Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A Bit of Italia

I am making a video of pictures from when we first met, got married, went to Italy and had Bella so I've gotten to dig up alot of old pics and thought I'd share:)


Our first wedding, only 2 days before Ben left for BMT.

Us at the River Walk during BMT Grad week. Ben looked anorexic!!! He actually had pneumonia about 3/4 of BMT:( We spent the first 7 months of marriage in two different states.
Rehersal dinner for our 2nd wedding


Favorite picture from our 2nd wedding

This was our house in Italy-see why I miss the place so much?!?! Yes, the entire 3 stories was ALL ours:) It was beautiful, had marble floors on the first floor and hand-layed wood floors (think 1in x 3in pieces of wood, each put in by hand) on the 2nd floor. The 3rd floor was a finished attic. This was an old farm house so we had a HUGE corn field in the backyard and a vineyard with the most delicious grapes ever!!!
I miss my house:(
Us on a wine tasting trip

Us at the Vatican in Rome


My favorite picture of the Colosseum

Us skiing at Piancavallo (up the mountain from Aviano)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

YUM cheesecake!!!


Ben's mom came over for the game on Saturday and brought cheesecake. Bella decided she didn't need us to help her with the spoon (amazing how a lil sugar can motivate a child LOL) so she dug in:)

QUIT taking my picture!!!! Can't a girl just eat some cheesecake without the papparazzi having to snap every little bite?!?!

ummmmm nevermind, you do whatever you want, I'm just gonna enjoy this for a bit longer

HA to heck with a spoon, this will get it in faster!!!!

Weekend Pictures


I went on a bit of a shopping spree on eBay for Bella shoes:) Poor pumpkin had outgrown all of her shoes and HAD to have some that fit!!! My treasure finds included these ADORABLE snow boots (they are Gap brand, got them for $5!). Soon as I opened the box and showed them to her, she was ripping off her new Robeez and banging the boots on her feet. I put them on her and she LOVED them!!!! SOOOO excited to have a baby in shorts with snow boots on-I know SILLY but I think kids in shorts with boots on is just frickin adorable:)
Got a lil OCD from Mama and Daddy, organizing her pumpkins:) Note: boots still on!

Bella loves the picnic table we got for her. We actually got it semi for her, semi for us so we have somewhere to sit when we are pushing her in the swing. Daddy insisted on putting the umbrella from her deck table out to block the sun for her:)
This weekend was WalMart Home Office's Toyland where all the associate's kids/grandkids can come check out all the new toys that they will have for Christmas. They had all sorts of characters dressed up. Bella wasn't too sure about Sleeping Beauty.

You can't tell from this picture but she LOOOOOOVED getting to see Diego. We watch Diego and Dora every morning (Dora was SUPPOSE to be there but we never saw her). Bella got SO excited when she saw Diego and would not stop waving and smiling.

Daddy got to see some of his favorite characters too:) WWE Wrestlers Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin were doing photos and autographs. Bella LOVES to watch wrestling with her Daddy-she always cheers for the bad guys LOL:)

Friday, October 12, 2007

Pumpkin Patch

This morning we went to Vanzant's Produce Farm and played in the Pumpkin Patch. We are going to be in Alabama on Halloween (DEFINITELY running to the store to get the last of the good pumpkins as soon as we get there so we can carve some!!!) but I still wanted Bella to be able to get some baby pumpkins to play with because she had a BLAST playing with one at Miss Amanda's house.


Bella had fun "petting" the pumpkins and wiping the morning dew off:) She LOVED playing with the pumpkins that had "warts".
Vanzant's has a really awesome Pumpkin Patch. Its in a nice rolling valley with pumpkins EVERYWHERE-kids can just run around in them. They have HUGE scarecrows all over the place. Even a little scarecrow family in chairs with a scarecrow baby. Bella's favorite was the fishing scarecrow-he had HUGE fishing lures that looked like real fish that she loved playing with. She liked playing with the scarecrows' noses LOL:)
"MOOOOM!!! I like this one!! THIS ONE THIS ONE THIS ONE!!! It has lots of warts!!!"
"oops wait-this one is nice a lopsided!!!"
WEEEEEE Pumpkins EVERYWHERE:) How cute is my Bean in her lil pumpkin patchastic jean jacket? It has matching khaki pants but they fell right off her:)
'scuse me, I'm having a girly moment and would like to play with the flowers!
They had all kinds of great places to sit and take pictures. We'll definitely have to come back next Autumn and bring Daddy so we can get some good pics:)
Don't forget-MUST pet the plastic squirrels!!!!! A little boy came up and STOLE all the squirrels away from Bella and ran off! She was devastated:(
I'll take some pictures of Bella with her pumpkins after she wakes up from her nap. I had her in her stroller and pilled them on her (5 baby pumpkins)-she would not stop giggling!!!

Monday, October 8, 2007

CIO Update

First nap CIO: she cried for an hour, slept for 2 hours
First night CIO: not sure how long she cried, we passed out, but her light was on when we got up in the morning so she obviously played for a while
Second night CIO: she cried less than 2 minutes
Third night CIO: she cried less than 1 minute
Fourth night CIO: slept 12 hours!!!
Fifth night CIO: slept 12 hours!!!
Sixth night CIO: wouldn't go to sleep the normal way (nurse/rock) so we put her down to sleep, she cried for less than 30 seconds and slept 12 hours:)

Our Scarecrow

Saturday morning we went to the Rogers Fall Festival. They had their annual Build-A-Scarecrow. It was really neat. You got to pick out your scarecrow's clothes and accessories and then build it (stuff hay and staple!). Ours is a little on the sad side but she is ours so we love her:)
Bella dancing for the scarecrow:)

Isn't she beautiful? She has a Circus Circus hat on, nice red bandana around the neck and a lovely pink scarf as a belt.
Tuckered out in her tree swing from all the hard work:)

Friday, October 5, 2007

New Random Pictures

Decided to empty the camera since we are going to the Rogers Fall Festival and I'm hoping to take TONS of pics:) So here is some randomness....


