Come on in....

This weekend was full of surprises, some good and some bad. Friday Isabelle and I saw the Nina and the Pinta in Hudson and spend the afternoon at the beach with friends only to come home for family front yard camp out.
The family camp out was great. Todd left early on Saturday morning to go into work for a short day and Isabelle and I headed in the house for a normal morning routine about 7 am. It was a short hour later when I looked at the weather and thought I should empty out the tent to avoid soggy sleeping bags from some anticipated rain. While I was loading out the tent Isabelle came out on the step and said, "Mama, there is a bird in the house." She was watching cartoons so I did a little more probing to rule her imagination out. She told me the bird was "flapping its wings" while flapping her little arms. It was at this point, still in my pajama's mind you, that I realized there was potentially a BAT in my house. Isabelle and I ventured in and rounded the corner from laundry area to kitchen when the BAT flew directly at us from the living room.
I grabbed my daughter, ran out of the house, hopped in our car and drove to my brother and sister-in-laws house just 30 seconds away.
We knocked and went in, explained the severity of the situation at my house. YES AT BAT IS SEVER SITUATION-let me clarify I have nothing against bats in the wild and out of doors, as I said we camped the night before. HOWEVER when the WILD ANIMAL enters my house all bets are off. SO my brother in law grabs a tennis racket and goes to our house. After a complete 30 minute search he came back empty handed. I reluctantly took Isabelle home with me after Tim convinced me that the bat had to be in the floor joyces in the bathroom where the false ceiling has not been put up yet. Before leaving Tim hands the tennis racket to 2 year old Isabelle and say, "Izzy, if you see the bat hit it with this." Isabelle takes this instruction like the karate kid listened to Mr. Miyagi.
We went home and tip toed into the house. Isabelle said, "shhh mom, we're hunting bats" (no joke seriously I could not make this us". Once I have stopped laughing and decided things are "safe" Isabelle begins to roam the house with the racket in hand while I remain near the entrance of the house in the laundry room doing some much needed laundry, thank goodness I could look useful while really just staying near the entrance of the house. I call Todd and tell him what is going on and urge him to leave work knowing full well I will have to wait at least 35 minutes until he is home to fix the situation.
While I'm dialing the phone to call my mom and notify her of the red alert at my house Isabelle comes over with the racket and stands next to me and says, "Come here batty, batty. I've got something for you."
I asked while the phone was ringing, "What do you have for the bat?"
"This." she simply replies with a grin while raising the tennis racket.
I almost couldn't speak I was laughing so hard when my dad answered the phone. Seriously who is this kid!
After finished being laughed at by my parents, clearly my natural fear of bats came from them, I moved to the couch in the living room with Isabelle, my knitting, the tennis racket on one side and a blanket covering my lap. Like if I saw the bat I could cover Isabelle and myself and then just stick the racket out and let the bat fly into it. This is how Todd found us when he got home.
Todd found the bat 1.5 hours later. Nuff said about that.

The Bat was not the only new thing in the house this weekend, we have 4 new windows! YEAH! While Todd and his brother installed new windows upstairs Isabelle and I played and continued life as usual on the main level of the house but every time Isabelle hears banging upstairs she would say," Come on in..." I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of that.

I HAVE A SINK!

Approximately 1 year, 1 month and 20 days after beginning this blog I have a fully functioning bathroom! The sink is done! We can now was our hands in the bathroom! YEAH!
We are still working with no trim, no outlet and temporary lighting situation but I have a fully functioning shower, bath, toilet and sink! There are not words for how exciting this has been!

In other exciting news I found curtains to match Isabelle's room. They need a little sewing so as soon as I find the camera battery charger, and get the sewing done I will post photos of the sink, the curtains and our pumpkin patch!

Fun, Fun, Fun all the live long day!

Many new and exciting things have happened at our household in the past 9 days. We got a sand box, Isabelle can sing: Twinkle Twinkle little star- however it sounds like tinkle tinkle (which works well for potty training) and rock a bye baby, Isabelle went potty like a big girl again 2 nights ago, I've successfully avoided massive amounts of house work and yet my home looks presentable, Isabelle has taken to carrying around some sort of stuffed animal or baby doll at all times, Isabelle had her first skinned knee, we enjoyed the crap our of our 4th of July weekend and I'm staring at my 28th birthday and have resigned to enjoy it and let it pass with a shrug. Eh, 28, big whop. I realized that in no language is what I just wrote a sentence, but eh, 28, big whop.

