David is taking the Boards as I type. I am so excited! I can't wait for him to come home, because it won't be hanging over his head and stressing him out thinking about studying anymore, yay! I know he will do great. We are going to visit his family tomorrow and we are excited to get out of the humidity and away from school for a while and go camping and hang out with the family.
We weren't able to go to his Grandma's funeral. The testing center didn't have any availability for him to reschedule his test, and it would have cost $500 just to change the plane ticket dates. We are sad we missed it, but know we did what we had to do. I know she understands, because she has always been so happy with David and how hard he works in school.
Isabel is as cute as ever. I have been a slacker with the camera, but will have more pics after our trip. We are working on getting the binky usage down to just naps and night time. She gets pretty mad when you take it away, but she did better today. If she gets upset, it is really hard to calm her down without the binky, so I have used all my magical powers to distract her from thinking about it while she is upset. She loves to wave at people. The minute she sees someone at the store or in the parking lot, she starts waving, it doesn't matter if they see her or not. But if you show her someone and tell her to say hi, she gets shy and cuddles into my shoulder and doesn't do it very much.
We were at Cabela's last night looking for shoes, and there was a 4-wheeler in the store. I sat on it with Isabel in front and she grabbed right onto the handlebars and tried to steer it side to side. She's a natural:) I think she will have lots of fun when we go camping!
I better go finish packing. We will return with pictures and fun stories.

We love you Grandma Great!

David's Grandma, Izola Blackham, passed away today. We knew it would be coming in the next few weeks, but it was still a sad day. We were hoping we could make it home to Utah to see her in time, but Heavenly Father had a different timeline. We love her so much. She was as much a grandma to me as my biological ones. She has been so loving and caring to me since before I married David. She was a true example of a Christlike person. She treated all her grandkids as if they were the favorite, and we all felt that way.

What a special woman. All of David's nieces and nephews called her Grandma Great (instead of great-grandma) It was so cute. She loved Isabel so much and it makes me sad to think that Isabel won't remember her grandma-great. Everytime we talked to her, she was only interested in how "her Isabel" was doing.

As sad as a time this is, we know it is not the end. We know we will see her again, along with all our other family members that have passed on. We are so grateful to have a knowledge of Heavenly Father's plan and to know that we are an eternal family.

I think we will bump up our plane tickets to this week so we can be there for the funeral. David will try and take the boards in Utah instead of here in Nebraska.

We love you Grandma and will always remember what a special person you are!

Randomness

• David is neck deep in studying for the boards. He takes them on the 29th and he is getting a little stressed out. Some of his friends have taken it already and they said it is HARD, so that is great to hear:) I know he will do great, he works so hard for our family, I wish I could help him out a little more, but all the stuff he is studying is like Chinese to me.
• Isabel is growing and learning so much. She is 16 months and makes us laugh everyday. She is walking really good now and with that has come a newfound independence. If she knows where she wants to walk to, she will not let me hold her hand.
• Isabel likes to interrupt me when I am doing dishes in the sink. She steps in front of me and pushes against the cabinets to try and push me away from the sink so I will come play with her. It is so hard to not just drop everything that minute and go play, but I guess someone needs to try and keep our house clean.
• Isabel's favorite game to play is run around the house laughing and then come into the living room and scare us. She loves it and will continue to go back into the kitchen and come out the other way and scare us again. She makes this low, breathy humming noise when she gets excited that sounds so funny.
• Isabel is now so easy to put to bed. A lot of the times she will let us know when she wants to go to bed by waving at us (her way of saying "night night" to daddy). She sleeps through the night, but still wakes up around 6 or 6:30 am.
• She is learning to try and say a lot of new words. She gets such a big grin on her face when she tries to say a word we are teaching her and comes within the general ballpark of sounds.
• Isabel also loves to walk around with a blanket over her head. She thinks it is so funny to throw a blanket over her head so she looks like a ghost and then just walk anywhere. She runs into the wall, furniture, closet doors and trips over her toys. Each time, she takes the blanket off and has the biggest grin on her face. She gives a chuckle, stands up and throws the blanket on again and takes off. Now where in the world did she learn that from?
• I am feeling good. The baby is starting to move a lot, which I actually love. It helps remind me of what a special miracle I have growing inside of me. I have to admit that it is hard for me to comprehend how I can love someone else like I do Isabel. It will be amazing to have 2 little munchkins that I can't get enough of and bring me such great blessings.

My little jewelry thief!

As you can see, Isabel has figured out how to open my jewelry box. Luckily she has just played with the drawer that has some cheap bracelets in it. I heard hear go upstairs while I cleaned up breakfast and then I heard some noise that sounded like the handles on my armoire. Wondering what she was up to, I tiptoed upstairs and found her with her head in the drawer, three bracelets on her arm, just digging for more. I cleared my throat and she was startled and turned around with a look that said, "uh, oh, busted! Maybe I'll just pretend that nothing is happening and she will leave me alone." Then she turned back around and continued her jewelry heist like it was all fine and dandy.

I think this girl is gonna be a jewerly-aholic like David's mother, sisters, aunts, grandma and cousins. She is a Blackham by blood! At least I know of one thing I can get her for Christmas. She had fun bringing me all the jewerly with such a proud look on her face and now I can't keep her out of there. I closed my bedroom door that afternoon and she climbed up the stairs, sat in front of my door and just started sobbing!

Ultrasound

Well, we had the big ultrasound today. We found out the big news, we are expecting a...........

baby! I know all our family is giving us a hard time for not finding out (I admit that I even wanted to tell the technician to tell us), but I think it makes the birth even more fun and exciting to find out the big news on his/her birthday. We still have a lot of fun at the ultrasound and enjoy seeing our sweet little peanut and watching 'em roll around and cover the face (Isabel did the same thing). Everything looks good, the umbilical cord is in perfect condition this time, so that is a relief. With Isabel, she was so tiny and she was always measuring in like the 20th percentile. Well this kid is gonna be very different. He/she is currently measuring in the 65th percentile, so I have visions of delivering a much larger baby this time. Hopefully it won't be a 10lb baby like one of my siblings was:) Here are some pictures. They used a 2D and 3D ultrasound so it was cool to see more features. The 2D pictures aren't very clear that they printed up for me, so I won't post those. Tell me if you think it looks more like a boy or a girl:) Isn't it fun speculating!!! Thank you family for all your love and support. Our kids are so lucky to have such great family surround them. Love ya!

Splashin around!

My friend Summer got her kiddie pool out a few days ago and a bunch of us got together and let our kids splash around. Isabel loves the water and loves her sand toys that we got for the pool and bath time. She was a little weary of getting in the water when the older kids were in it, but she would lean over and splash her hands in and let some squeals out. She warmed up to it and got into the pool and then didn't want to get out. If you can't tell, Isabel tans so easily that I am jealous. I will put SPF 50 on her and she has a tan in no time! She is starting to look more like a little girl and it makes me a little sad. She can get herself pretty much wherever she wants to and doesn't need as much help from me. How can you get them to not grow up so fast???