Better Late Than Never

Sorry for the tardiness of this post. I'm not really sure where the last week has gone. Not a whole lot is new in the Tawil household. Isabella is walking a lot more and has added a few words to her vocabulary. She now says:

Eyes - eyeeeeeez
No - Niy niy niy (almost always in sets of three and accompanied by a headshake)
Baaah(like the sound a sheep makes) - ah ah ah ah
Moo - Maaah
Cock-a-doodle-doo - thckathckathck
Moose - maaah
Doggy - daddy
Dolly - daddy

A week shy of her 15 month birthday, she weighs in just under 19 lbs. I'm not sure how tall she is, but I'll find out a week from Wednesday at her 15 mo. checkup. She still has the same 6 teeth she's had since the beginning of May, but we can tell there are new ones on the way.

We got back from Kansas City a week ago yesterday. (As usual, Izzy was a perfect angel on our flights to and from.) We were there having our make-up celebration of my birthday from when we couldn't go in May b/c of the swine flu. My parents surprised me with an incredible birthday cake from the woman who made David and my wedding cake. For those of you who remember how amazing it was - the birthday cake was just as good and looked fabulous. She's made it to match my invitations for my surprise party (which didn't end up happening). While we were there, we threw in a Father's Day Brunch.

Isabella did some fun things while she was visiting KC. It was brutally hot and rained the first 2 days, but we didn't let that dampen our trip. We took her to a petting zoo for the first time and she absolutely LOVED it. We went to the farmer's market and picked out some fresh fruits and veggies. She ate KC BBQ for the first time and, no surprise, she loved that as well. David got to play golf 3 times while we were there (4 if you count the trip to the driving range). He was in heaven. My Dad actually "played" with him when he went on Saturday. I've got to give my Dad some credit, it takes a strong guy to go to a golf course having never played anything other than driving range shots. He did really well. David and I actually had a date while we were there. It was so nice to be alone. We went to see The Hangover. I was very skeptical going in to it, but was pleasantly surprised how funny it was. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Here are some pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

P.S. The last few pictures are of Isabella's first bang trim. I did it myself, if you couldn't tell. She wouldn't hold still, so they're a little shorter and more uneven than I anticipated. There's also a picture of her "wearing" my tank top. She was under the impression it was a necklace...

Rain, Rain Go Away!

It's hard to imagine a day where it rains for 18 straight hours - and not just rains, pours! Well, today (and yesterday) was one of those days. It started last night around 6:30p (of course David was at the gym). Isabella and I noticed the wind was picking up a bit. Ok, maybe she didn't really notice and it was just a coincidence that when I asked her if she thought it was windy, she replied "yaya." Anyway, the rain came down in sheets, the wind gusted up to 80 mph in some areas, and we even saw (or heard) some hail. All of this for 18 hours. The lights went out around 7pm last night, but fortunately, only for about 20 seconds. Long enough for me to gather myself and not freak out Isabella. She wasn't phased one bit. She probably thought it was cool. If all this rain wasn't bad enough, I've been fighting a pretty severe sinus infection for the last couple of days and haven't been feeling all that great. Something about the weather and the illness just made for a lousy day. I needed a pick-me-up, to say the least. That, my friends, is why you have children. Isabella doesn't care what the weather is outside or how bad I'm feeling (which isn't always a good thing). She's always happy and ready to bring a smile to my face. She was just doing some really cute things so I grabbed the video camera to capture them. Here are some cuts of what I filmed:





**This random photo was taken last week - she's even prim and proper when she sleeps...

14 Months...going on 14 years...

Today is Isabella's 14 mo. birthday. At this point, she has mastered standing up by herself in the middle of a room. She's attempted walking several times, but the most consecutive steps she's taken is 9. Her vocabulary is growing every day and as of now, is as follows:

banana: anana
Blueberry: brrrb
Strawberry: sbrrrrb
Raspberry: rrrrb
bye-bye: bah bah
Hi: hieeeee
Bear: bah
Cuddles: dee dee
more: Maaaaah


Until today, there were only 2 food items she wouldn't eat: banana and shrimp & sausage gumbo (David let her try it one night). I keep trying to re-introduce bananas b/c it's not the flavor she doesn't like, it's the texture. Much to my surprise, she let me try a banana again and this time, liked it so much she requested "maaaah."

Here is a video of Isabella standing up (over and over and over again): (I should apologize though. You'll notice her starting to walk at the end of the video and the camera shutting off. Believe me, it wasn't my mistake. The camera ran out of memory JUST in the nick of time. Gotta love technology sometimes.)



This past weekend we traveled to Austin for the wedding of David's longtime friend Greg Carlson and Melissa McCoy. We arrived at the hotel around 2:45 where we were met by Faye and Aunt Fonda. David insisted I not cry until Isabella was out of sight so she didn't start to cry. I really thought I'd gotten over the I-Don't-Want-to-Let-Her-Go stage because I'd really kept my composure putting her in Faye's car and closing the door. I was wrong. The moment the car started to drive away, I burst into tears. Oh well...maybe next time.


The rehearsal for this wedding was one for the record books. I've never witnessed a more rigid, strict, detailed format. They left no stone unturned. They had it "choreographed" from every head turn to each foot placement. It was quite interesting. It made me so thankful I had free reign at my own wedding. From the rehearsal, we drove to Driftwood, TX; home of the original Salt Lick BBQ restaurant (and the rehearsal dinner venue The Thurman Mansion). David and I had a bright idea earlier that day to stop and eat lunch at Rudi's BBQ (it's sort of a tradition). We hadn't even considered the idea they might be serving BBQ for dinner. Let's just say we've had enough BBQ to last us, well, 2 weeks (we'll be in KC and Fiorella's always calls our name). The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun, but I forgot my camera so I have no pictures from it. Sorry.

David and I spent Saturday together doing something we hadn't done in a long time. We went to San Marcus' Prime Outlets. Wow was it everything we'd hoped for :) We found pictures for our Living Room (ok, originally they were for the Den, but when we got home last night and unwrapped them, we fell in love with them in the L.R.) at the Crate and Barrel Outlet. We found other great deals at various stores as well. We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready. David headed off to the church (he was an usher) and I went an hour later with Michelle Daniels (her hubby Ryan was also in the wedding.) The ceremony was beautiful (it should have been considering the rigidity of the rehearsal). Due to strict Church policy I couldn't take any photographs there, so you'll just have to take my word as to how nice the ceremony was. From there we went to the reception at the Four Seasons Hotel. We knew from the venue it was going to be nice. Everything was done in great taste and was very simple and elegant. The beautiful evening was capped off with a unique send off for the bride and groom. Instead of the usual rice or bubbles, they used sparklers. It was pretty cool...

Here are the photos from the reception: