A life full of faith, hope, love, and laughter.
Everything Espinoza family.
While we were in Utah Isabel received a “Little Miss Salon” tent for her birthday from Uncle Daniel, Aunt Marci, Bryson and Kaylie. So today, I decided to get it out and see what it looked like. Very cool!
The front of the “Little Miss Salon”.
The salon is now open!
The tent itself is made with normal tent material but
the sides have a thick pink plastic on them.
There was so much static electricity inside the tent
that it made Isabel’s hair stand up on end!
In preparing Isabel for school in the fall, we purchased a Learn to Read program from Hooked on Phonics. It makes learning the ABC’s fun with games on CD-ROM, music, flash cards and workbooks. Today was Isabel’s first lesson and she did amazing! Hopefully if we stick to the program she’ll know all the letter’s not just by name but sight and sound too!
A – Can you find the fish with the letter A?
B – music video.
C – Can you find the fish with the letter C?
Good job, Isabel!
The biggest gift Isabel received for Christmas was an art easel. One side has a chalk board the other a dry erase board and in the middle it holds a roll of paper to feed through the top and bottom for paints, markers, or whatever!
Tonight while I was getting dinner ready, Isabel was busily making art on the dry erase side of the board. Enjoy!
All smiles even though she has the yuckie germies, poor girlie!
The concentration…
Her finished work.
Isabel all ready to head out the door to church.
(Thank you Gmpa for the very pretty/special Christmas dress!)
Our celebration started with a Christmas Eve service at our church. We sang favorite Christmas carols, heard an awesome message about the true meaning of Christmas, and enjoyed special music sung by our music director Adam. Later that evening after Isabel was tucked into bed, I went to check on her and she was wide awake and burning up with a fever. After checking her temperature which was at 102, we began to do battle with the yuckie germies!
Christmas morning, we again checked her temperature and it was still high but had gone down. So the remainder of the day was a slow one…
We had a breakfast/brunch of pancakes, eggs, sausage, juice and toast. Afterward, Isabel and Gino play Dominoes while I cleaned up the breakfast dishes. By this time it is was just after noon and we decided to open gifts. Isabel wasn’t in the mood and had to be encouraged into opening her gifts.
Isabel and I just before we begin opening our gifts.
Isabel opening one of her gifts from Gma and Gmpa.
“The First Christmas” by Carol Heyer
Isabel’s second gift from Gma and Gmpa.
“The Legend of the Three Trees” by Catherine McCafferty
Whenever she would open a book and she received quite a few, she would “read” them and then hand them to me, “Here Momma” and then proceed to the next book or gift. She’s also a very clean/tidy gift opener, she kept a pile of the wrapping paper behind her and would place all the gift wrapping in that pile as she opened each gift!
Isabel has the book, “Doctor Dan: the Bandage Man” by Helen Gaspard and we read it almost every night! She loves it! So we decided to get her a little medical kit for her to play with. Which by the way, you can actually hear your heart through the stethoscope!
Isabel’s 2008 Christmas ornament.
After her nap, she plays Dr. with Lula.
“Listen to her heart” she says.
“Lula needs a shot” she says.
From our family to yours…
We wish you a very Merry Christmas!
Love ~ Gino, Carey, Isabel, and Daisy
The first snow started falling about a week ago, the day it started, Isabel started asking to go out and play. After the purchase of some new all weather boots, we headed out for some snow play fun! Enjoy!
All ready!
This is fun!
More snow started falling again around 1 p.m. and continued steadily until late at night. Unfortunately, the snow was to powdery to build a snowman. Isabel didn’t care though…
Dig. Dig. Dig.
Isabel’s 1st snow angel.
For some reason, I never thought that building/decorating a gingerbread house with Isabel would be a fun thing to do. For one, the first time I every built one, was for school and it was from scratch (no pretty premade pieces here!). It was so sad…the pieces were all lopsided and uneven; so the whole house leaned. Very sad. Miserable little house. Second, I just never thought of it…until my cousin Tear-a (Tera) mentioned to me. So I purchased a home and tonight we constructed it and decorated! She had so much fun! Enjoy…and thanks T for the idea!
The walls and roof are on; now we just wait for the “glue” to dry.
All the decor!
Gino and I added the icing and let her do the decorating. She was very neat about the whole thing; Gino and I walked with icing all over! I never dreamed it would be so messy…but it was fun!
Her house.
Side view.
Back of house.
Front and side.
Gino and I did the work on the tree, snowman, and gingerbread man.
Otherwise it was all Isabel.
Note to self for next year: Do this project AFTER dinner not BEFORE!
Isabel has been trying for months now to do a somersault…she finally did it tonight! Enjoy!
There’s the kick…
and she’s over…
I tried so hard to get the actually somersault but it was to fast for photos!
I had to get the video camera out so hopefully Gino can get the video up soon.