Mama gets a Marg!

It had been a long time coming, but Jeff and I finally found a chance for us to go out for Mexican food and get me the margarita I haven't been able to have for 10 months! It was a spur of the moment thing (as everything has to be these days). We decided to try out the new (to us, I'm not sure how long it has been open) Plaza Jalisco that is located not too far away from us. Since I'm crazy about Mexican restaurants I'm delighted to say we had a really good experience at this one! The chips were really good - warm and really fried (and must be very bad for you). The food was very well priced, Jeff got the chicken fajitas - they were $1 off, so they were $8.95 and they came with a lot of rice and 5 tortillas, which Jeff was very excited about. I got the one enchilada meal for $5.25 which came with a ton of rice and beans - it was very good as well. Then, for some reason, they were giving everyone free sopapillas for dessert. I never get dessert at Mexican restaurants (since I always over-do it on the chips) and it was very good. My water kept getting refilled, which is also a big thing for me. However, there was one minor drawback - no bar!! They serve alcohol, but there is no bar. My margarita tasted extremely similar to the Jose Cuervo straight out of the bottle pre-made margaritas (which I still like of course) but when I go to a restaurant I usually like my margs made up a little differently. Jeff's beer also tasted a little stale, but he had ordered a beer that they didn't even list on the menu, so I'm assuming it didn't get ordered that often. So, I'm totally endorsing the restaurant (located right next to Gus's in Coral Court) and hoping others start going there because I'm not sure they are doing the greatest (it wasn't too busy in there) but I'm pretty sure I still need to go out for my real first marg and that might require a trip to Papa Juan's in CR. I can't believe I just rambled on that long about that.... one of the main reason I wanted to blog about it because after we were done eating Jeff started to laugh as he noticed the warning label on the high chair we were using for Isabella. We had them turn it upside-down for the carseat to fit which I thought was just common procedure. So right there in plain site was this warning:


Here is Isabella demonstrating her daredevil skills by using the highchair for an unintended purpose. Also check out her new Iowa Hawkeye carseat cover to keep her warm and out of the wind. We had tried to use the BundleMe type of cover that my sister had used with Gus, but it wasn't working with our carseat.


A quick thanks to U. John and A. Kristy who came over Monday night to watch Isabella while we ran out to Lowes to look at water heaters. It was a trial babysitting run and now they are ready for us to be gone for longer(we hope)! Also thanks to Cathy who stopped by on Tues afternoon for a visit which also allowed me a little break from Isabella and the opportunity to change out of my pajamas! (Yes... it was during the afternoon)

Isabella turns 1! (Month)

Thursday was Isabella's 1 month birthday. The time has really been flying by. Grandma and Grandpa Kellbach and Aunt Jillian sent her a beautiful bouquet on her birthday. We took her picture with it, but it hasn't fully bloomed yet. It will be really pretty when it does.



Grandpa Groves came to visit today. He was just coming to see Isabella, but within 5 minutes of his arrival we had him downstairs looking at why our hot water heater doesn't seem to be working. That moved to some investigation of whether or not the water softener was working. He got the hot water heater working again, but we are pretty sure we will need to purchase a new one, it is really leaking water. He also dug out a lot of old salt from the water softener to get that working as well. We decided after that work he had earned a few minutes of time holding Isabella. We were going to go out to eat, but Isabella was being pretty cranky all afternoon, so we just got Subway instead.

Spa Weekend

Grandma and Grandpa Kellbach came to visit this last weekend with Aunt Jillian. This was the first time A. Jillian got to meet Isabella. I'm referring to this as a spa weekend because it was wonderful to have extra help with Isabella. Jeff and I got to sleep for a few 4 hour stretches at a time and it was so refreshing. Besides that, I was able to take 2 showers and a bath and even dye some of the gray out of my hair! Everyone wants to hold Isabella, which is so great, because she is sucking up all the attention and hardly crying at all.

We also had a couple other milestones this weekend. We introduced Isabella to her first bottles and she took them just fine. She has guzzled every bottle right down, I hope we are giving her enough. Here is Jeff feeding her the very first one.


We also went out to our first restaurant with Isabella. We all met U. John and A. Kristy at Rookies in North Liberty. Isabella did very well, but when she needed her diaper changed, silly Mommy only went into the bathroom with diaper supplies and not a change of clothing. Turns at that she needed a change of clothing and I had to run back out with her to grab the diaper bag. Luckily, Grandma Kellbach came in with some much needed help. Here is a picture of Isabella eating dinner at Rookies.

Here is the link to all the pictures from this weekend: Grandparents visit

Lovin' the Moby

Isabella loves her Moby Wrap that Aunt Nancy gave us for Christmas. We were a little hesitant at first, basically it is just a big piece of fabric and there are 8 eight steps in the instructions, just to get the wrap on yourself before even starting to put the baby in, but it turns out the instructions were really straight forward. Once we get the wrap on ourselves and put her in it, it really seems to calm her down if she is cranky. Plus, your arms are free giving you the ability to actually do other stuff. My back has been hurting a little lately, and unfortunately I feel it hurting a little when I'm wearing the wrap, so I'll have to be careful about that. I think my back is still just getting used to carrying around a baby all the time.

Here is a link to the Moby site: http://www.mobywrap.com/

If anyone is interested in getting one, they are more than welcome to come over and borrow ours first to see if they and their child actually likes it as much as Isabella does.

Here is a picture of Jeff with Isabella facing forward, which he's not actually supposed to have her in this position until she has better control of her neck. Typical male - he only 1/2 read the instructions....

The Other Baby Grover

Yes, you read that right - there is another Baby Grover. Shortly after Isabella was born we received this email/comment to our blog.

Congratulations, Kellbachs! I've been following your blog ever since I learned the blog name "Baby Grover" was already taken. Elena & Lane Grover (We're at babygrover1.blogspot.com) :)

So, I immediately went to their blog and found this post which talks about her discovery of our Baby Grover blog:
http://babygrover1.blogspot.com/2007/11/baby-blog.html

I am thrilled that Elena contacted us and let us know about the other Baby Grover. Now I read her blog all the time too. There are some similarities between us, besides just having Baby Grovers, our wedding anniversary is that same (although it sounds like they've been married much longer) and it looks like they recently went on a vacation to the Dominican Republic - which Jeff and I did just 2 years ago.

Speaking of Grovers... we wanted to thank Maria and Kevin, Stacey, Rachelle and Georgine, and Grandma and Grandpa Kellbach for giving Baby Grover little stuffed Grovers of her own. Here is a picture of her hanging out with her Grover Gang.



She's still at that stage where she seems a little afraid of stuffed animals, even little furry blue monsters. She gets this look on her face like she's thinking "if I don't look at it, it isn't there, if I don't look at it, it will go away..." I think this picture illustrates it pretty well.

First trip to the pediatrician

Isabella had her first visit to her pediatrician last Wed. The appt. was at 8:45am so it was a real test to see if we could wake up, get her fed and get out of the house by that time. We did it! - luckily her doctor is basically right around the corner, less than 5 minutes away.

The doctor said Isabella looked like a very healthy baby. Here are her stats:

Height: 20.5" (50th percentile)
Weight: 7lbs, 11.5 oz (25th percentile)
Head: 14" (30th percentile)

We can't believe she's already gained almost a pound since birth.

One of the best parts of the appt was when the doctor told us we didn't have to wake her up in the middle of the night to feed her anymore. We had been letting her go at most about 5 hours between feedings at night, meaning she was sleeping for 4 hour stretches at night. I was really excited to see how long she'd go and how much sleep we'd be able to get. Guess what - she's stopped doing that. Now she's not letting us go anymore that 3 hours between feedings and she isn't going to sleep right away afterwards either. This means we are lucky to get 1 - 2 hours of sleep at a time.

Baby Tadhg

We received some really sad news today. Baby Tadhg, the son of Paul and Michelle, passed away last night. Tadhg was born with a serious heart condition. Tadhg had been waiting for a new heart and each day was a different day of ups and downs. Many of you had been asking ever since I first posted about him about how he was doing. You also told us about how you'd pray for Tadhg even though you didn't know him. I know this meant a lot to Michelle and Paul. I apologize for never getting Tadhg blog address out to people as I told them I would. Here is Tadhg's blog. Please keep the Kilgores in your thoughts and prayers.

Isabella makes some friends

Back when Jeff's parents were still in town, Jeff decided make some of his homemade pizza that everyone loves. Isabella is going to be a great helper to her Daddy in the kitchen. She has already started helping by rolling out the dough!


U. John and A. Kristy came over as well as Amanda, Jeff and Aiden. This was Isabella and Aiden's first meeting. They are going to be great friends. Aiden is 6 weeks older than Isabella.







The next night the whole Lemke crew came over. Isabella had already met Aleah, and now she got to meet Damon and Dustin. The twins, Aleah and Dustin are about 10 weeks older than Isabella. I think Aleah is excited that she gets to have a girlfriend to play with after being around all these boys. Isabella was pretty zonked out when the Lemkes were over, as you can tell by the way she is snoozing while everyone else is moving around.


I am still surprised how it happened that the 3 of us couples had children so close together. It is going to be very interesting all of us together watching Hawkeye games and attempting to go to Old Chicago to complete our mini-tours!

Happy New Year!

Isabella would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Her celebration was pretty low key, but she was up at midnight!

She's already passing tests with top honors!

We had a home visit from a Mercy Nurse on Monday 12/31. Everything with Isabella is looking great. Her weight was 6lbs 14 oz, which is up 8oz from when she left the hospital and means she is back over her birth weight. The nurse said that was really good for the first week, which made us really relieved to know she is getting enough to eat. Her length is still 20 inches, but as you can tell by the picture here, that must be incorrect as she obviously has some very long legs (ha ha). Her jaundice check also showed that her levels were perfectly fine. It was really nice to hear that everything is going good. We have our appointment with the pediatrician next Wed.