Happy Birthday Bella! 2!

Somehow another year has passed, I have not aged at all, and yet Bella has turned 2! Amazing! She is such a sweet and wonderful little girl! She is a blessing to our lives, and brings us so much joy! She does not really throw many tantrums, which we are hoping we can just bypass altogether :-) She definitely asserts her will and shares her opinion in her own way and has her days, but she really is such a sweet and happy girl. She absolutely loves to play outside, I'm pretty sure she would eat sleep and play outside if we let her. She is very imaginative, she was given a play kitchen as a gift and loves to "cook" us food out there (usually rocks and leaves) and puts her sippys in the fridge or in the grill. She has a love/hate relationship with Oreo. Whenever she gets a snack and wants to walk around with it she usually asks me to put the "doggy outside?" She is scared (rightfullly so) that Oreo will try to steal her snacks. But, she absolutely loves to chase around and play with Oreo. We had her 2 year appointment, she did so great! She weighed in at 22lbs (3%) and 34in (67th%). Our tall skinny girl. Everything looked so great, we will have to have her umbilical hernia checked out but hopefully it will just go away :-) The doctor said she was doing and looking so great so it's always nice to hear that. She is talking a TON! It's so crazy to me the sentences that she can put together. I have lost track of how many words she has now, if I had to guess I would say somewhere in the 125-150 range. I think she seriously adds about 5-10 words a day right now. She can count to 3 and sometimes 6. She frequently leaves out 4 and her favorite number seems to be 5, sometimes she just jumps straight to 5! :-) She is a very picky eater, and we are constantly trying to figure out ways to incorporate healthy foods into her diet. It's not necessarily that she doesn't like a lot of the foods, she is just not always willing to try them, and one day she likes something, the nex day she doesn't.....we cook a lot of food around here right now. She has such a sweet and tender heart. She loves to take care of her babies or her stuffed animals and Mickey and Minnie dolls. She frequently shares her sippies with them and loves to rock her babies to sleep and sing them "Row Row" (Row Your Boat). She has learned how to be "sneaky".....seriously, how do tiny humans know how to do this instinctively??!! I will frequently find her walking quietly through the house holding something behind her back and when I ask her what she has she just diverts her eyes and says "no no mama, no no." and then keeps her back turned so I can't see what she has and tries to sneak away! She did this on her birthday when she found a wrapped birthday present and then proceeded to open it. She is just so silly and such a goofball, she definitely keeps us laughing. She had such a great 2nd birthday. We spent the morning of her birthday playing with friends at a jump place here tht is wall to wall trampolines, which she LOVES. She had a Mickey Mouse shaped pancake and lots of treats, lunch with friends and dinner out with us and her grandparents. Her birthday party is coming up this weekend so I will have more pictures to come from that.

Enjoying a birthday cookie, she LOVES Oreos

Waiting to catch a ball at the jump place

She was playing catch with Jenny and loving it!

Opening birthday presents without a shirt....just how she rolls in our house :-)

She loved her new puzzles

She got a sandbox from Grandma and Grandpa Julia and she LOVES it and wants to be playing in it all the time. We now frequently find about a bucket full of sand in her shoes every day.

Digging with the giant shovel

Just using the lid for the sandbox like a jungle gym

Checking out the menu at dinner

Insisted on sitting on Grandma and Grandpa's lap instead of in her chair

This might be my new favorite picture of her, I literally just can't get enough of her cuteness!

Living it up at dinner!

Eating her birthday sundae, she, of course, loved it! And then she proceeded to eat half of my cheesecake too. She literally ate more dessert than all of the adults at the table.

She wouldn't let anyone hold her after dinner except Grandma Valley (she got really mad at us when I wanted to hold her to take a quick picture, she went immediately back to Grandma)

Love my sweet family!

Happy 2nd Birthday Bella!!

Happy New Year!!

