Inventing Croquet

Isabelle is starting to play more, and sometimes she invents her own games. A few days ago, I was watching her as I was doing chores around the house, and she was using a plastic hammer to hit a ball around the livingroom. Neither Robert nor I had showed her this, she just made it up on her own. It's like she was creating croquet.

Anything new in the house that she can put on the floor, she checks for slideability. It as though she lives to body surf around the house on stuff that slides. Last night I have her the plastic insert from an ornament box, and she went sliding around the living room on it. There could be boogie boarding in her future.

Isabelle has been to the top of the stairs several times, and practices on the two stairs below the child gate going up and down them. Once she's at the top of the stairs, she hasn't gotten the idea that she needs to turn around to come down, so she just sits at the top, puts her hand on the edge a coupble of times, and looks down, then either cries or finds something to do at the top. Once I turn her around so she's backwards, she's fine going down.

First Christmas Tree

Isabelle's new punk hair style, thanks to Dad.Sharing fruit with Dad in the morning. I love the full cheek, hangin'-out-with-Dad look in the second picture.We went to Shaw's Tree Farm in Plains to get a Christmas tree. I love going to pick our Christmas tree and Robert cuts it down and hauls it to the truck in no time flat. After we got our Noble Fir (type of tree, not just description), we went on a walk around part of the tree farm, including by some horses. I love horses, and Isabelle thought they were fascinating. After just watching them for a while, they came down to check us out. Even Isbre barking up a storm didn't deter them.After we got the tree, we went to Helvetia Tavern for a burger and fish and chips (the picture is from the display outside). It's a place in the middle of farm land and is full of character. The ceiling is covered with baseball caps. At the table next to us was what looked like a gaggle of teens, but ended up being a family. They looked like they were just goofing around and I figured they would be talking about the usual stuff (latest star in crisis, football, etc). When I listened for a few moments, I heard the two nearest us talking about Africa and why there are chronic food shortages and how the culture functions. I love being surprised by how thoughtful people can be. Isabelle was good for most of the time, but she tends to scream when she feels everyone in the restaurant is not paying proper attention to her. We've gone from blowing on her face when she does it, to putting our hand over her mouth. We like to go out to eat and we want to be able to take her with us, so this one we'll keep working on.


She got a new hair-cut ala Dad, who cut her bangs about an inch up and straight which looked terrible. I was devistated because she is so gorgeous and he had taken away the cute, wispy bang look. Just because it was me who suggested he cut her hair does not take away from the crime. And, worse yet, he started calling her a vulcan and making the vulcan sign at her and saying "Live long and prosper". It was NOT funny! You can see in the first picture how she feels about the new cut. Fortunately, a friend told me how to feather the hair, so I've done that and it's better.

I guess she's exercising with the felt braid (a dog toy). She does that with a lot of things - puts them over her head and then behind it. I thought maybe it was the basic desire to be able to move things off their face, but she does it so often I'm not sure.

Also, notice the matching outfit in the picture. I'm very proud of the outfits I've put together for her. Because she looks good in everything, I get to experiment with colors and patterns in a way I've never done on myself.
Isabelle and Isbre are getting along better, but Isbre is still upset about not being the only child (albeit a fur child). I'm working on teaching them how to play together (throw the toy, pull on the rope) and I hope that works eventually. Isbre does lay on a blanket we put down in Isabelle's room next to her crib, when we're in the room with Isabelle. I take that as a good sign. Isabelle does like to torment Isbre - crawl up to her and pat her and play with her feet and pull on her hair and scream. Isbre will take some of it, then give a little growl and get up and walk away. Isabelle takes Isbre's bone that she's chewing on and then waves it in her face without giving it to her. So far Isbre has dealt with this pretty well, but I saw her start to curl up her nose once (for which she got into trouble) so we've started giving Isbre more Isabelle-free room.

Here we are after a walk on a cold morning. We put reflective strips down the side of the backpack so no-one on Baseline (busy street with no sidewalk) would run us down. Isabelle is wearing the orange sweater my Mom made her, and the booties Esther made her. I get lots of comments on the sweaters Mom made, especially when people see the little veggie buttons down the front.

Back Getting Better

Grandma Hash taught Isabelle that being carried around is really fun. Now she wants me to carry her everywhere and my back has been out. I mean, really, pain-shooting-down-my-leg awful back stuff. And it's taken me a year to convince my doctor to order an MRI. I've been wandering around in a pain-haze for over a week, and am just now beginning to feel a little better. But, I'm still not up to carrying a 10 month old baby around.

