So much has changed...

since the last time I posted anything. Isa was beginning swim classes and she is growing up so quickly. I just dropped her off at school (can you believe it - SCHOOL!) It's only 3 half days a week, but that's huge to me and Chris. I can't sing the schools praises enough. The teachers and other staff are incredible and we are thrilled that her first experiences with school are positive ones.

Her second birthday is coming up in a few weeks. Last year was great - we had her baptism on the same day as her first birthday. We were so blessed to have friends and family there. Our house was packed and we loved every minute!! She had a big party with inflatables, cakes, and games. This year we are going to downsize it a bit - still with family present, but a small cookout should do the trick. I told Chris I probably won't do another party of that magnitude until she turns 15 or 16.

For those of you that are still reading this, my sincerest apologies for not posting more often.

Our little swimmer.

We have signed Isa up for swimming lessons and she is enjoying them. She's still trying to figure out why Mommy is in the pool with her. It's a lot of fun for both of us and the other little boy in her class has appropriately been nicknamed "Mad Max". He is just too funny - splashes and shouts the entire class. After staring at him for awhile, then Isa joins in the splashing with him.

Here's a pic of our little bathing beauty...

Time Flies....

Isabella has certainly has us on our toes! We have been having such a great time with her and we are just amazed at how she is already 7 months old. I was looking through pictures and videos and just shocked at how quickly the time has passed. Plans are already in the works for her 1 year birthday. CRAZY!

A quick recap - I've been bad about updating the blog. We had a wonderful Christmas with almost the entire family at our house. Isa had her fill of attention and love from everyone. She's been blessed to have all of the family taking care of her - Gram (Charlene), Abuela (Delma), Yaya, and Abuelo (Wayne). She loves her Daddy and Isa days where Chris gets to hang out with her all day.

I'll have my first work trip coming up and I'm dreading being away from her for 6 days. We shall see how I cope!

Here are some recent pics of the munchkin...

Happy Fall!!

Isa visited her first pumpkin patch on Saturday. We had a great time with her Abuela and Abuelo at Huber's Family Farm.

Lovin' it!

Isabella has certainly turned our world upside down in the most wonderful way! She has been a blessed little girl with all of our family just head over heels over her and coming to visit her. We can't believe that it has already been 2 months since her arrival!



Here's a picture of her giving us one of her smiles that just melts your heart.

Goodbye Russell...

1998-2008


It is with great sadness that I report that our favorite Jack Russell, Russell, passed away on Monday. He was a very special dog with a personality all his own. He loved to chase his Jolly Ball and run around with his close pal Vaquita. After 10 years with us, he wasn't just a dog, he was a member of the family. While there were plenty of times that he tried our patience with his antics, he managed to make us laugh at them as well.

We will miss you Russell.

She's here!!

Isabella decided to be a holiday baby and was born on the 4th of July. We are so excited to have her here finally. Everyone is healthy and happy (except for some needed sleep by Chris and I).

To everyone who we haven't contacted right away, please forgive us, her arrival was extremely unexpected and we have been trying to keep up with this little bundle.

Time is getting closer...

Mom took the picture of me during her visit this past week.



The first picture is of a lunch we had with a bunch of my close friends at Lynn's Paradise Cafe. We had a great time! My close friend Lisa from New York came in and it was wonderful having her and Mom here at the same time...double trouble.

I have such a great group of friends - they are all unique in their own way!

The countdown to baby arrival has begun!!

Shower Time...

Me looking very pregnant...three months to go!


Yaya and I...


Lots and lots and lots of clothes for this little one...


On Saturday, a group of Charlene's friends and my sister-in-law Karen were so nice and decided to throw me a baby shower. All I can say is that with the amount of clothes that Isabella already has, Chris and I are going to have to change her 2 to 3 times a day!! Her Daddy is already building out her closet so she has enough room for her clothes and shoes (yes, she has A LOT of shoes already, including pink, black and red patent leather shoes, sneakers and sandals, possible nickname is Imelda).

It was a nice afternoon and I was amazed at how generous and thoughtful everyone was and even more overwhelmed by how excited everyone is about her arrival. We are certainly blessed!

Get your free online pregnancy calendar from WhatToExpect.com

New York State of Mind

Chris, Charlene (Chris' mom) and I had a fantastic time visiting his family in upstate New York. The weather was beautiful (except for one rainy day and that didn't stop us ladies from shopping). We went as far up as Lake George, Hudson, and Albany - it was great! I never had the opportunity to spend so much time with Aunt Betty (Charlene's sister) and Uncle Ray, plus I got to meet some of Chris' cousins I hadn't met before.


Aunt B and Uncle Ray live in this fantastic house that is a converted barn. The decorative touches are just amazing. I fell in love with the house and it's in a small town of Coxsackie, NY where Charlene and her sisters grew up. We saw places where they lived, met people they knew growing up, it was fun. We had breakfast at Uncle Ray's favorite breakfast joint Subabaro's, which is a tiny little diner with the yummiest breakfast I've had in awhile.

We also had the chance to drive to Connecticut to see one of my dearest friends Aimee and meet her latest addition to her clan, Nichole. Motherhood agrees with Aimee, she looked beautiful and her kids and husband lookd great. It was nice seeing how happy they all are. I also visited my cousin Enid and my Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Victor. Enid went all out for us - she made dinner, decorated her house and had a mini-baby shower for me. She's too much!!

This trip was a lot of fun and some much needed R&R for both Chris and I.

BABY UPDATE - 6 months along and all is well. She is moving and grooving all the time and I'm feeling great. It looks like we are thinking of Isabella as a name for her.

Say hello to the latest member of the family...

It's a GIRL! Here's her first close up at 19 weeks.

Too Cool...

I'm in Miami for work and on the way to the hotel from the airport, I noticed a slew of banners advertising a Food Network Wine and Food event going on in Miami. I was bummed because with everything we had to do, I figured there wouldn't be any time to check it out.

Well, wouldn't you know it, it's at the same hotel that the conference I'm working on is located. I walk in the lobby and spot Guy Fieri, of Diners, Drive-In's and Dives fame and on my way to the beach, I run into Paula Deen and I HAD to take a picture with her. She is just the cutest person and her personality on air is the same as off the air. I was too excited! Here I was bummed because I thought I wouldn't get to enjoy any of that event, but I got an even better experience than going to the actual event.

2008...

1936-2007



It was a rocky start to the new year with the unexpected passing of Chris' dad around the new year. He was an amazing person and he is definitely missed by all of us.

For those of you who don't know, we have something big coming in the summer of 2008............A BABY! I'm currently 4 months along and so far everything has been going well and God-willing will continue to go well. On March 10th we will find out what we are having (assuming the baby decides to cooperate), so if we find out I'll make sure to post it.

Chris and I want to thank all of you who had us in their prayers during that tough time and thank you for being there for us.

I'm going to try to keep this site updated regularly with upcoming baby news.

Thanksgiving...family style.

Needless to say, we had a GREAT Thanksgiving. It was full house - Mom, Dad, Sean, Tio Jose, Richard, and Yaya (aka Grandma) - all under one roof. Mom and Yaya did a fabulous job decorating the table, while Chris and I cooked up a storm and Dad, Tio and Richard yelled at the TV downstairs. This year Chris wanted to forgo the standard Turkey and make a Turducken. For those of you who are scratching your heads asking yourselves "what the heck is that" - the explanation is as strange as the name. It's a partially deboned turkey, that's been stuffed with a partially deboned duck, which has been stuffed with a whole chicken that has been stuffed with stuffing. Whew, that was chore just explaining it.

We had a little competition that whoever had the pumpkin sticker on the inside of their place card would get the wishbone...well, there wasn't one, so Richard and Yaya got creative and our decorations suffered a casualty. Richard won...he won the JINGLE PIG. It was hilarious, if you pull on it's tail it squeals and it also snorts jingle bells. Quite the prize!

We just loved having everybody here, hopefully we can have even more family join in the fun next time.

Too long...

Russell with his FAVORITE toy.


It's been too long since I've posted anything. Chris and I have been working a lot and for me that means A LOT of travel. Luckily next week is my last trip until January '08.

Fall is finally here and we are so excited that we are having Thanksgiving at our house this year!! We can't wait to have a full house of family...it's going to be a blast.

Our Garden

I am sooo proud of our garden. It's actually doing pretty well, considering it's over 100 degrees outside. We've even managed to grow tomatoes...too cool. Here are some pics of it...

Congratulations to Chris!!!

Chris was promoted today to Captain on the fire department. I couldn't be happier for him, he is living his dream and that's awesome!

Good Times...

I realized that I never posted my fabulous birthday weekend. Mom and Dad decided to surprise me and to top it off, Chris brought a backyard version of a Hawaii luau to me. Too much fun!!! We started the day at Toast (best breakfast around, hands down), some scrapbooking in between and that night we finished off the day at Mitchell's Fish Market (yummy!) and then I was banished upstairs until I was called. Well...surprise, they were setting up outside for the luau.

The funniest part of the night had to be Sean, Chris and myself attempting to do Dance, Dance Revolution. Sean looked like the Lord of the Dance, I looked like a derranged hula dancer and Chris looked like he was running a marathon. Here are some of the pics from breakfast and dinner. I'm not brave enough to post the DDR pics just yet.

Nothing too exciting...

Amazed at how when you do something, you'll see it everywhere! Now almost everyone I know has a blog. I'm hoping to post some of the amazing pics we took at the Louisville Zoo last weekend. Their gorilla exhibit is just amazing - all that was between me and an enormous silver back was a pane of glass. Pretty cool!

Giving this thing a whirl...

With family spread ALL over the place, I thought this would be a good way to let them know what's going on with us. I've just recently started posting my scrapbook work online, so I'm still hesitant about the online world, but hey why not!

Got pretty cool news today -- most in the scrapbook world know Elsie Flannigan for her unique work and photos. I sent her a couple of pics of our doggies that I thought she would get a kick out of and believe it or not...she sent back an e-mail. I thought that was great and amazingly down to earth of her. I've come to expect so little from people, I just have to trust people some more...


Here are Russell and Vaquita enjoying Russell's birthday cake from Three Dog Bakery . It's safe to say Vaquita LOVED IT.