The Little Things...

It's the end of the day and I feel like I didn't accomplish much today, but I had the privilege of listening to the hopes and dreams of my 4 1/2 year old. Watching her pretend play in her dress up closet and got to be the audience at her pretend fashion show. Watched her be kind to her sister by letting her have a toy that she was playing with. Melted when I stubbed my toe and she came running to see if I was OK. Held her a little tighter after tucking her in because she told me that I am the bestest mommy in the whole world.

I witnessed countless smiles from Calista today, every time I see her precious smile I can't help but to smile myself. She is the happiest person I know. I listened carefully as she babbles in her own little way about the things she is excited about, wishing I could read her mind. I played along as she pretended to be a kitty cat with her big sister and crawl around on all fours. I love how she drops everything as soon as she hears the keys in the door because the person she loves most in the world has finally come home to her. (Daddy)

Thank you God for reminding me everyday, that being a Mom might not always seem glamours to me, but it is to you.

Star Of The Week!

Isabelle and friends...

John Brandon (in his defense, I jokingly told them not to smile)

Eathan, Issy, Grace T. and Grace S.

Isabelle is star of the week in her class. We got to bring in pictures of Isabelle and she answered questions for the class to get to know more about her. She was so excited about it! We also brought in pink cupcakes and drinks for everyone for a special snack. She had a great day and can't wait until Thursday when the celebration continues!

Isabelle and the best teachers ever, Mrs. Ball and Miss Andrea.

We LOVE them!
Isabelle's star of the week bulletin board.

Here are the questions she was asked and her answers...

My Family: Daddy, Mommy, Isabelle & Calista
Favorite color: Pink
Favorite food: Strawberries
Favorite thing to do: Play with Mommy (Melted my heart!)
Favorite toy: Tiana doll
Favorite book: Grimm Brothers Cinderella

On Thursday when I picked Isabelle up from Class, Mrs. Ball gave me a packet that the class made for Isabelle. Each kid in the class drew Isabelle a picture and told her why she was special. I love it! Isabelle likes it too and carried the packet around with her all day and continues to wear her star of the week crown. Mrs. Ball says she gets to be Star of the Weekend and Isabelle is holding us to it.

Here are what each kid in her class said about Isabelle.

You are special because....

You like to play with me. Jessica

You like me. Ethan

We play together. Grace T.

She is a rainbow. Gavin

You play with me. Nicole

You are beautiful, you are a good friend and you play with me. Garrett

You are nice to me. Jhon Brannon

You are so smart. Adysen

I love you. Megan

I like you. Isaiah

Sunshine On A Cloudy Day!

The lack of sunshine has been getting us down! Isabelle sits at the window and longs to go out and play in her trampoline. I have tried to come up with some fun things every day to keep them busy. Yesterday we had enough with the rain, so we decided to make some sunshine of our own. We cut out a rainbow and a sun and pasted them on the wall and got in our swimsuits, got our sunglasses and went for a swim in the bathtub. The kids LOVED it! I did too! The mood the rest of the day totally changed! A little sunshine is all we needed to brighten our spirits!

Technology VS. An 18 Month Old

Over the weekend Calista figured out how to open the DVD player and put in a DVD all on her own. The first time I saw her do I couldn't believe it, she is barley 18 months old. Soon she is going to know how to use the computer better than me!

First you put the DVD in the player....

Then you close it....

(Don't tell Daddy we use our hands to push the tray in...)

Look at me, I'm SO BIG I can work the DVD player!


Opps, don't forget to push play!

Can you believe it?

Poisoned Apples

Yesterday Isabelle asked for an apple, after I gave it to her she looked at me and asked: "Is this a poisoned apple or a regular apple?" Totally cracked us up! We love her imagination, makes me wonder if she thinks I would really give her a poisoned apple or what she would have said if I told her it was a poisoned apple. Silly kid!

Bye Bye BoBo

Last week Freddie decided it was time we get rid of Calista's bobo (pacifier). She has only been using it when she sleeps, but has recently started going in her room and getting them out of her bed and walking around with them. So it was time to get rid of them before it became a problem. I thought for sure she was going to give us a fight the first night.

Isabelle didn't appreciate it to much when we took her bobo's away when she was a baby, she cried for 3 nights.

The first night we put Calista to sleep, she said "bobo" and we told her they were all gone and she went right to sleep and has never asked or looked for them again since. We were shocked! It's been a week and the bobo's are gone and she could care less.

New Address

We have a new blog address...

isabelleandcalistaupdates.com

You can still find us at the old address for a while... make sure to bookmark us at the new address isabelleandcalistaupdates.com to continue to stay up to date with us.

***The RSS feed will stay the same for those of you who use bloglines and google reader***

Blurb 101

I've received a lot of emails lately on how to turn your blog into a book. So I thought I would walk you through the steps.

First go to blurb.com

On the top of the home page the second from the left click on Make Books. A few options will drop down, click make books again.

It will ask you if you want to use Blurb BookSmart or a PDF Click on BookSmart.

Then click on the orange box to download blurb BookSmart. It will ask you a couple of questions to see if you have a PC or a Mac. Then it will download BookSmart onto your computer. When it is done installing, it will ask you where you want to save BookSmart. I save mine to my desktop so I can get to it easy. Once you tell it where to install BookSmart will open automatically. BookSmart is the program that you will edit your blog book in and it stays on your computer, and costs you nothing until you are done with the book and you are ready to order your first book. You can take as long as you want editing your book.

So once BookSmart is installed and on your desktop, it will open automatically. Your going to click on start new book. Then it will give you options for sizes, all my books are 8" x 10" Standard Portrait, but pick what you like.

