15 month doctor appointment

We took Isabella to the doctor today for her well visit. Here are the new stats:

Weight: 22 lbs. 4 oz. (55%)

Height: 31.5 in. (90%)

Head: 18.5 in. (90%)

Everything still looks good. She had to get two shots this time which is never fun, but she calmed down relatively fast. I did express a little concern to our doctor about Isabella's lack of words at this point. Isabella jibber jabbers all of the time. She often appears to be having conversations with people, changing the tone and inflection of her voice, using gestures, etc., we just don't understand what she's saying. She'll say 'ma ma' and 'da da' but I'm not sure she has associated those words with us since she will say them to us but also out of nowhere when she's playing. I know that she understands us because she responds to what we're saying and does what we ask her to do (most of the time). She points to everything, which is generally how we determine what she wants. She shakes her head no or pushes something away when she doesn't want it. Sometimes, when I ask her what a duckie says, she'll say "ca ca", which is the closest she can get to quack quack. But, she only does that about 50% of the time.

I guess I figured that she would have more words by now or that I would have at least noticed some associations. I suppose it is possible that she has made some associations that I haven't picked up on yet. Our doctor didn't seem too concerned about this. Isabella was very 'conversational' with her, so she thinks it's just a matter of time before the words come. I'm not worried or stressed about this, but I'm also curious if this is OK or if she's starting to fall behind a little. I guess this is the mom in me just wanting to be totally sure that my little one is on track.

Here's a tub picture from last night. Isabella really loves to stick the foam letters on the bath wall.

. . . and some more scrapbook pages. . .

Getting into stuff. . .

We set Isabella's diaper wraps in the hallway to do some air-drying. I guess Isabella decided that they didn't belong there, so she picked each of them up and brought them to us. Looks like she's learning how to clean up!
She's also good at making messes. Here she is, emptying out our cupboard of tapes and movies.
. . . proceeding to bring several of the movies to us. . . . . . and having so much fun!
That's it for us! It's been a pretty uneventful couple of days.

Sniffles

Isabella is a little sniffly today. Yesterday morning, I noticed a little moisture under her nose and as the day went on, that nose became a little more runny. She's also been sneezing quite a bit though she doesn't seem congested - she's breathing out of her nose just fine. Amazingly, she even let me suction her nose out without getting upset or even starting a wrestling match! And, when I did suction, there was not too much there. This is Isabella's second cold ever and, thankfully, it doesn't seem to be bothering her too much.

As I was folding laundry the other night, Isabella grabbed a pair of her pants and walked behind me. A few moments later, I heard her giggling so I turned around to find that she had placed her pants on top of her head. She then proceeded to walk all around and if the pants fell off, she'd put them right back on. She easily amuses herself.

She put this on all by herself too.

I call this Bella's 'Auntie Jodi face'. My younger sister used to make this face all the time when she was little. I guess Bella's following in her footsteps - she was doing it a ton during dinner last night.

She also gave me this happy smile! Love this girl!
And, here are my latest scrapbook pages. . .

Family Pajama Day

After church, we decided to have a relaxing day. What could be more relaxing than lounging around in your pajamas? So that's what we did. We called it 'Family Pajama Day'. I think we need to have more days like it. There's something nice about getting into your jammies right away, knowing that you don't have anywhere that you need to go for the rest of the day. We all need days like that once in a while. These first two pics are from just after church, just before 'Family Pajama Day' officially began. . .

"Here you go!" She hands us just about everything.

She keeps trying to grab my glasses off whenever I wear them, so I decided to get her own glasses out to play with.

Pajama Time!!! Later in the evening, Andy put his hat on Bella's head. Of course, it fell over her eyes since it's so big on her. Unable to get it off, Bella tried crawling around without being able to see where she was going. You can't tell from the picture, but she is totally laughing here. Ah! Finally got it off! Here you go Dad!

Snow Day

We actually got our first real snow of the season yesterday. Up until this point, our town has seen a combined snow accumulation of about two inches all winter! It actually looks like winter now (instead of just feeling like it). I went in to work yesterday morning and nobody was there. All the professors in my department cancelled their classes, so I decided to take the day off as well. Before I headed home, I tried calling Andy several times just to let him know that I was on my way. Every time I called, the phone would just ring and ring. I was getting frustrated because the answering machine wasn't even picking up. Finally after about 3-4 attempts, I gave up and headed home. Of course, I scared Andy a little as I walked into the apartment. You can't see the door from the living room, so he just heard the door creak and was a little alarmed that someone was just walking into our place. I told him that the phone wasn't working. I tried calling so many times. We went over to look at the phone. . . the ringer was one, the answering machine was on. . . everything was working fine. Here is the conversation that ensued:
A: Could you have dialed the wrong number?
K: Of course not. I dialed ###-##25
A: Our phone number is ###-##35
K: No it's not! Let's look at the phone list. . .
We head over to look at the phone list and, sure enough, our phone number ends with a 35. I am seriously losing it. Even now, 35 still doesn't seem right to me. But, I guess that ends the phone mystery.

