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.

Trip to Harmony Hill Vineyards

We celebrated our friend Roshelle's birthday at a local winery just east of Cincinnati last month. We both decided we'd been depriving Isabella of wineries for far too long. Belle did awesome as always, allowing her to stay up well past her bedtime, as well as allow mom and dad to mingle for a while longer. Fun night!

Isabella in Reverse

Belle seemed to back her way into a predicament. Unfortunately for her, she perfected the backward crawl far before the more progressive forward crawl. You can see that her final attempt for escape faltered and parental extraction was required.

Reds Game with Roshelle & Ben

The Reds are actually doing really well this year (first time since we've lived here). We took advantage of our wonderful babysitter next door and headed downtown with some good friends. We sadly lost that night (despite Ben's rally cap), but had a great night.

4th of July Weekend at the Lake

After the fireworks in Indy, we headed up to Lake Shafer for some fun and sun at Tami & Jeff's lakehouse. Belle did great again on the boat. She oddly prefers to go fast and would only whimper some when we slowed down. That's my girl!

4th of July Fireworks at Christy & David's House

Still catching up on good times from this summer. Here are some pics from an awesome fireworks display from Charlie's sister Christy's house. To add to the fireworks, this was also the weekend we announced we were pregnant. Great weekend!

Belle Knocking the Tower Down at Day Care

Our little girl loves to knock down the blocks. This is Belle and her good friend (day care provider) Laura. They have a great time playing together every day!

Charlie's Office - Downtown Cincy

I just happened to have my camera with me at my office a month or so ago, so I took a few pics of my office and area. I work in one of the prettiest buildings in Cincy, seen in the middle. It is just over 100 year old, but my company has preserved as many historical aspects of it as they could. Also below is the adjacent park and new tallest building in Cincy immediately west of us. A huge Abe Lincoln statue can also been seen at the end of the park in the bottom left.

Our Two Girls

Here's the new gal at 12 Weeks on the left and the excited older gal at around 11 months. At the time of the pic on the left, we hadn't confirmed she was a girl yet. But, now looking back, it is oh so obvious that this is a girl's beer belly.

The Civil War Train Ride

Charlie's parents came to visit last month and we surprised them with a Civil War train ride up in Lebanon, OH. We were running late and actually were able to get the train to stop to pick us up. Amazing how that worked! It was a beautiful day for a ride with great company.

The Tummy Tracker Returns - 8 thru 19 Weeks

After a long seven or eight month break after having our first beautiful child, we decided to make things even more interesting and start the process of trying to add another. Well..., we ended up being pretty efficient and made it happen right away. Here's the progression so far...

A Few Weeks...

8 Weeks

10 Weeks

12 Weeks

14 Weeks

16 Weeks

19 Weeks