Random happenings. This isn't in any specific order.

• Isabella is doing great in speech therapy, they think she has speech apraxia. She has a great therapist and we work with her a lot at home. In the past 4 months her language has bloomed. She can say so much now, and actually be understood. It has been so fun to see her personality coming out more and more each day. Her nursery leader at church commented that she has really been able to understand Isabella now, and just realized that she loves being bossy. It cracked me up, because Isabella is very bossy and now that she can speak she has to tell everyone what to do or not to do. She loves to tell Dad all about her day when he comes home from school. One day he was so excited because he actually understood what she had done that day, without my translations. I think it is still going to be a long process with her language but at least she can communicate and is much happier.... and so are we. Isabella get to go to her friends house for a preschool day every now and then. She loves it, and looks so cute with her back pack on. We are hoping to get her into preschool in the fall. She would love the interaction and the activities. I am hoping to get her in one that I get to help in the classroom 2x a month. I think it would be fun, and give me more ideas of activities to do at home.
• Isaac on the other hand talks all the time. He can say all of the words that Isabella practices and repeats what we are saying. He is saying sentences, and will be well on his way to talking over his sister soon. He is getting so big. He has surpassed Bella in weight and has enough energy to keep up with her most of the time. He loves to sit down and read and do puzzles and can be kept busy for quite a while. I have been trying to find activities that they can sit down to the table and work on. I got a book called What to do with Toddlers and Twos, it has lots of ideas of activities, and helps me be more creative with our days. It has been fun doing projects like painting, putting beans in glass jars, or milk jugs, making shakers from old pill bottles, pasta necklaces, play-dough, coloring.
• I participated in a Health Challenge for 60 day. I won second place! It really helped me get back to exercising. I try to run several times a week and was up to about 4 miles at a time. Currently I am planning on running a 5k so I am working on running 3 miles faster. I enjoy running and it is a stress reliever. I am the Young Women's president at church and enjoy working with the girls. The friends I have made in Portland have been such a blessing. I have made several through church and the community and they help keep me sane. Most of us have little kids, and busy husbands, and working off a small budget. It's nice to have friends with so much in common. I am so very blessed with the friends in my life. My Ellen has become such a close friend. The kids love her, she is like a grandma next door. She is helping me with my first quilt. I am to the stage of sewing all the squares together. She is a professional quilter, so I am soaking up her knowledge. It is so fun to have a project to work on when I get some free time.
• Stanley has been pretty busy with rotations all over Portland. This month he drives over an hour one way to work. He has really enjoyed his pediatric rotations, he had a chance to do OBGY and delivered a few babies. Currently he is working at a Psychiatric Hospital. The stories he tells me are so sad. I could never work in that environment. He really enjoys child psych and is hoping to be able to do both pediatrics and child psych. Hopefully in the next 6 months we will have narrowed down what he wants to do and where we want to go next May. He graduates in just over a year. The time has gone fast! No matter how busy he is he always finds time to play with the kids and spend time with me. We enjoy every spare minute we all get together. Last week we took the kids to a play place that was showing Toy Story 3. They got to play and have fun while Stan studied. It was a fun family date. Today is a beautiful day. Sunny and 60 degrees, so we are going to go to the Tulip Festival. I love being outside when the weather is so nice.