I've been trying to play the piano more recently but to no avail. Bella just insists on playing whenever I do. Usually she just pounds, but this time she actually let me play a song with her fingers.
What a sweet father/daughter photo
Bella and Daddy always have so much fun playing together
Andy taught Isabella how to give kisses on command. We just have to say "Kiss" or "Isabella kiss" and she will plant one right on our lips. So adorable!
Bella (and I) made Andy a Valentine card with Isabella's handprints on it. I put the card, along with Andy's gift, on our window ledge. When Andy got home, without any prompting from me, Isabella went over and grabbed the card and brought it right over to her daddy. It was just too cute!

I've been in a scrapping mood lately (a big result of being stuck indoors all the time). Since I have so much of Isabella, I decided to have some fun with photos of our nephews.



And, last but not least, the inspiration from this one just came to me and I just had to go with the creative flow

Happy Valentine's Day!

Nursery Woes

For the past few weeks, we've attempted to take Isabella to the nursery at church. Up until now, she's stayed with me, but she's at the point now where she is getting into everything, jabbering all the time, and not interested in sitting still. I keep her with me for the beginning of the service (Andy's always up front during this time) and then take her down for the sermon (if Andy's not giving the sermon then he takes her down). A few times, I was with her in there. Last week, we left her alone. It went OK, though one of the volunteers had to sit with Isabella because she was looking a little unsure of everything. This week, I got called down just a few minutes after I got back into the service because she was crying and couldn't be comforted. Part of the problem is that the service is right during her morning nap time. The other problem is the separation anxiety. When I got there, she went right to me and snuggled with me for a long time. Those who know Isabella well know that she's not much of a snuggler - usually wants to be moving around. Eventually, she got down to play, but she didn't leave my side. We'll keep trying this nursery thing, but it's hard.

Isabella has so many fun toys to play with. She is generally so happy, which is why it was so hard to see her so sad/scared in the nursery.

It's a little blurry, but she's so cute playing in her closet.

We've had so many Daddy/Bella pictures lately that I though some Mommy/Bella pictures were needed.

My big baby! Andy crawled into Isabella's crib after we went in there to get her up from her nap. Bella played with him in there for a while, then I got her out and that's when I took the picture. I was afraid that Andy would break the crib, but I guess it is sturdier than I thought!

On Friday, Andy had his last meeting with the Ordination Review Committee (ORC). He is now technically open for a call to a church, though those don't usually happen until the spring (sometimes later). Still, it's a sign that the end is near. We're both starting to get antsy. . .

Sweet girl

Isabella is starting to hide items on us. The other day, I found some of her toys in the garbage in her room. This morning, she put my little Bible in the bathtub. We definitely have to start keeping tabs on our stuff!

Kind of random. . . we just got a bill in the mail last week for the ambulance that took us to the hospital the night that Isabella was born. Um. . . that was over 14 months ago! I checked with the insurance company and they just submitted that claim this week. Somebody over at that ambulance place isn't doing their job very well.

I got a picture of what!?

I have a photo that I'd really like to show you, but for fear that it may gross some out, I am refraining. The other night, Andy was playing with Isabella by bouncing her up and down. She was having a blast - smiling and giggling so I decided to take some pictures. At one point, I noticed a little chunky drool on her chin and then we noticed some gooey spit-up on Andy's arm. So, Isabella spit up and we didn't even notice because of all the bouncing. After we cleaned Andy up, I looked at the picture I just got and saw that I caught Isabella's spit-up midstream! There is a long, mucousy strand of spit-up going from Isabella's mouth down to Andy's shirt. The funny thing is that Isabella is smiling while she is spitting up. It's so gross but I can't stop laughing every time I see it. Here are some photos that I can show you. . .

When Isabella spots her blanket during play time, she'll go over to it and lay her head down. She knows that we find it so cute cause she always tries to get our attention whenever she does it and then she starts to giggle.

Awwww, so sweet!We gave her a little bit of juice and she loved it.
Little Miss Independent
She loves to play with these little Pooh books - carries them around everywhere.
Getting ready to go to a SuperBowl partyWe were rooting for the Bears but the Colts seem like a pretty classy team, so we're happy for them.