Where have we been?

I swear we have been swinging nonstop since Grandma found this in her garage last weekend!
OK not nonstop but really for about 45 minutes every evening.
That face makes every minute worth it.

Other happenings- the Ducks are HUGE! seriously who know ducks could grow so fast! (photos coming soon). We will be planting pumpkins this weekend and the wind is sucking the life out of me. For the past week it seems like we have has constant 45 mph winds. It's warm but the wind just makes me feel frazzled. Oh well. It doesn't keep us from swinging so that is something to be happy about. I promise to get back in the swing of things soon (no pun intended!).
What have y'all been up to?

Cap't Ron Had a Farm

E I E I Yo (as Isabelle says)

With a Baa Baa here

And a Quack Quack there


And a Cheap Cheap here

Here a Moo

There an Oink

Cap't Ron had a farm E I E I Yo!

We have never had so many animals on the farm since Todd and I have been together (and I forgot a BUZZ BUZZ there- the remaining hive of bees is doing well and we will get 3 more on mothers day!) Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and see all of the fun we are having here on Neumanns Farm!

SPRING!

The photos above remind me of ladies who lunch and starting this Friday I will be a lady who lunches! Only on Fridays, but still! I have taken a new job that is 16 hours a week and my current job was so wonderful to allow me to work another 16 hours a week. SO I now only work 4 days a week and I cannot tell you how excited I am for this! I'm hoping that now I will have time to take Isabelle to the zoo and to meet my friends who are stay at home moms and do all sorts of fun things! Maybe even craft!! (Speaking of crafting I will update you on the "eggs" tomorrow.)

The photos above are from the LIFE collection of photos on Google images. They were taken by Joel Yale in 1962.

Birthday Week

It is my husbands Birthday week. Thanks to a loverly friend we have a whole week to celebrate our birthdays. Some of the rules are 1) Birthday Week any 7 days including your birthday. So it could be the 7 days before, the 7 days after, 3 days on each side of your birthday and so on and so forth. 2) You can tell people to do what ever you want and they have to do it. Generally it just means that you have to be extra nice to the birthday person. Number 3 was just added last year in our household 3) You don't have to change a single diaper during Birthday week.

Todd began his birthday week Monday and his birthday was actually yesterday. He is also laid off again this week. Coincidence...? Anyway this week he has enjoyed breakfast in bed every day and as far as I know if I was in the room he hasn't changed a single diaper. We had dinner with my in laws last night and played with Isabelle, Addy and Teddy. It's so much fun to watch Addy and Isabelle together. They get along so well and share very well for a 1 and 2 year old.

As for the rest of our lives. I've officially moved into the downstairs shower. We don't have the vanity yet but after taking one shower in the spaciousness of it all I can't and won't go back to the stand up shower upstairs. I've also got 20 eggs cut out and ready to be sewn. Hopefully I will have time to get them done before Sunday. The next question it what to put in them... we will have to see what we can find.

We are also having my family up to our house for Easter and it is a disaster area so I'm hoping to clean things up starting tonight... we will see how that goes. Isabelle may have other plans and she usually wins!

What Easter Plans do you have?

B-A-T-H

We will no longer say "Bath" at our house, it will only be spelled out. If you say "bath" in our house you will have to immediately be forced to give one little princess a bath. Tonight at 7:15 I said "Isabelle do you want a bath tonight" she started a 50 yard dash to the bathroom. She looks over the edge, gets the bottle of Johnson's baby wash and throws the whole bottle in the tub and says, "Bath? Bath!" So be warned, if you say "Wow what a nice Bath tub" you will be rolling up your sleeves and giving Isabelle a B-A-T-H.

Cousin Time

Addy, our niece came to visit on Sunday afternoon to give her mom and dad a break because they just had a brand new baby boy on Tuesday march 17th! Isabelle and Addy had a great time and they are getting much better at sharing and playing together. I'm excited to watch them as they grow!

Here he is! Theodore Mark. He was 8 pounds 2 ounces and just beautiful!

