Fat Pizza and Sister the Tank Engine

Two notable quotes from Isabella:

While playing on the floor in her room with her sister Ella is talking (to herself) and Eric and I overhear her say, "And I'll take Sydney with me, and we'll go, and we'll go to Chunky Cheese!" I guess we should be happy she's taking her sister with her in her play pretend world!

Last night:

Ella: Mommy, Sydney's Percy!

Me: Sydney's what?! (b/c to me it sounded much more like Sydney's a pussy)

Ella: Sydney's PERCY!

Me: Why is Sydney Percy?

Ella: (exasperated) B/C SHE'S A TRAIN, MOM. (duh)

Sarasota April 07

Last month we took the girls to Florida to see their cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends. It was Sydney Sawyer's first plane ride and she did exceptionally well. Isabella was a bit rambunctious the ENTIRE trip, but she was just so thrilled to be seeing her little people and getting to do so many fun things. She ate chocolate, jumped on the trampoline, played with the 10,000 various toys her cousins have, went swimming, and took ZERO naps :)

It was also an introduction weekend for Sydney and the rest of the family. The kids all loved her and she was her wonderful, smiley, happy baby self the whole trip. We also got to see baby Madelyn again who is very quiet and sweet and very much a baby as Sydney is just so big it's hard to believe they are only 2 months apart in age.

It was great to get to see everyone. We miss our Florida family!

Isabella turns 33 months

Last weekend our Ella turned 33 months old. As you can see from the picture there is not much baby left and a whole lot of little girl! Right now her favorite things to do are to watch Dora the Explorer and to play with her sister. She has the whole house calling shows "Dancing"(with the Stars), "Singing" (American Idol) and "Numbers" (Deal or No Deal). She has gotten VERY independent and can do so many thing all by herself. She brushes her own teeth, goes potty by herself, picks out her own clothes and shoes, and is such a great helper with her sister. She likes to help feed Sydney and is always quick to come running to tell us, "Mommy! Sydney puked!"

The above picture was taken last weekend 4/14/07 when we drove to Canyon Lake to visit my grandmother's brother and have lunch with them. The live on a lake and Ella got to see the deer that roam freely and thought that was SO COOL. We could not get her to stop calling them Reindeer though, so they were reindeer. We had told her earlier in the week about our upcoming trip to Florida and so when we piled out of the car after the 3 hour drive to Canyon Lake, Ella asks, "Are we in Florida?!"

We love our big girl.

Sydney's first Easter

4/8/2007

Sydney's first Easter was rainy and cold but she looked warm and yummy in her bunny dress!

The Easter Bunny brought an Ear Infection

Eric's birthday, Easter weekend and the Masters. Sounds like fun for the most part but Ella got an ear infection and was MISERABLE the whole weekend long. Sunday about 4:30 we finally got her in her dress and jacked up on chocolate so we could get some cute Easter pictures. Not to worry, the whining started back up soon after. Poor kid was in a lot of pain, and poor us bc she told us all about it. Eric and I were both actually GLAD to head back to work on Monday. Happy 29th birthday Daddy!

Bunnies and Eggs

While driving the girls to school this morning Ella and I had a talk about Easter bunnies and the eggs that they leave for good little girls on Easter morning. It went something like this:

Ella: How does the Easter bunny get around?
Me: He hops.
Ella: He hops?
Me: Yep, he hops around and leaves eggs for good little girls to find.
Ella: How does he leave them?
Me: Well, he drops them.
Ella: He drops them?!
Me: Yes.
Ella: On the ground?
Me: Yes, on the ground for you to find them. It's an Easter Egg Hunt.
Ella: On the ground?!
Ella: With the dog hair???!!

Meet Babe

"Babe"

For the past 6 months or so, Ella has been referring to Eric as "Babe". Apparently it is a name I frequently call him, and never realized it. She will go, "Daddy? Daddy? BABE?!" when she is wandering the house looking for him.

The Talker

Ella's first word was at about 9 months and she was sitting in her saucer and our dog Madison walked by and she said, "Dog". And she pretty much has not stopped talking since then.

