News...

Hello Friends and Family,

When Mom and Dad started this blog the name "Isabella Kristine's
Life" was available from blogger.com. We decided on "Tiffany & Paul et. al." so that we could accommodate others as they came along.
THAT DAY HAS ARRIVED!!! MOM AND DAD ARE EXPECTING AND ISABELLA WILL BE A BIG SISTER!!!
We went to the doctor's office on Friday to find out that Bump (until we know if it's a boy or girl) is about the size of an olive and "Everything looks absolutely perfect." That vote of confidence from the doctor has made us comfortable enough to start spreading the word! Additionally, Mom's pretty constant sickness would make it a pretty difficult fact to hide anyway.

Details for those wondering:

- YES - this was planned. We wanted Isabella and Bump to be less than three years apart... Mission Accomplished!
- YES - we will find out if Bump is a boy or a girl, stay tuned.
- JULY 12 - is roughly when Bump is due (give or take up to a week on either side - though Bella was early)

Hope to talk to everyone soon, and Thanks for visiting!

Long Time No Talk

Obviously this is the first time we've updated this page in quite some time. Given everyone's new schedule, I can't make any firm commitments as to how often we'll be updating it going forward, but hopefully 6 months won't happen anymore! If you aren't friends with Bella yet on Facebook, I'd get on that, since people update that for us when they upload pictures of the Tiny One and tag her. Here are a couple videos of Bella's First Halloween! The first is Bella's first Trick-Or-Treat EVER at our neighbors. We worked on "Happy Halloween" for a while but all we got to was "Happy Ween." Enjoy-


The other video is Aunt Sara and "Uncle" Tommy helping Isabella carve her first Jack-O-Lantern. They came down for Halloween weekend and brought Bella to ZooBoo in her costume. Some of Sara's pictures are on Facebook (incentive to add Bella to your friend list if you haven't already). [Editor's note - we had trouble uploading this one - hopefully it will be available soon]

Bella's School

Hey Friends and Family:
We've got a school/daycare for Bella to attend! This isn't incredibly recent news but it occurred to us that people that read the blog hadn't heard it yet.
She will be attending a Montessori Day Care called the Esperanza School and will be in their 18-24 month classroom (The Mockingbirds). Although she (and we) will miss her Renee terribly, being in a social setting with other children will probably do her good. Check out their website here: Esperanza School . They have swimming, music, art, and Spanish lessons and I'm kinda jealous they don't have adult classes. Bella will get small classes, structured activities and circle time, as well as time to explore their grounds and classrooms independently. The school is very highly recommended and we're very happy we were able to get her enrolled. They also provide cheap babysitting every Saturday night for parents who want a date night so we might take advantage of that every once in a while too!

Interesting Side Note: The school doesn't have a spot for her until after Labor Day (September 5). That means that we need to find care for her through July and August. We've got July covered (thank you Welly, Aunt Sara, "Aunt" Tarah, and Grandpa), but if anyone out there wants to take some vacation and visit us in the month of August and hang out with one of the cutest kids out there - her parents would be very appreciative! It's still early enough to get good rates and your room and board will be comped!

Have a great day everyone and hopefully we'll see you soon,
Thanks for visiting!

Big News

No pictures this time (feel free to scroll down and come back later) - but we have big news to share with those of you who haven't heard it yet. The Needham Family is moving back to Texas!

At the end of June, we will be moving back to Houston, TX and are very excited/anxious about the entire process.
Mom: Will continue working in her job as a Senior Managing Director of Program with Teach For America. The teams she works with may change but professionally, very little will change for her. Personally, she's very excited to get back to Texas and be closer to her family and friends in the Lone Star State.

Dad: Is also very excited to be back in Houston with his network of friends there and can't wait to see his Cuellar family more often and have Bella experience the same. Additionally, Houston is infinitely easier to travel to than Tulsa so his family will be able to visit much easier. Dad also has a very big professional transition as well. In a couple of weeks, he will be leaving the only organization he has known in his professional life and joining the Teaching Excellence team with YES College Prep in Houston (http://yesprep.org/). In that role, he'll be working with new teachers and leading professional development opportunities. He's incredibly excited to join the team as well as the potential for change that his work will represent for the students of Houston.

Tiny One: Bella has probably the hardest move of all, as she will be leaving her Renee. Fortunately, Renee travels for free and will hopefully be able to visit quite often (and we're going to help her get Skype before we leave). We're currently researching potential day-cares and Montessori schools that we might enroll her in once we get settled.

