Fly Away

Today, Isabel said, "I want to fly away." In a happy way, after she saw a balloon. At first, I was amazed by what she said. She surprises us everyday with her developing speech. But, I also thought to myself, "Don't fly away too soon, my angel!"

Animal Noises

This video is from about a month ago, but it's one that Isabel asks to watch often. Isabel makes all her different animal noises. We mix up English and Korean animal words and noises. :-)

Singalong

Thought I'd take a minute to jot down the songs that Isabel sings. She started singing when she we just started to say words, with Barney's "I Love You"...still a fave. Some of these songs she can sing the words to from start to finish; others she'll hum with a few words thrown in.

- I Love You (Barney)
- ABC
- Twinkle Twinkle (English and Korean)
- Itsy Bitsy Spider
- Ring Around the Rosy
- London Bridge
- So Long, Farewell (Sound of Music)
- Do Re Mi (hums this more than sings it)
- Elmo's Song
- Most of the songs from her Elmo, Barney and Korean kids CDs.
- A few Yo Gabba Gabba songs

I'm sure I'm forgetting some...

Somersaults!

Isabel just got the hang of doing somersaults recently. In this video, she is practicing them with her dad. Notice the spazz-out session in the midst of her somersaults. She is a ball of energy, to say the least. :-) Also, notice her counting: 1-2-4-6! Love it.

Dr. Isabel

Isabel doesn't do too well at her doctor's visits, so I got her a doctor kit in hopes that it will help her to not get so upset when we visit her doctor. She likes to use the doctor tools in her kit to give us check ups. Here's a video of her giving her dad an exam.

Shape Sorter

Isabel has this shape sorter puzzle that she's getting very good at doing. Here's a video that shows off her skills. :-) She's pretty funny in the beginning, when she tries to psych us out.

Riding Ponies

We like to go to the Main Street Farmers Market in Santa Monica on Sunday mornings. It's a great event -- great breakfast food, delicious produce, live music and fun activities for kids. It gets packed with young families. Isabel likes to ride the ponies. The first time she went, I held her hand and walked with her on the pony. But, every time after that, she's been fine on her own. Here's a video of Isabel and her friend Lily riding ponies last weekend.

Bike Ridin'

We took Is for her first bike ride today in Santa Monica. It was a perfect LA autumn day. We rented bikes with a kiddie trailer for Isabel to ride in. We didn't know how long she'd last, but she did great! She seemed to really enjoy the ride and the scenery. We rode from SM Pier to Venice Beach and back. Here's a vid:

Cousins

Isabel's cousin Austin came over for a visit today. Isabel is usually pretty good with him. But today, after I was holding Austin for a while, Isabel started acting a little bit like a jealous older sister. I definitely got a flavor of what it would be like to have another baby in the house.

San Diego

We just got back from our first family vacation to San Diego! There is so much to share! The pictures will tell most of our story.

Highlights:

• The house we rented in La Jolla was great! Huge black-bottom pool, tons of books and toys for Isabel - even a playhouse!, lots of space for our family, close to the beach and La Jolla village. We cooked and ate at home everyday. Staying in a house is so much better than staying in a hotel when you have a toddler!
• We hit Sea World twice, the San Diego Zoo and Balboa Park.
• At Sea World, Isabel got to meet Elmo! See the video…she was completely starstruck. She gave him a big hug and wouldn't let go! Sweet girl. Jake had told her before we went that she would get to see Elmo and that's all she had on her mind until she met him at the end of our Sea World visit.
• The tidepools at La Jolla Cove were so fun to explore. Isabel saw little fishies swimming around, hermit crabs crawling up rocks, and the big waves crashing on the tidepools. We walked down to Children's Beach and saw the seals that hang out there.
• Isabel had so much fun swimming with Daddy in the jacuzzi of the pool. She has gotten bolder in the water, jumping around and getting her head into the water. She trusts her Dad and the jacuzzi seemed to be the perfect size for her!
• Isabel slept in a big girl bed at the house! We got bedrails and she did great! Slept all night, every night. She woke up earlier than she normally does at home, but that's ok. We might be ready to transition out of the crib soon!
• Jake and I got to go out to dinner twice. Our nanny came down with us for the first half of the trip and we were able to sneak out after Isabel went to bed for some really good food. We ate at Georges and Nine-Ten, both in La Jolla village. Both were great!
• Last, but definitely not least, my brother and his family joined us at the end of our stay. It was so great to have them in San Diego with us. We had a great barbecue on our last night with them, Jake's Uncle Ronnie and a friend of my sister-in-law who just moved down there.

