Waving at him was fun. . . 
. . . but being held by him - NOT FUN!!! 
After that, we bundled up for the egg hunt. It was 36 degrees that morning - probably the coldest Easter egg hunt on record. Here are Isabella and Lexie (a girl from our church who just adores Isabella). Lexie helped Isabella gather all of her eggs. 
This morning, our household was up early for the Easter sunrise service. We woke up around 4:30am, got Isabella up arond 5:10am, and were out the door by 5:15am. We took Isabella in her pajamas since a big chunk of the service was outside. With it being only 30 degrees this morning, we wanted her to be as warm as possible. After the early service, we went back inside the church for a breakfast and then I changed Isabella into her dress. I had originally planned on her wearing a different dress, but it was just too cold, so I put her in this one with long sleeves. She still looked very cute. 
Isabella has become pretty attached to her blankets - mainly the fleece ones. She likes to carry them around and snuggle her face into them. 
Just before going to bed, Isabella thought it would be a good idea to pick up everything off the floor and bring it to me. 
She just about buried me in blankets, pillows, and books. 
As we were looking through Isabella's farm book, I asked her what a cow says. I have often asked her this question in the past only to get the same response, "cok, cok" (for quack, quack). According to her, this is the sound that every animal makes. So, imagine my surprise when I ask her tonight what a cow says and she answers me with "moo". I couldn't believe it. She said it a few more times, but then later on tonight it became "cok, cok" again. Oh well. . . baby steps, right?!!!We have two Baby Signing Time dvds that Isabella really enjoys. She especially likes the theme song that goes. . . 'baby, baby, baby signing time!' If she's upset about something, I just start to sing this song and she calms down pretty quickly. Lately, she has been humming the beginning of this song or singing the beginning part . . . 'baby, baby'. When she wants to watch the video, she signs baby, hums the tune a little, and points to the TV. I love the way she tries to communicate with us.
I scrapped a few older photos this week. . .
We hope that everyone had a blessed Easter!!!
Our church has services every night leading up to Easter. The service doesn't start until 7pm. On a normal week, Bella is usually in bed around 7:30pm. Not this week! We don't even leave the church until 8pm and then it's about a twenty-five minute drive home. By the time we get in the door and get Bella ready for bed, it's about 9pm. She's such a trooper when it comes to us messing with her schedule - I hope we can get her back to 7:30pm next week.
She's really into the camera. It's tough to take her picture because she just wants to hold/play with the camera. Her big thing lately is doing a quick pose and then running to me so that she can see the picture. 
First bite of an apple. Daddy pealed an apple for Bella and she loved taking huge bites out of it. We still cut her food into small pieces, but she's beginning to want to eat things the way that we do. 
Yummy!!!
This is her way of letting us know that we need to do the laundry. . . 
. . . and that Daddy should put his shoes on. 
We bought Bella a new sippy cup with a straw. This is the first time she's used a straw and she did really well. She still tries to tip it up like a regular cup and we have to remind her that this new cup doesn't work that way. 
Andy's seminary career is drawing to a close. It's April now. All of his assignments and papers have to be turned in by April 27th. That's three and a half weeks away! The time between now and then is going to be crazy, but it's still so exciting to be this close to completing his M. Div.
I am so happy to be outside!!!
Spring is finally here! The earth is coming back to life!!!
The joys of splashing through the puddles.
We often go to the library down the street since there's a nice little area with benches and trees. Isabella was pretty intrigued by the boys who were skateboarding. At one point, it sounded like she kept trying to get their attention by yelling "hey, hey!" I laughed.
Bella has picked up a couple more signs, 'hat' and 'wash hands'. She has also totally nailed 'drink' now. I always feel so proud whenever she does her signs. . . my smart girl!!! I really really tried to work with her this weekend on signing 'more' and she just won't do it. She points and does her 'please' sign, so I guess that's just her preferred way of asking for more. 
She has also learned where her belly button is. If I ask, "Where's Bella's belly button?" she will lift up her shirt and point to it. Again, I am a proud mama!
