The video about her family

Ok I am officially a terrible blogger. I was trying to upload a video and it was too large I guess and so I tried to publish it several times so some of you probably got way to many emails. And then I didn't even post the second part of the video where she talks about her Aunt, Uncle and cousin. Here is that one.

Come visit Katie and Gianna! Take 2

This post is of a video of Isabella. She starts by playing her game where she tries to give you something and then promptly takes it away. Then we talk about Katie, Doug and Gianna and how she misses them and wants them to visit. She says Katie and she pretty consistently says D for Doug.

Puzzle obsessed!

So Isabella is currently in love with her puzzles. She will pull them out, and must have all of them out to do any one puzzle and then she sits and takes all the pieces out and then one by one puts them all back in their places. It is fun to watch her get so excited when she accomplishes her goals. Here is a clip from a rather long video of her completing 3 of her 4 puzzles. She also debuts her version of cock-a-doodle-doo. Once she does one puzzle she usually has to do all her puzzles.

Bye Bye Santa...see you next year!

We we survived Christmas and the massive amount of my family that came to our house and stayed with us. We were not alone for a period of 10 days. It was exhausting and wonderful! We loved that each of my siblings and their entire families were able to make it for Christmas and my parents. My grandfather, my only surviving grandparent, was also brave enough to get on a plane for the first time since coming home from the Korean war to be here with us on Christmas. We also just said goodbye to Nick's parents, Nonna and Pop-pop to Isabella, today. It was so great to see them and we are so grateful that they were willing to take the drive from Virginia. We had a great second Christmas with them as we all exchanged gifts and Isabella got yet another round of gifts.

Tonight Nick and I took down all the Christmas decorations and the tree. It feels kind of bare in the house, but I will get used to it. I won't miss asking Isabella to leave the ornaments on the tree. She did have a great time with all the Christmas ornaments though and she seemed a little annoyed at us for taking them down. All in all, it was a great Christmas although we really missed seeing Doug, Katie, and Gianna and Aunt Jenn. We also wish we could have made it to Binghamton to see all the Great Grandparents. There are definitely some drawbacks to living in Atlanta when it comes to visiting family. I have attached some of my favorite Christmas pictures. I hope you all enjoy and I hope you all had a great Christmas too!

Here is our family photo:



My brother Chris, his wife Cristina and David:


My sister Kate, her husband Mike, and Noah, Grace and Maddie:

My sister Julia and her husband Josh and baby Josephine on the way!:
My parents David and Shawn and my brother and sisters and me:

Christmas Eve, Isabella got a bunch of tents and tunnels a little before Christmas so she could play with her cousins in them while they visited. She had a ball!

For Christmas she got a Fropper riding toy from my parents. She really enjoys it
She is again starting to look more and more like her daddy. Here they are on Christmas morning.

Here are a few of Isabella from December. We have been spending some time at the park when there is a nice day. Isabella has gotten very skilled on the playground. She climbs up to slide all by herself and is pretty good at sliding alone too. Although I still have to remind her to sit on her bum. She also loves the swing and can sometimes swing for 20 minutes or more at a time.



Isabella also enjoyed her share of holiday treats...here she is trying her first Pizzelle.

And after a few sweet treats...she has a little Hitler mustache. :)