We'll give you more updates as you get them, but wanted our friends and family to know the big news in our lives!
Thanks for visiting,
Paul

Great-Grandparents in Florida

A couple weeks ago, Mom & Dad brought the Tiny One to Florida to visit her great-grandparents. Because they were able to get some flights, Grandma and Aunt Jen came too! Here are some of the highlights:


Thanks for visiting!

Aunt Sara's Visit

Recently, Bella has seen a lot of family! Aunt Sara visited a few weeks ago, Grandpa visited for a while so Dad could go to a job interview in Texas, and she went to Florida to see her great-grandparents as well. Grandpa is the only one who took pictures while he was here and we don't have any yet (HINT HINT), but we'll post them once we do. Sara brought an Easter-Egg hunt in a suitcase which was so nice of her since we spent Easter weekend at a wedding. Here are some shots Aunt Sara took while she and the Tiny One had a play date:



Thanks for visiting!

Bella's Spring Photoshoot

Thanks for being patient everyone! Gonna play a little catch up here. A waitress at one of our favorite restaurants is a high school student who wants to go to school for photography. As she makes a name for herself, she's got some pretty great deals going and wanted to know if we'd be interested (since Bella is gorgeous)! We were - and here are the results:









Thanks for visiting!

For Aunt Sara

Sara wanted this picture posted on the blog so she could save it on her phone - her you go!
Thanks for visiting!

Birthday Photo-Shoot

Last weekend we took Isabella to her photographer Shiba for her one-year photo-shoot. She started in her brown dress, rocking chair from her Grandma, and one of her favorite books, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."






Then we had a quick costume change into her birthday tutu that came courtesy of her "Aunt" Trisha. She was a little temperamental, but you can't tell from the pictures - which is partly due to Mom and Dad working their tails off and partly due to Shiba snapping the pictures at exactly the right time!

This is the first time we actually bought the rights to all the pictures from a shoot (the CD was on sale) so feel free to download, edit, and print these yourself. If you're friends with Bella on facebook, you can see ALL 30 of the pictures from the day and download and print any of those as well - and it's all completely legal as long as you don't sell them! Aunt Sara is planning a quick trip here in April and we'd love for any of you to get here whenever possible to visit us and spend some time with the Tiny One. Have a great day - thanks for visiting!

New - Do

Just a quick picture this time - will probably be better received than a quick note. Her hair is getting kinda long and Mom took the opportunity to buy elastics and put her hair in pigtails.

Thanks for visiting!

More Updates

We haven't taken any pictures recently (though we are planning her 1-year photo-op soon) but there are always updates to share - so here we go:

Sign Language: Bella has learned "milk" and has actually created her own sign! She made the "eat" motion with her hand but tapped the table with it instead of her mouth - we think it means "cereal."

Naps: Have become a thing of the past. She's still sleeping like an angel through the night but her day-time naps have become very spotty. We still put her in her crib twice a day and sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she cries, and sometimes she talks to her stuffed animals and feet for 75 minutes before we get her out. Fun times!

Outdoors Time: Bella has been spending a lot of time outdoors lately because the weather has gotten a lot nicer. Renee will roll her around the backyard in her wagon or let her walk around and play in the leaves almost every day. We used to let her walk around in the front yard but she thinks the street is a lot of fun and doesn't understand the concept of yard boundaries.

That's it I guess. Hopefully pictures to come! Thanks for visiting!
Paul

She's Way Too Smart

Hey everyone - this is Dad and I'm taking a quick break at work to tell a couple stories. Bella has changed a LOT in the last few weeks so even if you saw her over the holidays, you'd only be able to pick her out of a lineup because she's still the cutest kid you've ever seen. Here are a few things we've witnessed recently:
1) She's starting to really master sign language. Tiffany and I wanted to teach her sign a long time ago and told Renee (our nanny) who took over. She now knows the sign for "eat", " more", "tubby", and "bye" (that counts as a sign). We're currently working on "thank you" and "milk".
1a) This has led to some pretty fun stories. The other day she finished her breakfast and put the "more" sign before the "eat" sign. Renee flipped out because she had two year olds at her day care that couldn't put two signs together.
1b) She also walked to the cupboard where we keep her goldfish the other day while Mom and Renee were talking, knocked on the door, and gave the "eat" sign.
1c) Just last night, after dinner, she gave me the "tubby" sign because she's starting to learn her daily routine. It wasn't quite time for her bath so I told her to wait and put her down in the living room. She walked over to the gate by the staircase, moved it out of her way, and flew up the stairs (yeah, she's climbing stairs now). She got about half way up and yelped for me to follow her.