Her first big numerous word sentence was, "Look mommy, it's raining outside!" and I almost dropped whatever it was I was holding I was so amazed at her ability to string so many words together so perfectly.

There are so many things that she says and does that are just amazing.

Thanks to her love of Dora the Explorer, she has lately been very focused on which "path" we are taking and has the memory of an elephant. If I tell her Daddy was driving to Austin today for a conference, she will ask, "Which path will he take?" and I will tell her and later she will tell me, "Daddy went to Austin. He took path 610 to 290".

One time when I was nursing Sydney and Ella was drawing on hte floor by the rocking chair on her Etcha Sketch, she said she was drawing mommy and mommy's hair and mommy's eyes and then she erased the screen and said, "Now I am going to draw Sydney's SUPER big SUPER head". One of her best lines yet.

Bye bye pink paci

We took Ella's paci away last night. It broke her heart and I am still not sure exactly WHY I chose last night, but it is time. She's over 2 and a half and her doctor frowned at me when she was only 2 and still had it. She's such a smart little girl. She came pitter-pattering down the stairs to tell me she couldn't find her pink paci (all words these days come with adjectives before them) and I told her that the pink paci was gone. I threw it away. It had a crack (not true exactly) and that it became dangerous and that she was much better off without it. She thought this over for a few minutes and replied, "Well, what about the purple paci"? The purple paci is the one I keep hidden in case we really do lose the pink one. I told her it was dirty and also had to be thrown out. She was sad, she cried, but she made it thorough the night without her beloved paci. It was hard not to give it back to her. Just like it was hard not to let her sleep in her swing when it was time to move to the bed and just like it will be hard over and over and over as she grows up and becomes attached to things that she has to leave behind. But her sweet little face is so hard to resist.

On her own terms, from day one

Three days after her due date, Isabella was born July 13, 2004, at Brandon Regional Hospital in Tampa, Florida. I started having contractions the night before she was born and Eric dutifully clocked the contractions on his little stopwatch. We woke up my mom and dad who had flown in from Houston and told them we were heading to the hospital. I realized from the moment of the first contraction that I was officially a wimp. I think we were there all of 15 minutes before I asked for something for pain.

What I remember most about her birth was that it took FOREVER. My mother will tell a different story, one of how I slept through the labor and that in her day no one ever got to sleep through labor, but regardless of the drug-induced naps I got, it still took FOREVER. Eric and I had chosen not to find out the sex of our baby, so that was at times the one thing that kept us excited and pumped up about this whole labor and delivery thing. We got a scare when my water broke, miconium was present, so there would be an extra team of doctors in the delivery room to make sure she was ok, it was all such a fog the President could have walked in and I would not have noticed.

The labor and delivery room had a view of outside and I remember thinking that it was sunny and that the tree outside was blowing around a little, so it must have been windy. Good day to be born. What I do remember is at one point when I was pushing and getting no where that my mother looked at me and said, "Oh yes you can" and I had not said a word. She knew in my eyes and that I was realizing the enormous task at hand and was right there to get me through it. Although we had laughed and giggled and rolled our eyes through Childbirth Classes, Eric was amazingly calm and supportive and did his little counting like he was taught.

What I do remember is Eric squealing, "it's a girl"! even before the doctor was able to say it. I remember shamefully, that the first thing I said was "oh thank god it's over"!! Eight pounds, 9 ounces and healthy as a horse. I remember seeing this tiny yet huge thing and wondering how something that big had just come out of my tummy. I remember the deep, scarlet color her hair was. My dad would later tell me that no baby had hair that color, that it was just all of the Bedadine they used during delivery. Well, the red hair stayed and has yet to fade, 2 and a half years later.

Sweet Sydney Sawyer

Sydney Sawyer Atwood

Born September 23, 2006 in Houston, Texas

Middle name is one great wine!

Introducing Isabella

Isabella Cate Atwood

Born July 13, 2004 in Tampa, Florida

Named after her late great grandmother Mary Isabel Wilson