Shower Weekend in San Antonio

This past weekend was the pre-wedding festivities for Rachel (Randy's fiance). We left for San Antonio Friday morning. Despite a 40-minute traffic delay in Dallas, stopping for lunch in Hillsboro and the usual inexplicable slowdown in Downtown Austin, we made in to San Antonio in less than 6 hours. Isabella still hadn't fully recovered from her illness and on top of that was in the process of getting 4 new teeth. That said, she was an absolute angel in the car. She slept 80% of the ride and didn't cry until we were seconds from the Tawils' store. Not bad. She was so excited to see her cousins from McAllen. She hadn't seen them since June. She even got to take a bath with her cousin Allison. Because she was sleeping in the same room as David and I, none of us slept very well the first night (nor did we sleep well the second night for that matter). As tired as we were, we still managed to have a great time. Saturday afternoon was Rachel's shower hosted by Dawn, Sandy and myself. It turned out perfectly. I think it's safe to say everyone enjoyed themselves. While I was at the shower, David was at his grandmother's house attempting to recreate a picture of him and Sara in a green chair as babies, but with Isabella and Rachel (Sara's daughter). The girls are precious, but weren't as keen on the recreation idea as Sara and I were. They made their own version of the "green chair" photo. Later that evening were the bachelor and bachelorette parties. Dawn, Sandy and I stayed out as late as possible - 11:30p. I was so exhausted I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was sort of embarrassing. We had a really good time, though. Sunday morning was Rachel's second shower at the same place I had mine. It was beautifully done (as was mine) and everyone had a good time. We hit the road immediately afterwards and got back to Dallas around 7:00p. We all slept really well Sunday night...

Here are the images from the weekend:

Visit to KC

For the first time in recent history, we had a planned trip to KC where we had nothing scheduled for the weekend. We were planning on relaxing and enjoying being with family. It was going to be perfect. Apparently, G-d had something else planned. The night before we left, I completely lost my voice and it didn't return until several days after we got back in Dallas. Within hours of our arrival in KC, Isabella's nose started running and she began running a 101 degree fever. Woo Hoo!!! I don't know what it is about traveling that makes Isabella sick EVERY TIME. Is it the plane ride? Is it the stress? Whatever it is really sucks. As bad as it sounds, however, we still had a great time. Isabella was her usual "social" self and her only downfall was her inability to get a good night's sleep. When Isabella doesn't sleep, no one sleeps. Despite our sheer exhaustion, we enjoyed almost every minute of the trip. Here are some pictures and video from the trip:

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Isabella made it through a week of yogurt with no adverse effects. Not only is she sleeping through the night again, she's napping better too! She's back to taking 2 naps a day. It's fantastic! She started cheese a couple of days ago and once we get through 5 days of that with no reaction, we can try real milk! She's been drinking soy milk in the afternoon and at night until we're sure she can handle whole milk. She LOVES it. I've never seen her take a bottle like she does with soy milk. It's great.

Last Sunday we went to Josselyn Schuler's naming. Isabella got dressed up and had a great time. She wasn't interested in the ceremony, so I took her in another room to play so she didn't disrupt the festivities. Once the serious part was over, she came back out and played with everyone else. She LOVES people.





Saturday night we decided to go out to dinner, just the 3 of us. We went to Houlihan's. It was so much fun. We ordered off of the kids' menu for the first time. They have a great kids' menu there. Each meal comes with a drink and applesauce. We ordered Isabella some chicken fingers (no fries) and took the breading off. She loved the moist chicken. She also learned (very quickly I might add) how to drink from a straw (which she loved). It was just so much fun. She's great to take out. She flirts with all of the people in the restaurant. She's such a social butterfly.

11 Month Update

As it turns out, Isabella's ear infection had cleared. That begged the question: Why isn't she sleeping through the night then? It's been a good 3 weeks since she slept through the night. She's been waking up around 3 or 4 and staying up for at least an hour or so. I asked the Dr. what the cause might be. Apparently she isn't getting enough calories throughout the day. Isabella IS over the 17 lb. mark, but because her percentile has dropped in the last 3 months, the Dr. has suggested I add yogurt to her diet to put on a little bit of weight. She really seems to like it so far. Let's just hope it doesn't mess with her digestive system like it did with mine when I was little...

11 Friggin' Months Old

Isabella is almost a year old. I think that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. At 11 months, Isabella has added "MaMa" to her vocabulary (although she's only said it twice...it still counts), is now cruising a bit, but still seems to be a ways away from walking (doesn't really seem all that interested since crawling gets her where she needs to go), she mimics "head shaking" if I nod at her, and is starting to imitate sounds and facial expressions. Believe it or not, I think she may finally be 17 pounds. We go to the Dr. tomorrow for an ear check to see if the infection has cleared (which I suspect it has not). I'll update her current weight tomorrow after her appointment. Isabella was patient enough to let me take ONE picture of her this morning. You'll notice she is sporting a pretty cute outfit...David and I had a bet yesterday that the winner of the Texas/Kansas basketball game yesterday would get to dress Isabella in that school's colors today. We all know who won that bet...



Some of you have expressed an interest in a video of Isabella waving and blowing kisses. She was nice enough to let me capture both this morning:

I Saw the Sign...

For those of you who may not be familiar with the new fad of teaching sign language to babies, let me clue you in on something: By G-d it actually works. It's amazing. Even before babies can say their first word, they can communicate. I'd been teaching Isabella how to indicate she wants "more" food. I've shown her the sign for it for a couple of months and two days ago, she did it. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but she then did it several more times. Here's a video of her:




Isabella has also discovered the wonders of crawling into the breakfast room. Before today, she was content sitting in the den playing with her toys. But when one of her toys rolled into the breakfast room she actually crawled after it. She liked the new scenery so much she decided to check out the rest of the room: