It's been awhile

Hello Blog Readers,
We apologize for not keeping up with the blog very much lately. Lots has been happening, lots going on, lots of firsts for Isabella, but no time to write about it all. We will try our best to catch up!

We just got back from our trip to Ohio to visit Grandma and Grandpa Kellbach. On our way out we made a pit-stop in Indiana to visit Great-Grandma Groves and the Groves side of the family. Everyone came over for pizza and Bella was being on her best behavior. It was nice to visit with everyone and let them meet Isabella. That night, however, the Izzie side appeared. Maybe Isabella had slept too much in the car, or maybe her stuffed up nose was really bothering her, but that little girl could not get comfortable and did not want to sleep. We would rank it as one of the worst nights of sleep in a long time, it was like one of those nights where you feel like there is no way that you slept at all, but you must have fallen asleep at some point... right? Even when Isabella would fall asleep, her breathing was so heavy that Jeff said she sounded like a 'trucker'. She was sleeping in an antique crib that we are pretty sure would fail every crib standard today, but that was not the issue. The next morning Great Grandma watched Isabella so Jeff could go back to sleep and Robin could go for a morning jog. When Robin came back from her jog she found Great Grandma and Isabella sleeping, it was very cute. Here is the picture to prove it.

We then headed out to Ohio to visit Jeff's family. On Friday, Isabella was once again having a great day, Grandma and Grandpa really enjoyed watching Isabella play in her exersaucer. Friday night was unfortunately very similar to the night before, as Isabella was screaming at the top of her lungs, Grandma had to continuously hold and rock her so that she would calm down. This was the longest we have seen Isabella crying and screaming since the first two months of her existence (it was much louder now though). On Saturday we celebrated Grandma's Birthday by going out shopping for Isabella. We made a trip to one of Isabella's favorite stores, Babies R Us, so that Grandma could buy her a present, her own remote control. Isabella's face lights up when she first see it, but shortly after playing with it the smiles turn to tears as she has a knack for hitting herself in the head with the remote. She usually doesn't seemed to be bothered when she hits herself in the head the first time, but the subsequent blows she delivers to herself seem to do the trick. Saturday night was much better for everyone as Isabella seemed to be feeling much better and slept through the night only needing someone to give her a pacifier on a couple of occasions. The rest of the weekend was very nice as we had the opportunity to visit with Jeff's aunt , uncle, and cousins who Isabella had not met and we had not seen in awhile. Isabella also got introduced to one of her new toys, the stuffed tiger. Isabella seemed to love it, unfortunately we did not have room to bring it back to Iowa this trip. The trip home on Monday was long. It is normally about an 8 hour trip, but we needed to stop much more often to let her out of the carseat and to feed her. All in all it went very well, Isabella did pretty well in the car, especially when you consider how long she had to be in her seat for the weekend trip.