A Surprise Date!

My husband sent me a text message on Thursday afternoon, telling me that I was busy ALL day on Saturday no questions asked. I was soo excited! He knows I love surprises and I had been mentioning that we needed a date.

So today we woke up and had our neighbors over for breakfast. They conveniently have a newborn baby that I got to snuggle with. Then we dropped Isabelle off to Steve's parent's house and our date began!

I kept asking all sorts of questions that he wouldn't answer except to remind me that I wasn't supposed to be asking questions.

First we go out for lunch. Well actually first we drove to the bowling alley which was insanely packed so we deiced to eat lunch first. Anyway he brought me to our favorite Chinese food place. They have excellent food, great service, and it is always really quiet and relaxing when we eat there. Oh and at lunch we talked about when we were going to try for baby #2 and it was earlier then I had expected which is ALWAYS a good thing!

Next, we find a different bowling alley and I bowl terrible and he bowls really stinkin great. We had lots of fun. There was a kids birthday party there and they shared some of their cake and ice cream with us! Yes! Free dessert!

Next, we stopped home and got warmer clothes on and then we went downtown to go ice skating. This was super duper fun! I haven't been ice skating in years! Steve is a pretty good ice skater so he is really fun to watch even though I secretly hope that he falls so I can laugh at him. Ice skating was great it was nice to get exercise while having fun. I ended up running into a little girl and falling on the ice we were both fine and Steve got to laugh at me.

The end of our date was perfect. We picked up Isabelle and we went to the movies. We saw Tangled. It was super cute. And this was Isabelle's FIRST movie. She loved it. Steve knew that I had been dying to take her to the movies but I was trying to wait until her 2nd birthday. It was really wonderful.

I had such a great time on my surprise date and I love my husband so much. I feel so loved and appreciated that he would take the time to think about me and what I want to do and plan a whole day for me. I am the luckiest girl in the world!

God is good

After lots of conversations and tears I am starting to come to terms with leaving my baby and beginning student teaching. Going from being a stay at home mom for two years to working full time 5 days a week will be a HUGE adjustment. But God is faithful and He is beginning to give me peace about it. I know that my daughter will be loved and well taken care of by everyone that will be watching her. And I even have FREE daycare during student teaching. I am so thankful for all of my friends and family who are chipping in to help me.

It is really cool to see God provide not only for financial needs but emotional needs too. He has provided so many people to encourage me and be real with me.

Another huge praise is that this Christmas we are not running all over the place like crazy. We simply have two Christmas parties to attend. One Christmas Eve and one Christmas afternoon. I am so excited to have a relaxed holiday where there will be plenty of time to celebrate Jesus' birthday!

I have a Toddler!

Over the past two years my sweet little Isabelle has shown moments of defiance, tantrums, independence but nothing compared to now. She is officially in her terrible twos. I have always been against that stage thinking things like: "it's not that bad you just need good parenting skills" or "isabelle won't be like that" or "ok she might have a few tantrums but it won't be that bad".

That is all crap! Parenting a toddler is SUPER hard even if you are a good parent, consistent, firm and loving. All day for the last 3 days  we have had constant meltdowns over silly things. Here are some examples:

Isabelle's friend James walks by her as she is playing. Apparently too close because she starts screaming "no Jay!!" and runs into the other room crying.

Isabelle asks me to read a book. I start reading but then start skipping lines and pages she starts screaming and runs to the corner.

Daddy leaves for class Isabelle throws herself on the ground and screams "daddy daddy" For the next 20 minutes anything I say or do is wrong and it is completely my fault that daddy had to go to class. Isabelle lays on the floor and screams while i finishing getting ready. We go to leave and she is still screaming but now she is made because she wants daddy to buckle her in daddy to drive. So since daddy isn't here to do those things she screams the entire car ride.

She asks for a book. I hand her a book. She says no so I put the book on the ground. she screams I give her back the book and she screams no and chucks it and cries for 2 minutes. Meanwhile I am still completely clueless as to why she is even crying.

She asks for a drink. I hand her her cup. She takes a sip and starts screaming apparently she wanted juice not milk.

All of the above instances are just a few from the last 24hours!!

She is a complete emotional grumpy mess. I am trying to stay consistent and encourage her to take a breath and use her words. We have been counting to ten to calm down and then I have her say what she wants in words.

Any tips or advice with how to cope with your toddler learning about frustration and becoming independent?

SNOW!!!

Although I really hate being cold, and I really hate driving in snow. I did take some time yesterday and play in the snow with Isabelle. She is sick and I probably shouldn't have taken her out in the cold but it was the first snow of the year I couldn't deprive her of that.

She loved the snow!