Falling a bit behind...

Well, a lot has happened since our last update. Sadly, the blogmaster has fallen greatly behind. In the desire for historical accuracy, updates will occur in the order they happened. Unfortunately for Liliana, some work must be done before she'll be able to make her grand entrance into the blog. Thanks for your patience!

Tara's Last Day Before Maternity Leave

You can tell my girls were really excited about Tara's last day before starting her maternity leave. P&G offers two weeks off before your due date, so that combined with holidays and a couple vacation days allowed December 20th to be Tara's last day of work before her Jan 10th due date. What a great benefit for working mother's!
Here are the final pics of us cleaning out Tara's old desk. She's been missing her bullpen buddies a lot already.
Some last pics of us leaving P&G for the last time until Tara returns in July 2011. Another wonderful mother's benefit Procter & Gamble offers. Thanks P&G!

X-Mas at the Villano's

Above are some pics of our cul-de-sac Christmas party at the Villanos next door. Per the fireplace stocking count in the upper right, you can see they have a family of 8 wonderful kids. We're very luck to have them and the other cul-de-sackers as neighbors. Good times, good times.

Charlie's Birthday - Home & at Daycare

Above is Charlie's B-Day/X-Mas laptop and an excellent chocotini made by Tara. FYI, the chocotini was not concocted and imbibed during the morning unwrapping of the laptop. Below are some pics of Belle's daycare team, her room, and view of Mt. Adams.

Tara's P&G Christmas Party

We attended Tara's P&G Christmas Party on December 10th. Tara sucked in her gut that night and looked amazing, especially for 37 weeks pregnant. It was great to have a reason to get dressed up and hit the town. Luckily for the town, Tara being pregnant allowed the town to survive yet another night. Beware town for Tara's first night hitting you while not pregnant.

Prepping the House for Christmas

Here are a few pics of the team working on Christmas decorations, as well as an outdoor view of Isabella's playhouse covered with snow that day. Isabella loves the noses on all of the snowmen, as seen below. She touches their noses and then touches her own nose.

Roaming Around Cincy on Tara's B-Day

We both took off work on Tara's B-Day (Dec 3rd), but still took Isabella to daycare. Therefore, we hit the streets, went out for brunch and lunch, did some X-mas shopping, and checked out some fresh ice sculptures. We eventually picked up Belle and let her join us for dinner at La Rosa's. Quite a fun day with my 36 week pregnant wife.

Thanksgiving Time With the Family

We had Jordan, Jason & Kari for the day right after Thanksgiving. We went out for some BW3's and then went bowling. Belle and I hit the race car game pretty hard as well. She loved it! We also met up with Chuck, Leila, Tami & Jeff, as well as popped by my parent's house before leaving Indy.

Ethan & Belle Team Up Against Me

Don't let those cute smiles fool you. These two are ruthless!

Tummy Tracker up to 36 Weeks

Alright, I'm not quite sure what happened, but we may have missed the 30 week picture. Below are the others though that catch us up to 36 weeks, with two pics for the 36th week. Tara was dressed up for her company's Christmas party.

Monday Night Football in Cincy

Well, in Cincy these days we don't like to spend too much time talking about the actual games. So..., here are some of my co-workers from about the highest seats in the stadium. This ended up being a very good thing though, as the game was not pretty.

Our Kangaroo in the House

We thought the kangaroo was pretty fitting for Belle this year, as both of my girls had little roos in their pouches this Halloween.

Halloween in Cincy

Our Halloween day at Procter & Gamble. We are "obviously" Kendra & Hank Baskett. My six day beard didn't quite fill out as much as I had thought it would.

Our Halloween day in the neighborhood and all the cul-de-sac kids.

The party at the neighbor's house. For "sensitivity" reasons, we didn't take the pregnant nun and associated priest beyond the friendly confines of the neighborhood.

