A Few Promised Pictures

So I still don't have any pictures just yet of Matanuska Glacier, but I do have some other pictures that I had promised in the last blog.

Here are pictures of the advent calendar that Susan (Matt's mother) made for us:

Full shot of the advent calendar

Close up

Extreme close up of the middle (showing how everything is attached)

We love it and can't wait to use it for Christmas this year. Now that we have Isabella we are in the market for some family traditions to start this year. In previous years, Matt and I didn't really start many traditions. 

Here is a picture of Isabella trying banana's for the first time:

Bananas (7/8/2011)

She wasn't too keen on them. I think I will have to start slow with them, adding some of her formula to them to keep her interested. We bought butternut squash yesterday that I'm going to bake today and freeze. It will be her next new food. So far she has not shown much of an allergic reaction to anything we have given to her.

Last night I took a couple of pictures of what we see at 8:00pm in our back yard:

You can see the chunk of cotton hanging off that Cottonwood tree

The purple flowers are Fireweed

That's all for now. I hope everyone has had a fun and safe weekend!!

Grandmama's Visit

We have been having fun with Isabella's Grandmama (Matt's mom Susan)! She is up from Oregon and will be leaving tomorrow morning. She has been here since June 27th. Susan had not seen Isabella since she visited in February, shortly after Isabella was born. We do try to Skype with her often, but it's just not the same. The first week Susan was here I came down with Matt's cold. It hit me pretty hard. Susan took Isabella with her to Talkeetna that Friday to visit with Matt and his co workers. I had a nice day at home alone, to just rest and relax. It was pretty nice...however, it would have been better had I not been sick.

We have tried to get out of the house as much as we can with limited transportation. We rented a car the first week she was here, then this week we have been hanging out at home most of the time. Yesterday (Wed) my mom took the day off of work and drove us to Matanuska Glacier. I didn't get any pictures of it but I did get a picture of King Mountain:

We didn't get too close to the glacier, but hey, it's a glacier. You don't have to get close. I'll post a picture from either Susan or my mom in the next blog.

Isabella has been eating more new food. Since the last blog she has had apples and sweet potatoes. She isn't digging the apples so much. I think it's because they are a bit tart. I feed her them in the morning mixed with some formula and rice cereal to cut the tart. Here is her first apple feeding:

She did pretty well that first time, but after that, she is really showing the sour face when she eats them. I'll make sweeter apples next time.

Here is her first sweet potato feeding:

She LOVED them! Just like my mom...I'm glad mom now has another sweet potato buddy.

Susan has been making us an Advent calendar for Christmas time. I'll post a picture when it's done. She is working on the last few pieces for it as I type. She made Isabella a dress today and I got some pictures:

Susan and Isabella

She was so enthralled with the fabric

Matt's Grammie (Susan's mother) bought Isabella a Johnny Jump-up. Matt put it together and Isabella has spent a bit in it. She is still getting the hang of it. She mostly swings in it, and spins. Here is a picture I took today:

I have a video of her in it, but it didn't come out well. I'll make another video of her in it and post it next time. 

We didn't do anything at all for the 4th of July. I was still semi sick, Susan was getting a little sick and Matt was working in Talkeetna with the car so we couldn't go do anything even if we wanted to. PLUS we had a heck of a time finding ANYTHING 4th of July related for Isabella! I was pretty shocked about how little the stores had, even last week! So we ended up not even dressing her up. We had nothing red, white and blue for her. 

Well, that's all for now. I hope everyone had a safe and fun 4th! Until next time!