We're having a baby!

Well we now feel comfortable telling everyone that we are expecting little Baby #2 on August 24, 2009. I am 12 weeks and 1 day today! We had an ultrasound and doctor's appt today that went really well. We were able to see our little bundle of joy moving and kicking around in there. It is just as amazing as the first time, maybe even more amazing after going through 3 miscarriages to get here. They printed off about 10 pictures for me and I have a couple videos I took. I am going to share some below. So please keep our family in your prayers and pray for the health of our second little miracle. I really had my moments where I doubted it would happen for us a second time, but we are just so thrilled it has! Thank you all for your prayers and support as we went through all the losses. It means the world to us to have such great friends and family.

Here is my favorite picture:


About the same as about but it's little feet are up at the top right corner
Here is one of just the head, kind of hard to see close up...a bit grainy.

Bye Bye Crib....Hello Big Girl Bed

Isabella and 10 of her closest friends can now sleep in a big girl bed instead of a crib. Isabella decided to figure out how to get out of her crib a few days ago, well she was dangerously close to hurling herself out, so we had to transition her to her big girl bed a little earlier than we had planned. Isabella has a Queen sized bed so we can kick her out if we have to for guests. So right now her room is full of furniture with a queen bed, a crib, a rocker and...actually we moved the changing table into another room this morning because she could get in to the bins.



Sunday we moved the bed from our "red room" in to her bedroom and we went shopping for her big girl bedding. Isabella enjoyed helping me pick out her bedding. I was excited for her and she in turn was super excited. We let her watch us move the bed and put on her new bedding. We just kind of played a bit and hung out on her bed and made a big deal of it.



Yesterday we tried the bed for her nap. This was her first try in it. It went surprisingly well. She went right down and about 2 minutes later she was at the door trying to open it and calling for me so I went and opened the door and told her it was night-night time and she needed to get back in her bed. She ran right back to her bed and hopped up in it and laid down. We repeated this two more times and then not a peep. I went in to wake her up at 3 because we needed to be somewhere, so I snapped a couple pictures. I was really impressed with how fast she took to it.



Our plan was to try the bed for naps for a few days and then try it for bedtime, but last night I asked her if she wanted to sleep in her crib or her big girl bed and she ran and hopped up in her bed so we figured we would let her try. We read our books in her bed and then I turned off the light and told her it was time to go to bed so she needed to lay down....and she did! We didn't hear a peep from her all night. She woke up at 6:30 (the same time she usually does) and chatted to herself for about 15 minutes until she started saying "mama" so I went in there thinking she could be anywhere and she was sitting in her bed waiting for me! Ok, so I am impressed and I hope it continues to be this easy. I was hoping the fact that she is such a slave to her routine she would just go to bed no matter where it was, but I also worried that since she is so active having the freedom to roam might be too much to resist. So we are really proud of her first day in her bed. Maybe she is just not super affected by change. She transitioned from nursing to a bottle with no issues, then from a bottle to a cup with no issues and now from a crib to a bed. Maybe as long as it serves the same function she doesn't care. :)

Recent Adventures of Isabella

Here are some pictures from some of our recent activities and adventures with Isabella. I haven't been so good about blogging recently so I want to get you all updated.

Isabella loves playing with her friend Nathan. They play really well together. Here are some pictures from one of their play dates.

Playing with the puzzles

Nathan opening Isabella's door for her (ok maybe he is just trying to get in the car too)

A couple weeks ago we went to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. We were wondering if she would find it fun, but she loved it. There was actually a good amount of stuff for her to do and she had a ball.

Hitting the letters with daddy

Riding the horse

Enjoying the time with Stuart Little
She was really good at skeeball
Giving Chuck E. a good talking to.

This weekend we went to the zoo and we didn't take a lot of pictures but these were pretty cute. She found this komodo dragon statue and she decided to ride on it.



Nick also spent some time with his old toys called Omagles and built Isabella a little push car which she had so much fun with!

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. :)