2) As evidenced by the last story, she's getting a lot more mobile. Each day she gets more and more confident walking. She's getting a little faster each day too and it's not unusual for her to walk from the living room into the kitchen pretty quickly and without any help.

3) The Tiny One also understands a lot of English. Talking and interacting with her is very reminiscent of talking to an adult who has lost their voice. She's very responsive to things like "give Mommy her phone back", "put down Daddy's pen" or "can you give Welly a hug?" This morning she was eating her breakfast and had chipmunk cheeks but was pointing to her Welly's muffin. I told her she couldn't have a bite until she finished what was in her mouth - to which she replied by opening her mouth as wide as she could to show me it was empty!

4) She's done with formula and has started milk this morning. She's eating a lot of grownup food too and prefers food she can feed herself (whole green beans to green bean baby food). In the last couple of week's she's had corn, carrots, apples, pears, cake, hard-boiled eggs, hot dogs, mac & cheese, and today had her first taste of real chicken.

Anyway, time to get back to work. I just wanted you all to have those updates. I snuck it in at end of the last post and I'll sneak it in here too - but if you want to see any of this in person, get on skype and find us at "pneedham2" - Isabella really enjoys talking to people on Daddy's computer (ask Aunt Jen and Aunt Sara who are her most frequent online visitors).
Thanks for visiting!

Isabella's a Year Old!!!

 

 

It's been a crazy year! To celebrate the Considerably Less Tiny One's First Birthday, Mom pulled out all the stops and planned a really great party. Obviously, the party girl needed a great party outfit.  The tutu above is courtesy of Charming Charlie and Bella's "Aunt" Trisha.  The guest list included Mom, Dad, Welly, Abuelo, Aunt Sara, "Uncle" Tommy, one of the teachers Dad worked with last year and over the summer, and the vast majority of TFA - Oklahoma (+significant others).  We had a cocktail hour prior to dinner, then we had a onesie-decorating contest before cake!

That cake is INCREDIBLE. You can't tell from the picture, but that cake is gold, not yellow.  There's also a crown painted on the top layer that looks exactly like Mom's invitations. 

 Bella got a tiny cake to herself that she actually DESTROYED. She ate half of it without breaking a sweat. It was her first taste of refined sugar and, judging by her reaction, will not be her last.

 Then we had a quick costume change before she opened presents. Bella's friends and family love her an awful lot because she got things like cars, savings bonds, activity boxes (like the one pictured), cute clothes, and LOTS of books! She had a wonderful time and sends her deepest gratitude to everyone that was there in both body and spirit! 

Quick update: Today we went for her 1-year doctor's appointment. She's a little over 30 inches long now (75th percentile), her giant head is also in the 75th percentile, and her weight (18 lbs, 15 oz) is still really low for her age at the 15th percentile.  Our doctor isn't worried (so don't lose sleep over it or anything) - she's just a future all-star swimmer. She's really starting to get the hang of Skype so if you're on it - find Dad at pneedham2 to say hi to her! 

Thanks for visiting,

Paul

She continues to amaze us

We just put Isabella Kristine to bed without her pacifier for the first time.  Given that her Dad had one until he was in PreK, and he did not take too kindly to giving it up, we were prepared for the worst.  It took her 10 minutes to fall asleep - no crying, no pouting - the end. Here's a picture of Bella with her Holiday Boyfriend (and her Aunt Sara's real all-the-time boyfriend) Tommy:

Thanks for visiting!

FIRST STEPS!!!

So it's been a long time since we updated this thing and we feel terrible. It's been very busy here so I can't promise that we'll go back and post pictures from Thanksgiving to now but we're going to try to do a good job of keeping it up to date from this point forward. Below is the best video EVER: HER FIRST STEPS!! She was going crazy for Paul's cousin Cary's jewelry so Mom pulled out the camera *just in case*.  We got lucky and caught her first 3.5 steps. Other videos are being very slow to upload but we'll try to get some more up from the break... Enjoy and thanks for visiting!