Well.....it's only been 2 months or so since I really updated the blog....whoops. We were just having so much fun and staying so busy! We had such a wonderful holiday season filled with so much fun. I still need to do a post about our wonderful pictures the Jenny Spires took of our family, and I swear, that is next, but I figured I would catch up on what we have been up to the last 2 months. We had a great time having holiday parties with family and friends, our small group had a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving meal....yes, we ate 2 Thanksgiving meals....I think I can hear my waste line groaning as we speak. Bella has been one busy little bee and we are just so in love with her. She is talking up a storm, talk about explosion! She has about 90-100 words, I was really doing such a good job keeping a list and lost track around 80 or so. And she speaks in so many sentences I can't keep track, I think her longest at this point is maybe a 5 or 6 word sentence, crazy! I love our little chats, she has the funniest little stories to tell! And we had such a beautiful and blessed Christmas. It was so fun with Bella this year. She still obviously doesn't understand how Santa works but she could say Santa and loved reading her little Christmas stories and she absolutely LOVED our Christmas tree. The moment she came out of her room every morning we immediately had to turn the tree lights on. She was also great at opening presents this year all by herself but occassionally became overwhelmed by having to open so many presents, sometimes she just wanted to play with the present she had just opened, so gift opening took a while.... It was just so fun and made Christmas so magical this year and I know each year will only get more fun! We are looking forward to a fun filled 2012 with our sweet girl!

In November, Bella peed in her potty for the first time and since then has gone a few times in her potty but we haven't really been trying to potty train yet, we just have her sit on it right before bath time. Lately, she has seemed very interested in the potty (and definitely loves getting an M&M for going) and I actually think she may be ready, I just need to make myself be ready to take on the challenge. She's getting so big so fast!

Somteimes after bath she just runs around with her jammies like a cape on her, if I haven't mentioned it before, she is goofy!

We celebrated Bella's friend Oliver's 4th birthday at a trampoline place and she LOVED it. I really can't emphasize enough how much she LOVES trampolines. The Fays have introduced this love into her life because they have a trampoline at their house and then had Oliver's birthday at trampoline heaven.....wall to wall trampolines.

She had so much fun running around with her little bestie Maya!

Bella tried to bounce but hasn't really mastered "jumping" yet so most of the time she would just sprint full speed or do an intentional belly flop and wait for Jenny or I to come and bounce her!

Oliver's birthday was superhero themed and Christy's mom Shelagh (who is an incredible seamstress and made Bella's gorgeous curtains in her room) sewed everyone superhero capes. I actually thought Bella would rip it off the minute I put it on her but she loved it too. And Bella got to eat a yummy cake pop....seriously, I'm pretty sure this was Bella's idea of the perfect day.

Superhero Bella!

I walked into the playroom one day to find Bella had climbed into one of her buckets...again, goofy kid. She thought she was hilarious!

Then, she yelled "night night" and tucked her head in like this.........

And then she peeked out to see if I was still there and started cracking up at how hilarious she found herself!

Christmas morning, opening presents, I think this is the only picture I had where she was actually looking at the camera, she was very consumed with her new toys!

New Minnie Mouse ornament! Bella LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I think Bella received every Minnie Mouse ornament made this year, and she loved them all!

Bella loved this tea set and has been having tea parties at her new table and chair set every single day. Her usual attendees are her two new baby dolls that she LOVES, sometimes Mickey and Minnie, sometimes doggie, sometimes lambie, and almost always Mommy or Daddy.

One of her new baby dolls. She is SO sweet with them and takes care of them all day. Bringing them blankies, fixing their pacis, feeding them bottles, sharing her snacks with them, it's seriously so adorable!

Our family at McDowell Mountain Church's production of "It's a Wonderful Life" (which was incredible!) (Bella's mouth is full of some cookie she found at the snack table....of course)

More pictures.....more Bella chewing on a cookie :-)

Tried to get one of just the 3 of us. I should have known better, between Bella's squirminess and what I'm sure was her need for another cookie we only got this one of her diving away :-)

Hope everyone had a blessed and wonderful holiday season!! Happy New Year!

More Great Deals from Tiny Prints

The great deals from Tiny Prints just keep coming!! They just let me know about a special holiday promotion they have going on right now.


Buy a $25 Tiny Prints gift certificate and spend $100 on your holiday cards, and we’ll take $30 off your holiday cards order—plus, ship it for free. Use code 30OFFHOLGCERT at checkout until 11/27/11 at 11:59 pm (PT).Read more: http://blog.tinyprints.com/contests-and-promotions/an-exclusive-deal-you%e2%80%99ll-only-find-here/#ixzz1er1cWgoE

Thanks again to Tiny Prints for continuing to offer great products and great customer service!