A Visit to Shaw Farms

We took a quick trip to a farm just outside of Cincy. This place was really fun. There were lots of animals, although Belle preferred the cows, as seen above. She also really liked being on the John Deere. This farm also created a six acre maze through an actual corn field. This was both Isabella's and my first time in a corn field. I believe mom already accomplished this great feat earlier in her career. We all had a lot of fun and were actually lost inside the maze for a while.

A Late October Visit from My Parents

My parents came for a visit the weekend before Halloween. We had dinner in a 140 year old schoolhouse, but I forgot to take any pictures of the actual schoolhouse. The picture in the top left is from the benches in front on the school, where we were waiting to be seated. We went out to IHOP for breakfast the next morning, which is jut how Tara and I cook breakfast best.

A Mid-October Walk with the Girls

Here are some pics from one of our walks in October. Tara is about 28 weeks pregnant in this picture. Isabella and I had some peek-a-boo action going on here, as seen in bottom left and top right.

With Teeth Comes Responsibility

Isabella loves her four and two half teeth and really loves her toothbrush.

Newtown Pumpkin Festival 2010

We headed to our local pumpkin festival down the road again this year. My college buddy Mike just moved to town and brought his girl Erika with him for pumpkin fun (seen at bottom). I posted last year's pumpkin festival pics below for some comparison.

Charlie's Parent's 40th Anniversary

My parent's were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in October and we couldn't let them do it all by themselves. So..., we assembled a team of babysitters, converged on their home, brought some transportation, and took the party downtown.
We started off at Tastings at the Conrad. What a great place for wine and apps! John, Donna, Patty and Chris all met up with us there, as an added surprise.
After a strong showing with the wine tastings, we moved on down the road for some dining and imbibing at St. Elmo's. What great food and company!
Well, the night had to come to a close at some point. Our transport returned and brought us all home. What a wonderful night! Happy 40th Anniversary Mom & Dad!

P&G Kings Island 2010

2009

2010

We went to Procter & Gamble's King Island weekend in September. Belle was able to participate a little more this year than last year (see 2009 at top) when she was just one month old. She was still only able to ride the carousel, but she loved it! Check out the video of her first ride below. She's a natural horse rider like her mom.

Catching up with the Tummy Tracker

It's been a while since the Tummy Tracker has been updated. Here is a month's worth of updates, capped off with a classy pregnant nun.

Our September Weekend Vacation in Indy

We took a long weekend vacation in Indy the first weekend of September. We kicked it off with a Thursday night Colts game and amazing tickets from Tara's dad. Thanks Chuck!! It was both of our first times in Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts played our home town team the Cincinnati Bengals. Our Bengals ended up winning, even though we had our Colts jerseys on and were cheering equally for both.
The next day started with a behind-the-scenes visit with the giraffes and the Hyde's at the Indy Zoo. Thanks Charlie Hyde! We walked across the river with Sam, Ben & Alexander for lunch at the Eiteljorg Museum. We spent the evening with Charlie & Sam without all of our kids visiting art exhibits at a festival and dining at the Saffron Cafe downtown.
The rest of our weekend was less photographed, but was full of fun bumming around Indy. It was nice to feel a part of our former city once again.

Isabella's Birthday in Cincy

Here's mom getting Isabella out of bed on her first birthday. I love how Belle is always so happy in the morning. Below are some more birthday pics from home and daycare.

Belle and Logan's Birthday Party

We had a combination 1st and 8th Birthday party for Isabella and Logan at Christy's house in Indy. It was a beautiful day and lots of fun with our family. Thanks to all of you for coming and to Logan for allowing us to bring lots of pink to his party!

Isabella's First Lipstick

After great negotiation and deliberation, Isabella won out and suckered mom into getting her some lipstick. I'm not sure what agreements and concessions were made, but it happened. I thought we'd wait a little longer before giving her makeup, but maybe one is old enough. Either way, you can tell that she loves it and that's all that matters.

Alright..., maybe not, but it almost looks like it. Isabella has become a huge fan of both cream and fudge sicles. After gaining those top two front teeth, she has been eating a much larger share of the sicles.