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.

Flood Update

We thought we should update our out-of-town blog reader as to what is going on with the devastating flooding in our area. We live in Coralville, between the flooding that is occurring in Cedar Rapids and the flooding that is occurring in Iowa City. Our house, however, should not be affected. Thank goodness. Jeff has been sandbagging whenever possible and Robin was only able to help out while Isabella was at daycare last Friday. Today (Sunday) however, Coralville said to have volunteers take the day off, we were kind of wondering why because we were planning on doing more, but I guess they think they've done most all that they can. It is heartbreaking, though, because some of the sandbagging Jeff helped out with a week ago already have water going all around them. Robin works a little north of Cedar Rapids and because the interstate is closed, she will have to work from home until they open it back up. She did go into work last Thurs. only to leave at noon because the situation was getting worse. Driving over downtown Cedar Rapids on her way home, she couldn't believe all the water everywhere. We just heard that the Iowa river crested today, and it didn't get as high as they were anticipating. This is really good news.

Here is the Marriott where Jeff was sandbagging on Sat.



Here is a picture of the Coralville strip.

6 Month Appointment

Isabella had her 6 month MD appointment today. Everything went very well. Here are her measurements and the percentile she falls into:
Height 26 3/4 In. - 85%
Weight 15 1/2 Lbs. - 45%
Head 16 1/4 In. - 25%
Unfortunately she is taking after Dad with her small head size. The Doctor gave us the go ahead to start rice cereal(she actually gave us the go ahead at her 3 month) and see how she does with that before starting some baby food.
Isabella also had some more immunizations, she did very well with them.

This is a cute video of Isabella showing us how she likes to scratch the inside of her car seat. Sometimes it sounds a little like nails on a chalkboard. We keep trying to keep her nails short, but it is impossible. The other day she came home from day care with a scratch down the middle of her face.

Day care reported two days in a row that she was fussy, but she seems fine at home. She's still showing off how much she can roll, but has sort of stopped rolling from her front to her back. I think this is because she's learned how to pivot a little while on her stomach so the need to roll on to her back to see something closer isn't there any more.

Infants Invade Old Chicago

It has to be noted in the blog that we finally got all the Davis, Lemke and Kellbach kids together. Over Memorial Day weekend we met at Old Chicago for dinner. 4 infants and 1 toddler. It was quite a sight and took a little while to figure out seating arrangements. They didn't have enough carseat slings, but we made do. All the infants were born within approx. 10 weeks of each other.


We had to take a few extra pictures of Dustin because his spikey hair is so cute!

Ear Infection Episode 3

Isabella went to the Doctor again today for her 2 week checkup from the 2nd ear infection and we found out that she has yet another ear infection. We had a feeling that she had an ear infection again as she stopped taking her antibiotic on Friday and was already tugging on her left ear Saturday. The funny thing is she had been tugging on her left ear which is fine, the latest ear infection is in her right ear. She is on a stronger antibiotic this time around and will get checked out again on June 11th when she has her 6 month appointment.

Sittin' in the high chair

Last weekend we set Izzie in her high chair to hang out with us while we ate lunch. She seemed to enjoy herself! Pretty soon she's going to start eating some food in her high chair.

She's a rolling machine!

Last Saturday Isabella finally showed us all the rolling she's been doing at daycare. We've posted a lot of videos on You Tube. She'd roll over when we had the camera off, or she'd start to roll over when we were ready to turn it off, so there are a few videos. There are 6 videos, view them here.

Isabella has another ear infection

After our long weekend Isabella was not feeling the best, she coughed a lot over night Sunday and Monday nights. She didn't have a fever, but we were worried she may have another ear infection. She went to the Doctor on Tuesday and we found out that she has an ear infection in her left ear this time. She is on antibiotics again, but is already feeling much better. She is smiling a lot during the day. She did have a real rough night of sleeping last night, hopefully it will be better tonight.

The BLOG Turns 1!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of our Blog. Last May 13th we talked about our trip to Chicago to visit Jeff's Grandpa and celebrate Mother's Day by telling both of our parents about Isabella being inside Robin's belly. So I thought it would be fitting to talk about last weekends trip to Chicago.
On Saturday morning we got up and drove to New Lenox to Jeff's aunt Mo's house. Jeff's parents, sister and her boyfriend, Joe came from Ohio and met us there around 1pm. Isabella did well on the 3.5 hour drive. We stopped once to feed her and she slept for a little while, but otherwise she was pretty content in her carseat. Jeff's Aunt Debi brought over lunch to Aunt Mo's, yummy enchiladas. We had a very nice visit and it was good to be able to be able to visit and show off Isabella considering everyone's hectic schedules. It was Jeff's cousin Cassie's prom, his cousin Mike's b-day and Aunt Mo and Aunt Debi's b-day weekend. Isabella interacted with her first dog while we there!
Next we headed off to Jeff's Grandpa's place in the south suburbs of Chicago. We hung out there before heading out to eat at the country club. Supper took a while at the club, so we took an exhausted Izzie back to the hotel for the night. The next morning we got up and met at Gabe's place for brunch. It was one year ago at Gabe's place on Mother's Day that we announced we were expecting. Here is a picture of everyone at Gabe's, except for Robin who took the picture. We also added a picture of Great Grandpa meeting Isabella for the first time.

Baby Shout Out

Welcoming....

Trevor Anthony Petersen
Born 4/17/2008 at 10:45 PM
8 lbs 4 oz
20 1/2 inches long

It sounds like Mark and Melanie and Trevor are doing great. Look at his full head of blond hair!
Last we heard, Trevor was going to be attending the same day care as Isabella. Isabella is looking forward to having a friend to show the ropes to, but I'm sensing some tension over who gets the 'yellow chair'...

We had a fun, laid back weekend. Sat. morning we got up and hit the Coralville city wide garage sales. Isabella was such a trooper, even though the weather was cold and rainy. Lots of getting in and out of the car, eventually Jeff just stayed in the car with Isabella while I scoped out some of the sales. We had a good time and got lots of deals, although Jeff gets impatient with my inability to make a snappy decision and decide what to get. When he sees 3 groups of people come and leave a sale while I'm still debating... I start to see smoke come out of his ears.

Sat. afternoon Grandpa Groves came for a visit. We had a nice time and Isabella showed Grandpa how much more she is smiling.



Sat. night we met U. John and A. Kristy for Mexican food at Isabella's favorite restaurant Plaza Jalisco (she's already been there 3 times so it must be her favorite!) Then we hung out at our place afterward and tried to tear Isabella away from the TV (a bad habit she's developing), but she was fully engrossed in an NBA basketball game.

On Sunday, Isabella ran errands with Daddy to Wal-mart and then went with Mommy to Target. We've also started letting Isabella get into her exersaucer and play. She's getting better at holding up her pinhead, so she's being rewarded with playtime in the saucer. She is really enjoying it so far. We are amazed that she naturally knows what to do with the toys on it. You can view her in action here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkeyegrover/2469156081/

Sunday night we went to watch Daddy play softball. I was a little concerned about pop flys because the only place to sit was behind home plate. So I just made sure I kept my eye on the game and basically threw myself over her whenever a ball popped up. Only one actually made it over the fence and slammed into the bleachers a few feet away - hit by Daddy!