100

This is the 100th post- YEAH! Thank you to all who read. Thank you to blogger for giving me a place to write!
And now on to more important things. The Blog. I'm sorry I have been neglecting you, however in the past week so much and so little have happened all at the same time. I know haven't taken photos yet however you will have happy to know that I have enjoyed my first bath. We did run out of hot water while filling the tub so that is going to take some figuring out. The first bath was not a zen as I wanted it to be however it was definitely relaxing. And that is what I needed in my life. So YEAH TUB!
Isabelle is feeling much better but still not sleeping all that well. We are getting about every other night. Which is good for us and At least it's not every hour or so of her getting up like when we first brought her home so I will live with a whole night of sleep every other night.
This week Todd and I have relaxed because we made such a big push after we arrived home from Phoenix. It's been nice just to come home and have dinner and run around with little miss Isabelle.
In other news we have a new Nephew! Theodore Mark was born on Tuesday morning. He is adorable and perfect in every way. Isabelle did quite well with me holding him other than the fact she wanted to be right in my lap with us. She was very gentle however and I think that when God decides we as a family are ready for another one she will be a great big sister.
For now we are good just hanging out. Fixing up the house and enjoying the spring weather! I LOVE SPRING! YEAH!

Close Up

The only way Isabelle will let me take her Picture now is close up.

This one cracks me up.

If I say just wait there while I take your photo I get this face. Pure frustration.

Here is my favorite outfit to put her in right now.

I used to have a lamb named Wonk. I called him Wonk because he had one ear that would perk up and the other one was "wonk". Wonk was taken to slaughter one fall afternoon and I never got to say goodbye. Isabelle's pig tails on Friday reminded me of Wonk.

Some fun pictures

I'll admit it, I need to get my but in gear and up load photos to my computer from my camera, however I'm not exactly sure where out connection cord is. I'm pretty sure it's right next to Isabelle's juice glass that she mysteriously lost on Sunday. We are not sure where in our house the purple juice glass has gone. Todd thinks that she is trying to make jail house hooch. We'll find out soon enough, hopefully.

Luckily for you and me we have a few pictures to share from the camera on my phone.

Here is the smartest baby in the world putting on her mamas mittens that we in her diaper bag.

Someones got her new shoes on!

Here little miss is opening up a birthday gift that came to her via mail. She was pretty excited and it included lots of ooohh's and pointing.

And here is our trial run of the BACON EXPLOSION! It was wonderful, need the Neumann tweaking but over all WONDERFUL! You all can expect it to be seen at many a social function.

Other wise things are pretty calm around here. We are all anxiously awaiting Friday because Todd is taking a 5 week voluntary layoff from work. During that time he will be working on the bathroom and hopefully completing that before we leave for Phoenix in early March.

Quiet Evening

Amidst all the hustle and bustle my family sat down last night and just vegged. Isabelle finally got her 8th tooth and was a little tried from the whole ordeal as we Todd and I. So for the whole evening we cuddles and played and just enjoyed each others company at home. It was delightful! Thank you Todd & Isabelle for a wonderful evening. It's evenings like that that ground me and help me to realize that even amung my to dos and should dos there is a place I can always go to escape... Into the arms of my family.

Peter Pan

My darling child thinks that she is Peter Pan and with dust from the shelving, a cute smile and a big enough will she can fly. She attempted this yesterday at day care off of a chair. Nothing major just a little rug burn and bruise ego. However not bruised enough to stop climbing the stairs at home.
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OK so I started this last Thursday and meant to put of photos of Isabelle's rug burn but haven't gotten to it. Ironically, however, miss Isabelle slid down our stairs this weekend. She cried for about 4 minutes, I cried for about an hour and profusely apologized to Isabelle and my husband, because she was in my care at the time. Isabelle is completely fine in fact 7 minutes after it all happened she tried to take a few steps from my mother-in-law to me and 15 minutes later she was trying to crawl up the steps again!

Where was I when this happened you ask. I had merely bent over a clean clothes basket and stood up and she was gone. Why don't we have a gate you ask. Because our bedroom door was shut. I don't know how it all happened so fast. I always thought something like this would never happen to me. THANK GOD she is fine. Even now 2 days later I still feed the ball in the pit of my stomach. Where was I? Why wasn't I there to prevent it?

Isabelle has forgiven me, My husband his forgiven me and now it's time for me to stop blaming myself.

Church Dinner

Just before our country turned a new page on history our family did. On Sunday I took my daughter to the church where my grandma was confirmed in the 1930's for the yearly All Saints dinner. Here are some of our favorite pictures.

