Merry Christmas

Today was Isabella's second time experiencing Christmas. This year was a lot more fun than last year. Isabella is so much more aware of things this time. She needed some encouragement to rip open the gifts but enjoyed them a lot once she found out what they are.

This year we wanted to do the right thing and not buy any toys made in China, which is surprisingly possible. See how Isabella enjoyed her gifts.


Isabella emptying her stocking.


Isabella playing with farm toys. Thank you, Grandma! She really enjoys playing with it.


Isabella playing with Giraffe pull toy


Isabella and her new lawnmower - one of her favorite new toys.


Another favorite is the new tricycle.


After all this excitement a little dancing with Daddy in the kitchen ...


... and taking a break sitting on the swing.

A baby sister for Isabella

For some of you it might be news, but we are expecting our second baby. On Wednesday we found out it is a girl. She is healthy and all test results came back normal. The due date is April 18, 2008. We are very excited and happy. Now the name hunt starts. I got nothing for names. Maybe we let Isabella pick the name. Here is the latest Ultrasound picture.

At the Aquarium

While we were in Tampa we went to the Florida Aquarium. This year Isabella had a real good time there watching all the fishes and birds.



Mommy, Isabella and lots of fishies

Tante Maria, Mommy and Isabella

Isabella and the turtle

At the beach again

We went this year again to Anna Maria Island, Florida for some beach vacation and also to see my sister Maria again. This time my brother Thomas joint us and this was his first trip to the US. We all had a real good time. We had a cookout and were able to see Gary's parents, sister Ann and her family again. My friend Sherri came too and Gary's aunt Joyce and uncle Jim came, too. See below many pictures from our trip. We took a lot more but I cannot post them all. So here are some of my favorites.


Aunt Ann and Isabella at the beach


Daddy and Isabella in the water. She loved the ring.


Daddy, Isabella and Thomas


Tante Sherri and Isabella


Isabella taking a break reading.


Isabella and Tante Maria


Mommy & Isabella and a beautiful sunset


Maria, Mommy, Isabella & Thomas walking on the beach

Isabella and her new Sandbox

Since the summer has been so hot and it has been unbearable to be outside we postponed getting a sandbox. Finally the days have been cooler and we made our trip to Toys'R'Us to get a sandbox. Isabella instantly loved it and had lots of fun playing in it.

After she was done playing we gave her a bath and we noticed she was covered in sand from head to toe.

Here are some cute pictures.

A day at the zoo

On labor day we made a trip to the local zoo. Nothing fancy. The zoo has about 400 animals and half of them are monkeys. But this was perfect for Isabella. She had a great time and learnt many new words: Monkey, lyon, giraffe.

Here are some cute pictures.

Trip to Niagara Falls

It has been already a few weeks since we went up to Niagara Falls, but we did not take many pictures with our camera so I had to wait to get some pictures from others.


We went up to Niagara Falls for Gary's BMX reunion and met there Gary's parents and sister's family. We had a great time and Isabella learnt some good new words like "outside" and "horseshoe". She enjoyed been at Aunt Shirley's house, because there was a lot to explore and she has two cats. Gary's Mom brought her dog, which Isabella enjoyed, too. Since we do not have stairs she had fun climbing Aunt Shirley's stairs.


Here are some good pictures. If anybody has some good ones from the trip to share please email me.

Favorite Pics

I have a few favorite pictures I would like to share with you.

The first picture is Gary & Isabella standing at the fence watching the cows on the pasture behind our house.



The second picture is Isabella sleeping in her stroller. This picture is a few months old, but I was just able to move it from my cell phone to the PC.



The third picture is from our trip to the beach a few weeks ago. Isabella was so tired and fell asleep in Gary's arms. She would have slept longer if Gary hadn't moved to eat his ice cream. How selfish of him to want to eat it while we all were enjoying ourselves. And it was his birthday :-)

This is one of my favorites. Isabella looks so grown up.