Nov. 24, '11
(11:54 PM)
Written by Dad
Isla just turned 3 years old! On Thanksgiving Day this year! She knew she was going to turn three on "turkey day" and has been asking for a pink and purple turkey cake. Jamie found someone who would make her one, and she was thrilled!
She received a lot of Lalaloopsie toys (of all sizes), some Pixie Hollow toys, and a stuffed Benji. But so far (I’m sure it will change) she’s been mainly carrying around a couple of the birthday cards that she got. One had a pink kitten illustration next to a cupcake, and the other was a photo of a Benji-looking dog. She just carries those cards around all day!
So what’s cooler than turning three years old? Potty Training!!! Yes, in the last week and a half, Isla has finally decided that she’s willing to do it!
The first day she was obviously holding it more than she normally would. Had a couple small accidents, but by the afternoon she was telling Jamie when she needed to go.
The first time was pretty funny. Jamie sat her on the potty and she was acting unwilling to go. So Jamie turned the faucet on and joked about how the faucet was going pee-potty. This made Isla laugh. Then Isla got a serious look on her face and held a finger up (like "hold on a second"), then told mommy, "Don’t listen." So Jamie covered her ears, and she did it!
Then they gave Daddy a call at work because Isla wanted to tell me, "I made you happy!"
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Nov. 6, '11
(9:12 AM)
Written by Dad
Isla, Isla, Isla... What a crazy little girl! She’s at that really interesting stage where one minute you see how tiny she is and you think she’s still a little toddler. Then the next minute she looks big and is having a full conversation with you like a little woman.
She just finished another gymnastics session (or "banastics" as she calls it). She loves it, and she’s definitely learning new things and getting stronger. She’ll probably take another short break, but we’ll get her back in it in January.
She’s still extremely reluctant to potty-train. She cries every time we put big-girl underwear on her. We’ll say, "Isla, do you want to go potty today?" and she’ll say, "Noo!! I not big girl!" Or, lately she’s been saying, "I go potty toe-my-row." (tomorrow). And just like the old joke goes, she doesn’t think that "tomorrow" ever comes. She doesn’t consider herself a big girl yet, but she’ll also say, "I’m not a baby, I’m Isla."
We have several little names we’ve been calling her which include: I, Ira, Little Woman, Pink, Pink-thing, Shug, Shuggie, and Baby Girl.
Her favorite toys lately have been Lalaloopsie dolls, My Little Ponies, Strawberry Shortcake, and Squinkies. She actually has four little pig Squinkies that she carries around in a little jewelry box. It’s so cute!
For Halloween this year, Mommy made Isla a policewoman costume. It was a black dress that had gold stars on the shoulder, and then Mommy ironed on the word POLICE on the back, an American Flag on the sleeve, and hooked her up with some black boots, handcuffs, a whistle, and a perfect police hat she found at a Halloween store. The outfit got all kinds of compliments! Isla decided that she did not want a scary jack-o-lantern this year, so Grandma Luhring helped her design a kitty-cat pumpkin. She was very happy with it!
I don’t really know who taught her this (or maybe she just unknowingly did it on her own), but for months if you would ask Isla how old she is, she would hold her hand up in the "rock on" sign with her index finger and pinkie finger up to show "two". It was so awesome! Then you’d ask her how old she will be on turkey-day (her B-day falls on Thanksgiving this year), and she’d concentrate real hard and slowly raise her middle finger to show "three". In the last week or so, though, she’s started to do it "normally" and gives the peace-sign for "two", and a more traditional "three". So sad to see her move past the funny ones...
Our new house has been under construction for a while now. Isla loves to go up to "my house". And she knows exactly where her room is. She’s actually been telling us she wants a pink room...well more than telling, she’s been pretty demanding about it. I don’t think she’ll win on that one, but I’m sure she’ll have all kinds of pink things in it! But her favorite part is running and screaming in the basement!
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Sep. 1, '11
(9:11 PM)
Written by Dad
She’s been talking about it for weeks, and today it finally got here! She just started a new session of "banastics" (gymnastics)! She had so much fun, and was so proud of her hot-pink leotard and the little stamps they put on her hands and feet that they do for fun at each class. She’s very much looking forward to next week’s session!
Tonight it was just me and Isla in the car driving home. She asked me to hand her the frog toy that she couldn’t reach, so I leaned back to grab it and realized what toy she was talking about. I picked it up and said, "Here you go, but this isn’t a frog...it’s a turtle." She looked at it and said, "This is frog." I smiled and said, "but look on his back, that brown thing is a shell because he’s a turtle." She simply said, "Kinda frog..." I smiled again because she was right. I said, "Yeah, his head kind of looks like a frog, but he’s one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...so he’s a turtle." She continued on a little bit about turtles and frogs then.
