Catching Up

Am I the only person who can't for the love of me ever catch up with laundry? How can three people, one of them a very little one, accumulate so much laundry? Well in between laundry loads, church callings, new friendships, exploring, and adapting to/loving Isa's new quirks, I have not wanted to blog. I have plenty of free time to do it, I just choose to either watch Call the Midwife, nap, read or catch up on some of my goals during it. So here I am trying a month later to summarize a whole lot and yet not so much. Life has been well quite awesome yet not so blog interesting awesome. You know stuff like snuggling in a blanket together to watch a snowstorm in your back porch and looking at Isabella's smile that is so big it almost can't fit in her face, hanging out in Isabella's fort as we watch a movie and I think of how blessed I truly am to have these two or slowly starting to know people at church and faces becoming more familiar. Stuff that means so much to me but hard to capture in writing.

Here are some of my favorite recent Isabella moments:

Numero Uno-We were trying to get ready for church in 5 min because like always we woke up late. Well I woke up late, Stephen just always gets ready 5 min before we have to go since he is a guy. Isabella is eating breakfast and all of a sudden we hear her scream hysterically. We rush out expecting to find her choking or bleeding but what we find is a tiny drop of chocolate milk on her wrist that she is screaming at us to wipe off. Someone is becoming quite dramatic let me tell you.

Numero dos-In the car today I gave Isabella my phone to play with while we drove home. As we park in the garage we get into this conversation about lame doctor jokes and forget about Bells. All of a sudden we hear "Bye bye" and we look back and she is talking into the phone and finally is saying bye bye to whoever is on the other end. This might be a you had to be there kind of moment but to me it just shows how much my baby is not a baby anymore.

Numero tres-anytime anyone farts, Isabella will lift up her little leg and make fart noises and laugh hysterically. No need to say more.

Living in our little town far away sometimes feels wonderful and sometimes not so much. As I drive down the dirt roads with beautiful country homes overlooking the lakes surrounded by trees, I can just picture my children going down those roads in their bicycles as Stephen chases them down and I fall in love with West Plains even more. But sometimes I wake up with the realization of how alone we are out here and how much that kind of sucks sometimes. We probably won't live here for the rest of our lives but if for any crazy reason we do, I think it would be magical in a very simple, old fashioned kind of way.

Some of this pictures really make me smile. There are so many stories behind them and they just remind me of what an amazing little girl I get to raise and what a blessing parenthood really is. At nights I lay down after a day of running around, bending down, and picking up. My whole body aches--I definitely do not feel 22 more like 42. But then in the middle of all the aches and pains I smile and remember all the little moments Isabella and I had that day and all of the sudden the aches and pains hurt a little less.

I have a golden ticket!

I have been trying to take better pictures with my smartphone and I think I am getting

better. Wiping the lens once in a while does miracles! I cleaned of a piece of cheerio of 

it and my pictures are no longer blurry....

*Isabella made this for grandma and grandpa in Seattle and it meant so much to them

*Isa doesn't have many friends around here,so her playdate with Oscar was so good for her. She spent an hour showing him all her stuff. Someone needs to be a big sister soon!

*It was a little too windy for Isabella, but Stephen and I fell in love with kayaking. Summer activity 

for sure

*Little mama stage is my favorite. I hope this never goes away. 

               
  *This picture is heart melting for me in so many ways. My grandma made that hat for
    Bells. The first time I saw it I kind of laughed and thought it looked like an afro/clown hat but
    now I'm kind of in love with its quirkiness. The sun rays + her smile in this pic are too much.