Isabel's first sleep-over

I don't have any new pics to post, but I had to share about Isabel's first sleep-over. this was a pretty busy weekend for us. Jason's birthday was on friday, 36! He's taking it rather hard, I think he feels a bit old. Then our anniversary was on monday, but we celebrated on sunday. We received a gift certificate from my sister and her hubby for Christmas for a night out to dinner and a movie, complete with babysitting. So we went to church in the morning, then to my parents' house for birthday lunch for Jason. Yummy ribs, mmm! then Mark and Sarah took Isabel home with them and we went to an afternoon showing of Ghost Rider. Not a great movie by any standard, but still fun to go. Then off to dinner for some seafood and good wine. Sarah had offered to keep Isabel all night since I was taking care of Rowan there on monday anyway, so we took them up on it. Unfortunately Isabel didn't sleep perfectly all night, but she did okay. She didn't even seem to have missed me that much when i showed up them next morning. She had a great time hanging out with her cousin Rowan the whole time and she snuggled up to her Uncle Mark, who she absolutely adores, a whole lot. It was really strange not having her here for a night, but amazing to be out without her for an actual date. My little girl is growing up!

Quick post with some cute and funny new pics

One of Isabel's favorite things to do lately is to play dress-up. She loves to steal my sweatshirts and ask me to put them on her. These pics were from last night. She wore this sweatshirt around the house for about an hour. Here she's talking on the remote as a phone and snuggling on the couch all bundled up in my sweatshirt. I just thought this was hilarious and so cute.
Rowan and Auntie came over yesterday and hung out for half the day. They hadn't been to our house in quite a while, usually we're at Auntie's house. Isabel loved having them here and they had such a blast together. They both love to color pictures and here they are coloring together. Rowan draws lovely swirly pictures and gets really close to the paper, while Isabel hovers above the paper and draws lots of long straight lines with very intense concentration. It's so fun to see how they differ so much. Two cousins couldn't be more different in every way really!
Isabel also loves to wear her cowboy boots so much that here she is wearing them with her little track suit. She really loves to accessorize already. She loves her shoes!

Finally some snow to play in

We finally got some decent snow last week, the Valentine's Day Blizzard hit New England pretty hard. I was able to find Isabel a snow suit at the outlet store for only $5.00, lucky for me since I'd waited till most places had switched over entirely to spring clothes. Today was really nice out, about 40 degrees and sunny, so I bundled Isabel all up and we played out in the front yard for a while. She loved making and throwing snowballs and sliding down the tiny snowbank on her bottom and on her tummy face-first. What a little daredevil! We had a blast and I managed to get a couple decent pictures. I'm also going to post a couple of pics of Isabel's Valentine's outfit that her daddy dressed her in one day last week. He loves to get to dress up his little girl occasionally and the results are usually very interesting. This outfit is pretty cute, although very girly and extremely colorful, with lots of pink. I bought Isabel's little cowboy boots at Target, I saw them and just couldn't resist. She loves to wear them, actually she loves all kids of shoes right now. Usually she wears about 4 different pairs each day. She likes to play dress-up and brings me different shoes to put on her and tries on my shoes too. I need to get a pic of her trying to shuffle around the house in my sneakers. Another big milestone, I finally got to turn her carseat to face forward! She's finally 20 lbs! (At 17 1/2 months) Still a tiny little peanut, but she doesn't seem to realize that. She thinks she a big girl! All bundled up!
Goofy $5 snowsuit
Yay, snow!!!
Girly-girl in her cute new boots.
Peek-a-boo!

Cutest Kid in the Universe

Cutest kid in the Universe, and it's finally been acknowledged by people other than us. Our little cutie was chosen as a daily winner on http://www.parents.com/ as their cutest kid on February 2nd. If you're reading this on the 3rd or 4th check it out, she's still up there on the page. In other news, my parents retired from teaching on December 22nd and we attended the big party for my dad on January 20th. He'd been teaching at Sunderland Elementary School for 32 years! It was a fun night with lots of great food and a great slide show of pics of my dad throughout the years. Isabel was a little intimidated by all the people and wouldn't leave my hip for most of the evening. Two days later my parents headed down to Florida to visit friends and family and enjoy a little sunshine. They just arrived back yesterday so we dropped in today so Isabel could see her Grandpa and Grandma who she missed quite a bit. While they were gone we got to use their tickets to the Umass vs BU hockey game. Isabel wore her Umass sweatshirt and had a blast cheering and dancing and making eyes at the little boy down the row. She's a natural flirt! I think we're in trouble when she gets older! I'm happy that we finally got some decent snow here, so hopefully Isabel can get out and play in it. She loves to look at it and has learned to say "pretty snow". She seems to learn new words every day lately. Tomorrow we'll work on having her say "Go Bears" and she'll get to wear her Bears jersey one more time as we watch the SuperBowl. Since the Patriots didn't make it I'll be cheering for the Bears as well. Go Bears!

Isabel hanging out with all her pals in her big chair.

Bubble bath time, check out all that hair!