Big Turkey Eater

Isabelle has now figured out how to move around and take a toy with her - she carries it in her mouth. She loves to play with metal lids so I've washed and given her several, and in this picture she is taking it with her.
Since Robert and I volunteered for Thanksgiving, we never got a big turkey dinner. So today Linda showed me how to make a big turkey dinner, with stuffing and mashed potatoes and fruit salad and gravy.

Isabelle had some of everything but the gravy, and I thought she would burst. She was shoveling it in with both hands about as fast as she could.

Here she is helping Grandma with the turkey.

Hanging out with Dad.
Robert makes these elaborate towers with blocks we got for Isabelle, and she loves to knock them down.

Here's breakfast with Grandma

Being with Grandpa seems to make her contempletive.

Intel TDE Christmas Party

Today we all (Robert and I, Robert's parents, and Isabelle) went out to lunch, then to the store to get a Christmas outfit (the outfit is Amanda from Antigua's fault because she got me hooked on Gymboree) and then out to Robert's work's Christmas party. There was lots of great food, but Isabelle's favorite thing to do was watch the other children there. For about 20 minutes she was happy just to be held and look around, but after that she wanted to get down and crawl around to the different kids. And, she can really move along when she crawls now.

These pictures are from after the party when Dad was playing with an Isabelle who was getting cranky.

Last night we had some people stop in while Robert was giving Isabelle her bottle and putting her to bed. He gave up after about 20 minutes because she just refused to go to sleep even though she was really sleepy. He said she would almost be asleep, and then she'd raise one foot and her eyes would pop open. So Robert would hold her feet while rocking her, and she would raise one hand and then her eyes would pop open. He finally got her to sleep when he pinned her hands and legs and rocked her. I can tell she's going to tough to keep to a cerfew when she gets older.

Red Skirt Outfit

My friend, Jennifer, got Isabelle an absolutely adorable 3 piece outfit in red and white. I can't believe how cute she looks in it (although it's true she looks good in just about everything). I love the way bows look in her hair, but it's getting harder and harder to get her to leave them in.

At Oregon State University Showing Off Isabelle

I went to OSU last Thursday because I'd promised several people when I left that I'd bring her around after I brought her back from Guatemala. It's a 2 hour drive, so I knew it would be an all day trip, and it was. I only took the camera out when we were with Peggy (dang it) so there are only pictures of Isabelle with her.

First we met Peggy Heltman who drove up from Cresswell to Albany (about an hour drive) to see Isabelle. We didn't have as much time as I would have liked - only about 20 minutes, but Peggy got a chance to hold Isabelle and "talk" to her.

Then we drove to Corvallis and had lunch with Nancy Brown, who had given me a fabulous gift set of Guava bath accessories in a bag and I still use the bag for all of Isabelle's stuff when we go out. After that we went to the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department at OSU where I used to work. There she crawled around on the long hallways and met Tina Batten (who gave me the beautiful white fluffy blanket that I've used in Isabelle's crib since I went down to Guatemala in June), Ferne Simendinger, Tyler DeAdder, Fran Saveriano, Gale Sumida, Xiaoli Ferne (who has a baby boy 2 months younger than Isabelle that I would love to introduce Isabelle to sometime), Bella Bose, Timothy Budd, Paul Paulson (who almost adopted a boy from Tiawan so knows what the process feels like), Christine Wallace (who gave me the assurance that naming Isabelle with the Spanish version of my name was okay and who is amazingly good with babies for someone who doesn't have any of her own, but she does have dogs which is similar), Terri Fiez, Carlos Jensen (who talked to her in Spanish), Ron Matoyer, Tom Plant, and Weng Keen Wong. We tried to visit Martin Erwig and Eugene Zhang, but they were out.

After we had been through 3 floors of the Kelley Engineering Building introducing Isabelle, we went to Molly Shor's house so Isabelle could play with her twins, Prashant and Ayara, who were born in January but were pre-mature (as twins almost always are) so they are really almost the same age. They had great toys and the kids had a good time together.

Grandparents and Isabelle

Robert's parents, Linda and Ron Hash, came on Sunday to take care of Isabelle while I had sinus surgery. (As it happened, I strained my back on Saturday so I didn't have the surgery this Wednesday as I was supposed to, but I still needed them here because of my back - I still can't reliably lift Isabelle up.) They have been having a good time with her, and of course I took some pictures of them together. They are such "kid" people that she hardly ever gets to sit on the ground because someone is always holding her and playing with her.