Isabel's First Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas here in Vienna. Grandma & Grandpa Schaeffer joined us from Aiken and we spent the day before Christmas decorating Christmas cookies and making pierogies. Yummy. Unfortunately Isabel was battling her first true illness of her life (minus a couple colds here and there) and had a fever for a few days. She didn't let it get her too down and definitely enjoyed the extra attention and getting rocked to sleep each night by Grandma. There are tons of pictures of Isabel taking in all of the Christmas fun (wrapping paper, tissue paper etc). Since it will take me a while to sort through all of hte pictures, I've tried to post a few that jumped out at me, and hopefully will give you all a taste of what Christmas was like for Isabel.

As I mentioned earlier, the wrapping paper and tissue paper were much more exciting than any of the actual gifts. Isabel was much more interested in digging the old paper out of the recycle bag we started, than opening up any new presents.

I thought we had found a winner, and that Isabel might actually open this present...

But instead it simply had to undergo the Isabel Taste Test

No, we didn't get Isabel oatmeal for Christmas. Grandma Schaeffer was right on in guessing that Isabel would decide that the oatmeal container was a wonderful toy, and not just a way to wrap a present.

Isabel received a hokie bear from Uncle Romes (a bear dressed in a hokie costume), although we are all a little worried about what kind of fan she will be, as she tossed the hokie bird aside in order to get back to playing with her tug boat and ocean friends bath toy set. Later on she seemed ok looking at the bear, and we're hoping it was just a freak incident and that we don't have a Wahoo on our hands.

That's about all for now. Hopefully I will get to some other pictures later. In the meantime its time to cut Geoffrey's hair so he won't look like a furry q-tip at a wedding we'll be attending.

Happy 2009!

Crawling, Crawling Everywhere

Isabel has been crawling everywhere and is really mastering this new "skill." Last week after I had gotten her coat and hat on, she decided to crawl after General while I was getting my coat. She always looks so pleased with her self when she makes her way out of the playroom towards her target.

Today while I was eating lunch Isabel was again crawling around. Apparently the door stop is very fascinating...I'm not sure why we even bother giving her real toys to play with!

Of course while I was busy taking pictures, Isabel decided to make a dash for the rest of my lunch. She was quite disappointed when I did not allow her to finish the carrots and green peppers.


Isabel kneeling at her activity table. It was only a week ago that she figured out that she could go from sitting to kneeling, and not 5 minutes after taking this picture I went to put the camera on a bookshelf and turned around to find her standing. Of course I didn't get a picture of that, as she was done too quickly.

Hope that everyone is staying warm! We had a bit of snow on Saturday and I'm hoping for more.

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Since I've been slow to post pictures, I grabbed a bunch that I thought were fun and posted them below. Maybe someday I'll find the time to do more regular blogging.

Before the pictures, just a little bit of news. In addition to crawling Isabel has also been babbling. She makes sounds that sounds like words, her favorite being dad, but she doesn't just use the word on dad. She will say "dad" to the pugs, to the toys, to me...whoever she happens to be looking at when she feels the need to "talk." Since she started crawling she's also been working on pulling herself up, but she has yet to be successful. She will hold on if we raise her to a standing position, but I think it will be a while before she has the strength to start cruising and then eventually walking. She continues to broaden her taste for new foods, and has moved onto chicken and mashed cauliflower with garlic. The only food she hasn't cared for is potatoes...but really, who would like potatoes if you had to eat them mashed without salt!


Isabel has discovered that the pugs love Cheerios...and therefore love being around her during cheeriotime. General wanted to help me clean up by removing the cheerios that had fallen through to Isabel's lap.



Isabel has a large collection of teddy bears, and her favorite seems to be "Alcatraz", a bear that Uncle Romes made at Build a Bear when she was born.

Story time with the bears. She is reading her favorite book...which is her favorite because it remains the only book she can chew/put in her mouth. From left to right is Dayton, Raleigh, Alcatraz & Canton. We named the bears after the cities where the people who gave her the bears are from. It makes it easier than saying "bear with the red ribbon" and is a nice way to talk about the people. Not picture is Beaufort the pug and Odgen the bunny.

Isabel is fascinated by my laptop, and if I am typing with her around, she now tries to get near it and hit the keyboards. She has erased a few emails and even hit send before I was done with one. Luckily it was only to Uncle Kevin.

We spent a lovely Thanksgiving day in Baltimore with Geoffrey's Aunt Monica, Uncle Howard, Cousins Ben & Jack and his immediate family. Isabel's favorite part of her first Thanksgiving was playing with Jack's drum sticks. She went to bed right before we sat down for dinner, so unfortunately didn't get to have a taste of her first Turkey.

And here are a few more pictures of Isabel just being her normal happy self.

Isabel now loves crawling over to the gate where the dogs usually start hanging out close to dinnertime, begging to be fed. Her face lights up the minute she sees a pug over there and now that she is mobile, nothing will stop her from getting to the bars to see "her pugs."

Finally, if you click here, you can see a video I shot of Isabel crawling. She certainly isn't going to be winning any speed races, but slow and steady gets her where she needs to go.

Mini-update

I'm sure it appears that I have forgotten about blogging, but I promise that is not the case! Isabel started crawling about a week and a half ago and things have been a bit crazy doing the frantic baby proofing that should have been done months ago. We've also had to undo some of the usual Christmas decorating (candle lamps in the window).

