.: Double Digits! Bella is 10 Months Old!

Isabella is 10 months old! We are just loving every second with her. There is something about having a child around at the holidays that makes them so much more fun! Even if Bella doesn't understand this year we know she still loves how pretty our Christmas tree looks! I can't believe that this month last year we were having a baby shower for her. How has it been a year? Two months and counting for party planning!! Eek! She is getting so big and changing every day! Here are some updates on Bella:

We had our first big trip with Bella this past month. We went to Wisconsin to visit Rowdy's family and also took a fun little quick trip to Chicago. She did great on her very first flight!
Our first trip led to our first real illness. Bella started out with a stuffy nose and it progressed to some chest congestion and then she completely started refusing fluids. And of course, the dreaded fever, so we went to the doctor and they confirmed that Bella had the flu. Boo! That's all I can say about having a sick baby, it is NOT fun! The funny part was she really was such a trooper and was generally in a good mood as long as you weren't trying to make her drink fluids. I think we are finally starting to get back on track after that and I hope our next illness is a long way away!
Bella seems to really prefer "real" food as opposed to purees now. She will still eat her purees but she loves to feed herself. She is very adventurous with food too which I love! She seems to really love garlic (good little Italian girl!). She had her first experience with pasta and red sauce, she seemed to really like little pieces of bread with pesto, she tried hummus (didn't seem to be her favorite) but she pretty much loves to eat whatever is on my plate. The best was on Thanksgiving. Grandpa gave her just a taste of his cheesecake and she LOVED it! She couldn't get enough of it and would start anxiously shaking her hands at him if we wasn't getting the spoon full of cheesecake to her mouth fast enough. The whole time I was trying to mentally run through all my books to figure out if she was actually allowed to have cheesecake (aside from the obvious over-exposure to sugar....oh well, it was a holiday) but I couldn't, in the moment, come up with a problem and she never had any sort of allergic reaction and I think it may have been the best day of her life! Seriously, she looked like she was in heaven while she was eating that cheesecake!
She loves to play the "how big is Bella" game now.
She claps......all the time :-) It's the cutest thing ever. And when she does somethigng "good" she claps for herself and looks at you like, "come on...that deserves a clap!"
She seems to be starting to understand "mama". She still babbles mama and dada constantly for everything but I have seen her actually say mama and look around for me, I absolutely love it!
We are getting our first little tastes of her "will." She definitely lets you know if she doesn't want certain foods we are feeding her. She holds her hand up in front of her mouth and turns away. And we have experienced a few occassions of little "tantrums." You can't really call them tantrums yet, thank goodness!! There have just been a few times where she has something that she wants and maybe isn't supposed to have and we go to take it and give it back to someone or put it away and she protests and makes sure you know she isn't happy about it. Thankfully these are momentary and very rare but I can see what lies ahead for us when she can start using her words!
She is such a busy body. She is all over the house and seems to really love cords. New forms of baby proofing are happening all the time around here!
She just had her first "good day" in the church nursery. We haven't really left her in there much, not because we don't love the church nursery staff, but because she usually would freak out. So generally she is only in there if I am going to be working in there or my mom is going to be working in there. Today she went in there all by herself and lasted the wholes service!! It was great! Usually I am just waiting for our number to come up on the screen that pages us to let us know that our child needs us but not today! They said she was the star of the nursery and did great and didn't cry or anything! Of course, right when she saw me she started crying! Poor little thing! But it was nice for Rowdy and I to both be able to sit all the way through a whole service together.
No walking in this house, but she is getting stronger every day and each day she manages to do something new and amazing!
Her love affair with cheerios continues. She would drop what she is doing at any given point in the day to eat cheerios, she is obsessed.
She is the LOVE of our lives and seriously, her laugh is just the best thing in the universe. She cracks us up every day!

I mean, can I squeeze that sweet little face!

LOVE her!

I just love the many "looks" Bella gives!! She is so expressive with her face and definitely has a little personality. We like to say she is "sassy"!

Sweet little face!

Doing her favorite thing right now "clap clap"

This is what nap time looks like with a super sick little baby. She was SO exhausted! Poor little thing, I had to go in to get her up from nap early because we had her doctor's appointment and she could not be woken. I turned the lights on in her room, turned the humidifier off, took pictures WITH flash, started slowly whispering Bella and increasing my volume, trying not to startle her, started rubbing her back and finally had to say her name at like full volume and she finally woke. I almost never get pictures of her sleeping because she usually wakes up the second I walk in the room so this was extra fun for me because I LOVE watching her while she sleeps, she is so peaceful!