Bella's inner monster has really surfaced the past few days. I blame it on the new molar that just broke through yesterday. This was the third molar to surface and I know that the fourth is on its way. She has happy moments, but she's much more edgy than usual and can really lose her cool pretty quickly. Nap and bedtimes have become a little more traumatizing as well. We can usually lay Bella down and she will wave to us as we say goodnight. For the past few days, she immediately starts to cry as soon as we put her down. It is heartbreaking to walk out on a little one who is crying. She generally cries for less than a minute, but it still makes you feel like the meanest parent ever. One night, she woke up twice (and thankfully put herself back to sleep). Otherwise, the teething doesn't seem to be messing with her sleep too much, which we are pretty happy about.
After a couple days of beautiful spring weather, winter decided to visit once again. We got about six inches of snow on Friday so we didn't have much outdoor play this weekend. Yesterday, the three of us did a little shopping and had a late lunch at Fuddrucker's. The roads were a little better by that point and it was nice to get out. Today, Isabella discovered her hat drawer. Inside that hat drawer was also this bow headband that came with one of her newborn outfits. It finally fits her now - over a year later! 
She thought that it'd be fun to empty out the drawer. . . I thought that it 'd be fun to pile the hats on her head. This was only a few. . . I forgot how many hats this kid truly has!
My sister, Mary, bought Bella a Baby Einstein DVD about first words. She really likes it!
Bella's learning how to feed herself with a spoon. Usually, we'll have to put the food on the spoon and then she'll bring it to her mouth. This time, she did it all by herself! Granted, it was yogurt which sticks to the spoon pretty easily, but this is still a pretty big accomplishment!!!
Of course, it is still quicker and easier to use your hands!
Yesterday and today have been absolutely gorgeous, so we've finally been able to spend some real time outdoors. Isabella loved it. She enjoyed picking up dried leaves and running her hands across the little bit of snow that is left on the ground. We played outside for quite a while and when it was time to come in, she wasn't happy camper. Looks like we might have an outdoors girl! 
Schoolwise, this has been a pretty busy week for Andy. . . lots of late nights and not much free time for him. Fortunately, things will let up a little after tomorrow. Yesterday, I finished the book I've been reading since the beginning of November (The Divine Conspiracy). Normally, I read things a little faster than that, but this was a thick book with a lot of meaty material, so I had to take my time. The new book I am reading now is 'Captivating' by John and Stasi Eldredge. I've only read the first chapter so far, but I can already tell that I'm going to like it.
Isabella learned her first sign. We've been working with her on some sign language and she has already picked up 'please'. Well, it's not the actual sign, more like her version of it; but she is very consistent with using it. She actually uses it all the time now. When she wants something, she points to it and does her sign. It's really cute and much nicer than the whining or the "eh, eh" that she was previously doing when she wanted something. She has also done the sign for 'milk' a few times, but I think it may have just been a coincidence because she's not very consistent with that one. She's starting to say Mama more often. In fact, it must have been her favorite word this weekend, because she was saying it a lot! Ahh, music to my ears! We also think that she says "What's that?" when pointing to things. I also discovered, this week, that Isabella can stack things. We were playing with her plastic stars and she stacked four - one on top of the other. She's learning new things all the time!
That's all for now!
So, I wrote in the last post about how I wasn't overly concerned about Isabella's lack of actual words at this point. Well, a few hours after I wrote that, I let my anxieties get the better of me; and unfortunately they have been with me throughout the weekend. I decided to look online at what other kids Isabella's age are doing and some have these long lists of words that they're already saying. That, along with all the milestone charts that say kids should have at least 3-5 words by this point, really led to my anxiety-filled weekend. Tonight, we watched a video of Andy when he was about six months older than Isabella is now and that somewhat lessened my fears since he wasn't really talking much (actually I didn't hear him say one word) in the video. It's funny how a man who is so verbal now was so quiet as a kid. Anyway, he turned out fine (for the most part - ha, ha!) so I'll try not to worry so much about Isabella. Upon advice from others, we are working more at teaching her some sign language. This was something we were doing a little, but not consistently enough to really get anywhere with it. Hopefully this will give her other means of communicating other than just pointing at everything.
Her latest thing is getting her bowls or cups out of the cupboard and carrying them around as if she's drinking out of them. So silly sometimes!
I just discovered that Bear's hands are velcroed together, so I decided to give Isabella a bear hug. She looked adorable as she walked around with this big bear attached to her. 
Daddy and Bella snuggle time. This lasted for all of two minutes and then she was on the go again.
Another page of the nephews. . .
