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Thursday, May 27, 2010

In a Year....

So much can happen in a year...
Rowdy and I celebrating our 2nd anniversary, Memorial Day Weekend 2009
May 27th, 2009: After being told a few days earlier I wasn't pregnant, I went to the doctor and found out I was pregnant! It had just been too early for the blood test....I was 3.5 weeks pregnant when this was taken!

Bella growing....28 weeks pregnant

38 Weeks Pregnant

Midnight, February 3rd: We had just been called to come into the hospital to be induced....the last picture before getting in the car to head in

Our sweet Isabella Grace, born February 3rd, 2010 at 2:16pm

So brand new

Rowdy in the hospital with Bella

One of the last few pictures before heading home

Isabella Grace: 3 months, 3 weeks old....our beautiful miracle


Thank you Lord for the most wonderful year of my life!

Monday, May 24, 2010

More Bella Updates

Bella is now 3 months, 3 weeks old. She has become SO aware of her surroundings and loves to participate in the conversation. She doesn't want to be held in the cradle hold if she is with everyone, she wants to sit on a lap and see what everyone is doing. She is non-stop talking and it is HILARIOUS! She sticks out her tongue and makes the goofiest little sounds and squeels, I love it! Will get a new video soon! Still sleeping about the same, can't wait until we can start extending those hours a bit but we are used to it! I think she is getting close to rolling from back to belly now also. She still rolls from belly to back but doesn't do it as frequently as she did when she first figured out she could do it. Now if I lay her on her back on her playmat she is pretty much immediately on her side and pretty quickly almost all the way turned over. She doesn't do it with any sort of momentum though so she can't seem to finish the roll, always getting stuck on her arm so she is always in this odd twisted little position. Maybe when she starts trying with some momentum she will make it all the way over...so cute and SO strong! I am so excited to go for her doctor's appointment in a couple weeks to get her 4 month update and finally find out how much she weighs!

Oh Bella you little goofball, you are all twisted and not even all the way on your playmat!

Crazy twisted rolling

Dad came home from golfing, he and Bella decided to relax on the couch, Bella apparently wanted to show us what her belly looks like :-)

Bella sitting on the couch like a big girl! She loves looking at her daddy, so cute!

Bella was practicing siting in her boppy pillow but Oreo wanted in on the fun so Bella moved to the Bumbo and Oreo took over the boppy!

Bella is so strong and getting so big, can't believe how fast it's going!

Bella in her high chair practicing for when she is a big girl eating big girl food. I just gave her the spoon to play with and she had a lot of fun!

Celebrating Bella's Dedication

This past weekend we celebrated Bella's dedication. We kept it small with just family and it was so nice to see everyone and celebrate surrounding Bella with love and dedicating to raising her to know the Lord and His great unending love! We had been getting the house ready during the week and planning for the party and on Friday I got a small case of the flu! I can't remember the last time I had the flu and it was definitely no fun with a 3.5 month old! Thank goodness my mom came over and cleaned and took care of Bella while I was totally useless! The party would not have been possible without my mom making all of the food. I was so excited to make Bella's first cake but I didn't want to infect everyone so my mom made it and if anyone else was going to make it I would want it to be my mom! It all turned out great and we had a lot of fun with everyone. Bella was a perfect angel being passed around the party. She refused to nap all day, she didn't want to miss her party!

We love our little peanut!

Bella's pretty cake my mom made

Dad and his princess, so adorable!

Grandma Owens and Bella having fun

My Uncle John and Bella, she loved him!

Grandma Julia and Bella enjoying the party

Great Grandma Julia and cousin Sierra

The table before all of the food came out

My Aunt Carol and Bella

Dad and Bella taking a little break

Dad and Bella REALLY taking a little break....long day of partying wore them out :-)

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Beautiful Bella

There hasn't been too much going on in the Owens house this week. We have just been trying to get the yard "summer ready" and Bella has been playing with her bestie Maya....that's pretty much it. But we are ok with this....sometimes it's nice to just have a slightly slower week, it feels nice. Here a few pictures from the week...

I took this picture of Rowdy holding Bella the other night. I just love it, I'm not going to lie, I feel a bit like a photographer on this one :-) Bella made it easy just staring so sweetly into the camera and then I had fun playing around with my free photo editing program. It's by no means professional or anything other than me playing around, but I still love it :-)

My little chunky monkey! Ok well, she is still Bella so she is still small but I love that she has a double chin in the picture, it cracks me up!

Bella's first walk int he stroller sitting in the forward facing position. Usually she is in her car seat that snaps into the stroller and she stares at me the whole time. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but she has a new found love and fascination for the world and what is going on around her so I thought she might enjoy checking out the scene in the neighborhood. She did, she absolutely loved it!

