I love shoes!

I call them "so" and I love them, especially shoes that are 10 sizes too big for me.

I am not picky.
I like children's, women's and men's. I like flip flops, high heels, and slipons.

I love water! Paradise View, XiaXai, Mozambique

Merry Christmas!

This was my second Christmas, but the first that I was involved in opening presents. I still don't quite "get" the idea of opening presents, but sure had fun delivering them all to mommy and daddy.

I got all sorts of fun presents this year... lots that make noise-my favorite!!

If you didn't notice already, too, another thing I like to do is

take my diaper off and run around naked!

Grandma and Poppa Drew come to visit!

Grandma and Poppa Drew came to visit us for two weeks in October. It was so much fun. After a somewhat stressful check-in at the Johannesburg airport (our travel agent reserved our tickets, but forgot to pay for them) we made it onto the plane and to Livingtone, Zambia for 4 exciting days at Victoria Falls. Our first activity was a dinner cruise. We even saw crocodiles and hippos!

Their first African sunset was more than memorable:

It was so nice to spend some time with Grandma and Poppa Drew. I think they were excited to make their first visit to Africa, but even more excited to see me!

We visited both sides of the falls. Zambia the first day and Zimbabwe the second.



We even let daddy be King for a day...

Then, we visited a crocodile farm and I got to touch a baby croc!



We at at some nice restaurants along the way. Poppa Drew always tried the strange foods- crocodile steak, warthog, and croc "fingers". We ate a the 5 star Livingstone Hotel, saw elephants and vervet monkeys tried to steal another guy's french fries! He jumped right up on the table and grabbed a bunch! We also ate at Ngoma Zanga, a restaurant in town that offers a selection of different local dishes and drummers played while we ate. Maybe we ate one of the crocodiles we met today.

From there we went to Kruger Park to see the animals, but had to watch out not to hit any on our way:

We made it into to Kruger safely and saw all sorts of neat animals.

Then we went to Swaziland, where we did lots of shopping at the glass factory, Gone Rural woven products store, and the candle factory.



We also visited a cultural village and saw the traditional Swazi life, homes, and heard about Swazi culture. We also saw a young dance and singing group. Grandma even was pulled up to dance with them!

We stayed overnight at a place called Malandela's and Poppa Drew took some really sweet photos of me and Grandma in the morning.

Then, we finally headed to Mozambique! Mommy and Daddy had to work and Grandma and Poppa Drew got a personal tour guide, our friend Wesley, to show them around. After a week in Maputo, though, we had to take Grandma and Poppa Drew back to the airport to go home. What a wonderful time we had together!

THE BEST day of mommy's life

Mommy said that today is probably THE BEST day of her entire life until now. You know why? Because when she was getting me ready for bed, I walked away toward the night table and she said to me, "Isabelle, can I have a kiss?" and I turned around midway, looked at her, and walked right over and kissed her lips. So, then she made me kiss her over and over and over again! I know what a kiss is now and I love to give them to mommy!

Daddy's next...

My first birthday party!

Yesterday I had a bunch of friends over to celebrate my first birthday. Mommy and Daddy had some of their friends over, too. The best part about it all was that everyone was there to celebrate ME!

We had a lot of fun running around, playing in the sandbox, riding bikes and mini motorcycles, and finally hitting the ice cream shaped pinata.

Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me- once in English and once in Portuguese. Then, I got to dig in to my very own piece of carrot birthday cake (mommy made it) and vanilla ice cream.

The bigger kids also got to put all sorts of toppings on their ice cream- oreos, marshmallows, strawberries, gummy bears, and chocolate chips. These are my friends Zak, Alexa, Lucas and Nico eating their ice cream.

And here is Luca.

It was yuuuuuumy!

Mommy and Daddy had a lot of fun too. Mommy told me not to tell anyone, but she cried a little bit... she said it was because I was getting to be such a big girl and she loves me soooo much.