Water, water, everywhere

While shopping for July the 4th, daddy and Isabella came across a lego camper van set. We spent a happy half an hour putting it together - I lined up the pieces, daddy would put one in, and Isabella would put the other ones in. Very, very intense concentration. It's just like Grandpa's and Nana's - it has a little place to sleep in the top and a table in the middle. She's taken it apart and helped put it back together a couple times. The sides swing out, which is pretty cool.

Isabella also helped to make mom's birthday cake (yum!) She mixed stuff together and helped frost the cake. And blow out the candles (she said mom got two and she got two, and she'd help in case mom couldn't do it).

Funnily enough, she's not that keen on *eating* the cake - she really likes the sprinkles, but doesn't seem that interested in the cake or the frosting. Now tomatoes and raisins (she's been picking them out of my breakfast every morning)...

She figured out how to take the boppy pillow cover off and then tried to put it on like a pair of pants. Didn't go up very far :). She can get undressed out of most everything, and can put her dresses and underwear on herself. Still can't get her out of her dresses - although at least we can talk her into wearing either her blue dress with pockets, or her purple dress that goes down to her feet, or, if desperate, the other purple dress. And forget shoes - her latest logic is that if she doesn't put her shoes on then she should be carried. She spent two days with her water shoes/socks on, but other then that, it's "I don't need my shoes because I'll be riding in the stroller/wagon/etc."

Her other favorite thing to "wear" these days is a beach towel. She's been walking around with it wrapped around her, and even sleeping wrapped up in it. Which leads to lots of tears and frustration when she tries to wear it into her booster seat or her car seat, or make it lie flat...

Daddy also got a bunch of new building blocks. We've been building towers. Lots of towers. And then knocking them down. "Mommy, build something cool!". She's very particular about not leaving holes when building towers, and which colors/blocks she wants.

Her other latest trick is not going to sleep. She keeps getting up, insisting on more stories, waking up in the middle of the night and wandering into the bedroom... and then being very cranky in the morning because she didn't get enough sleep. Sigh.

We've been going to the pool once or twice a week. She loves running through the water, and practicing swimming. She got so excited one afternoon when I picked her up from day care that she had taken of her dress before I could sign her out so that she could get in her swimming suit to go to the pool.