Beginning of the Terrible Threes!

I can't believe it, but my little baby is now a proud three year old. These days there is no quicker way to make her upset then to call her "little" or "baby"... she is a big girl and determined to get some respect!

The week leading up to Isabel's birthday was stressful because Kyle had to travel for work as well as work the previous two Saturdays. Feeling overwhelmed at the thought of getting the house clean in my - shall we say - *enlarged* state, I decided to make it easier on myself by hiring a cleaning service. BEST money I've EVER spent. They did an excellent job. This is my first time having someone clean the house and I felt a little guilty because they were really working hard, huffing and puffing. But I justified it to myself pretty easily; I'm pregnant, after all, and can justify any excuse for laziness or over-eating these days!



On Friday the 23rd, Isabel's actual birthday, the three of us had a small celebration with cake and some gifts. The next day, the streets of Painesville, OH were deserted as half the population travelled down to Columbus to share in the celebration. It was so nice of the Keepers to make the trip and Isabel LOVED having them here. The kids played so well together Saturday night and I was shocked that they all got to bed at a reasonable hour.



Sunday was the day of her birthday party. Isabel woke up too early out of excitement, and then later managed to bump heads with her cousin and get a bloody nose, so she was a little more subdued than usual. Still, she was very excited about her party at The Little Gym. This is the first time we've had a party and invited some of her friends from school. Unfortunately, all our pictures included one or more of those kids so I don't want to post them without their parents' permission.

The kids all seemed to have fun there, and Kyle and I enjoyed the added benefit of not having a ton of people over at the house. Afterwards, we said goodbye to the family who had to make the long trek back to Cleveland in the snow. The next day, Isabel seemed a little sad when she asked me if she was still the birthday girl and I said no, but she's got a pile of presents to cheer her up!

Cute!

Kyle: Do you love mommy?
Isabel: Yes.
Kyle: Why do you love mommy?
Isabel: Because she's so cute!

Kyle and Jacqui Hit the Town

Kyle and I enjoyed our last hurrah before the baby is born. It was time for my yearly office party. We did something different this year: a dinner/casino night. There were blackjack, Texas hold 'em, roulette, and craps tables. Each person was given $500 in fake chips to spend. It was a lot of fun to be able to learn about some games I've always wanted to play without the pressure of losing the kids' college fund. We spent most of the time at the craps table. I can't say I understand it all, but it's definitely the most social of the games and we had a great time.

The other benefit of craps is that you play it while standing. I had bought a pair of maternity hose to go with my dress and the darn things ripped while I was putting them on. I choose to blame this on problems with the manufacturer rather than my own rotundity. So anyway, I had to wear a normal pair of hose. When I was sitting down I felt like I was being cut in half!

And for those skinny bitches who've been asking to see a picture of fat Jacqui (you know who you are), here you go!

Quote of the Day

I've decided to start a new feature on Tiny Creatures: Quote of the Day. Isabel is at that age where she is saying a lot of funny things as she figures out the world, and I want to remember some of them!

I was singing the Beatles "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" to Isabel, and after the umpteenth "I love you, yeah, yeah, yeah" she asked, "Why do you love me?" I said, "Mommy and Daddy both love you." "Why?" she asked. "Why do we love you? That's our job, to love you and keep you safe," I said. "From sharks?" she asked. Pause. "Yes," I replied, "from sharks."

On another occasion, we were looking at her picture encyclopedia. She pointed to a picture of a lion and said, "Is this really necessary?" in just that tone of voice you would use at the DMV when they ask you to fill out a form in triplicate. I laughed out loud and asked, "What??". "Is this really necessary, Mommy? I think it should be necessary." At that point I realized she didn't know what she was saying and was just trying out a phrase she had heard.

Tiny Creatures, the Book!

Now that the cat's out of the bag (and gifts have been unwrapped), I can share this exciting development on the blog. For a long time, I've been worried that one day Google's servers would go down, some moron would forget to have done regular backups, and presto deleto, my blog would be gone. I decided I needed a hard copy of all these scribblings, and a short Google search later I found Blurb.

Blurb is a web site dedicated to helping people create books. You download a free tool called BookSmart which allows you to design and edit your book, then you basically click on the "Publish" button and BookSmart uploads your book to the website. From there, you can make your book public or just keep it private if you don't want to share, and you can order copies of your book in various sizes and formats (paperback, hard cover, etc.).

There are a couple of sites that offer similar services, but what I liked about Blurb was that their tool had a "Slurp" action which would suck all the content out of your blog and into a book. From there you can tinker with the layout, formatting, and so on, but it's nice to have that big chunk of work taken care of automagically. The Blurb site was easy to use, there was lots of online help and a users forum available, and the books were reasonable in price. I've made my book public so anyone can check it out. It covers the first two years of Tiny Creatures.

Next stop: Tiny Creatures, the movie!

Budding Artist

Isabel has recently been bringing home pictures like these from school. For those of you not well versed in toddler art, you can see two faces next to each other, one in each circle. We assumed that she was learning how to do this at school. However, one day when picking Isabel up, the teacher asked me if we had been teaching her to draw faces. So apparently she's picked this up on her own by watching people draw! It's so interesting for us as parents to see her develop. These are the first drawings she's done that are recognizable as something other than scribbles.

Holiday Toy Story

Here are a few shots of what Isabel's been up to during the holiday break.

Many Merry Christmases

Although we were planning to spend Christmas day in Cleveland with Kyle's family, we still wanted to celebrate at home. We had our Christmas a day early. The night before, we helped Isabel set out milk and cookies for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. The next morning we had the pleasure of her waking us up to tell us we needed to go downstairs and see if Santa had come. That's not sarcasm; this is the first time she's been old enough to remember Christmas so it was fun for us to share that excitement with her.

When she came downstairs, she was very excited to see:


Unwrapping, squeals of delight, and giddy happiness followed. Isabel seemed to take as much joy out of helping us open our presents as she did her own.

After eating an I-do-say-so-myself delicious breakfast, we packed up and drove to Cleveland, where Isabel got to enjoy opening a few more presents on Christmas Day. In fact, Isabel got to open a lot more presents... at Grandmama's house, and then the main event at Oma and Opa's house where all the grandkids were involved in a maelstrom of wrapping paper as they unwrapped simultaneously.




There were other highlights: Kyle had arranged a getaway for the two of us while we were in Cleveland. We went to a bookstore, had hot chocolate, then spent a blissful night at Quail Hollow Country Club, where we had the most divine waffles for breakfast the next morning. There was also a scary part of the trip. There was a phone call to let us know that Kyle's Grandpa Bill had had a serious fall and was in the ER. Things looked really bad that night, but the next day we visited and he was alert and joking around, although very tired. Since then, he has been able to eat, walk, and razz the nurses, which we were very glad to hear!

Pre-Christmas Festivities

We were very busy in the days and weeks before Christmas. First, there was cookie decorating (and cookie eating) at a friend's house.

Next came decorating the house and putting up the Christmas tree. Isabel was in charge of the glass balls, which is why they all ended up 2 feet off the ground.

We also attended the holiday children's party thrown by Kyle's employer. This included a session to create a Build-a-Bear, more cookie decorating, and the all important visit with Santa.