May Update

Isabelle

Is there anything more fun than watching your child learn?  My favorite thing about the month of May has been seeing Isabelle just on the brink of a word explosion.  I've read that children will often go through this phase anywhere after 18 months.  Isabelle seems to be just on the cusp of it.  She's 17 months old, but from 16 to17 months, she has doubled her vocabulary.  I was once able to list all of her words that she'd learned over the course of a month, but that's just impossible now.  Prior to 16 months, she knew over 20 words, but in the past month, she has learned at least that many.  Her favorite things to say, like most kids, are animals and their sounds.  She can match up most of her animals with the sounds they make.  Check out the video of Izzy: 

Isabelle is finally a great walker and is getting around everywhere.  She loves walking around the backyard and playing with the dogs. 

Isabelle plopped down in the driveway so that Daisy could lick her face.  Daisy was hoping for a belly rub.

Isabelle's Favorites

Food:  Hummus, salad, bananas ("nanny"), Corn Flakes, oatmeal, chips and salsa

Toys:  She still loves books, a lion on wheels that she pushes around the house, her See 'n Say, and she has had renewed interest in her musical toy that our friends bought for Izzy's 1st birthday.  She likes to sing into the microphone and press the buttons to play the instruments. 

Games/Songs:  She still loves "Baby Bumblebee" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider."  She also enjoys the same Eyes, Nose, Ears game that my grandfather made up and played with all of us.

As a Family

We've managed to avoid going out of town in the month of May.  We felt we needed a break from traveling, and it's been nice to have time to take care of our little vegetable garden and continue painting the exterior of our house.

Poor Darcy, our other basset hound, has had a rough time of it.  We noticed a large lump on her shoulder one day so we brought her into the vet.  She has an abcess.  Evidently she was injured and had a deep bruise which has become infected.  The vet drained it, put her on a round of antibiotics, and we're bringing her back once a week so he can look at it.  Much to Isabelle's delight, we've been keeping Darcy inside while she's not feeling well.

I had a sweet Mother's Day with Damian and Isabelle.  One of my favorite gifts is a book that Damian says Isabelle bought for both of us for Mother's Day and Father's Day.  It's called God, Marriage, and Family by Andreas Kostenberger.  The best way to describe it would be a theology of family.  It strictly looks at what God, through scripture, says marriage and family should look like. 

We've been reading about a chapter a week and then we get together to discuss what we've read.  It's been a great time for us to stay connected with each other and make sure we don't grow complacent in our marriage or in our walk with God.  I don't want to experience marriage where neither of us is growing. 

I've also been reading Seasons of a Mother's Heart, which has been an incredible encouragement and challenge to me.  I've also been working on a couple of sewing projects, which I blogged about last week.

This week, we're enjoying a visit from Damian's parents.  They travel for work reasons and have been living in Wisconsin, so this is a rare treat.  Isabelle has had too much fun being read to by her Grams and taking her Paw Paw all over the house to play together. 

I can hardly believe it's June 2 already!