New to this blog thing!

I've decided to create this blog after following a few of my friends' blogs to help keep everyone up to date on our little growing family. During my pregnancy, I kept a page about how things were going as well as how Bella was doing and stuff... so this is the graduated version and will hopefully stick as our family continues to grow! You can check out the pregnancy journey at www.totsites.com/tot/babyleonards ... but I decided this was more appropriate now that Bella is with us and things are changing everyday.

Those that are new to my blog... Isabella Rose was born on September 29, 2008 at 9:45am. She weighed 6 pounds, 10 oz and was 19.5in long at birth. She was born at Clarian North Hospital in Carmel, Indiana. Those that helped were Jerry and my Mom and Steve. It was a long labor of about 20 hours and although I had prepared for a natural, med-free delivery, I did end up getting an epidural at 6cm (and boy now

 I am very glad that I did, haha!). To make a long story short, breastfeeding was rough for us. Bella had a poor latch from the get-go and also has reflux

 and a milk protein allergy. So I was exclusively pumping for 3 months and then decided it was time to make the switch for all of our sanity. So she is now on soy formula and is growing like a weed! 

Its hard to believe she'll be 4 months old officially tomorrow!! We were supposed to have her 4 month appt today at our pediatrician, but we are in the middle of a snow storm, so no doc appt today! I am guessing she is atleast 15 pounds an

d 25 inches at this point. She is also sleeping through the night now. She slept 7:30pm to 7am last night! YAHOO!! This is *much* improvement from the never sleeping at all thing we were going through for quite some time...

Jerry is working at Hurco Electronics as an electrical engineer and he LOVES his job. Its so nice to actually have him enjoying what he's doing! I am working part-time now at PUSH Fitness for Women doing lifestyle coaching (using my MSW), personal training and teaching group fitness classes. I'll keep you guys posted on things there but I'm really loving my job. I am also doing online fitness plans at www.body

lifeworks.com 

I'll finish off this first entry with a picture of Bella...hopefully I'll figure out how to work this thing...haha!

Here she is with Angel. This was taken just a few days ago.