Preview

Auntie Kate sent me a few of the photographs that her talented friend Ryan Morris took while we were in Tampa... can't wait to see the rest!

Our only pics of Tampa

So as you might expect from a trip to visit Auntie Kate, Belle's paparrazza took over 500 pictures... but Auntie Kate also managed to download all of the pictures to her computer and simultaneously delete them from my camera, so for now, these are the only pics I have from our trip (Gigi took these while we were swimming in the hotel pool).

The good news is that Kate's friend Ryan (see Morris family blog link) is a fabulous professional photographer and agreed to take some one-year photos for us... he took over 900 pics during our afternoon and has burned the best images to a disc that Auntie Kate will be sending us soon... so I'll post a few when I get them!

Isabelle's first flight!

Isabelle and I ventured to Tampa last weekend to visit Auntie Kate... Miss Belle did very well on her first flights, sleeping for half the flight on each of them, and entertaining herself with the armrests, tray tables, kids behind us, and Cheerios for the other half!

A visit from the Dillers

Barb and Kevin Diller and their almost-3 daughter Micaela came to visit us this week from New Jersey! I grew up down the street from Barb, so it was fun to get together as "adults." Barb supervised Micaela's pine cone pick-up activities, and Belle helped to pile them up. Then it was time for a bath! Isabelle's first shared tub-time - fun!

Pretty in pink

"Remind me why we're taking these photos...?"

The Birthday Girl!!

What a difference a year makes! Isabelle's latest, at 12 months:

20 pounds, 12 ounces (45th %)

28 3/4 inches (45th %)

(her head is also the 45th %, but I don't remember the measurement!)

Isabelle is motoring around on her hands and knees or cruising along furniture, but she hasn't taken any steps yet. She's getting better at standing on her own, and she climbs up and down the stairs better than I'd like. Her signing repetoire includes doggy, hi, fan, more, and light. She did something this morning that I think may have been an attempt at banana, but we'll see. Her spoken words are limited to hi and doggy, with some indiscriminate mamas and dadas. She's eating whatever's in sight and seems to like meatloaf (or any ground turkey meal), pasta, and blueberry pancakes the best. She has four teeth (two top, two bottom front) and two visible on top on the way.

Some birthday pics below... the full album is at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=57f339w1.cr1tamz9&x=0&y=-smp9px&localeid=en_US

Guests!

We kept the celebration low-key this year... just our friends Jessica and Jason. Thanks for helping us celebrate! (Jessica also took about 350 pictures for us - thank you!)

Dinner!

Isabelle entertained us during dinner...

Cake!

Isabelle got a mini version of the super-duper carrot cake I made the night before... she did fairly well with it, first eating some, then breaking it apart, then smushing it between her fingers! The dogs were actually a bit disappointed that there wasn't more of a mess.

Presents!

After cake it was on to opening presents... Isabelle refused to get dressed again after the cake clean-up, thus the diaper-only attire.


"Is this for me?"


















"Yay!! A llama fur teddy bear from Ecuador! I bet no one else has one of these!"














"I LOVE it!"






"Thank you Auntie Jessica and Uncle Jason!"

Some birthday family photos

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ISABELLE!!!

Our little bambina is a year old! I will post some pics tomorrow night.

To prepare for the festivities tomorrow, I've spent the past 3 hours since she went to bed whipping up a little organic carrot cake. I got the recipe from our Super Baby Food book, and with ingredients like carrots, whole wheat flour, wheat germ, apple juice and dried apricots, should be good, right ; )

Well, I'm not a first-rate baker to begin with, and even allowing for the strange ingredients, this cake is just sad. Miserably sad. Sad enough that it's hilarious. Jay and I stopped laughing long enough to take a picture. Jason has sworn he will not take a bite of it.














It doesn't help that I was too impatient to wait for the cake to cool totally before icing it. Also doesn't help that the icing is a weird consistency (it's made of cream cheese, apple juice, and some other interesting stuff). The carrot on top is just to add to the splendor of the cake.

[For all of you concerned that we are depriving Isabelle of a true 1st birthday experience, don't worry. We do have a cupcake for her to dig into.]

Happy Birthday Chandler!

Isabelle's buddy Chandler turned one last Thursday and had a little party today. We were able to make it for the tail-end of the festivities and Isabelle had fun trying out all of Chandler's new (and old) toys. Thanks Lindsay and Derek for inviting us to help celebrate!

Girly-girl

Jay's Aunt Susie and Uncle Joe sent Isabelle's birthday present a little early... she LOVES these little curly bows that came with the outfit, though she likes crawling around with them in her hands better than wearing them in her hair. I had to snap these pics quickly while Jay was distracting her.

Isabelle's going to be a big sister!

And the new addition is a boy!!! We're so excited! Here are some of the first pics of our baby boy...






































Happy April Fools Day!

So there's no human baby on the way (and no plans for #2, for all of you inquiring minds out there), but Isabelle does have a new 9-month old (not-so) little brother named Gus. He came to us just over two weeks ago through the Wilson County Humane Society and Petfinder.com and we fell in love with his goofy gangliness the minute we met him. He is 40 pounds of puppy love! He's half Standard Poodle and half Basenji - or so they tell us. Poodles don't shed and Basenjis don't bark, but Gus does both of course.

Aside from his inability to navigate *around* Isabelle (he's just as likely to go over or through her), he and Belle seem to be pretty good together. He lets her stick her fingers up his nose and she lets him lick the smashed food off of her hands. Quinn, for the most part, has resigned herself to this new bundle of energy in the house, and we continually marvel at the fact that Quinn is now the "good" obedient/trustworthy dog in the family - for those of you who know her or her reputation, that's scary!