Walking the Halls

I'm going to assume that Isabel was inspired by our long run this morning to do a bit of her own "training." Isabel has been walking more and more each day, but tonight she took it to a whole new level and was intent on walking from one end of the house to the other, which she did over and over and over...complete with her duck in tow.

Be sure to have the sound on, as she makes some pretty silly noises while walking...and her little feet slapping the floor are also pretty funny to listen to. You can also see that she is um very graceful..."about as graceful as a drunk elephant" as Uncle Eric would say.

Here she is leaving her bedroom heading down the hall to our bedroom...well really to the gate to hopefully catch a glimpse of her beloved pugs.

And now here she is leaving the bedroom making a beeline for the craft room. (Time to start keeping this door shut until we reorganize so that all of dad's dangerous model building stuff can be kept behind closed and locked doors.

Mother's Day, Coffee Yogurt and "NO"

How’s that for random activities and thoughts.

Where does time go? I feel like it hasn’t been that long since I blogged, but its been almost 2 weeks.

Although I don’t have a picture, Isabel survived her first night away from mom, or rather, Mom survived her first night away from Isabel. 2 weekends ago Coelle and I headed down to Blacksburg for a quick visit with Katie before her baby arrives in a few weeks. We had a nice time and I did better than I thought and didn’t even shed a tear. Isabel did great and called to give me lots of updates (with the help of Dad), which was nice.

We had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend, which started out with a visit from Megan, Sam and their kids. There was a lot of action between Ben (4), Nathan (23 mos), Isabel and Nicholas (5 mos), but I did manage to snap a few pictures of Isabel and Nicholas. She was fascinated by him and would talk to him, point at him and “pet” him. Too cute.


Late on in the afternoon she took a walk around the backyard with Dad and picked some herbs, which she carried with her on the excursion.

Sunday I woke up to blue skies and a mother’s day card from Isabel, with a picture of a camera lens that is on its way to the house. She sure is setting the bar high, as last year she got me a GPS. After attending mass Geoffrey made me a delicious Mexican bagel (his own creation) and we just enjoyed a relaxing day around the house. Uncles Kevin and Eric joined us for dinner and even brought a Mother’s Day cake. Life is good.

Uncle Kevin and Isabel reading one of her "touchy feely books." Here they are feeling the dog's shiny collar.

Uncle Eric hugging Isabel who is hugging her penguin.

Helping mommy stir the oatmeal pancake batter.

And now for a few funnies. Isabel is becoming increasingly interested in everything that we eat…especially the stuff she knows she isn’t getting. I am a big fan of Dannon Natural Coffee yogurt and every time I pull out the yellow cup she points and expects to get some. Yesterday I decided to give her a taste, figuring she wouldn’t like the coffee flavor and that would be that. Well, as you can see, I was wrong. She liked the taste I gave her, and then tried to lick my empty cup clean!

And last but not least, a little story. Isabel has developed a bad habit (no idea where from, as she doesn’t do it at school), that goes something like this.

1. Isabel decides she is done with dinner (only in her head though, we have no warning sign).
2. Takes a sip of milk
3. A great big grin spreads across her face
4. Mouth opens and the milk begins to dribble out
5. Once the milk starts dribbling, she makes a sputtering noise with her lips so that milk sprays everyone (even landing on her head) and shakes her head from side to side with delight.

It is so hard not to laugh, so we usually tell her no, look away, hide our face behind a napkin. Monday night, Geoffrey was on his game and pointed his finger at her accompanied by a very stern “Isabel NO.” I was afraid she might start crying, as it’s the tone of voice we usually use on the pugs when they have been bad. Instead, Isabel broke out into a hysterical, almost mocking laugh. It was too funny and I couldn’t contain myself. Guess we gotta practice a little more on keeping a straight face.

Well, Isabel is napping which means I should be getting back to some chores. We are enjoying some beautiful weather and even went on an hour run this morning (Mommy was a little overzealous and should have turned around a bit sooner though...oh well!).

Pug Love

If there's one (well two) thing Isabel loves, it is her pugs. She says the word "dog", looks for them as soon as we come down the stairs and often will stop whatever she is doing to attempt to pet them. Sometimes they let her other times they just find somewhere else to sleep :).

We all went out back this morning before it got too hot (its 90 here today, yuck) and I set Isabel on the ground. She was just delighted to be outside with her dogs and I can only think of how much fun she'll have once she can actually run around with them.








And finally, a little video (not the best as Isabel wasn't screaming with delight as she usually does), of her watching to dogs in action.

Live, Laugh, Love

Sometimes in life things hit you harder than others, and Monday was one of those times. Monday night, I received the heart wrenching news that one of my "blog friends" (a friend of Katie's whom I'd met a few times, but we kept up with one anothers families via our blogs) had lost her youngest son, 3.5 month old Lukas, most likely due to SIDS. Although I was not close with Natasha or her family, the news hit me hard and I could not help but mourn the loss of Lukas' sweet life. In the days that followed I read Natasha's blog updates and was amazed over and over by her love and faith in God, and her choice to continue to live and love, despite her family's great loss. So this week I've chosen to really focus on all that is good in the world, especially in our own little world, because despite all the bad there is so much good that God gives us each and every day, if we take the time to recognize it.

"LIVE every moment, LAUGH every day, LOVE beyond words."

Easter Part II & Ergo

Grandma B sent me a few photos that she took this weekend so I decided to make another post. One of the pictures also reminded me that I left out a very important piece of information about Isabel...she has started walking! She took her first steps 2 Fridays ago, and Geoffrey was there to witness it. It was my of my work Fridays, and although I was a little sad about missing it, I was very happy that Geoffrey got to see it. We kept it hush hush in hopes of surprising Grandma, but Isabel wasn't that intersted in showing her new skills, though did walk a few steps right after this picture was taken below, early Friday morning.