The straps are practically swallowing her haha! I love this stroller because it reclines totally flat but also just partially reclines which is perfect for us right now because she is not big enough for sitting straight up in the stroller yet but she got to have a little sample of "big girl life"

Bella and Maya enjoying the afternoon! Bella is slowly but surely catching up to her friend! Bella and Maya are exactly 4 weeks apart, I can't wait until they are actually aware of each other!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Bella Babbles

Bella is loving her hands lately! She was having some fun after bath time tonight and babbling away while going to town on her hands! She is such a little goofball! (Fair warning: this video is almost 2 minutes long....I'm a crazy mom that takes long videos of her baby babbling, I can't help it, I love her!)

Sunday, May 9, 2010

A Perfect First Mother's Day & Bella's Dedication

I had such a great first Mother's Day! I started the day out with Rowdy bringing me a sweet present and some cuddling with my adorable daughter. We got all dressed up for church because it wasn't just my first mother's day, it was also Bella's dedication. Isabella Grace has been dedicated as a precious child of God and we could not be more happy! She was dedicated with a few other new babies in our church, one in particular: her boyfriend Micah Doe! It was a great morning at church including a great sermon by my good friend Christy Fay, she was so great and gave us a wonderful message for Mother's Day! We then had lunch at Olive and Ivy, I have been dying to go there for brunch because I love their eggs benedict and I haven't had it in about a year because I couldn't have it while I was pregnant and we just haven't been since Bella has been born so I could hardly wait! Well, wait we did because it was packed for Mother's Day, but those eggs benedict were worth the wait! We followed up our yummy brunch by coming home and relaxing and watching the Suns, such a great day! Between Bella's dedication and my first Mother's Day it was just an overall great day! I am so blessed to be Bella's mom, I have wanted to be a mother for a long time and just knew that I couldn't wait to be a mom. I could picture myself with my baby and just couldn't wait but in those dreams I didn't know who my baby would be, it was just sort of a generic baby. God couldn't have sent me a more perfect child in every way. No matter what struggles we face or when she cries or is cranky, those little smiles make it so worth it! I just love being a mom and wouldn't want to be doing anything else with my days other than being with my Bella! A special shout out to my mom for being such an amazing mother and teaching me everything I know about being a mother! And also to Rowdy's mom, Bella has 2 amazing grandma's and she is very lucky to have them in her life! Happy Mother's Day!

My sweet baby girl and I, I love her!!

Right before we went into church for her dedication, her dress was sort of attacking her head here and she has a sweet little tired face, she literally PASSED OUT a few minutes after this and slept through the whole service!

At church for Bella's dedication

Up on stage while Pastor Matt was dedicating the babies


Rowdy, Bella and I with the proud grandparents

Bella and her Godmother Erica and Godfather Matt. We love them and are so thankful that they wanted to be Bella's Godparents! We couldn't have hoped for more wonderful people to help guide her through life and be examples of God's love and grace! She is such a lucky girl to have them in her life!

With Grandma Owens

With lots of fun family! My Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim are also my Godparents so it was very special to have them there!

Having fun with Cousin Nick!

More fun with family!

With my sweet friend Marcie and her son Micah. As mentioned earlier, Micah is Bella's boyfriend. They love eachother!

Great picture for the wedding slideshow one day! Sweet love! :-)

Bella's Funny Faces and Other Fun

I realized I had a LOT of new pictures of Bella I need to put up. I can't help myself, everything she does is adorable to me! Bella is becoming so animated and makes some very goofy faces (see below). And since I can't stop clicking away on the camera I can occassionally catch some! She has started really loving to grip on to things as you will see in many pictures below. Her left hand is always grabbing onto whatever she is wearing, if this is a onesie it's fine, but if it's a dress she is usually "flashing" people :-) She has started gripping my hair (no more dangly earings) and she grips my shirt when I am feeding and sometimes when I am feeding her with the nursing cover on she likes to grip that and move it, which makes for a very interesting experience!

I just love these pictures where she playing on her playmat for some reason. I think she looks SO old and so strong! Such a big girl! I can't beleive it!

She will occassionally roll onto her side now from her back. No rolling over from back to belly yet and she isn't really even trying, she sort of just seems to tip over onto her side right now.

Love my sweet girl!

Gripping with her left hand

Chilling on mom and dad's bed. I think sh elooks like a little tennis player here!

Watching the Suns with her dad. I see a lot of this in her future!

After her favorite time of day, bath time!

Such a big girl! No more sling in her bathtub! I wasn't sure when exactly you are supposed to take out the little sling attachment in the tub but we did and she LOVED it! She could kick her little feet around and it looked like she thought she was swimming. It was adorable. I have a video I may get around to posting but it is one of those videos that probably only I am amused by.

One of her goofy faces, sticking out her tongue! I just love this picture, there is something so adorable about a little baby in her hooded towel!

I don't really know what this look is, I think this picture was a happy accident. I just sit here looking at this and giggle. Crazy eyes, strange little lips, hilarious to me!

More crazy eyes and goofy lips, silly girl!

Gripping her onesie


"GO SUNS!"

Cozy sleeping girl with some pretty sweet pants! :-)