and totally her. She's a lizard, dinosaur, swamp monster thing.

Izzy ended up wearing this to school and then to Valley Fair where we tried to go trick or treating but there were so many kids there. It was overrun with kids in costume. I don't know if we're going to go again next year, it was insane!

All she wanted was a balloon and I think she ended up with 3 pieces of candy and some stickers. She was more interested in watching the other kids.

Her school had a parade at 10am that morning and all the kids were dressed up in costume. It was the cutest thing! She's definetely my little monster!

Updates

Time is flying by so quickly. We can't believe that it's the end of October already. We tried taking her to have her pictures taken on Saturday but Izzy ended up just being crabby so we only had about 3 good studio shots. It's so different now from when she took her 6 month pictures. She's so much more aware. About 3 weeks ago we bought her a Step 2 Kangaroo playhouse. At first she couldn't figure out how to climb it so we were okay leavng the second story up but just this past week she learned how to climb up the slide and get onto the second story. Of course when she got there, she couldn't figure how to get back done and would try to just "walk" off. That triggered us taking the slide and the 2nd story off till she gets a little older.

Step 2 makes such cute products that we ended up getting a playhouse for my parents house in Morgan Hill. Well actually it was a gift from my parents that we picked up. It's so cute I have to get a picture! It has a working doorbell, a kitchen, and a phone.

Izzy has 7 teeth now and is eating a ton of solid food. Her favorites are pastas, bread, and cookies. She actually would eat anything we eat which makes going out to eat much easier. We are weaning her off the bottle so now she has her sippy cups during meals and then only bottles in the evening. We end up usually with 2 total which I think is major progress. I'm not totally strict about the bottle and I know that eventually she will just drop it completely so it's not much of a concern with us. She's already pretty good with normal cups too but I think the bottle just helps her out in the evenings before bed time. My little girl is getting bigger by the day!

Pumpkin Patch

This time last year, Izzy was just a few weeks old when we went to the local pumpkin patch. This year, she's totally walking around and has grown up so much. The sad thing is that afterwards, she got totally sick.

She was totally unsure of herself at first. She's not a big fan of grass...

Izzy finally gets into the groove and started to arrange the baby pumpkins. We wanted to buy the ones she picked out but there were way too many. We ended up with 4 baby pumpkins.

Playdate!

Last Sunday we had the Hernandez family over for a playdate. We don't know anyone else with kids so this playdate was really important to Izzy. After a few minutes of shyness, Izzy and Lexy were totally into playing with each other. It was so cute! The last time they were together at Catherine's house, Izzy had just started walking and couldn't really do anything that the big kids were doing. Now, she's all over the place!

The Raider game was on which was more to keep us all entertained.

The two of them speak gibberish and I don't know if they really know what they're saying to each other but it's totally cute watching them. Oh I wish everyone lived closer!