I plan to post some pictures and video later today...but am not making any promises :).

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and is already enjoying the magic of the Christmas season.

Baths are fun!

I don't think that this picture needs any description :).

I can't believe that the holidays are fast approaching and that Isabel will be 8 months old in a few days. We really need to get on the move with child proofing. A few of Isabel's baby friends came over yesterday and two of the girls are crawling. It helped talking to them and finding out the things that they have been going after (note to self, we can't leave the empty dog bowls on the ground...yucky!). Isabel continues to get up on all four and rock, and will move her arms but hasn't figured out what to do with her legs yet. It is definitely fun to watch her little mind at work.

Happy Halloween!

Isabel here. I'm not crawling yet but getting very close. I love getting up on my hands and knees and moving my arms to get to different objects. Eventually I get frustrated and revert to laying on my belly and stretching.

Mommy got me some new toys...one of my favorites is this dog that makes noise and plays music when I squeeze his ear, tummy, arms and legs. He's great!

Here are some pictures of me helping mommy with the pumpkin!

Today Mommy and Grandma took me to my school to join with my classmates in the annual halloween parade. I got to ride around in the 6 seat stroller. I sat next to Michael who was dressed as a GT yellow jacket. I reminded him that the Hokies beat them this year :). One of my teachers, Miss Debbie dressed like a pumpkin.

I got to see my friend Jack too! We enjoyed playing together on the mat at school while Mommy and Anne enjoyed some treats.

Everyone liked my dragon costume.

I've been very vocal today and have been making lots of new sounds. Jack and I had a great conversation at school, but I'm not going to tell you what we talked about :).

I had a great morning with Grandma. We sang songs, played with my toys and ate some yummy food. Here's a video mommy took of me after eating my squash, as she was quite amused with my new vocal talents. http://s206.photobucket.com/albums/bb94/heatheranne226/?action=view&current=MVI_4046.flv

I also went trick or treating tonight at Mr & Mrs Lyons house. They gave me a paper dixie cup for my treat and I enjoyed chewing it until Mommy took it away.

Ok, I am up past my bedtime so should probably go to sleep!

Random Pictures

I'm hoping to get a real blog update later this week, but for now figured I would put some random Isabel pictures up. Enjoy!

Martha & Patrick's Wedding

We traveled to the Eastern Shore of Maryland this past weekend to celebrate the marriage of Martha & Patrick. It was a beautiful wedding and we had a great time. Isabel was quite the party animal and decided napping was not going to be a part of the regularly scheduled events. I think she wore herself out and was pretty happy to get home to her own bed.









Martha's sister, Amy, decorated these pumpkins in honor of the big day.




After the ceremony, the bridal party took a boat to the yacht club, where the reception was being held. The weather was perfect and the boat ride was a nice time to relax before the reception.





The new Mr. & Mrs. Callahan :)





Carla and Jonathan, who were married just over 2 months ago.
All three of us are now Mrs :)





The Buescher Family.

The meal ended with this gorgeous sunset and tben the dancing began!

I Love Jet Noise

Thursday we headed to VA Beach after rush hour had died down to spend a long weekend in VA Beach with Grandma & Grandpa Buescher, and to watch the Oceana Air Show.

Friday we were lucky enough to have our good friend Elliott take us on a tour of his squadron, The Red Rippers', hangar. We got to see some neat jets up close and I actually had fun doing something airplane related :).

This is the type of airplane that Elliott flys. I should know what type of "F" it is, but I don't. Hopefully Isabel will do better with her aircraft identification skills.

After the hangar, Elliott arranged for some simulator time. Cameras aren't allowed, but it was pretty darn cool. Geoffrey got to sit in a real cockpit with Elliott as his co-pilot and he got to fly around Oceana and even practiced landing on a jet. I am worried that his MS Flight Simulator isn't going to be hacking it and he'll be asking for a real simulator for Christmas. I have a feeling that the price is a little out of reach though.

Saturday morning we woke up to wind and grey skies. That didn't stop us and we headed to the base for the first day of the airshow. As you can see, Isabel was so excited to be at an air show. She didn't seem to mind it though, and I have a feeling she will enjoy it more in the years to come.

Here is Isabel with an Osprey. It took off Sunday and Geoffrey, Grandpa B and Uncle Romes went to watch it.

Isabel and I didn't stay long, but we did stop by the Red Rippers' booth on the way out to haggle Elliott, who had the duty of manning the booth. We had hoped to get something for Isabel, but their stock was limited and Geoffrey was the only one who found something in his size.

The jets might not have been all that exciting, but getting to take a real bath instead of bathing in her baby bathtub was definitely the highlight of Isabel's day. She squealed with delight, splashing all around and making a complete mess of Mommy.

We've also been full speed with solid foods. After the avocado, we introduced rice cereal and have now moved onto bananas. Yummy. Isabel also got a taste of some salsa at a Mexican place Friday night (at the suggestion of Grandpa B), but she wasn't too impressed. Nor was she impressed with the chip we also let her lick. Bananas on the other hand are quite tasty and she has gobbled them up. This week we'll be trying sweet potatoes, peas and maybe some apples.