London Baby

This week begins our trip to the UK to see my side of the family. We are looking forward to introducing Isabelle to her English cousins, aunts and uncles who haven't had the chance to see her yet. We've got an action packed 10 days planned of mostly catching up with Gran and Grandad and the family but we are going to manage to sneak a trip to Belgium to see our friends the Proudfeet family. Look for our posts when we return (or if you're real lucky, we might blog while we're out there!).

Here's Isabelle showing the british half in her!



Practicing her tea drinking etiquette, still needs to work on sticking her little finger out.

Ebony and Ivory

There's no mistaking my aspirations for Isabelle and the piano. I had her on my lap when she was only a few weeks old pressing on they keys. She is fascinated with all aspects of the piano, from the sound the keys makes to the reflection of herself she sees to trying to find out what happens when she pulls the lid down (she's already found out that the lid's pretty heavy). She can now sit on the stool by herself and will quite happily sit there for ages experimenting with pressing the keys (sometimes harder than others, sorry Nana, we'll get the piano tuned while you're on you mission, I promise).

Isabelle was playing the piano at Nana's today and I decided to take some pics...

Oz Fest

The infamous Dr. Mehmet Oz (from Oprah) came to town to do a health and wellness seminar and I am excited to say that I was among the many women in the audience. He spoke for a little over an hour and then left time for a little Q & A. Here are just a few of the points he talked about:

~Preparing yourself before you go into any surgery and labeling the part of the body that will be operated on with a permanent marker. Did you know that there are at least 75 surgeries a year that surgeons operate on the wrong body part?
~Always get a 2nd opinion. The primary reason people don't, is because they are afraid that they are going to offend their doctor. Guess what? Getting a second opinion changes treatment substantially in about one-third of all cases.
~The fact that men need 8 hours of sleep per night and women need 7 hours. I know I am not getting that!
~If your spouse has a neck size of more than 17 inches than they are guaranteed to have sleep apnea.
~If you have down pillows and you have seen how they loose their volume over the years and become more flat. Ever wonder why? There are actually dust mites that are inside the pillow eating away at the down. Lovely!

We were given one of his books upon our arrival.



When he was done speaking, he stayed to do a book signing.






Here is Tracy, Eva and I on Fountain Square with our new books and a new outlook on our health! (I opted out of posting the picture of us eating our delicious Greaters ice cream!)

Grumpy Days

This post is a refresher for those who think that Izzy is always happy. Isabelle has been pretty groggy this week and hasn't wanted to perform for the camera like normal.

Ory and Izzy

Ory and Darcy came into town from California this past week. While they both were not feeling so hot we managed to get them together for a little play date (heavy on the play, extra light on the date - so I'm an over protective dad!)



Darcy and Tiffany have been friends since childhood so it's funny that we have kids that are 3 weeks apart.



Isabelle is our girlie girl. I've gotta a feeling it's downhill from here!

Baby, Birthdays and Basketball

Monday turned out to be eventful all around. Firstly, Tiffany's brother and his family welcomed kid number 4. Eli was born at 11 O'Clock in the morning. Congrats Trav and Sharese (warning audio!). Eli is Isabelle's cousin number 12.



It's crazy to think how big Isabelle has gotten over the last few months. When you see her everyday you don't fully realize that she's grown from a tiny being who is completely dependent on you to, well, someone who's a little bit bigger and 99% dependent on you!

As we have a fairly close knit extended family here in Cincinnati I felt that I had to sit Isabelle down on Monday and explain to her that her little attention gravy train had run out. I told her that she should be content to take her place in the cousin pecking order. She seemed relatively OK with that and welcomed baby Eli!



After visiting baby Eli in the hospital we had to dash over to cousin Abby's to help her celebrate her 5th birthday. Isabelle got Abby a new doll (perhaps Abby will stop trying to use Izzy as a 'live' baby doll).



Lastly, Monday night wrapped up with the big college basketball tournament final. We were were cheering on the Kansas Jayhawks to win especially as Tiffany was initiated into the Jayhawk cult by her brothers last month.

Rock Chalk Jayhawks!

Spring - weeee