Lazy Sunday

What did Miss Isla do on a lazy Sunday afternoon?  She watched her Dad rake up some leaves:

She helped by crawling around and picking up the leaves Dad didn't get:

Most of the leaves ended up here:

She thought she was pretty sneaky:

She also helped Mom and Dad carve pumpkins.  Mom tried to carve her pumpkin to look like Isla as she is no longer our toothless wonder and she is a pretty happy baby . . . most of the time:

Fall

It is officially fall here in Idaho and the foliage is spectacular:

This time of year is one of my favorites (what is there not to love – college football, leaves turning color, cooler nights!) so in celebration I have been doing fall-ish type things over the past two weeks. Last weekend I made pumpkin squares (they were oh so yummy):

And I also made some white chili which Isla absolutely loved. This past weekend Grandma GiGi and Aunt Anna came to town and we continued our fall celebration by taking Isla to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. The weather was absolutely perfect (about 70 degrees) and Isla really enjoyed herself. I’m so excited to start these family traditions as Isla gets older.

The pumpkin patch had a petting zoo and in that zoo was a baby camel – totally random, but very, very cute. Isla wasn’t too sure about him:

They also had sheep and baby goats that Isla was enthralled with:

We finally set out on the hayride to pick out our pumpkins. The entire ride Isla was saying “Weeeee”. It was too cute.

Isla checking out her pumpkins:

For those of you who are wondering if we still have a dog, we do - and he got to go fishing with his Dad this weekend - lucky dog:

Happy fall from our house to yours!

Hi!

“Dada”, “Mama”, “kitty”, “uh-oh”, “shoes” are a few of the words that Isla has been saying over the last couple of months. Ryan and I have not really counted any of these as her “first” word due to the fact that she doesn’t use them consistently or in the right context (although she is getting close!). We are also very thankful that Isla’s daycare has taught her to say “more” and “please” in sign language. This new found communication has been so much fun!

This past week Ryan and I were pleasantly surprised when Isla started to say “hi”. We were even more surprised when she started using it consistently and in the right context (i.e. when someone comes through the front door, when we get her up from her nap). My heart melts every time she says it and I got a little choked up when I walked in the front door yesterday and she looked at me with the biggest smile and said “Hi!” Ryan and I have officially decided that “hi” is Isla’s first word. “Kitty” comes in as a close second though.

Here are some recent pictures of Isla over the last couple of weeks. We have discovered that she loves puzzles and her car seat. Whenever her car seat is in the house she plays with it for hours (hours in toddler land equals about 20 minutes):

Looking happy at the BSU tailgate last weekend: