Nora and Brian's wedding - August 16th

Hey everyone! Here are a few pictures from Nora and Brian's wedding. The wedding was beautiful and everything went smoothly :) Enjoy the pics!

Finally "home" after a long summer vacation...

Hello strangers! I know, i know. It's been a long time since our last post. It's been one crazy and busy summer for us. We finally made it back to Sicily last Wednesday after a very long summer vacation in the States (2 and 1/2 months to be exact :) Actually, it was only 2 and 1/2 weeks for Brian but Bella and i were gone for the entire time. I was in two weddings in August (one was my good friend Jaclyn's wedding and the other one was my sister's in which i was the matron of honor, so i had a lot more responsibility with this one). We also went down to Jacksonville for a few days the beginning of August to visit our great friends and meet their new babies, Jago and Maddy. They are absolutely adorable, by the way. When we got back from Jacksonville, Brian and i got a chance to hang out with my sister, new brother-in-law Brian, my brother and his girlfriend Linette at Kings Dominion. That was a lot of fun - we felt like we were kids all over again! And we also had my sister's bachelorette party, in which apparently i had way too much fun. In between all of this, we tried to do as much as we could with Bella in the DC area. We took her to the National Zoo one day and to walk around the Washington Monument and that whole area on another day. Needless to say, August was super busy and went by way too fast for us. I will post pictures from all the different events at a later time. Here are some pics of Bella in the nursery room at Lajes Air Field in the Azores on our way back to Sicily last Wednesday. And a couple of her and Coby, who she adores and keeps giving besos to. He has been so great with her too, letting her curl up with him and serving as her pillow. He is the greatest dog ever! And we missed him so much while we were gone. It's so nice to finally be at home with our entire family :)

Discipline 101

Here's what Bella has been up to lately: Every time you ask her, "Como dice mami?" (what does mommy say?), she smacks her hand, and says "pow, pow, pow", kind of what i do to her when she gets into something she is not supposed to. I don't hit her hard, by any means, i just tap her hand lightly and apparently she has picked up on it. She is going through this "monkey see, monkey do" stage where she mimics and says everything everyone does. So if you're ever around her, make sure you watch what you say and do:)

Baby talk

Bella has been "talking" a lot lately, and i was finally able to catch a little video of her doing it. My family and i laugh and joke that she's speaking Chinese, because that's what she sounds like. So here she is attempting to "talk" to me:

Isn't she lovely...

Some of you may have noticed the little slideshow on the sidebar. I used MyPhotoAlbum.com to build it, and I must say, I did a pretty fine job. Now you don't have to, but it adds to the experience if you hit the play button on the little player above - it's pretty self-explanatory, but if you read below, you can see why I added it.

It's been a few weeks now without my ladies, and I'm starting to get a little sappy. Not getting to see them all the time pretty much sucks. Thank goodness for the internet and webcams. If it wasn't for Yahoo! Messenger, I'd probably go crazy with Bella withdrawal (I miss Nancy too, but she's not growing and learning new words everyday). We get on the webcam every few days or so, and I get to see my little Bellarina and her mommy, but it's really not the same as having them at home.

So, the other night, Coby and I (at least I'm not home alone) were looking over some family pictures. I know Nancy's probably going to build a photo album of Isabella's first year, but I decided to go ahead and build one myself. I had some free time on my hands between the Rockband and Tiger Woods golf on my Playstation - weekends as a bachelor aren't quite the same anymore.

For the Stevie Wonder song, I fell in love with it a while ago, but definitely not for the reasons why I like it now. It had a catchy tune, and oddly enough, I like the little harmonica piece. Well, going back to when we found out we were having a girl, I had a million thoughts running through my mind of how I was going to be as a dad. I pictured all the things fathers and daughters do. This may seem a bit corny, but I even pictured Bella getting married and having the Father-Daughter dance. During one of my more productive days at work, I decided to look up different songs for that very occasion, and lo and behold, they actually have websites for this. This song just happened to be on all the lists, and looking a little further into it, it has great lyrics and it celebrates the birth of his daughter. When the time comes, I will totally leave the decision up to her, but I'll definitely have a recommendation should she ask. Anyways, when I see any pictures of my little princess, I always hear "Isn't She Lovely" play in my head. So go ahead and hit the play button, and you may just get a glimpse of how I feel everytime I see my baby girl. Enjoy!

For my baby and my baby's mama - I love you guys and can't wait to see you ;)

A not so happy 4th of July

So this wasn't a very happy 4th of July for us. Bella started getting a fever on Tuesday afternoon and we finally had to take her to the ER on Friday morning, after her fever kept breaking and then coming back. Nora insisted we take her to the INOVA ER in Alexandria where she works, so that was nice since she knew the doctors and nurses. Everyone there was so happy they finally got to meet the beautiful niece Nora keeps raving about. We finally saw Dr. Meltzer, who said Bella had an ear infection and then prescribed us some Amoxicillin for it. She is such a trooper when it comes to taking medicine (probably because it's really fruity and tastes nothing like grown up medicine), but she started to develop a little allergic reaction to it. She began to get tiny bumps on her face, so i was really starting to worry. Nora assured me that she was fine and that we didn't need to take her back to the ER. She was absolutely right - by the next day, her rash was completely gone and she's been fine ever since! And although this was the first time Bella has ever been really sick in 14 months, i am so thrilled to finally have my happy Bella back! Here are a few pictures of our trip to the ER and some of our 4th of July.

Our trip to South Carolina

Hey there! Sorry it's been a few weeks since the last post, but things have been very busy for Bella and I since we got to the States. We got here on June 5th and stayed with my family in VA for a couple of weeks before heading down to South Carolina to visit Bella's other grandparents. We had a wonderful time down there just relaxing and hanging out at the pool. We actually rode down to SC with my sister and brother-in-law and their two kids, Jordan and Justin (who's also our Godson) He's the one in the picture holding Bella's hand - don't they look adorable :)

Bella really enjoyed playing in the water and hanging out at the pool. I found this really cute floaty boat thing for her, which she absolutely loved and it made it so much easier for me to play with her in the water. In one of the pictures, she is trying to chase a butterfly that all of the kids at the pool were crazy about.

The other pictures, my sister-in-law took while i was away for the weekend celebrating my good friend, Jaclyn's, bachelorette party. I LOVE all of the pictures she took (there are so many more than the ones i posted and they all turned out great). I think it's time Brian and i started thinking about a new camera. Ours is just too slow and that just doesn't cut it when you have a very active baby who won't stay still so you can get the perfect shot.

On our way up to VA last Wednesday, we were able to stop in Durham to have lunch with Jaclyn (the bachelorette) and Maureen (one of my old roommates and good friend from VT). This was their first time meeting Bella so that was really nice. Bella kept us entertained, sticking out her tongue and trying to put her feet on the table! I'm so glad they finally got to meet her and i loved catching up with both of them. Hopefully they'll get to spend more time with her in the future :)