After that she decided she wanted to sing "Old McDonald Had a Farm." So when we got to the first animal she picked...yes...a turtle. This is all well and good because I like to do the odd animals with the kids -- the ones where you’re not really sure what animal noise they make for the next part (things like giraffes, rabbits, hippos...). So this was perfect, and obviously came from our previous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle conversation. Awesome. Well, she cracked me up just seconds later, because we got to the animal noise part of the song, and what did she sing? Yep, she sang, "...with a ribbit, ribbit here, and a ribbit, ribbit there!" I laughed so hard!
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Jul. 28, '11
(10:12 PM)
Written by Dad
Isla has been improving on her pronunciation since our last post. She’s starting to say things pretty well, and certain words she does better on than Kelton. Of course those few areas are the only ones Kelton still has a problem with - and he’s working on it.
One of her new favorite jokes is the classic: "Guess what? Chicken-butt!" Of course out of her mouth it sounds more like "Guess what? Chichen-butt!"
Her favorite songs by far are "I Love Rock & Roll" and "Bad to the Bone", and just about anything from Taylor Swift.
We just moved from Evansville back into Haubstadt. We’re living across the road from Grandma and Grandpa Luhring in their rent house while we build a new house. Before moving in we did some remodeling, and Isla was always asking to go to the "went house." When we put in the new carpet upstairs, for the weeks before we moved in she’d get to the house and immediately say, "I want to see new carpet!" She transitioned very well to the new house. I think she kind of likes sleeping in the same room as Kelton. The first night she slept at the rent house we gave her breakfast when she woke up, and as soon as she was done she said, "I want to go see Pa-Pa." Pa-Pa is Grandpa Luhring.
She’s very active. We took the summer off from her gymnastics classes, but she frequently asks to go back. It is summertime so she’s been doing plenty of swimming at Nana’s (Mary’s) house. She’s fearless! An adult has to stay right beside her all the time, because she doesn’t think twice about just jumping off the ledge or diving out of a float! She loves the water!
She’s been getting some small modeling gigs for some online boutique shops. The barter system means she’s staying stocked in hair bows, headbands, and cute clothes. She’s a pro in front of the camera!
She’s also taking the summer off from the natural pageants. She misses it too though. Everywhere and anywhere that has a stage or something that looks like a stage, she hops up there and shakes her stuff!
Isla just got back from a vacation trip with Mommy, Kelton, Nana, and Aunt "Donna". They headed out to Myrtle Beach again. Lots of beach time, lots of hotel pool time (had a special kids’ area), lots of shopping, and even some fireworks!
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Apr. 24, '11
(10:00 PM)
Written by Dad
Isla’s been working hard on growing up fast! She does all in her power to keep up with Kelton, and boy does she know when we try to keep her from doing something because she’s too little... "Eye-ya do it too!" she’ll yell. And when she does do something, she doesn’t want your help... "I do it self," she’ll say. And very often we’ll hear, "I did it!" when she proudly does something all on her own.
She’s starting to really try to draw things too. Her favorite right now is to draw smiley faces. But they don’t come out quite like smiley faces... They’re actually circles with a little scribble right in the middle. Looks more like a cell with a nucleus!
She’s turning in to quite the singer now. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; You Are My Sunshine; Oh My Darling, Clementine; and I Love Rock & Roll, are some of her favorites. Of course all of them through her unique filter of pronunciation! For instance, Oh My Darling, Clementine, comes out more like "Oh-me-nomy, oh-me-nomy, oh-me-nomy, tine..."
She still has plenty of "baby words" that she so cutely uses. She loves to drink "choch-it milt" (chocolate milk) while eating "blat donuts" (black/chocolate donuts). And she’s morphed Strawberry Shortcake into "Berry Shake-Shake" (slightly different from when she first started calling her Berry Cake-Cake).
She’s quite the rascal about potty training. We haven’t pushed it real hard yet, but we’ve been talking to her about it a lot. "Isla, you need to start using the potty like a big girl," we’ll say. "No," she’ll say flatly. "Oh, yeah! It’s so much better! Mommy, Daddy, and Kelton use the potty." "NO POTTY!" she’ll retort.
We took a recent family trip to St. Louis. We started out at the Arch, which she enjoyed well enough. Our second place we visited was mainly for her: The Butterfly House. This place was really cool with a greenhouse full of thousands of butterflies. As soon as we stepped in though, a large butterfly (the size of Daddy’s spread hand) landed on her knee and she FREAKED OUT! She started crying and swatted it away. We calmed her down, and she eventually got used to it and started to enjoy watching the butterflies flutter around. We then ended our trip at The City Museum, which was absolutely AMAZING! That place is so cool. Climbing everywhere, sliding down, crawling in tunnels...that place was engineered for kids to explore! There were plenty of places that she was just a little too small for, but boy did she try to do everything! "Eye-ya do it!"
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