Grandpa Wolf & Iz

Auntie Jess & Iz

Looking at the Lefsa

Eating the Lefsa- Good Norwegian Girl!

Iz with Great Grandma

little Indian call & High 5

So last night I was working on a quilting project on the couch and Todd was checking some thing on the Internet and Isabelle, perfect child that she is, was playing on the floor. All of a sudden I hear her making a different noise. Nothing alarming just funny- I looked down and there she was doing an "Indian call". I know that is probably terribly not PC- but it's the thing when you say "AHHHHHHHH" and you tap your mouth with your hand to change the sound. ( I know you are all doing this as you read this too.)
In truth Isabelle and I had been doing this where I would show her what to do and then she would say "aHHHHHH" and I would tap her mouth with my hand but last night there she is doing it all by herself! It was hilarious and wonderful.
Also in the realm of useful things that we have been teaching Isabelle last week she learned "High 5". I'm hoping the next thing she will get is how to Ollie on a skate board. I think it's important to teach her these basic life skills early. Talk about coping mechanisms, she is off to a great start.

She said it... you heard it!

So last night Isabelle slept through the night. I'm not sure if it was that her teeth were finally not hurting her or the fact that she wore herself out playing with the puppies at my parents house.

I woke up at 5 am with a start realizing that she hadn't woke up once last night. Which was a relief for my wonderful husband who needed to sleep off his butter hang-over from eating 145 shrimp at red lobster last night. So I tip toed in her room to make sure she was still breathing... she was and when I went to cover her up I acidently touched her foot and she awoke. So we had a bottle and then she went back to sleep and didn't wake until 8:00 am!!! It was wonderful!

Then we were having family cuddle time because it was Todds day off and she say up and looked at us and said "mama n dada!" I looked at Todd and said "did you hear that?!?!?!" He said "Yes I did but you also thought she said book 3 months ago." Which for the record she did say "Booh Kha" 4 times in a row while holding a book and my dad heard it as well. So what if she hasn't said it since then. It just didn't stick, she'll say it again some time. Now that we have "Mama n Dada" down we are going to work on other family members... so be ready to take pictures this weekend everyone!

SLEEP...Elusive Sleep

Is there a way to make a 9 month old sleep- besides knocking them over the head or giving them alcohol - TODD!

Busy everywhere but home!

OK so it's been a while. That should also be an indication of how much work has gone on inside the house! None...
However we have been busy doing lots of things! Heading into fall there is always alot to do around the farm. My Father-in-law is busy chopping corn. Todds brother is putting up a new garage and of course Fall means the wineries in the area are harvesting their crop! Last weekend our good friends, Jeff & Erica, came up and we went to a winery in St. Croix Falls. It was wonderful! We had a great time.

Then on Monday we went out to eat with my parents to celebrate their 30th anniversary! Wow 30 years! It was another great time. So tonight Todd is finally getting to bottling the beer that he brewed several weeks ago and Isabelle and I took some photos.

The irony of this photo just makes me laugh!

One of the best tips that Todd has received when transferring beer from one vessel to another is to do this on the door of a dishwasher. If you spill then the clean up is easy! I love this idea. Todd unfortunately had to do this twice tonight because he forgot to "Prime" each bottle. you will have to ask him what that means however it meant that he had to open and empty every bottle back into the 5 gal. bucket. Then prime each bottle and pour again. Oh well at least he remembered to do it, other wise that batch would not have turned out well.

Isabelle had her 8 month check up and is healthy as a horse! She is now 21lbs and 6 oz. She is also a whopping 29.5'' tall. I tried to say 30" but the tall nurse insisted 29.5''. Isabelle I tried!
Climbing everywhere is our new favorite game. Under, Over, where ever she can get. The stairs photo is just after she crawled up 3 stairs by herself for the first time. We are not encouraging this!

I love bath time with Isabelle and we are looking forward to having a bath tub that she can really splash in!

One last Smile to tide you all over until the next post! Still only 2 teeth but we are growing and changing every day in every way!

I've called in a designer and she's walking.

I'm lucky enough to have an interior designer as one of my best friends. So this is a warning to her- I will be calling again very soon needing words advice! We still haven't done anything to the room however I did find out that my bath exists. Now can I afford it? We'll see.


Also Miss Isabelle has decided that it's time to begin walking. She isn't doing it all on her own yet but she can push things around like none other. I think it was a good buy! This toy also turns into a riding toy and she really likes that.