Visiting with Family

We have been very fortunate to have spent some time family over the last 2 weeks. First, Katie and Gianna flew down to Atlanta and spent the week with us and Doug came down that weekend and then the following week we flew to NJ and spent 2 days with them before driving to Binghamton, NY to be there for Nick's Grandma's birthday. We were able to see lots of extended family there as well as Nick's parents and sister. It has been a great couple of weeks, but we are now happy to be home for a little bit.



The girls were so fun to watch together. They are so different. Although Gianna has gotten more active, Isabella is still much more focused on the physical and although Isabella has a few words and does communicate quite a bit, especially through signs and pointing, Gianna is much more focused on learning words and talking with everyone. You can tell they each have their own interests at this point. It is very interesting. Gianna was a joy to be around, we miss her so much. The girls were cute together too, they would hold hands and hug and kiss. It was really sweet.


While Katie and Doug were visiting us in Atlanta we had our first snow. Isabella loved it, although it was super wet and not really something she could play in. She did love just being outside in it.


Then we went to Gianna's house

Falling asleep in the last minute of our descent into NJ



Then on to Binghamton:

Great Grandma Betty
Great Grandpa Ray (she absolutely loved him)

Pop-pop

Nonna
We all had a great time but Isabella definitely enjoyed seeing all her relatives.

Weekend in Florida

Well, we had a more eventful weekend in Florida than we originally anticipated. We drove down to the Orlando area on Thursday evening to spend the weekend visiting with friends. When we got to our destination and pulled Isabella out of her seat, she was burning up. We gave her tylenol and put her to bed. The next morning she was still burning up and I figured it was either an ear infection or sinus infection. At a doctor's appt a couple weeks ago, the doctor told me that she had fluid on her ears and it could develop in to an infection to be on the lookout. We happened by a Walgreens Take Care clinic and luckily they treat children over 18 months. We went there and had no wait and they said she has two bad ear infections and a sinus infection. No wonder she felt so terrible. She woke up Saturday morning and threw up and Sunday morning was the same because she was so congested and they don't give children her age stuff for that, but luckily the Take Care clinic called to follow up Sunday night and they prescribed her a decongestant that has really helped. She has been taking her antibiotics since Friday and is finally starting to act like herself again.

We still had a great time despite Isabella being a bit under the weather. We got to see most of our friends and really enjoyed seeing the little ones: Gabriel, Charlotte and Carson. We went to Ms. Yentz's house and hung out in the park behind her house. The kids loved the Little Tykes playset and the fountain. Here are some pictures from our weekend.


Here is Lisa and Ben's son Gabriel:

Here is Paul and Meghan's daughter Charlotte:
Here is Charlotte knowing right where the camera is while Gabriel enjoys Isabella's book basket

In other news...Isabella is definitely growing everyday. She is starting to attempt more words and we are excited to see her trying that. She does funny things too like putting two pacifiers in her mouth at the same time. I was luckily able to get a picture of this. I also tried to just get a good picture of her yesterday when she was playing because I love her full ponytail in the back. It is adorable if I do say so myself. Katie and Gianna are coming to visit us today and we are very excited to have guests this week. I hope Isabella and Gianna are as happy to see each other as Katie and I are. We shall see. :)

She was enjoying riding her fropper around the house and playing with it in other creative ways. Here is our talented double pacifier baby:

Happy Valentine's Day and other news

Isabella had a great Valentine's Day. She got Valentine's from the Mandel family and her cousin Gianna.


On Valentine's Day we hosted a party for my mom's group at our house. The kids dressed up and Isabella wore her silver dress she got from her Great Grandma and Aunt Liz. Isabella got a Valentine Mr. Potatohead from Daddy and Mommy. She really likes him. She also got a balloon which continues to be one of her favorite things to hold and play with.





In other news...Isabella is in love with her "puppy" and "lamby." She sleeps with them both and often they have to follow her downstairs to play. She likes to share her snacks and bunkin's (aka. pacifiier) with them.




She also signs "I love you" to us like this. It is so cute!

Here she is this morning still holding her balloon.

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!