Daddy's Hat

Dawson is so adorable! Both babies love to play with Brandon's hat. It's kind of funny how we spend so much time and money finding these perfect toys, when the babies are perfectly content playing with items like the wooden spoon. It's always been obvious that Dawson resembles Brandon but in these pictures it's amazing how much he does look like him. Definitely Daddy's little boy!

Uncle Brandon

Oh how Bella loves to play with her Uncle Brandon. She pulls on his hair and eyebrows and sits and talks to him. The other day we were having lunch at pizza hut when he showed up. She got fussy and mad until he picked her up. It's going to be funny watching her and Dawson grow up and play together with him.

A New Outfit

A friend of mom's (granny) made this adorable outfit for our Miss Bella. It looks absolutely wonderful on her. She even has some pink tights with ruffles on the butt to complete it. What fun it is playing dress up with Bella. She has more clothes than we have places to wear them. Her hair is growing and I am able to put little clips in it. Soon we will be able to get little pigtails!!!

Feeling Tired

Well it's been a week (almost) since we got back from KC. I am still missing everyone but adjusted back into my strange mommy schedule. It's been a rather long week. Bella has had her first cold the past few days. Naturally she has been cranky and very needy. That is exhausting! I myself am beginning to feel a little sick this evening. Hopefully with a little sleep I will feel better tomorrow. Haven't accomplished much this week. I did manage to start cleaning my windows so that I can shut them up for winter. Not a very fun task, but a needed one. We went and looked at a house her in Caney. It is small, but slightly bigger than what we have now. It would be nice to be able to own something and know that every month my money was going toward something and not just being thrown away. I guess I will have to wait and see. I have been feeling down this week. Probably just a reaction to being in Kansas City. I am sure I will cheer up over next week. I need to find myself some nice projects to work on. I am sure every knows how much a love a good craft night ( I am such a big dork ). Maybe I will work on some wallart for Bella's room. That would probably cheer me right up. Well I best go see what all my little angel has destroyed while I have been typing.

Fun in KC

Nakisha and Lance with Bella

Aedan and Bella

Another Baby In Our Life

Meet Aedan! My roomate in Olathe got pregnant shortly after I did. This is her beautiful son Aedan. Bella and I made the long trip up to KC to go see lots of friends. We stayed with Lance, Nakisha, Taegan and Aedan. I had so much fun seeing everyone again. I was just amazed with how much Taegan has grown and how much Aedan resembles him. We had fun having Bella and Aedan attempt to play with each other.

Taegan is such a wonderful big brother! He loves and loves on his Aedan. For being a energetic three year old, he does pretty well with trying to be calm and soft with the babies (atleast as well as can be expected!). What a wonderful trip we had. Hopefully there will be many more to come.

Aedan (nearly four months old)

Rachel and Aedan

Daddy Lance and Aedan

Snapshots from Kansas City

BELLA AND NAKISHA

TAEGAN, BELLA, RACHEL, AND AEDAN

TAEGAN AND AEDAN

Babies Everywhere!

Oh how I loved being a mommy! But I also love being an Aunt! Actually I love getting to be a new mommy and a new aunt all at the same time. It is quite an amazing experience to be sharing everything with my sister Laura. How wonderful it is that Bella will grow up with a cousin so close in age. I know that I have very fond memories of my own cousins and I am so pleased that Bella will too. In February Bella will get another boy cousin and then in March yet another boy cousin. My little princess and all these boys. I hope that she will be my fun little girl who wears bows in her hair but isn't afraid to play in the dirt with the boys. What a wonderful way to grow up!

The Parade

While I was at work the other night Abbi was in a parade. Laura and Brandon bundled up Dawson and Bella and took them to their first parade. It may appear as though Brandon looks pretty funny. You'll notice that strange thing sticking out of his mouth. It is actually Bella's wooden spoon! She was playing with it before they left and refused to leave it behind. Of all the wonderful, expensive toys we have all over the place, Bella loves her spoon!

Two Babies!

Laura and I are getting pretty good at juggling two babies. We like to switch sometimes and play with the other. The switching can be kind of tricky but as you can see we are beginning to get it down. What a unique experience motherhood is, but to get to share it with your sister at the same time.... thats an amazing experience. How lucky we are!!!

Bella & Halle

Bella has a friend named Halle! My friend Erin's daughter loves to play with Bella. We see her and she gets all excited chanting baby, baby. She is working on saying Bella but it just doesn't quite come out right yet. Sunday we went to Halle's first birthday party. She had so much fun. She is an absolute doll! After her cake she decided she would rather chew on a frosting flavored apple. Erin and I are determined that Halle and Bella are going to be best friends!

