Dustin's 27th Birthday Party!

What a good wife... making your husband happy on his birthday :)

Sorry you are too old to blow out all of your candles at once...oops!

Grandpa and Grandma with Isabela.

Not quite the first time drinking out of a cup, but she sure does LOVE IT!

Standing Up

I know I will regret saying this, but I cannot wait until Isabela can stand/walk on her own.

She loves standing so much. She fusses sitting down and cries sometimes when she is on her back. But she is as happy as can be when we help her stand up. I can't be with her all the time, so I will be stoked when she can just do it on her own and be happy.

La Monita - Halloween!

1st Snow

Chupon

Isabela is using her toy to hold her binkie in her mouth while she chews on it. Over 3 months of teething, chewing on everything, and not one tooth has broken through yet. We can see that they are close, though.

And with that smile, she gets whatever she wants.

BBQ at Grandpa Stoddard's

Seneca holding little Brooklyn Stoddard.
Brooklyn's big sis, Sydnee.
Dan and Mindee, proud parents of Syd and new twin babies, Jayden & Brooklyn. They were born July 11th.
Papi Stoddard & Brandon feeding the twins.
Tom & Jayden
Playing with the ever-so-content Isabela.

Aunty Renee

Renee came to visit. She had a lot of fun... but I don't know how Isabela felt about that.
And Beth, Renee's MTC comp, came to play... Izzy seemed to really enjoy that :)And at our BBQ with some high school friends, Isabela played really well with Brooklyn, Shaun Elegante's little girl. Brooklyn is 9 months old and Izzy is almost 5 mo. in this picture. Brooklyn kept stroking Izzy's face. She was really cute!

Flying Izzy

Making up for lost time

Well, here are 6 new posts. I am making up a little bit
for the lost time and lack of posts lately. Our little family is
doing well, but we are crazy, busy, and completely sleep-deprived.

Two surprises!

Tonight I went to the General Relief Society conference at the Stake Center. Our Stake President spoke to us at 5:30 then we watched the broadcast at 6. I wore my skirt with a long sleeve white shirt and brown undershirt. (This becomes somewhat relevant.) I knew Isabela would get hungry so I brought her bottle. About 5:40 she starts fussing so in 2 seconds, out came the bottle to divert attention away from us. Success! She downed that thing.

While she is eating I hear the little rumbles. It is 5:52. Great! Now I have to change a poopy diaper. There is just a little left in the bottle. I figure I will let her finish eating and then President would be done talking and I could leave right before the broadcast started. But oh man did she smell BAD!

I moved the blanket a little off us. It was everywhere! Isa had on her onsie and a dress over top. It was down her legs, up to her chest, and all over my white shirt. Crap! There is no way I was going to sit there for 5 more minutes until President got done talking. I covered us with the blanket and out the door we went. To the jeep, strip the baby, wipe her whole body down, soak my shirt...and we were outta there.

We drove home (quickly, but no speeding, even with poop all down the front of me). I shut off the car, grabbed the baby, and ran to the house (we were hurrying to get back to conference). I swing open the back door, then I hear this noise. I looked up and jumped so high I spooked Isabela. In my garden, no more than 20 feet away, there were 3 bucks! They were staring straight at me. I ran downstairs, set down the baby, grabbed the camera, and snapped some photos outside... with pooh on my shirt.

At least someone is making good of my garden. We got cleaned up, changed into another brown undershirt and short-sleeve white shirt, and returned to conference. I don't think anyone had any idea about our escapade.

No kisses dad!

Isabela was happy to play until Brandon gave her a kiss.

Bath Time

Isabela is growing so fast.

She is now 13.2 lbs at 4 months old.

Brandon and Isabela playing

Isabela rolling over

Izzy rolls over all the time now.

Here she is in the process.

Computer crash

Well, our computer crashed.
Dustin was so kind to come and fix it. It took a few hours
one night, but it worked like a charm.

Three weeks later... it crashed again.

Needless to say, the blog has suffered.

Verna Pint

A few weeks ago, Izzy and I went walking to say hi to Brandon while he was working up on campus. On our way past the cemetery, I met this wonderful woman. Her name is Verna Pint. She is 76 years old. She has become my inspiration.

Verna goes walking every day. She has yoga and pilates twice a week and water aerobics regularly. Wrinkles she has, but absolutely no flab. This woman is pure muscle. She loves walking all around town. In just a few months, she has walked over 250 miles. She gets prizes for every 100 miles she walks for one of the classes she is in. She last told me that she has almost reached her 3rd 100 miles.

Verna is my inspiration. When she was 16, she was ran over by a hay-bailing tractor. It crushed her hips, pelvic bone, and part of her legs. The doctor told her she would never walk again. Her mom worried every time she tried to hobble on crutches that she was going to hurt herself. Verna was stubborn, though, and kept at it. She snuck away everyday while her family was gone. She would hobble as best she could to the park on her crutches, then completely out of breath and in pain, hobble back home. After a few weeks, she managed to pull some park benches together. She used the backs of them like parallel bars. Before they had come up with physical therapy, she came up with her own.

She said she never let anyone know. She used her crutches and hobbled whenever her family and friends were around. Then, months after the accident, Verna's mom took her back into the doctor for a routine check-up. She hobbled in, sat down, and waited. When the nurse called her name, Verna stood up, threw down her crutches, and walked happily into the exam room. Of course, everyone went crazy. She told me, "I just couldn't imagine my life never walking again. Could you believe me? not walking? They must have been crazy."

We walked together a long time. I told her that I have wheat stored here and I needed to learn how to make it into bread. She said she ground all of her own wheat. So she came over today and we made the best wheat bread ever! She hopes we still live here next summer when she comes back so we can do more together. I will be ecstatic!

Sitting on the Couch

At 10 1/2 weeks old, this is Isabela sitting on the couch. She can't sit up without back support by herself yet, but she is doing pretty well. She seems to have fun sitting up by us when we are all together. I think she likes to look around and see more things.

Misty & Christina come to visit!

Misty and Christina dropped by to visit before they went dancing... and what
a crazy dance party at the Fun Park they had!

This is Izzy talking.
She and I went to pick raspberries with Kala.
Izzy sat in her carseat on the grass, talking away the whole time.
She loved it when Kala started to play her music.

Bear Lake

We went to Bear Lake with the Spanish Branch. We had a blast!
We lathered sunscreen all over her. She was very efficient at using her hands to rub the lotion off of her arms and eating it up.
She just kept licking and smiling.
Then she slept for about 5 hours that we were there.
She woke up for about 1 1/2 hours at the end to put her feet in the water.