Isabel deep in thought.

Although she wouldn't walk around by herself, she sure loved walking with Dad.

And now a couple shots of my new favorite toy. If you had told me before I was pregnant that I was going to be one of "those" baby carrying woman I wouldn't have believed it. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with it, but I somehow thought those devices were for hippies. Boy was I wrong. I first used my Moby Wrap a bit, though got frustrated with it and probably didn't give it a fair shake, since Megan loves hers. Then I moved onto my beloved Maya Ring Sling (the bright green thing). The Maya is great except Isabel is getting to be a little heavy for carrying her on my hip. Enter the ERGO baby carrier. I saw Megan using this at the mall a few weeks ago while pushing her other two kids in the double stroller. Besides being ultra impressed with her ability to transport 3 kiddos, I couldn't stop thinking/dreaming about how much fun Isabel would have riding around my back. I had to have one. So I ordered myself an ERGO and it arrived while we were gone. I got to try it out tonight and my oh my, am I smitten. It is fantastic. It was easy to get her onto my back, Isabel LOVED it and I loved being able to walk around, chop up veggies for dinner and even pull something out of the oven. Once the weather turns nice it will also work well for walking the dogs. And, should there be additional kiddos in the future, the ERGO can also be used in the front and on the side, so between my 3 (well 4 if you count the Bjorn but I'm not a huge fan of it and doubt I'll ever use it again) baby carriers I should be set for life.

I "think" you can click on the picture to enlarge it. Not the greatest shot, but it was a self portrait using a mirror.

happy easter

We spent a wonderful long weekend in VA Beach for the Easter holiday (well, minus the ride down but we won't dwell on that).

I didn't have the camera out too much since we had to be extra mindful of the non-baby proofed surroundings. After living in a baby proofed house its easy to forget what normal living used to be like.

Here's Isabel and her own personal airplane, and the picture doesn't do it justice. Grandpa Buescher made this airplane for Isabel out of paper (with the help of some wire) and added a lot of personal touches. It is called "Guckbucket Air" (something Grandpa calls Isabel), has a picture of Isabel on it, says "sweet pea" (our nickname for Isabel) on the cowling and is just all around super great. The propeller even spins which of course is Isabel's favorite part.


The next series of pictures are just too funny not to show. This is Uncle Romes' attempt to read to Isabel from his Japanese Aircraft book. As you can see, it held her attention for about 2 seconds.

Isabel was quite concerned as to how the Easter Bunny would find her, but sure enough he left a basket full of goodies just for her, which she enjoyed exploring after mass on Sunday.

The Easter Bunny brought her some yummy treats...which Mommy had the pleasure of eating :).

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter too!

Busy, Busy Weekend

We had a very busy, but extremely fun weekend. Although I'd rather be enjoying a bowl of ice cream, I decided to do a few pictures and then make that my end reward :).

This first picture isn't from the weekend, but shows Isabel's "new do." One of Isabel's teachers has been commenting about how Isabel needs a haircut...except I really didn't want to give Isabel bangs. Another teacher knew this and came up with this solution. It normally sits to the side instead of straight up, and is the perfect solution to keeping her hair out of her eyes. She doesn't mess with it either, which surprised me.


Friday evening Isabel and I drove to the Vienna Metro to pick up my Uncle Tim, Aunt Kathy and cousin Angela, who had spent part of spring break in DC proper doing the tourist thing. We spent the afternoon hanging out (while enjoying some beverages) and ended the night with pizza. I wasn't on my best photo game, but did manage to snap a shot of Angela and Isabel. Angela was so good with Isabel and we are looking forward to seeing them all again in June.


Saturday morning Isabel and I were up bright and early (per Isabel's lovely 5:30 wake-up) and started preparations for Katie & Michael's baby shower. Isabel was a great helper and played with her kitchen toys while I whipped up frosting for the cupcakes and made a white bean dip (yummy!). Coelle came over before the big event and everything went off great, and it seems as though everyone had a good time.

Isabel helping by riding around in the sling while we did the final preparations.

Laughing at the silly game, though the picture is more to show Isabel in her super cute outfit that Tim, Kathy & Angela brought. The little capris are just too much...so I decided I needed to do laundry that Saturday morning so she could wear her new outfit to the party.

The mommy and daddy to be.

I'll give you one guess as to what is in those bottles...and no, it is not apple juice.


Sunday was much more of a relaxing day. Anne, Jon and Jack joined us for lunch and we hung out on the sun porch watching Isabel and Jack play together...and by play together I mean play next to one another.
Jack pointing to Geoffrey and "grunting"...which translated to "Geoffrey, build me another tower."

Jack building a tower of his own while Isabel tests out the quality of the yogurt containers (which we have been saving to repurpose for starting seeds...but they happen to entertain children as well)
Isabel hard at work on her own tower.

Later on in the afternoon the uncles joined us at the house. We grilled since the weather was so nice and even lit the fire pit. I cant' even begin to tell you how happy I am that the weather is turning warm and that grilling season is here.

Eric and Isabel identifying animals. As you can see, Isabel loves her red chair. She will be playing away in the middle of the room with a toy, musical instrument etc and all of a sudden get the desire to read. She'll drop what she is doing, crawl over and onto the chair, turn herself around so she is sitting in the chair and just smile and wait whoever is in the room comes over to sit down beside her with a book.

Uncle Kevin playing with the hippo...I mean playing with Isabel and the hippo :)


Not from this weekend, but this morning Isabel was having a great time sticking her feet in her mouth while waiting for me to come and read to her.


And now that bowl of ice cream is calling my name...