Holiday Cards!

I have been debating what holiday card will be best for us to send out this year. I love the fun, but I love traditional. I think the card below kind of captures both. Traditional, but then you get the song stuck in your head....right?! (Or is that just me??) I think this card would also work well with the family pictures we had taken.

I'm getting excited for our first holiday cards to start arriving. We have a giant stocking with lots of pockets on the front that we can display all of our holiday cards. I love it, why can't every season of the year be this fun?! I am still "ooohing" and "aaahhing" over all the adorable cards holiday cards at Tiny Prints. How do you choose just one?

Tiny Prints site is so easy to use and they have adorable cards for every occassion. Soon I will have to start looking for birthday invitations for Bella's birthday!! If you haven't found your holiday cards yet, you should definitely check out Tiny Pritns!

Holidays are Here!

I am so excited that the holidays are finally here. I wait all year for this and usually want to start playing Christmas music in October (ok ok, July but don't tell). We had some fabulous pictures taken by our dear friend and I can't wait to use them in our Christmas cards this year. It's so fun to send Christmas cards out to everyone, especially when they are gorgeous! Have you seen Tiny Prints cards? They are amazingly cute! They are also great to their customers! They are offering 50 free holiday cards for posting a blog about them. Just write about their fabulous company and they will contact you, what a great opportunity! And it makes it even easier that they have beautiful cards!! Look at how cute these are!

Joyous Noel

Merry Fine

Holly Jolly Season

Family Pictures

My wonderful friend Jenny took pictures of our family recently. She is a great photographer, she took our pictures last fall and wanted to take them again this year. We are so blessed to have such an awesome friend! Click this link to see our family pictures and I will be uploading many of them here soon as well!! Thanks again Jenny!!

Owens Family Pictures

Fall Fun

We have been having so much fun this fall. As I mentioned in an earlier post we went up north to the pumpkin patch. I got the pictures Jenny took from the day, she got a bunch of cute ones! We also attended our church's "Trunk or Treat" and Bella went as Minnie Mouse. She is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and loves Minnie. She went as pink Minnie and Jenny had Maya be red Minnie so they were both Minnie and it was so cute. We made the girl's tutus and it was surprisingly easier than we expected, I'm sure we will be making many more tutus in our future.

Family picture at the pumpkin patch

Me and my sweet girl that for some reason wanted nothing to do with picking out pumpkins. I think she was getting hungry and grumpy (we picked pumpkins out last) so she only wanted to be carried.....as you can see, I was ok with that :-)


We rode this fun little train pulled by a tractor. I didn't think Bella would be into it at all (note for mom....don't ever assume anything about Bella), as soon as she saw it she immediately wanted to ride and loved every second of it, it cracked me up to hear her giggling hysterically as we bounced along.

All the girls riding the trains....the dad's had some trouble fitting in the train.....not exactly a ton of leg room :-)

Amazed that we even got a picture of the girls sitting

Love our sweet girls....besties :-)

I love my family

I can't even describe how much I love her (look at those cute tiny little pigtails! cutie pie!) See below for the full Minnie Mouse costume....she had ditched her ears by this point

She was having the time of her life

The girls didn't want to wear their Minnie Mouse ears anymore so we were happy to wear them for them

Everyone got in on the Minnie Mouse fun!! Even Grandpa!

Oh these girls just make me smile!! I love Bella's pink glitter converse, they are just awesome!

Maya had a snowcone.....I think Bella was ready to pounce

We made the girls skirts and ears, and the bow is even detachable....yes, I'm proud of our craftiness

Bella loves her sweets but she also loves the salty....let's just face facts....the girl already knows and loves junk food....yikes. She couldn't get enough of these nachos!

So blessed by this friendship!

I love our little junk food eating girls....so cute!

Three Minnie Mouses!!! Cutie Pies!

Bella loves her grandparents (we do too!) Most of the night she wanted to be carried by either Grandma or Grandpa

Had to include this even though it isn't the best picture. One of the few I had of her costume completely on and she is standing so you can see the whole thing

Bella and her Grandpa....she LOVES him!

Halloween 2011....have I mentioned how much I love my family!