Isabella turned 17 months on January 21, 2011

Boy, am I running behind!  It's almost time for her to turn 18 months - a year and a half already!  She's such a big girl playing with her "baby" and other fun toys.  We bought her a stove set from Ikea this past weekend.  Of course, we also needed the kitchen table and chairs.  Oh, and let's not forget the dishes and plastic food!  I'm not sure who is having more fun with the stuff, Bella or Papa and I.  (I guess that I need to say at this point that we only play with the stuff when Bella is here.)

Stay tuned for more pictures in the near future.  It's time to take the 18 month pictures.

Bella starts Mommy and Me ballet on 1/17/2011

On January 17th, Isabella and Jenny attended the first of 5 sessions of Mommy and Me ballet. Bella looked very cute in her leotards and tights. The program is designed for 1 to 3 year olds and introduces them to music and dance. Isabella has really enjoyed Music and Me over the past several months and I think that she will have a good time with dance. Ray and I went along to watch today since we were off (MLK holiday).

January 16, 2011 - A trip to Monkey Joe's.

On 1/16/2011, Ray, Jen, Bella and I went to Monkey Joe's for some play time. While I pretty much was the photograher, Bella had a good time bouncing and sliding with her mommy. Jenny and Papa got quite a work out scaling some of the walls! It was fun and a nice change of pace.

Another snow storm - January 10, 2011!

I've lived in South Carolina for 22 years and have seen it snow only 5 times. Three of the 5 were within the past 12 months! Snow was the one thing that I didn't miss when I moved to the South after growing up in Wisconsin...Not only did we get snow this time, but we had really icy conditions!  Schools were closed for most of the week!

Bella is 16 months old - December 21, 2010

On the afternoon of the 26th, we took Isabella's "16 month old" picture.  With every picture, she looks less like a baby and more like a big girl.  It continues to be so much fun watching her grow up!  She's talking now; it just melts Ray's heart to hear her call him Papa!

We had snow on Sunday, December 26th!

We woke up the morning of the 26th to snow coming down like crazy! I've lived in Columbia for 22 years and have only seen snow a handful of times. We had 2 snow falls in 2010 - the middle of February (quite substantial for here!) and yesterday. From what I understand, it is the first time in over 100 years that Columbia has had snow in December!  Isabella was able to get a preview of playing in the snow before she left to visit the family in Wisconsin!

Christmas Day 2010

I planned on taking tons of pictures of Christmas this year, but I got caught up in watching Isabella gleefully opening presents and ended up with just a handful of pictures.  We had a great day yesterday and really enjoyed having the kids here for our Christmas celebration!

Isabella's new buckboard wagon!

Uncle Ron drove in from Chesterfield, SC on December 19th just to deliver the wonderful buckboard wagon that he made for Bella. She's going to have the coolest wagon on the block!