First real word

Isabella has been babbling in her own language for a while and said words like Mama, Dada, Baby. But her first real word, which she actually associates with its real meaning, has been "Milch", which is the German word for milk. I hope all my German relatives and friends appreciate this! I try to speak as much as possible in German to her and we hope that she will learn both languages simultaneously.

Isabella is walking!

First I want to apologize for not updating the site. I had a double screw up. First I spilled some tea over my keyboard and my enter button would not work. Second while uploading about 60 pictures from the digital camera, I somehow managed to delete them and lost them. These were about a month worth of pictures. And I really thought I took some fun and cool ones. That was a bummer. Luckily the enter button is working again and I can start working again!

But now to Isabella!!! This is what this website is about! She has been amazing the last few weeks. About 2 weeks ago she started making accidental steps. It looked like she was not even aware that she was doing it. But since last weekend, she has been taking more and more steps on her own. We are not even counting the steps anymore and measure by distance. She really enjoys it and tries picking up things and clapping stuff while she is walking.

First Snow

A couple if weeks ago we had our first snow. Luckily it was on a Sunday so we took Isabella outside to see if she likes it. Also, I wanted to put on her the new Snoopy H&M snow suit! It was still way to big, so she looks really funny. Isabella was not too excited about and it ended up being a short stay outside. Here are some pictures.

Milestones

First I have to apologize for not writing for so long. It's been really busy and I just could not find the time. That doesn't mean nothing happened or we did not take pictures.

Isabella has been doing so much more, we are always so amazed, when we look back a few months.

• Right now she can get up and stand on her own.
• She walks with help. We are holding her or she uses furniture to hold.
• Eats finger food by herself.
• Claps her hands.
• Babbles, babbles and babbles all kind of consonants.
• Loves to dance.

Here are some pictures showing it!

What a goof ball!

I don't know where Isabella gets it from, but she is a total goof! Look for yourself. We might have encouraged her by laughing and taking pictures when she does anything like this :-)

First Christmas

This year Christmas has become a new meaning to us. It was our first Christmas as a family. We were so excited and could not wait until Christmas morning to see how Isabella would like opening all the gifts. We were curious about what she might like best. We needed to help her a little to get all the presents unwrapped and keep her focused on all the new stuff. I think it was some what overwhelming for her but we tried to give her a good time.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Isabella on the move

Isabella has been crawling now for about 3 weeks. She is been all over the living room and exploring other rooms, too. she really enjoys it getting around and so do we. She is so much fun to watch when she is crawling around. Once she mastered that skill she moved to the next one: trying to stand up. It is amazing how quickly she has learned that. Now she is using everything to put her hands on and stretch her legs.

On Christmas Day she started taking her first steps. I was holding her by her hands or under her arms and she made one step after another. This was such a great gift!

Finger Foods

I have been struggling to start feeding Isabella finger foods and real foods. I did not know where to start and was to worried that she might choke or was not ready yet. Well, with a few good words from friends I made my first attempts. We started with chunks of papayas and bananas. Half of the food ended up on the high chair and on the floor, but who cares. A few pieces made it into her mouth and some other ones I fed to her. This was twice a new experience for Isabella - new texture and new way of eating. My second attempt were cooked potatoes and carrots. We had the same experience - half on the floor and some on the high chair. We realized that it is easier for her to eat when she joins us at the dinner table and sees us eating, too.

Look at these messy pictures!

Crawling

Today Isabella made her first attempts to crawl. It didn't look very graceful, but there was definitely movement. I almost overlooked it. She was playing on the floor with a toy and somehow threw it out of reach in the direction of Clyde's (one of our bunnies) cage. That's when she started crawling. I started building towers out of her lego bricks in an area out of reach for her. She started crawling that direction to knock over the tower. Right now she mixes it up with rolling around and sitting up - all the wonderful things she has learnt recently.

Luckily we have started to secure the living room and kitchen. So we are ready for her to explore the house! There are still some places we want to keep her away from like the fireplace.

Talking about fireplace - since it has been cooler the last few nights, we had a fire for the first time since we have Isabella. She could not stop starring at the fire and was just fascinated.

The teeth are there!

Isabella's first teeth are now visible. She started teething about a month ago, but now you can see the first two bottom teeth. It seems like the next ones are on the way. She has been chewing on everything possible. So far she is doing ok, but sometimes when she is getting tired or hungry, she gets a little cranky.

Look at these cute pictures showing her teeth. Click on the photos to get a closer look.