Fun with Bubbles

What child does not enjoy bubbles? Our child certainly does. Bella and I are back in Wisconsin again - this time to celebrate my youngest sister's high school graduation. My mom bought some bubbles and Bella had a blast with them!

Trip to the Children's Garden

A few days ago, Bella and I went on a little outing to a local children's garden with some friends from our moms club. Bella had her first carousel ride. She still talks about the pig that she rode. We did lots of exploring.Here she is at the wishing well in the butterfly garden. If I had my nice camera with me, I'd have taken some close-ups of the butterflies. They were everywhere!We also went on a train ride. She still talks about this too.

Another fun spot to play.
Here she is in the Alice in Wonderland garden where everything is huge!We had a great time and will probably go back again!

Big Girl Bed

Bella graduated into her big girl bed this week. We bought a twin mattress and box spring and have them on the floor in her room. The first day and a half went great. She thought it was the coolest thing ever and wanted to hang out in her bed all of the time. The novelty appears to have worn off now. Nap time yesterday was pretty much a disaster. Today we're back on track so I'm hoping that was just a fluke. Since she's gotten her bed, she's been waking up between 6:00-6:30am instead of the 7:30-8:00am. Lovely. Some households start their day at that time, but this one does not.
Bella likes to have stuffed animals share her bed. This horse was always too big for the crib but there's plenty of space for it on her big girl bed!
Onto other things. . . Bella has been in a cleaning phase. It's not as great as it sounds.

Exhibit A:
If you could walk into this picture and ask Bella what she's doing, she'd say, "I cleaning."
To be fair, that response would be half true. If you look at her doll bassinet, it does look very clean.
I can't say the same thing for her bedroom floor.
Exhibit B:
Her toy shelf does look pretty clean here.
But the play area floor. . . not so much.
I think I have to tell my cleaning lady that she's fired!

A random Bella act:
Our camcorder battery has somehow become Bella's pretend camera. She will 'take our picture' with it, turn it around to 'see the picture' and then proudly announce, "See, a pretty picture!" What an imagination! Potty Training:
Bella's starting to get pretty good at using her potty chair. When she doesn't have a diaper on, she's really great about getting to the chair whenever the urge comes. If she's wearing a diaper, that rarely happens. I think the key to potty training her will be to have many diaper-free days. Whenever she goes on the potty chair, she gets a sticker to put on her chart. One time after I gave her a sticker for going, she wanted another one. I told her that she'd have to wait until the next time that she went potty. This news greatly distressed her until a few of her books averted her attention - or so I thought. Later in the day I noticed a strange-looking sticker on the bottom of her chart.
One way or another, she was determined to get a sticker.

Some very exciting news:
We have a new NIECE!!! My brother's wife, Steph, gave birth to Sydney Ruth Benetti on May 13th. She is so cute and we can't wait to meet her! Congratulations Jeff and Steph!!!

Happy Mother's Day

We had a very nice, relaxing Mother's Day. Yesterday was quite busy and we were all out late, resulting in a pretty cranky Bella. After a lunch out, we spent the day at home. Andy is currently out getting us a movie (Juno) and a Starbucks drink for me (iced decaf white chocolate mocha - my favorite!). During one of Bella's rare good moods of the day, we had her Praise Baby dvd on and she was singing along and dancing to the worship songs. She was so happy and having so much fun and it was such a joy for me to watch. A great Mother's Day moment.

Another good thing about today is that I got a few pictures taken with Bella. I'm usually the one behind the camera and it's been a long time since we've had pictures together. Again, I'll remind you that she was exceptionally crabby today, so it's even a miracle that we got the few pictures that we did.
This one is slightly blurry and she's doing her fake smile, but we'll take what we can get!We hope that everyone had a great day!

We're Home!

We made it safely back to New Jersey around 1 AM Monday night. . . er. . . Tuesday morning. Actually, we made it safe and sound to Philadelphia at 1AM. After we waited for our bags and then drove home, it was almost 2AM! Our flight kept getting delayed ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there, to the point where we didn't even leave Chicago until 10pm. I was exhausted and could have easily slept on the flight if I didn't have my little two-year-old to keep an eye on (who, by the way, did not sleep a wink on the flight). It was so nice to come home to a very clean house (way to go Andy!) and this sweet little surprise. . . Bella had a surprise waiting for her too!
A clean house and flowers! He definitely knows the way to my heart!

The next morning, Bella slept until 10:30am - and so did we! We didn't set the alarm and figured she'd wake us up at some reasonable hour. Guess that didn't happen! In order to get her sleep schedule back on track, I tried to skip her nap. That worked until 6:00pm when she fell asleep on the computer chair, holding her crackers. I moved her to the couch, where I had to take a picture. Even in her sleep, she still managed to keep hold of those crackers. Needless to say, her sleep schedule did not get back on track that day and we ended up with another late night. (By the way, we had a lazy pajama day, which is why she's in her pjs at 6pm). A girl from church won an Elmo stuffed animal and gave it to Bella! She really likes it. Now she has a big one and a little one. Daddy had fun playing with Elmo too!Dandelions are in full force! Bella calls these 'angel feathers'. She likes to blow them or pull them apart. Some of the Benetti's may appreciate this picture below. Check out Andy's new high score on 'Action'. Insane! He is slowly inching me out of the whole category. At least I still have him beat in 'Classic'.