Almost 5 year pics!

Isabelle had her pictures taken by our favorite photographer last week.

http://www.linabellphotos.com/

Build a Bear, MOA and Merida!

We took a trip to Mall of America last weekend and Isabelle got to build herself a teddy bear. She chose the rainbow bear which was to pretty predictable. Isabelle loves rainbows, I am not really sure why but they are one of her favorite things. Once the bear was stuffed she dressed it up in a princess dress comlplete with a tiara and a bouquet of roses...she named the bear Valentine.

After she built the bear we went to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Isabelle thougth the giant tropical fruit was pretty neat. She also spent some time checking out the big fish in all the different aquariums and she got her picture taken with the big frog!

We visited the Disney store which had a whole bunch of toys, dolls, dresses etc that Isabelle wanted to bring home. We have been watching the movie Brave quite a bit lately and Isabelle eneded up getting a bow and arrow set just like Merida (the princess). She is learning how to shoot it and seems to really like it. I may have a future hunting partner... 

Christmas, fishing and other fun stuff

On New Years Eve Isabelle, Al and I rented a fishouse on Lake Waconia. This was Isabelle's first ice fishing trip. She really fell in love with fishing this summer and was really excited to get ice fishing. We spent over 5 hours in the house and Isabelle loved it. She got a little bored at the end but i thought keeping a  four year old in a 7x8 box for 5 hours was pretty incredible.

We caught all kinds of fish! Isabelle helped catch sunnies, perch, crappies and large mouth bass. When we were done she brought the biggest sunny to the bait shop for the fishing contest. It was 5.2 ounces and she won to candy canes and two coloring books. She was excited!

 We had a fantastic Christmas Isabelle got to spend time with our family and recieved some pretty awsome gifts.



 Isabelle's preschool did a Christmas program. The kids had worked really hard and practiced for weeks. It was pretty adorable.

We finally got decent amount of snow. Isabelle and mom got busy making snow angels. What a fun winter so far...

Visit with Santa

Isabelle had a nice visit with Santa this year...she is very excited to get some of the things she asked for...

Turkey, Circus, Snow and Pjamas at school!

Isabelle had a fantastic Thanksgiving. We had a chance to celebrate with family and of course we ate piles of turkey. We also got together and celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. Isabelle had a great time and took this really cute picture with my cousins Genny and Alex.

Isabelle is a huge fan of the movie Madagascar 3...this movie revolves around the circus. So for a couple months Isabelle has been talking about the circus. Last weekend we took her to the Shrine Circus at the Target Center. She had a blast. She got autographs from clowns, rode an elephant, ate junk food, drank junk food, bought a toy wand and stared at the show for 3 hours. It was far more entertaining than I had anticipated.

 

We got a dusting of snow on Thanksgiving night, it wasnt much, but it was enough to convince Isabelle that we shoudl get the sled out and slide down the hill in our yard.

Isabelle's preschool did a pajama day a couple weeks back, I thought it was a pretty cute picture (shes in the lower left corner).



Booo!

Isabelle had an action packed Halloween. They celebrated with a party at Pre-school. We attended the neighborhood Halloween party and of course participated in a fairly long night of trick or treating. It was the most fun I have had on Halloween in a long time. Last year Isabelle hit a handful of houses and wasn’t really that into it. This year they sprinted from door to door and made a huge haul…more candy than any 4 year old needs.

Fall Fun

We visited two different pumpkin patches last weekend. We picked our own pumpkins at the farm by our house. Isabelle loves the farm because she gets to be up close and personal with the cows and feed them some hay. After that we went to the 101 Market in Otsego for the corn pit, bouncy pillow and other activities. We are almost ready for Halloween. Next up...pumpkin carving.

its now officially fall

Mommy and Isabelle marked the official start of fall by putting up the fall decorations on our front step. Isabelle was pretty excited that she got to pick out her own scarecrow so now this is a mother/daughter scarecrow combo...apparently I am the pirate...?

Isabelle is really enjoying her gymnastics class. These pictures are a little fuzzy because I took them through glass at a distance, with my phone. It is fun to watch her go through all the routines and exercises, she is so in to it. I have a feeling that she may be into gymnastics for a long time!