Then it will ask you to title your book, mine is the title of my blog.

Then you will pick your layout. Second from the bottom of the list is an option blog to book, pick that one.

Then it will ask you for your blog source, on the left side pick the blog source, I use blogger so I clicked on blogger. Then on the right side it will ask you for your log in and password for blogger. Then it will ask you to pick your blog, pretty simple. Then you will need to pick all the entries you want to slurp. This could take a few minutes. My books are broken up into years, so I go to the bottom of this page and deselect all and then go back and click the boxes of the year I am working on. That is the part that takes a minute. Once you have picked the entrees you want to slurp hit continue and the slurping starts.

Once everything has been slurped, you will pick a background color/layout then it will ask you if you want to auto populate the entries into the layout, I always say yes. Then I go in and click on each page and edit if I have to. The editing can take some time and I recommend you go through and look at each post. You can pick from the top left of the page if you want to rearrange photos, or text there are several layouts to pic from, you can customize the font, color of the font, photo size and so much more. You can add photos from your computer. You can remove posts. You have a lot of flexibility when you are editing.

Once you are done with your book, you can hit the preview book button on the bottom right of BookSmart and it will show you the book exactly how it will be printed. If you like it you can click order book on the bottom right of the preview screen or you can choose to edit your book. The cool thing is if you are in the preview mode and you notice something on page 56 and hit the edit book button it will bring you right to page 56, so you can easily remember where you need to fix something.

Once you preview it and are happy you click on order book. It will ask you to double check your spelling...etc... then you will need to sign in to blurb.com if you haven't already created an account with them, you might want to do that before this point. After you sign in it will start uploading your blog book to their site. That takes a few minutes, once your book has been uploaded it will bring you to the My Books section of blurb and your book should be there. Blurb wants you to purchase your first book within 2 weeks of uploading it to their site. Once you make your first book purchase they will keep it for you for up to a year. I hope this is helpful. It really is pretty simple, if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask me! Happy Blogging!

Rainy Day Fun

This morning we looked out the window for what seams like the millionth day in a row of rain, and Isabelle was sad she couldn't go out and jump in her trampoline or just run around and play, normally I would let her play in the rain, but it is way to windy today. The kids and I are all going stir crazy, so I thought it might be fun to change things up inside the house. We built a tent, or as Isabelle likes to call it, a castle. We cut out paper hearts and strung them from Christmas lights and used almost every sheet we could find in the house. The girls love it and the tent or castle is helping the girls pass the time today!

Tea Time and Princess Closets...

This weekend Isabelle went to her first real tea party to celebrate her best bud and cousin's birthday! All the girls at the party had so much fun, including the Mommy's! They were treated like princesses and enjoyed getting their own teapots and treats. The highlight was the vanity closet, while we waited for our tea to brew and treats to be prepared, the girls got to dig into the closet and dress up. We had a private party so it was so fun for the kids to enjoy all the dress up things and they changed their outfits several times. They even had fun styling the mommy's.

Isabelle LOVED the vanity closet and I thought it was a fun idea, I was inspired to create my own for Isabelle. She has an odd closet to begin with. On the left side when you open the door there are these shallow shelves not big enough to store books or anything to make good use of the space so it has gone unused. The space was perfect for what I wanted to do. The left side of her closet is her "vanity closet" and the right side is a regular closet and the cool part is when you open each side, the other side isn't even noticeable. When I finished her closet, she was so excited!! She played in it for a long time, trying on everything (even though none of it is new to her.) and she thanked me a hundred times today. The best part is it cost me nothing to make it.

Crowns have their own special place, in the little boxes are gloves, rings, and bracelets. All her necklaces are hanging and her shoes are in a row and the bottom of the closet has her purse collection starting. Below the dresses is a box that has all the extras, hats and scarves and more shoes.

I want to find a little mirror to put in there so she can see herself as she picks out her jewlery and crowns, that was one of her favorite things they had at the tea place.

Snow Day

Over the weekend we made a last minute decision to go to the snow with friends. We literally planned and packed for the snow and were on the road in less than an hour. We drove until we found snow in Nyack. We pulled over and there were tons of people who had the same idea, but we found a few great hills and the kids had a blast!

Freddie and Calista going down the hill, what a happy girl!

Mommy and Calista's turn!

Calista enjoyed being spun around on the disc.

Isabelle was so brave, she went down the hills by herself.

Callie making snowballs.

Charis relaxing after one of her many trips down the hill.

My sweet friend Jenn.

Heaven

A conversation Isabelle and I had when I was putting her to bed one night.

Isabelle: Do we have a city in our heart?

Mom: No.

Isabelle: Then where does Jesus live if we don't have a city in our heart? Mary and David (She meant Joseph) had a baby in the city.

Mom: Jesus was born in Bethlehem a long long time ago, but now he lives in our heart.

Isabelle: Are we going to go see Jesus?

Mom: One day when it is time we will see Jesus in heaven.

Isabelle: Will there be a castle in heaven?

Mom: I don't know maybe.

Isabelle: Will we have a party in heaven?

Mom: Yes, I think we will have a party in heaven.

Isabelle: Will there be cupcakes and cookies?

Mom: I am sure there will be cupcakes and cookies.

Isabelle: Do I get to have some?

Mom: Yes, you can have as many cupcakes and cookies you want in heaven.

She didn't say anything else. she just had a huge smile on her face. Sometimes I find it hard answering her questions about Jesus and heaven. I don't know all the answers my self. I love that she is always thinking about it and asking questions, you can see the little wheels turning in her head.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday Grandpa G!