Busy Weekend/Busy Baby

Bella is moving more and more! Not really 'crawling' but scooting around the floor. You can tell she gets a little frustrated by not being able to really go where she wants. The best part? She will almost always turn and scoot towards Mama! :)

She loves to stand, though and prefers it to any thing else. I have a feeling she might just skip the whole crawling deal and just start walking. She loves to pull herself up using your hands and bounce around on her legs.

She is also"talking" alot - Mamamamama and baabbababa are her favorites. It's super cute. Even though I know she doesn't know what 'mama' means, it is fun to pretend like she is really asking for me.

This weekend was super busy. Wee went to the xtended Trafton Xmas party on Sat night - where Bella got her first christmas gift.

On Sunday she was baptized at St Stephens church in Anoka. Jeremy is catholic and I was raised Lutheran. I would not consider myself a religious person, but do like some of the values that the church teaches (and am a little weary of others, but that's a whole other topic) so I always knew I wanted to have my child go to church and have the opportuntiy to learn the Christian faith. I have some really great memories from my own experiences being involved with my church and met some of the best friends I have now becuase of it.

I am learning more and more about the Catholic religion and am lucky that Jeremy is open to my scrutiny of it. Honestly, I didn't have the best experince with the Catholic church when we got married so I was a little hestiant this time around but knew it was important to Jeremy and his family to get Bella baptised Cathloic (JT prety much had to since he agreed to it when we got married). Thankfully, we have found St Stephens to fit what I was looking for in a Catholic church - something more contemporary and welcoming of everyone. They don't care if you aren't really Catholic, they just want everyone to come together to learn and celebrate. I actually enjoy going to the services becuase the sermons tend to actually interest me. The reason why we waited so long to get Bella baptised was becuase we were looking for the right church - we went to several and St Stephens was the only one that I felt comfortable attending as a non-Catholic.

Again, I don't fully back everything that the church preaches, but the overall values of "loving they neighbor" and giving back to the community are strong and that is what is most important. It'll be our job to help Bella understand that faith is there to guide you in your choices, not lead your life entirely - so you have to take what works for you and leave what doesn't.

Ok, enough of that - on to what is really important...pictures of Bella on her 'big' day.

Baptismal outfit from Nana

A Daddy decorated cake (we didn't get to Target in time to order one!!)

Happy to be the center of attention

With godparents - Aunt Mara and Uncle Justin (JT's sister and brother)

More Videos

Not sure how to flip this so it is right side up - but you can at least listen to the giggles and turn your head to the side. This is one of Bella's favorite spots at home. It's right in our living room looking down into the dining room and kitchen. She loves to stand holding onto the railings (and can stand by herself now!) and watch whoever is in the kitchen. If you pay her attention while doing it, she just cracks up!

This was RIGHT AFTER she literally crawled a few 'steps'. Of course, she couldn't do it on camera for me but it's at least cute to see her rocking on her knees!

Picture Tagged

Per Jessie and Jessica's posts, I was tagged with the following task... take the sixth folder on your computer and pull up the sixth picture and describe it.

This is Mel. These are Jessica's sunglasses (right?). We had gone out to celebrate Mel and Curt moving back to MN and decided that everyone needed to try the sunglasses on and get their picture taken.

See?

I'm not tagging anyone else to do this, because I'm pretty sure everyone already has been or will be by someone else.

And it begins...

Bella has started pulling herself up on "all fours" and pushing off... we are in trouble! Pretty soon she'll be scooting all over the place. Also, this morning she mananged to pull herself up to standing using me as support. And so it begins...

Other accomplishments include her first concert:




And she won a fight with a hippo for rights to wearing the tu-tu:



Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll!

Apparently she didn’t like my cooking

After several days of trial and error (mostly error), I’ve seemed to have success with squash and bananas mixed in oatmeal (but not both the same time!). One of the mom’s I met at parenting group suggested I try store bought food first, and sure enough she is taking to it much better than my ‘cooking’.

I’ll give her another week or so of Gerber, then try making her food again. I won’t be heartbroken if she doesn’t take to it. I was doing it mostly because it sounded cheaper and somewhat easier in the long run.

Otherwise, not too much new to report in the world of Bella. As I type she is in her jumper squeezing out a ‘present’ as Grandma and Grandpa would call it. I’d better change her diaper before we make a mess. Lovely visual to leave you with, right? To make up for it, I’ll include some cute pictures here….



Chubbers


Terrifying her friend Jonah



New favorite



Who is this?


Hey, she's cute!

Finally figured out videos!

(this was try #1 on Saturday... try #2 on Sunday didn't go so well either. We'll try again tonight!)

THEETHERS!!

She's got 'em. We can't really see them yet, but we can feel the bottom two teeth that have come though!

6 Month Stats!

6 Month Stats!
Weight: 17 ½ lbs = 75th percentile (up 2.2lbs from her 4 m check up)
Height: 27” = 90th percentile (2” longer than her 4 m check up)
Head: 17.5 cm = 90th percentile (.5 cm larger than her 4m check up)

Teethers are coming in! The Dr saw a couple of white things popping through.

We get to start feeding her ‘real’ food now! This weekend I’ll start by giving her sweet potatoes and we are supposed to introduce new foods about once a week to watch for signs of allergies. Call me crazy, but I’m going to start off making my own baby food. Although time consuming, it seems easy enough and at least I know she is getting pure fruits and veggies. We’ll see how long it lasts. J

We finally got everything for her room décor! The room has been ‘done’ for a while, but I still needed to hang pictures, valance, and I ended up getting a crib bumper (I don’t care what anyone says, it’s NOT going to fall off and suffocate her and I’d rather prevent her arms/legs from getting caught). I forgot to take pictures to post, but will soon… I’ll probably wait until my latest craft project is done and hung up.