Diapers

Bella has made a new discovery recently. We were taking a nap in my bed and she didn't want to sleep but mommy needed a little cat-nap so I let her play next to me. I was awoken by a warm wet sensation on my back. I turned over and Bella was grinning at me. Her diaper was off and next to her. She has figured out how to remove it and then pees with it off. A couple days later she was playing in the pack and play and I noticed she got rather quiet. I looked in at her and she had once again removed the diaper and this time pooped everywhere. She was smart enough to even move to the side so that she could play comfortably. What a mess she is! I keep trying to tell myself that somehow this means she will be easy to potty-train... mommy's dream. I am sure we will be dealing with this for quite some time.

OH BELLA

Bella was Aunt Laura's big helper. She helped her cook dinner and had so much fun! She loves to be up with everyone. Her eyes get big and she takes it all in. She is such a smart little girl. We play all kinds of games like pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo. She is just a blast! She had so much fun with Aunt Laura that she wore herself out and fell asleep. She had a death grip on the spoon. No matter how hard granny tried she would not let go!

Bella goes all over in her walker. She is starting to discover fun things. She will see something and go towards it. Tonight she found granny's flowers in the dinning room. She worked her way over to them and managed to pull them down. I'm sure this will be the first of many pictures taken like this. She changes every day and will soon be into everything.

My bright-eyed girl!

More fun pictures

Bath Time

We love to give baths! Bella has so much fun playing with her rubber ducky. She cries when we get in and then cries when she has to get out.
After the bath we have fun putting on lotion and getting dressed. Then we get to cuddle!

Everyday Life

The beautiful cradle

Twins?

Whenever we go out, people often ask if Dawson and Bella are twins. Laura and I always are amused by the confusion that we cause particularly when it is me, Laura, Dawson, Bella, and Brandon all out together.

Changes

Bye-Bye Monitor
Bella is growing up so quickly. I can hardly believe that she is six months old. We had a doctor's appointment yesterday and received some wonderful news. Bella has been given the okay to go monitor free! Officially this coming Friday is the last day she will have the monitor. I am so very excited. It will be nice to not have to deal with all of the extra stress. I am thankful to have had the monitor, but am also thankful that Bella is well enough and strong enough to no longer need it. What a great day!

Growing
Bella is a little over 13 pounds now. She is actually the same size as cousin Dawson. He might even be slightly bigger than her. She is doing wonderfully though. She eats three meals a day of baby food and coming soon..... table foods! We tried juice yesterday. She does very well with it. She can drink her juice and water out of a big girl cup. Most of it even stays in her mouth! What a joy she is.

Crib
She is so active now that we have replaced the cradle with a big girl crib. She loves her crib. She will stay in her crib when she wakes up in the morning for quite awhile before letting me know she is ready to get up for the day. She entertains herself in there. She uses her blanket to play peek-a-boo with the critters hanging from the mobile above her. She jabbers and tells them all about the wonderful things she dreamed of. And than I walk in and lean over the edge of crib to tell her good morning. I am greeted with squeels and grins. We get up and change her diaper (very important after sleeping for 8 hours) and then go to the living room for some breakfast. Our morning routine is a very special time to me.

Sitting up
Bella loves to sit up and play. She is able to sit by herself so long as she is leaning forward and has something to entertain her. As soon as she is distracted she topples over to one side and squirms to a crawling position. She gets those little knees up under her but just can't quite figure out what to do next. She will wiggle all over the room though. She gets frustrated when she can't figure out to get something she wants. Soon she will figure those things out though.

ZOOM ZOOM
The walker is Bella's best friend. She is able to go all over in it. She can go forwards and backwards and even turn herself around. Last night she found her way from granny's dining room to her kitchen and then found some flowers in the corner of the room. She very intently stared them down and tried to reach out and get them. She played there for awhile before getting frustrated with the silly flowers. What a funny girl she is.

Jabber
DaDa AGaGa....Bella is learning all kinds of fun things. She will just sit and talk to you. She can't get mama yet but I know it will be coming soon. Everyday something new amazes me about her. It's a great adventure!

Poor Bella

We like to play all kinds of games with Bella. We found Abbi's old play wig while doing some cleaning and decided that Bella would look pretty cool in it. As you can see, she was not nearly as amused as we all were.

Play Time

I like to come over to mom's house in the mornings so that Laura and I can play with the babies. One morning we spent a long time playing with Bella and a blue bandana. Bella thought it was the greatest thing ever. She chewed on it and we pulled on it. We played dress up with it. It turned out to be an exciting toy. We try to get Dawson and Bella to play together, but really they just dont' have any interest in each other.

Playing with Bella

What exciting lives we have now.... Saturday night and what have we been up to? Playing with the babies ofcourse. Bella has discovered her feet and enjoys spending time chewing on them as well as talking to them. She is working very hard on sitting up. She loves to be up on everything so she can see what everyone is doing.

I love my hand!

Don't get in my way!

Look at her go. Bella sure loves to play in her walker. Her little toes can barely touch the ground but she can still manage to go across the floor (backwards ofcoarse). The little toys on the top of the walker spin and she can spin them round and round and round. What a joy the walker is to Bella..... and to mommy (I get 20 minutes most days to work on stuff around the house thanks to this fabulous invention.