My loverly creation:) I wanted a Fall wreath but didn't like any that WalMart had and didn't want to wait until the craft fairs, so I bought this snazzy lil dude, whom was actually a scarecrow on a stand (think centerpiece) and then I added the leaves. Just call me Martha:)
My baby LOVES to read!!!!!! She loves to climb up in her big girl chair too. I actually bought it as a set with an umbrella picnic table in Italy when I was babysitting. I bet she'll love it next Spring-we can play tea LOL:)
Reading to Daddy and Gramma (and Copper on the floor).
P-A-S-S-E-D O-U-T!!!! I was finishing up some work so Daddy took Bella for a walk and she was obviously a little tuckered out:) (child NEVER falls asleep when I take her for walks LOL)

My poor punkin-total blackmail pic here:) This was when she had a cold a few weeks ago, disgusting runny nose. She was eating Cheerios (shoving hand fulls in her mouth LOL) and one didn't quite make it in. NASTY!! Got stuck in the snot river:) I LOVE YOU BEAN!!!!

We Survived Round One!!!

It is funny how you have things so set in your mind before your child arrives.

We swore Bella would never use a pacifier-she went along with that idea by refusing one anytime someone tried to give her one for the first 8 months. Then teething hit, she found a random binky and started chewing on it. Binky is now my best friend and I am not ashamed:)

We promised ourselves that we would NEVER do Cry It Out (CIO). We tried it a few times after Bella really pushed the limits of refusing to go to sleep and keeping us up all hours of the night, but we always ended up caving-we couldn't stand to hear our baby crying-she NEEDED us!!

Wednesday night Bella woke up at midnight. We changed her diaper-she is dry. I nursed her (only nursing she gets anymore)-she is fed. She was still wide AWAKE and ready to go. So we did the new norm-put her in our bed with us so she can play it out and we can still get some semblance of sleep. I made sure she had a full bottle "just in case" she was starving. The child played until 3am!!! We tried a zillion times to get her to sleep-rocked her, sang to her, walked the hallway with her-NOTHING. *Usually* she passes out in our bed between us (taking up 75% of the bed with her tiny lil self!) and we move her to her crib. Her Daddy eventually got her to give up the fight around 4. There was no way in the world we were doing that again. We had let her develop the new norm of getting up around 2am every night and playing for at least an hour. That was our fault-time for a change!

When she woke up Thursday she was cranky and had bags under her eyes-can't imagine why! We had to run around a bit and she did the normal passing out in the car on the way home. *Normally* I am able to pick her up out of her carseat and carry her to her room and put her in bed without her waking up. I'm quickly realizing that normal no longer exists (I already knew it was constantly changing-guess this is the next change LOL). The child is sound asleep all the way home. Soon as I pull into the garage-BOOM eyes wide open and ready to go. I nursed her thinking maybe that would do the trick-nope, time to giggle! Drove her around some more (I was desparate!)-did the same thing, woke up as soon as I pulled into the garage.

I realized what I had to do, and knew I could do it because I had to do it for all of us. I rocked her a bit and then put her in her crib with her binky, stinky bear (don't ask LOL), blankets and her normal stuffed animals, and a few books in case she got bored. She threw a fit. She put up a good fight-lasted an hour, and then passed out:) She wimpered in her sleep for about 15 minutes which totally broke my heart. But I did it!!! I survived and didn't cave in, and my baby was sound asleep. What affirmed it for me was the fact that she slept the exact same amount after CIO as she did when I put her down already asleep. She survived, didn't vomit (heard that can happen alot when first doing CIO), and still loved me when she woke up. She still greeted me with that awesome deep from the gut smile and still ran around giggling with me. She didn't hate me (I know its silly but at first I couldn't look her in the eye because I just KNEW my child would hate me forever). We survived, and she still loves me. Here I was fretting over my baby crying hysterically and having to ignore her (I turned the volume completely down on the monitor so I wouldn't have to hear it but could still see the red lights flashing when she got really loud), and she acted like it was no sweat off her back. Note to self: do this ALOT sooner with the next one! Though I'm realizing, it won't work unless everyone involved is game.

We did it again last night. She woke up at the usual 2am, changed her diaper, nursed, tried to give her some bottle (didn't want any), rocked her and then put her down. I'm not sure how long she cried-Ben and I both passed out (after he asked a few times "Should I go check on her?" whenever she took a breather from crying, to which I answered "NOOOOO we have to stay strong!" LOL). But I can tell you that we were both smiling, laughing and loving life again when we got up this morning. We both questioned every bit of it at first- was she not playing enough during the day (NADA-when that child is awake, if she is not eating, she is all over the place playing); was she hungry (NOPE-eats like a football player and I do nurse her when she wakes up and she typically does not want an extra snack); we change her diaper so it wasn't that; she wasn't in pain because she'd be cranky and crying instead she is giggling and wanting to play. The child just had us wrapped right around that cute lil finger right where she wanted us. I'm glad we are taking back the power:) We love our baby and would walk to the depths of the earth for her-and we are gladly realizing that THIS too is something GOOD that we are doing for HER (and us).

k, done pouring my heart out:) Just another day in the life of Bella Bean.