Lunch with Friends

When I went to get Isabella from her nap, she was already sitting up playing with her "Cuddles" and an old Cabbage Patch Kid of mine. I picked her up out of her crib and she leaned down to grab the two dolls. It was lunchtime, so I sat her in her highchair and set the dolls on the table to "watch" her eat. She insisted on holding them during lunch, so I sat all three of them in the highchair together. It was too adorable so I took some pics. (there are also a few pictures from Saturday of her just being cute)

Food and Fish

Isabella has these plastic fish that are part of a boat bath toy her Great Aunt Julie gave her for Chanukah. Since she still bathes in a small tub in the sink, she can only use a few pieces from the set, the fish being some of them. She absolutely loves the fish. She plays with them even when she's not in the tub. She even likes to bring them to meals. It makes eating a little difficult...check it out:

Weekly Update

Last Saturday we hosted the first "Family Playgroup" at our house. It was so much fun. It was a chance for the husbands/dads to get to know one another and see what us moms do every Monday from 11-1. Isabella wasn't feeling up to par. We really thought she was teething. She was drooling a lot, cranky, and constantly chewing on her hand. By evening, she wouldn't eat dinner and was running a mild fever. When she woke up on Sunday morning, her fever had spiked to 103. Poor thing was miserable. We went to the Dr. on Monday and were told it was just a virus and that it would have to run its course. Her fever finally broke on Tuesday afternoon. She's just like her daddy. They both sweat through the sheets when their fever breaks. She appears to be mostly back to normal. The congestion she had for those 4 days is now finally making its way out, but a runny nose is a piece of cake at this point. She's still sort of cranky, but I have a feeling that's due to her opposition to naps. She fights tooth and nail every time we try and put her down. She eventually realizes how tired she is and falls asleep, but it takes at least 10 minutes of crying to get to that point. Because she wasn't feeling well earlier this week, I didn't take any photos of her. Now that she's better, I pulled out the camera again... The first set of pics are from "family playgroup" and the next are from the past couple of days. (and a bonus video just for fun) Enjoy!

The week in review:

Today Isabella and I ran errands after lunch. We would've done it in the morning, but she decided to randomly take a 3 hour nap. She's down again right now, but I'm not sure how long this one's going to last. Before she ate her lunch, she gave me several adorable reasons to grab my camera:



Yesterday I just felt like taking some photos of Isabella in action. She's up so much now that she gives me ample opportunities to get good shots of her:



Wednesday I went (reluctantly) to the Mommy and Me class at the synagogue. You can tell by the pictures how enthused Isabella was:



Monday afternoon, some friends of ours, Seth and Jodi Weisblatt, brought into the world a new baby boy. No, that's not a typo, they did have a boy. Of all the people I know that have had babies in the last 6 months, this is the first boy. He's going to have his pick of the litter when he's older. SO many girls to choose from. Anywho, I went to visit them at the hospital on Tuesday evening. Here's their family photo:

10 Months Old

Double digits, my friends. That's right - double digits in months. I can't believe it. Then again, I never can believe she's a month older. Isabella just went down for a nap (which are unpredictable and sporadic) so I'm taking advantage of the "free" time. At ten months old, Isabella is a little less than 16 1/2 lbs, right around 27" (I don't care what the Dr. said...she's not 26") is crawling EVERYWHERE and now pulls up onto EVERYTHING. She's starting to cruise around a bit from one place to another (holding on, of course). She even stood on her own for a couple of seconds. We are so proud of her. She's added "p's" to her limited vocabulary, but still hasn't uttered the "m" word (mama). I know it'll be worth the wait. She is eating table food (as you saw a couple of posts ago) and although it takes FOREVER to eat, she is loving every minute of it (so are the makers of Swiffer - most of the food ends up on the floor). Here are a few pictures from yesterday. Please excuse the food on her face in the first couple of pics. She'd just had mango and I made the mistake of letting her loose before wiping her mouth...that won't happen again :)

9 Month Checkup Part 2

Ok, so it's closer to 10 months...

Because Isabella had a severe ear infection at the last appointment, she couldn't have her vaccines nor could she get her ears pierced as I had hoped. Her appointment was rescheduled for today (she had to be completely finished with her antibiotic). Her ears checked out perfectly thus she was able to get her shots and her earrings. I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. She was a great sport. She cried while they did it, but was fine immediately after they finished. Here's how they look:



**If her ears look weird it's because they had to mark them with a Sharpie before piercing to ensure they were even. It'll fade...

A "Real" Meal...

Isabella is officially being weaned off of her pureed food. For dinner last night, she had baked chicken, green beans and water in a sippy cup. She did really well with the chicken (but with only 2 teeth, it took her FOREVER to chew it enough to swallow - better than choking for sure!), but had a difficult time with the green beans. I ended up giving her some of her pureed peas instead - to ensure she got her vegetable. For lunch today we tried it again. This time she had chicken, mixed veggies, sweet potato puffs and apple juice. She had a great time. Instead of her usual 5-7 minute lunch, this one lasted 35 minutes. We actually ate lunch together. It was great! Here are some photos:

Visit to San Antonio/Visit From Mimi, Papa and Aunt Meagan

Isabella had a very rare opportunity this past week/weekend. She got to see both sets of grandparents in the same week. She's a very lucky girl. David had a conference in San Antonio Monday and Tuesday of last week, so we flew down on Saturday and left Tuesday afternoon. Isabella had a runny nose for a few days and had been unusually cranky, so I decided to call the Dr. on Saturday morning, a few hours before we left. I had a haircut appointment, so David took her to the Dr. As it turns out, she had an ear infection. This pain-in-the-ass infection is the same one she had 2 months ago. She's on her third round of antibiotics. Hopefully this latest prescription will get rid of it for good. Anyway, we got permission from the Doc to go ahead with our travel plans. We thought for sure the flight would be a nightmare (the pressure in her ears), but much to our delight, she was her normal angelic self. She slept most of the flight and played the rest of it. She never ceases to amaze me.

As it turns out, Isabella's "separation anxiety" is even worse when she's sick. The entire 4 days we were there, she would go to no one but me. Not even David. It was flattering and endearing at first, but just downright annoying by the end. I couldn't even walk to the refrigerator to get her food without her freaking out. Poor Faye couldn't even hold her without her crying until the very last day.

Isabella did enjoy playing with her cousins Aaron and Arianna. She lit up when she saw either one of them. Here are a couple of pictures of her and Arianna:



We ended up having to bump up our fight time because Dallas was expecting an ice storm and we didn't want to be driving in the chaos. While in the gate area, she flirted with some nice women sitting across from us. She loved the attention. She was perfect on the flight home (slept from take off to landing) and even prompted a gentleman to tell us she was a perfect, quiet baby (which of course we already knew).

We did end up getting the ice, as predicted, but it came later that night. The roads were bad the next day so David worked from home. It's always fun when he does that.

On Thursday evening Isabella and I drove to the airport to pick up her Mimi, Papa, and Aunt Meagan. I'd put her to bed at her normal time and woke her up around 9:45 to head to the airport. She was still sleeping in the car, thankfully, but woke up as I opened the trunk to put their bags in. She didn't fall asleep again until after 1 am and even then didn't stay asleep very long. It was an awful night and none of us slept but maybe 3 hours. We ran errands on Friday morning/afternoon and went to Cafe Amore for dinner (yummy!).

Saturday I bought a new sewing machine (finally) and then we went to the park. Here are some pictures from the park:



After taking everyone to the airport on Sunday, Isabella had fun playing with my keyboard I pulled out from the closet over the weekend. She really got into it: