A Very Summery Weekend

Grampy and Grampy (Mimi) stopped by for a visit and tested out the new picnic table they got for Isabelle. She loves to eat and play outside at her table. Thank you Grammy and Mimi !!

I had a serious craving for pancakes on Saturday morning. So my little helper and I had a great time making blueberry and chococlate chip pancakes !!

Isabelle and Mimi being silly.

Isabelle practicing "Baggo." Next summer she will be ready to play with the rest of the Ramblewood crew.

Isabelle and Daddy dancing at Uncle Eddy's graduation party. She loves jazz music and of course she loves dancing with Daddy :) They both like to make funny faces while they dance !!

Isabelle and Toni. We had a great time at the party. Toni really knows how to throw a party !!

Isabelle, Daddy, and Uncle Eddy. We are so proud of Uncle Eddy for graduating from Harvard. He is an inspiration to all of us. We assume he will be going for his Master's degree soon !!

As you can see from this picture, Isabelle is more interested in Eddy's cake, than his accomplishment :)

We had a play date with the Scott, Erika, Anna, Ricki, Erika, and Ruby on Sunday. Isabelle had fun hanging with Ricki and Ezra.

Isabelle and Anna had so much fun on the slides, swings, and in the sandbox. They spent all morning playing together.

This picture is of everyone, except Erika (she was taking the picture). Ruby was a very well behaved dog. She became the "rock star" of the playground. All of the kids wanted to pet her and say hi. (And oh ya, I look really pregnant).

Sunday was a picture perfect day. After our play date we played outside and tried to get Isabelle used to her little pool.

She didn't love the pool. But she did love her new sandals and really enjoyed running around chasing bees in the yard.

It is officially summer because the soft top has been put on the jeep. Senior helped George take off the hard top and put on the soft top. What should have been a really fun event was turned sour when we realized that field mice had feasted on the soft top during the winter. But George made the best of it and still put the soft top on and used some duct tape to fill the holes. He was a real tropper and he turned lemons into lemonade !! Again, Isabelle was a little helper. You can see her inspecting the boy's work in the right hand corner of the picture.

And the rest of the story...

So the story is never over until you read the last page....On Tuesday night Mary and I took Isabelle to the ER. She still didn't kick her illness and was continuing to get sick. Our little girl was dehydrated and needed some fluids and after an extremely long night for all of us (especially Isabelle as she endured needles, blood, x-rays, lack of sleep etc) we headed home from the ER. Much more could be said but simply - the most cherished things in your life are often the ones right in front of you, love them all the time for anything can happen. We love you Isabelle and we are happy you are feeling better!

Special thanks to Nana/Papa and Grammy/Mimi for visiting us after Isabelle got back from the hospital. Your prayers as well as food and company were the best medicine Isabelle could ask for!!

On Sunday, we headed to Julianna's 4th Birthday party!! We had a great time catching up with Fern, Kelly and Andrea. Fern had the BBQ full and the weather was perfect (well until the downpour!!). Isabelle had a great time playing with Tyler and helping Julianna open her presents!!

A few pictures of the three of us being a bit silly this weekend.....

Some video of Isabelle being a bit silly as well.....actually she is always this crazy!!

And for all our loyal blog readers.....Mary and I will be having a GIRL some time in October!! Isabelle is super excited and is already feeding us names for her little sister!! Don't say you didn't hear it here first :-)

Memorial Day Weekend 2009. YIKES !!!

Before we get to this weekend we have to go back to last Monday. I took Isabelle to the Dr. because she had been dealing with a nagging cough for weeks that seemed to get worse last weekend. So she was diagnosed with "a touch of pneumonia." So she was given some pretty strong antibiotics and she got better as the week passed.

George went to his annual Memorial Day weekend golf trip with the men in my family. So Isabelle and I went to visit Nana. We were looking forward to a weekend of fun with Nana and the cousins. Unfortunately, that was not the case. We got to Nana's house on Saturday morning and a few hours after we arrived Isabelle started throwing up. She basically vomited all day Saturday and then 2 more times on Sunday afternoon. Oh ya, and she had diarrhea too :) So after George got to Nana and Papa's on Sunday evening we decided to head home and try to get Isabelle better. Thankfully she started to eat again today and has been drinking water. So we are hopeful that she is on the mend. I owe a huge thank you to Nana who helped out so much with cleaning up Isabelle's vomit all over the house and the many loads of laundry she did to make sure Isabelle and I both had clean clothes to wear. She helped keep me calm and was full of good advice. I am sorry that we some what ruined your weekend. But I don't think that I could have handled the situation without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you !!!

But we did had some fun times this weekend too. See below....

Much of the weekend was spend sleeping and cuddling with Isabelle. I hate when she is sick, but that is the only time she likes to cuddle.

Isabelle did feel better for a bit on Sunday. So she did some finger painting with her cousins Will and Matt.

We had our first cook out of the season on Memorial Day. It was nice to be outside and on the deck again. I think Isabelle had fun. But this picture does not really show that :)

Isabelle and I enjoying the sun and showing how happy we are that she is starting to feel better.

Graduation..... again !!

Isabelle and I got to watch George graduate this weekend. He received his SECOND Master' s degree on Saturday. The weather was great and Isabelle was so well behaved. We had a great day cheering George (Daddy) as he crossed the stage and got his diploma.
We are so proud of George for finishing this program. He is the king of time management being able to juggle family, work, and school. He made it look easy :)


After the ceremony we had a nice, but not so relaxing dinner (Isabelle decided she was not hungry and wanted to run around the restaurant) with Grammy, Grampy, and Jen. Thank you for helping us celebrate George's accomplishment.

The pictures below chronicle the days events.

Isabelle and Daddy at home before graduation.

A very excited graduate marching into the ceremony!!

Isabelle wore herself out cheering for Daddy and listening to ALL of the commencement speakers. It was a long ceremony. She feel asleep about 5 minutes before George got his diploma.

A picture of all 3 of us (we don't have too many of these).

Check out my pregnant belly !!

Isabelle was more interested in Daddy's silly hat than his diploma.

Congratulations again Daddy. We are so proud of you and we love you, Mr. Smarty Pants !!

Ah Mothers!

Mother's Day means many things. A few short years ago, Mary became a mother. No words can explain how I have felt watching my wife grow into the best Mom a child could ask for. She displays both unconditional love and compassion for Isabelle. It is amazing. We were both lucky to have great role-models for mothers in our lives. Both our mothers have supported both of us throughout the years and we appreciate and value their continued unconditional love.



This weekend we got to spend time with Nana, Grammy, Colleen, Peggy, and Maryann to celebrate all of the mothers in our family. These pictures are a little look back in time to when Mary first became a mother and a snap shot of this past weekend. Enjoy and congrats to all the moms!!

PS - Next year will be twice the fun with our new "baby addition"!

Our favorite pictutes from the past few weeks

Isabelle loves to drive Daddy's jeep. I am sure it will be her jeep in 15 years.

Isabelle and Daddy hanging out before school. She loves to wear hats. Even if the hats are not season appropriate :)

It was stripe day at school and Isabelle was wearing stripes, head to toe that day.

Isabelle being silly very early in the morning. She loves to play dress up and she loves her crib.

Isabelle loves her pony. She really likes to put him to sleep before she goes to bed at night. But in this picture she is just looking real cute as a little cowgirl.

Now that the weather is nice, we have been swinging in the back yard. She loves her swing. Thank you Grampy for making and installing her swing.


And thank you Nana and Papa for teaching Isabelle about washing her hands and brushing her teeth at the sink with the water running. We will send you our water bill as soon as it arrives :)

Oh ya, she is not wearing pants because it was 8o degrees and she was trying to stay cool.

Potty training and learning to read (Business Week). Isabelle sure has been busy. Thank you for reading her blog !!

Easter

Last weekend we went to visit the Easter Bunny. Since it was kind of a tramatic experience we will not be posting any pictures of that event :)

We had a very busy Easter weekend. Isabelle took part in her second easter egg hunt at the Russo's. This year Isabelle was all over the place and jumped right in and found all of the eggs with her cousins. Although it was freezing cold (check out the Easter outfit) we all had a great time.

Later on that afternoon, we had a delicous dinner at Nana and Papa's house. We had 3 adult tables and one big kids table. It was a great time with yummy food and good family fun.

Since that was not quite enough family togetherness, the rest of the extended family came over after dinner and we had even more fun. It was so nice to see everyone and Isabelle had a great time with her cousins. Thanks to Nana and Papa for hosting us for another weekend !!

Here are a few pictures from this weekend.

Nana and her grandaughters.



Isabelle's Easter outfit. She did have a very cute Easter Bonnet, but she decided that this winter hat was more her style !

What would Easter be without sweets. In this picture Isabelle was just finishing up her bowl of ice cream. Yummy !






Mommy and Isabelle at Nana and Papa's house.

Daddy and Isabelle (and her big girl Dora cup) at Easter dinner.