Weekends are the Best!

We have had some fun weekends lately. A couple weekends ago we went shopping at the Biltmore and went to lunch. Bella loves going to restaurants now and loves being a big girl sitting in her high chair. She is getting very interested in feeding herself and its so cute (and messy!).

Bella and Daddy, they love eachother!

Love the bow in her hair!

She loves sitting in the high chair. She was so distracted with everything in the restaurant I could hardly get her to look at me!

Love my girl! She is my little princess!

This weekend we went up north to Munds Park, near Flagstaff and had a fun weekend at a cabin in beautiful weather and had a great time with friends! This was Bella's first trip! I couldn't believe it but we haven't gone overnight anywhere with Bella yet. It was good practice since we will be taking a bigger trip in a few months, including a flight, yikes! We went with our friends the Hopkins and the Mottes and we just love them! Bella had a fun time staying up all day Friday and refusing to nap, she was so cute and babbly. We had been banking on her napping on our way up and she had other plans. Unfortunately, the lack of napping on Friday led to a grumpy girl on Saturday. She has also had a stuffy nose lately and that piled on to and upset tummy and wanting to nap/eat constantly made for an interesting Saturday. The last time we went up to this cabin with Ashley and Jeff was before Bella and I think I read the whole 3rd book in the Twilight series, not so much this time.... Haha. Oh how things change when you have a child. At least she still gave us good sleep at night, love that she still slept great even though it wasn't in her crib! We still had so much fun with sweet Bella and got a few cute pictures of her. Bella had some early bedtimes so it was so fun to just relax, eat dinner, have some wine, and play Settlers of Catan with good friends! What more could you ask for than friends like Ashley, Jeff, Steph and Stephen!

Taking a bath in the kitchen sink, there is just something so cute about a baby in a sink!

Goofy!

She wanted those puffs so bad she was going to eat through the plastic bag if necessary to get them! PS, how cute is her outfit. A little hat with ears, the shirt underneath the jacket says "Daddy's girl", leopard pants and pink puffy shoes, such a cutie!

Snuggling with Daddy on the porch

Poor little girl was so sleepy

Little girl on a big chair!

I just loved how she was hanging out watching us clean up, watching tv, when did she get so big?!?

Oh no! I never took a picture with Bella! This is what I said to Rowdy as we were about to put Bella in her carseat. This is what tends to happen, I am always taking pictures and I need to remember to actually get in a few!

And what first road trip could be complete without a little time in the driver's seat, a little time on the Blackberry (she is holding it in her hands), and a little Starbucks.

Isabella Grace is 7 Months Old!

Isabella Grace: 7 Months Old

Our sweet Isabella Grace is 7 months old. She is the definition of perfection. I just love her personality so much in so many ways she is a total sweet little girl that has a soft voice and is super dainty and then in other ways she is completely silly and goofy and a total ham. I just love that she has both sides because they are each so wonderful in their own way. We love her so much and can't believe she is moving so fast to being 1, wasn't she just born??!? We have so enjoyed every second of these fast moving 7 months and can't wait for all the fun ahead.

• Bella has eaten: Apple, Banana, Sweet Potato, Carrot, Green Beans, Peas, Butternut Squash, Mango, Peach, Pear, Snow Cone (oops, how did that get in there....yes she has tasted mom's snow cone and yes, she loved that sugary treat!) and probably more that I am forgetting. She also just tried puffs and loves them! Look out cheerios, here we come!

• At about 6.5 months she started sitting up really well and totally indepently, she loves to sit and play and it is just the cutest thing! She also loves to sit up on our bed and then tip back and fall into the covers, she thinks it's so funny to "go boom!" into the covers!

• Is a total rolling machine, she is all over the place, all over the room, must be strapped into her bouncy or yes, she will even try to roll over in her bouncy, crazy girl! And now she is obsessed with rolling over on her changing pad, scary! At least she rolls into the side by the wall but she gets so frustrated when you make her lay on her back so you can finish changing her, oh boy, her will is coming out!

• And on the note of her will coming out, she has started to get frustrated if you take away something she really wanted to play with. For example, when trying to change her and bribe her to lay flat, I will let her play with her clean diaper until I am ready for it. She, of course, chews on it. Well, when I finally need to put it on her booty she will get very frustrated that I have taken her "toy" away, so I then bribe her with another diaper so I can get her in one. Oh boy, this is going to get interesting!

• She babbles constantly, she frequently says "mama" or dada" or "baba" and now is working on her "p" sound. I know she doesn't know what she is saying but we still love it! She also will sometimes babble in this sweet little quiet almost whisper. It is my new favorite thing and there is not a good way to describe it so I will just have to catch it on video and post it, stay tuned!

• She currently weighs, drum roll please....... ~about~ 13.5lbs (she was 13 4.5 about a week ago)! Still rockin the 2% haha! I love our little peanut! She is so tiny but she is so cute and has her own mini rolls. I realized I forgot to update her 6 month stats (they were 12lbs 9.5oz (2%) and she was 25'' (30%), stretching out in length a bit!

• She is still working on her teeth. We have been having some major teething this week including her first fever and first cold. I am praying we get some teeth out of this because it has been a rough week for my poor Bella!

• She has been having some Amazing nights of sleep! (Until teething of course) She has been frequently giving us between 11-12hr stretches of sleep, woohoo! But I won't brag too much, I don't want to jinx it!

• No crawling yet but she doesn't let that slow her down, she gets to anything she wants by either rolling or her other favorite, on her belly she just uses her arms to rotate her all around. She just spins in circles to play with all of her toys, she is so strong! You can see how badly she wants to crawl, but it may take some time to figure out the mechanics of it.

Beautiful smile! And still those GORGEOUS eyes!

She just loves sitting up so much!

So sweet even though there is all that drool dripping down her face, please tooth, just come in!

Precious!

Playing with her toys

Everything gets chewed on!

I love that bow! It's clinging to the few strands of hair but I just love it!

Getting so strong! She could sort of stand independtly before but now she is so good at it! And she loved it of course!

So proud of herself!

One of her favorite places to sit, on Mom and Dad's bed! (She was totally amused by Rowdy standing next to me!)

I just love how crazy she looks here! So excited! Waving hi to everyone!

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