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. :)

Holiday Photos

So today we went and took some photos of Isabella for the holidays. They were so cute so I wanted to share them with you all. Our scanner had some trouble so there are some lines on them. They turned out really cute.

We also went and saw Santa in the mall earlier in the week. There was no one there and she was walking through the mall and she caught his eye and he caught hers. He was waving to her and she waved back, so we walked up and decided to see if she would say hi up close. She was melting all over the floor out of shyness and embarrassment. She is so funny with new people now. She cocks her head away and sometimes just falls down to the ground because she is being so shy. After wallowing on the floor in front of him for a few minutes she decided she was brave enough to sit in his seat with him, not on his lap, mind you, but in his seat. Santa was really nice and sweet to her. We decided to take a picture and then I paid way too much money to have a copy but it was her first time meeting with Santa so it seemed worth it to me. Did I mention how much I love Christmas and I am really enjoying sharing this season with Isabella. I think she is going to really like the tree when we get it up. She already loves the Hallmark snowmen that Doug has given me over the years. I need to get that on video so I can share that with you. It is hilarious!

Nonna and Pop-pop

Isabella is changing everyday. I can see how the wheels are turning in her mind and things are starting to click. She easily picks up any baby sign I throw at her, although she still chooses not to use her words very much. And she answers most questions you ask her with "Yah!" At least it isn't "no", right? The other day we were standing looking at all the pictures on our family wall and I was pointing out everyone to her. Then later when I would ask her where Nonna and Pop-pop were she would run over to the wall and point. It was really cute.
I think she will be excited to see them in person for Thanksgiving. She definitely likes to look at pictures and videos of her family. That's all for now. I will be sure to let you know when she suddenly starts talking...I am sure it will be any day now. :)

Not much going on, but so busy...

Well there has not been much going on, but I have still felt extremely busy lately. Isabella and I have been going to the chiropractor. I have been going for my back and hip and Isabella has been getting help with her in turned foot. It has been really helping us both. Cristina just left yesterday after visiting with us for a week. Chris was out of town so she and David came to keep us company. We had a good time together. I skipped the gym while she was here and instead we took walks and I worked out in the basement on the elliptical and with our dumbbells. It wasn't bad, but I was happy to get back to the gym today and Body Pump.

This past weekend I attempted to put Isabella's hair in a ponytail. It was adorable for the few minutes that it stayed up. I think we still need her hair to get a little longer until we can do a ponytail in the back, but it won't be too long now.

One day that Cristina was here we went to the Picture People in the mall and had David's pictures taken. He looked so adorable. Here is a picture of one of our favorites.
We had a good time and we really miss having Cristina and David around. It was nice to have them here.

So Isabella has a cold and is not feeling super great. She just sounds really horse and when she cries it sounds terrible!! She has been having issues with sleep since Saturday night. I think it is developmental and not because of this cold, which really came on late Monday. Nick and I attempted to go out for dinner on Saturday and left Cristina here with Isabella and Cristina asked what to do if she woke up and we said "well, she won't" and we had barely made it out the driveway before we got the call that Isabella was screaming bloody murder in her crib. Cristina tried to put her back down but she refused to be laid in her crib no matter what. Nick and I were waiting at the restaurant for our table and I decided I would just run home and put her back down and then I would come back and join Nick. I came home to find a totally out of sorts baby. She was so exhausted and would practically fall asleep in your arms but the minute you made a move for the crib she lost it. So I took her in the car with me to go pick Nick up from the restaurant after trying for about 20 minutes to get her back down. Nick asked for our appetizer to go and then we drove through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru at 9 o'clock at night and had a delicious date night of fast food. So much for our best laid plans to have a night out together. She has been having a tough time going to sleep and leaving our sides at night and at naptime. It is frustrating, but I figure "this too shall pass." Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. :)

Halloween Weekend

We drove to Jacksonville, NC on Friday to spend Halloween with my brother Chris and sister-in-law Cristina and baby David. Also, my parents live in the same town, but my mom was out of town until Saturday night for work. We had a great time on Halloween. We went trick-or-treating to just a few houses of people we knew in town. Isabella had fun running around as a bee and would "buzz" like a bee. Of course, it was super cute to us, just like everything she does.

The main reason we came in for the weekend was for David's baptism. Nick and I are his godparents. It was such an honor to be asked and we were so happy to be able to be there for the ceremony. He looked adorable. Here are some pictures from our weekend.