Thanksgiving, Bears, and more...

So it's been quite a while since I posted anything here, so if anyone actually reads this then I am sorry for being such a slacker. I think it's been about a month since I last wrote and quite a lot has happened since then. Isabel and I still spend two days a week at my sister's house hanging out with Rowan while Mark and Sarah are at work. I love to watch the two of them run around together and entertain each other. Their favorite things to do are to play with blocks, play peek-a-boo around the chairs, and take turns climbing in the toy bin. We have a lot of fun on those days and I'm so glad that I get to spend so much time with my nephew and have such a great bond with him. Plus, I get completely crazy if I spend too much time at home with just Isabel!

We spent Thanksgiving at my sister's house with my parents and Mark's mom and brother and another of Mark's brothers and his family came over later in the day to hang out after dinner. It was such a fun, relaxing day. It was the first time our whole family had been together for the holidays in 6 years and it was especially great since Mark is just back from Iraq. It was a really special time with family. I'm really looking forward to more of the same at Christmas.

The pictures you see below are of a couple different times. The first ones are of Rowan and Isabel playing Ring Around the Rosy. My sister taught that too Rowan, and he taught it to Isabel. All they know is to hold hands and move in a circle, they don't know the song yet, but I think it is so adorable to watch, so we took a bunch of pictures of it. Then there are pictures from the big Bears vs. Patriots game this past Sunday. We went over to Sarah and Mark's house to watch and ate all sorts of junky football food, yumm! This game was much anticipated since my whole family are Patriots fans and my husband is a staunch Bears fan. Please notice Isabel's Bears jersey, thank you so much Suzanne for sending us that! She loved wearing it and will wear it for all the rest of the games. And Jason was so proud of his little Bears fan! So I guess that is the update for now. I will try hard to post a little more often. I hope everyone out there is doing well and having a wonderful holiday season. God bless.

Auntie, Rowan, Isabel, and Caesar hanging out in Auntie's kitchen.

Ring around a Rosy

Little Bears fan lounging in the chair

Crashed out on daddy towards the end of the game.

Doing her little dance and showing off her jersey.

Isabel loves hanging out with Uncle Mark and eating chips.

Some cute new pics

We've had a pretty exciting couple of weeks in our family. My brother-in-law, Mark, arrived back home from Iraq after being gone for nearly a year and a half. They purchased a house and are in process of moving in and fixing it up a bit. The pics I have posted below of Rowan and Isabel are from a day that I watched him while Mark and Sarah did some painting. Isabel lvoes to sit in the papasan chair; so much so that now we all call it hers. There's a set of bongo drums at the foot of the chair that she uses to climb into it. She loves to bring books or toys up there to read or play. On the day that I took theses pics Rowan decided to climb in there with her and bring a book with him also. I didn't pose them, they were both "reading" their books and just playing so cutely together that I couldn't resist taking some photos. Isabel's other new favorite thing is to drape all sorts of things around her neck like a scarf. So I just gave her a couple of my fuzziest scarves to see what she'd do. She proceeded to parade around the house with them both on for the rest of the evening. She loves anything fuzzy and fluffy, whether it's a stuffed animal, real animal, or just my swiffer duster. We didn't do much for Halloween, just stayed home and handed out candy, but Isabel had a ball. Of course all the tiny kids dressed in animal costumes were her favorite. She wanted to pet them all. She loved handing out the candy and seeing all the kids. Next year we'll have to take her out and dress her up. She's also having a vocabulary explosion lately. She still doesn't have too many words, but she's really working on it. Some of the ones she does say are: mommy, daddy, kitty, doggy, all done, down, go, oh boy, cracker, auntie, hi, and uh-oh. She's so entertaining lately, we can just spend hours watching her and laughing. She's definitely a little character.