"Ice Cream"

While Andy was out of town at the beginning of the week for a pastor's conference, a couple from church {Bob and Karen} invited me and Bella out to dinner. The highlight of the meal was a big ice cream sundae for dessert. This child loves ice cream! Karen snapped this photo with her cell phone and emailed me a copy. Priceless! The next morning, I met some ladies from my Mom's Group at a local kid's gym. My normally shy-and-clingy-when-in-a-strange-place-Bella ventured off on her own to play with all the fun toys. There were balls of all sizes, big blocks to climb, batting cages, horse swings, little bikes/cars to ride, etc. She loved it. I was so bummed that I forgot my camera, but another mom from the group took some photos and emailed them to me.
With the cold weather that has come upon us, I decided to buy Bella a new winter hat and gloves. She really likes to play outside and, even in the cold, I still think it's nice for us to get some fresh air.Daddy and Bella sharing a moment.I got some scrapbooking done this week!

TRICK-OR-TREATPUMPKIN FARMLOCKS OF LOVE

Bella Happenings

Sorry for the lack of photos this week. I tried and this is the best I could get from her. She still wants her grip on the camera as soon as I get it out. I only got this photo because she was stuck in the basket. I took her by surprise this time.And then she kept trying to take the camera from me.Since I don't have many photos, I figured I'd list out a few things Bella has been doing lately:

• She can repeat all of her ABC's now
• Says "Amen!" a lot during church (even when we didn't just get done praying)
• One night at dinner we started to eat without praying so Bella grabbed our hands and announced "PEAR!" (prayer). We quickly obeyed!
• She has given a title to most of her books based on the cover picture. Some of her titles are: "Goose and Girl". . . "Jesus". . . "Trees". . . "Turtle". . ."Baby". . ."Bears". . . etc. She always knows what book she wants to read. Right now her favorite is "Goose and Girl"
• Her main activity during church is to see how many people she can get to smile, wave, or play peek-a-boo with her. She's very good at it (much to the dismay of her pastor Daddy who wants to keep people focused on the service!)

Bella is really becoming such a little lady. We love being her parents. It is so much fun to interact with her and see her learn new things. She is such a blessing (even when she won't let me take her picture)!

Trick or Treat!

I cut my hair! It hasn't been this short in over three years. This is something I have been wanting to do for a while and when I received a gift certificate from my sister to a local salon, I knew it was time. I'm really happy with how it turned out and now I'll actually wear my hair down (instead of in a clip 99% of the time).I got a total of 14 inches cut off. I'm going to send my two ponytails to Locks of Love.Bella went trick-or-treating for the first time this year. I'll admit, I think I enjoyed it just as much as she did. Our town has trick-or-treating on Halloween evening. When I was growing up, it was the Sunday before. . . and in the afternoon - not quite the same. She dressed up as a tiger and really perfected her "roooaaarrr!" I had a hard time keeping her nose and whiskers dark - she kept rubbing her face.Checking out her costume in the mirror! Ready to go!

We stopped at the house of a church member and were able to get a family photo!Bella got the hang of trick-or-treating right away!One evening this week, Bella was having a fit because she didn't want to eat dinner. She ran out of the kitchen and this is how I found her. It's her new thing that she does when she gets mad. I guess she figures that, since she can't see us, we can't see her. It has been so hard to get a photo of Bella this week. As soon as I get the camera out she runs over to me saying "I see! I see!" She really wants to see the photos in the camera and doesn't have the patience to let me take a photo of her first. Here's what I ended up with. And this is what happened when I didn't let her see. Mean mommy!We went to the pumpkin farm with a group from church today. We enjoyed a fun hayride and Bella picked out another pumpkin! The weather was perfect for an afternoon at the farm!Before heading out for some ice cream, we were looking for Bella's shoes. After we finally found them, we turned around to discover that Bella had already put some shoes on - too bad they were Mama's!

"Bye Bye"

Bella has been saying lots of "Bye byes" this week. One big "bye bye" was said to her paci. She is all done with the paci! When Bella turned one, we limited her paci time to naps and bedtime. Our plan was to work on weaning her from the paci completely when she turned two. Well, when naptime rolled around on Thursday, I couldn't find her paci. After a while, I asked Bella if she could take a nap without it and she said, "yes!" We went through our typical pre-nap routine and then I laid her down. I heard her talking for a little while longer than usual, but she eventually drifted off and took a great nap! Bedtime that night went even better and we haven't had any problems with her getting to sleep without it. Who knew that it would be so easy!

She has also gotten into the habit of saying goodbye to everything whenever we leave a place. As we're heading out the door, I'll hear her say, "Bye bye chair." "Bye bye toys." "Bye bye cup." She basically says 'Bye bye' to every item that she knows the word for. It's really cute. She even says 'bye bye' to her socks when I put her shoes on because she can't see her socks anymore. Such a silly girl!

We picked up some sandwiches earlier in the week and Bella just loved hers.On Wednesday, my mom's group had a little Halloween party. We got a hand-me-down tiger costume from our church secretary, so that's what Bella dressed up as. Any passerby may have thought we were torturing Bella as we tried to get the costume on her. She wanted nothing to do with it until it was actually on; and then she loved it. We had a good time at the party and when we came back I let her play in the puddles.Yesterday was another rainy day, so I thought Bella might enjoy painting her pumpkin. She stuck her fingers in the black paint first and that's the only color that ended up on her pumpkin.

Here's our finished products! The Halloween festivities will continue into the week with a parade on Tuesday night and trick-or-treating on Wednesday. We'll probably take Bella out to a few houses just for the experience. At the end of the week, I plan to shop for Bella's costume for next year while all the stuff is on clearance. I'm leaning toward something really girly. We'll see!

Fun stuff

Most kids like to play with the toys in the toybox. Bella has even more fun with the toybox itself, the lid specifically. She likes to sit and roll around in it. Can't say that I blame her. . . I remember doing the same thing when I was little (this toybox used to be in the room I shared with my sister while we were growing up). It is just me or is Bella looking way too grown up in these pictures?Whenever it rains, Bella's car collects the water - which she loves to splash all over the place.We bought her this little scooter at our church yard sale. It was only $2 and she really likes it. From these pictures, it looks like she has the hang of the thing, but she hasn't quite figured how to put one leg on and push with the other. She tends to stand on the base and wait for me to push her around the parking lot. Or maybe she secretly knows how to do it and just wants to give me a little workout!