Lowlights:

• Naps were hard, as Isabel usually passed out as soon as we got into the car after our excursions and didn't transfer out of the car very well. Or, if we were home, she'd fall asleep ok, but wake up after about an hour, at the most (her naps are usually 2-2.5 hrs long). So, she was a little sleep-deprived and got cranky at times.
• The Zoo was big and it was hot that day. Isabel didn't seem all that interested in the animals. Maybe when she's older...
• We were extremely careful to make sure the pool gate was closed and Isabel was always in sight while we were staying at this house. But, on the last day as we were all packing up and getting ready to leave the house, Isabel got out of our sight for a split second and we found her walking along the pool edge. The pool gate was open. The worst part was that she had closed the house door behind her, so we wouldn't have even heard if she had fallen in. SO SCARY. Jake and I are still shuddering at the possibility of what could have gone wrong in that moment. We thank God that He was watching over her!

All in all, it was a great family vacation! The highlights definitely outnumbered the lowlights. Everyday was fun and Isabel had a great time! She didn't want to leave ("no home!") and neither did we! Can't wait to go back someday soon.

We hope you enjoy our pictures. We're also posting the Elmo video. More vids to be posted soon, but need to do some editing first.

Hanging Out

Here is our little monkey hanging off the jungle gym at the park today.

Talk Talk Talking

6 months ago, I posted Isabel's words on Facebook. I always meant to keep it up, but she was learning new words and phrases so fast that I couldn't remember all of them whenever I thought about updating that post.

Everyday, we're amazed at what comes out of her mouth. Something new everyday...sometimes several times a day! She went from learning her nouns to her verbs to her prepositions to her adjectives/adverbs. Then, those words started being put together into 2 and 3 word phrases. Now she's making sentences. I know this is typical speech development for a kid, but it's AMAZING to me! I feel like she was just cooing her lovely baby coos a minute ago!

The latest surprise is Isabel's use of "I" and "my". Like, "I do it" when I'm trying to buckle her into the carseat. Or, tonight, when I asked, "Are you coming?", she responded "I coming!" At the park, she was watching a kid on a tire swing and when he got off, she quietly said "my turn" and headed to it. She also tells us what she wants, "I want that one." We got to this point so fast!

She's great at singing her alphabets, though she doesn't correctly identify any letters (or numbers) yet. She counts: 1, 2, 4, 6! She knows some colors: pink, blue, orange. She sometimes calls red "apple" and purple "Barney". I love it.

Oh, I want to mention that she understands Korean as much as she understands English (our nanny only speaks Korean to her), but it's clear that she thinks in English and the vast majority of her words are English. Sometimes she'll hear something in Korean and will say the English equivalent. I'm so glad that she's biligual and want to maintain that as she gets older.

I See You!

Last night, Isabel looked at me, pointed to her eye and said "I see you". Totally randomly. I don't know if this is one of those things that is funny to us as her parents, or is actually funny. But, it cracked me up.

Long Weekend

We had a great long weekend. Did a lot of different things, but not too much to burn out. On Saturday, we went to check out the Santa Monica Pier. Jake had never been there and I hadn't been in a long, long time. It was a nice way to spend the morning. Isabel rode her first carnival ride and her first carousel (though she wouldn't go on a horse). We also saw a man feed seagulls out of his hand off the pier.

Today, I took Isabel to the Natural History Museum to visit the Butterfly Pavilion, which closes this week. There were so many different kinds of butterflies there. Isabel ran around looking at all the butterflies, but was done in about 10 minutes. Then, we checked out the rest of the museum where there were great life-size replicas of mammals from all over the world. Isabel does a great lion roar. As soon as I can figure out how to post videos on here, I'll share. :-)

Getting Started

I fell behind on our BiernerBaby website around Isabel's 1st birthday and I thought that a blog, where we can post more frequent updates with pictures and videos, might be more appropriate moving forward. The past 9 or so months have been jam-packed with all sorts of events and milestones, and I'm feeling very guilty for doing such a poor job of documenting all of it. Especially after being so diligent during Isabel's first year! My goal is to post on this blog regularly with updates from our family to share with all of you.

Isabel has grown so much and so quickly. She's just over 21 months now. She's tall and big for her age -- 32 lbs and 36" at her recent doctor appointment; off the charts for both weight and height. So far, she's a great eater -- eats a good variety of pretty healthful foods -- but we're seeing signs of her getting pickier. She's talking up a storm, with hundreds of words, and picking up new ones everyday (we really have to watch what we say!). She loves to sing and we LOVE to listen to her sing. She sings Barney and Elmo songs, as well as the traditional faves like the Alphabet song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Itsy Bitsy Spider. The imperfection of her singing is just perfect to us! She's VERY active and very curious and very headstrong. There is never a dull moment with this girl. While there are definitely times when Isabel tests our boundaries and our patience, our home is full of laughter and love. It's hard to remember a time when, not long ago, she was not a part of our world. :-)

The picture here is of Isabel today enjoying a snack of berries at the park. You can see how she's grown. Her baby-ness is fading away...

Much love,

Rachel