Micah + Bella= Love 4 Ever

Man there are just some pretty amazingly cute kids around right now! But Bella only has eyes for one sweet little (or big) boy! We hung out with our good friends the Fay's and the Doe's on a nice summer monsoon night and the house was filled with tons of little kids! Bella and Micah are just so cute and adorable and, oh yeah, they are in love.

Love them (PS, look at Bella sitting up, so big!)
Playing with toys together

We laid them next to each other to play.....

But Bella missed her boyfriend and rolled over to see him and touch his face

And then they started holding hands

And cuddling.....because they love each other!

Bella Likes....

~ Bella likes....her big girl bath! ~

Bella is doing so well with sitting up now, it's like all of the sudden she just decided she is going to sit and that was it! We have let her play with sitting on her own in the tub but it's still pretty slippery and she likes to play so much so, thanks to our good friends the Fays, we borrowed a bath seat for Bella and she loves playing in the tub. Can't believe how big she is getting!

Love those big beautiful eyes!

Eating bath toys, of course!

Concentrating so hard to get her toys!

So cute!

~ Bella likes....her Uncle Matt! ~

The last few times we have seen Matt Bella has been fascinated with him! We were hanging with Matt before he left for a month long mission trip in Mexico and we got some cute pictures of them playing around. Bella prayed for her Uncle Matt while getting ready for bed tonight, her exact words were, "ba ba aba da da ma ba" but we know God knew she was praying for Uncle Matt's trip!

Love!

Look alikes!

Oh crazy Uncle Matt!

So cute!

~ Bella likes....playing with tissue paper! ~

Bella was playing on the table in her bumbo while I was eating a snack, she reached over and grabbed some tissue paper and started waving it around and tearing it apart. She LOVED it! It was so cute to watch her until she started trying to chew it and it dissolved into mush that I had to fish out of her mouth. Needless to say, we moved on to play with some more durable toys.

I just can't get enough of her big goofy smile!

So fun!

She can hardly control her excitement over playing with the paper!

So.Much.Fun.

Love her!

~ Bella likes.....doing things 'all by herself' ~

She is becoming such a big girl I can hardly believe it! She likes to try to feed herself with her utensils, she likes to feed herself bread (well she really just loves to gnaw on it but she gets furious when you try to take it away!). Her new thing is she likes to hold her own bottle! I wasn't really aware she could do this since I am almost never give her a bottle when I'm with her but my parents clued me in to this and Rowdy told me she does this also and I finally got a picture of my little independent lady. She is actually very good at it, I just can't believe it!

"Hey mom, check me out!"

So big!

Bella Ticklish Laugh

Bella is very ticklish on her legs, if it doesn't get a laugh it at least gets a huge smile but she thought it was pretty hilarious when we were playing the other night, it was a little past her bedtime so I think she was a bit giddy!

Bella Sitting Up

Bella is getting so good at sitting up! All of the sudden she is just so strong! She is moving all around on her belly and rolling all over, she is so close to crawling and it looks like she is starting to master sitting!

Sunday Funday

We had a fun Sunday morning that started with church. Sundays are usually tricky when it comes to Bella's naps, and today was no exception. Bella typically takes her first nap between 9-9:30 and usually naps for about 1.5hrs. Well, church starts at 10 and we have to leave our house at 9:30 to get to church on time (because I require a Sunday morning Starbucks stop on the way!). Needless to say, I am still trying to figure out how to make it work but today Bella got up extra early so she got a short nap in before church and snoozed a little in the car on the way home but was still clearly tired. We put her down for nap once we were home and she slept for a little over 2 hours, she clearly needed it! When she woke up she was in the funniest, goofiest little mood, it was adorable! Everything was hilarious to her and she particularly liked playing on our bed while the laundry was being sorted. We had fun taking pictures and playing with our little goofball daughter. We then went up to my parents to hang and swim for a bit which is always fun. Overall, a great Sunday!

Seriously, I just think her face is perfection, and I don't care if I sound like an overly proud mom, she is gorgeous!

Such crazy goofs! Having so much fun!

Love her and her sweet smile!

Kisses for Bella, I spend a good portion of the day doing this!

So fun!

Crazy girl!

She reached over and grabbed a handful of socks and thought it was the best thing ever!

It's the simple things, like socks, that apparently make the best toys!

Lovin' life!

Family swim, Bella is a little distracted

Splish Splash!

To say Bella loves to swim is the understatement of the year. I cannot emphasize enough how much Bella LOVES to swim, she is a little fish! It is one of my favorite things to do with her because it is always filled with laughter and a squealing, happy baby! Today she started trying to do a swimming motion with her harms which I, of course, thought was adorable. Look at her go!

Just an Inch! That's All She Wants!

Bella is really working on her crawling. You can just see how frustrated she is that she can't crawl to something she wants or to one of us, poor thing! All she wants to do if she is on the ground is flip to her belly and try to crawl! Here is a little video I got of her trying to crawl to me, she can really turn herself around on her belly now and has moved small amounts forward (ok, maybe like millimeters, but it seems like a lot!) and has accidentally scooted backwards now a few times, she is a determined little girl!

Rainy Day at the Lake

We were leaving church, it was overcast and rainy and such a nice day! Rowdy mentions the idea that maybe we should drive up to Bartlett Lake for fun, half kidding. We decided we wanted to go on a family adventure so we headed that direction. On the way we stopped at my parents house to borrow the camera because I had forgotten to throw mine in the bag, and get some refreshments for everyone. We started the drive up to the lake, which is really not very far and a pretty drive. What a fun day! We didn't stay too long because when the sun was out it was pretty bright and next time we will bring some more coverage for Bella so her sweet little baby skin doesn't get overexposed to the sun. It was so beautiful there and it was just a nice, simple afternoon. I had such a hard time picking my favorite pictures so I just included most of them.

I love her, I could squeeze her all day long!

So pretty and foggy/rainy!

A closeup, I love Bella's look on her face. It makes me think of the paparazzi pictures in People magazine of celebrities. They are always looking over their shoulder and suddenly realizing they are being photographed and have an irritated look on their face like, "why are you spoiling this special moment by taking a picture"....that is Bella's face in this picture!

Love my peanut

I thinkwe tend to forget there is such beauty in AZ so near by, it's nice to be able to go outside and enjoy it when it's not a million degrees!

LOVE

Looking at the water and the boats and jet skis

LOVE them! She looks so much like her daddy! (And how cute is she in her jeans!!?!)

They love eachother

Bella put her feet in the water. Since we aren't headed to the beach this summer this is our beach moment :-) So adorable to watch them together!

She is a little fish, so naturally, she loved the water!

Love my family!

Just chilling with our jeans rolled up on the "beach"

Luckily, we had an umbrella in the car so we could cover Bella. Bella was more obsessed with getting things out of her diaper bag and usually chewing on her diaper bag :-)

Bella chewing on her diaper bag, crazy girl!