Everyday it seems like Bella is making new noises and even more alert than the day before. I swear she sings along with us now. Especially when she is ‘dancing’ with Daddy and he sings the songs on the radio to her. She’ll start to sing (ok, screech!) along!

Oh, and these PJs that Grandma H bought her were supposed to be too big/ones she’d never grow into…. Time flies!

I will leave you with a sleeping bear who loves her monkey:

New to the World


A few weeks along


One Month

Two Months


Three Months


Four Months


Five Months



SIX MONTHS!

Happy six-month/half-birthday to my little Tator Tot, Lovebug, Bella Button!!!

I'm a Journalist

Took this from Jessie!

1. How long have you been a Mom? Six months tomorrow!

2. How many children call you Mommy? No children yet – just my husband when talking about me to Bella (Mommy or Mama).

3. Girl? Boy? or both?: Girl

4. Did you know what you were having? Yes

5. How old were you when you became a Mom? 26

6. How long were you in labor? It is hard to say! I was in the hospital for 30 hours before she was born…but ‘active’ labor was maybe 15-20 hours?

7. What’s your favorite thing about being a Mom? When Bella smiles at me. Nothing beats it!

8. What’s your least favorite thing? The constant worry

9. Do you want more kids? Sure! At least 1 more. Maybe 2 if we can expand our current house or move to a bigger one.

10. Do you plan on having more soon? Not within the next year or anything…

11. How many times have you been pee’d on? Peed on, never. Pooped on, maybe twice. Pretty good, huh?

12. Barfed on? Actually just once and it was the other day when I went down the stairs too fast after feeding her.

13. Is your child named after anyone? Not unless you could the country Ireland as “anyone”

14. How did you come up with their name? JT made a list. I made a list. We compared and narrowed it down to 2 choices. Isabella was on his original list.

15. When your child gets in trouble, who is the bad guy? I don’t think Bella has gotten in trouble yet!

16. What is the longest you have been away from your children? A full 24 hours at least. I don’t experience separation anxiety, thank goodness. Maybe because I know she is in good hands when we are away.

17. Bedtime routine? There isn’t really one…we can just tell when she is getting tired so then I nurse her and we put her to bed. It’s usually around 8:00-8:30.

18. Are your toes painted? Yeah, bright pink from Halloween

19. Last movie you saw in the theater? No Country for Old Men – I hate seeing movies in the theatre

20. One thing you will not give up just because you’re a mom? Going out and having a good time with friends!

21. One thing you did give up now that you’re a mom: sleeping in on the weekends, I guess. Otherwise I can’t really think of anything.

22. Best Mom perk: I NEVER EVER thought I’d say this…but yes, I think it’s a perk that I can nurse. Its come to be a calm, relaxing thing between me and Bella.

23. Snack, you sneak bites from your child? Gross. No.

24. When the kid is napping, you are: either holding her while she naps or just getting stuff done around the house (what kind of question is this…what is expected? That I’m training tigers while she is napping or something?)

25. Where is your child(ren) now? Back to sleep in her crib after an early morning breakfast.

26. Favorite place to buy maternity clothes? My favorite clothes came from Motherhood Maternity

27. If I could do it over…I wouldn’t have gained so much weight with my pregnancy

28. Did it turn out the way you expected? If “it” means my baby, then yes…she is perfect.

Rawr!!!

It's snowing!!

I swear that Bella is ready to take off. Although I know it's a long time away, it feels like she is ready the run the way she kicks her feet! But, when we have her on her belly she is starting to lift her butt up and wiggle a bit...as if she is starting to figure out how to balance herself.

As of now she still only rolls back to belly - no belly to back yet! Last week I took her to a playgroup fun by ECFE on Monday nights. One of the Moms from the New Parent Connection I went to at Mercy Hospital has a baby 1 week younger than Bella, and he was rolling ALL OVER the place at the play group. People aren't kidding when they say you can set them down one place, turn for 2 seconds and the baby will be across the room! It was so crazy to see this little guy roll and scoot himself around. I'm actually kind of thankful Bella isn't do that yet!

We are still feeding her just rice cereal - nothing else until her 6 month check up on Nov 11. I'm still nursing but will wean soon. My goal was to nurse for 6 months and I'm ready to be done. I'll miss the quiet time with Bella, but it's starting to become a lot of work and stressful. Now that she eats 8 oz of formula in one sitting, I just don't think she gets enough milk from me. It's hard to keep up. I always feel better when she has had a bottle and I know exactly how much she ate.

I'm excited to start feeding her new foods, though. My mom got me a baby food 'cookbook' for my bday. I'm going to at least try to make most of her food rather than buy premade baby food. It seems simple enough and I'll feel better knowing exactly what she is eating.

Other developments include Bella starting to know when Mom and Dad are leaving - she seems to fuss a bit now when we drop her off for "daycare" in the morning. The cutest? She's starting to reach for me - and only me! :) For example, this morning she hung out with Papa while I made breakfast - after a while he brought her into the kitchen and she reached out for me. I grabbed her and she cuddled into me. It's the best! The fact that she has only done this toward me makes up for the fact that she'd only laugh for Daddy for a while.

I'm also going to start sign language soon. Another mom in the playgroup uses it with her 9 month old and echos what I've heard before - it helps ease frustration for baby who WANTS to tell you what they want, but just can't. We'll see how it works out!

No pictures since I'm on my laptop...but trust me, she is still the cutest.

Update...

Isabella is still the cutest!


In control


My god, she lovess this monkey!


Wizard?


I can haz pumpkin?


Cutie!


Two little monkeys



Big girl in her high chair






Seriously, Mom?






Tounge



Ready for church