Trick-Or-Treat

Getting ready to head out! This picture is a little fuzzy, but she's actually looking at the camera and smiling, so I couldn't pass it up.

Bella started out wanting to be carried, but she quickly learned that open doors equaled candy!

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Liam and his family came over to go trick-or-treating with us. He was dressed as a lion and he actually roared!

Snacking on her loot!

Mel had a party with her small group, but she managed to visit a few houses with us. She dressed as Charlie Chaplin! She looked so awesome! I'm claiming a small piece of credit because I did her face makeup.

From the Week

Some pictures from the week...

Bella was playing with Adam's lunchbox. She totally looks like she's ready in the morning with her Starbucks and briefcase!

These are another couple of pictures of Bella wearing Steve's hat. She loved it and whenever it would come off, she would carry it back to me to put it on her again.

Last night, Steve and I went on a date for his birthday. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and it was wonderful! It was so nice to relax and order (and eat!) slowly. We had the babysitter take a picture of us before we left.

We are doing work tonight for the weekend at church. Saturday is the Harvest Festival - we have set-up in the morning and then the event in the afternoon/evening. Sunday morning is our Missions Conference with a luncheon after church. Sunday night, we're going trick-or-treating! Bella is going to be a spider and I'm going as a gypsy.

Little Miss Muffitt!

Had to be creative this morning to keep Bella's hair out of her face. She looks super cute and it gave me an idea! I think I can make this part of her Halloween costume - I'm going to dress her in her spider costume and use hair ties to put a bunch of these little "tufts" all over her head. Then, I'm going to see if we can paint the tufts black with hair paint...we'll see if she'll sit still for that! It will look like little antennae...hopefully!

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We Made It Out Alive!

We survived the weekend...barely! Steve got the stomach flu on Friday night and spent the entire night throwing up. Then Mel had to come home early on Saturday morning because she was throwing up at work. Thankfully, Bella and I haven't shown any symptoms yet, and the boys staying at our house seem to be fine, too.

I thought I'd include some pictures of the guys at our house this weekend. They were a fun group to be around! We somehow managed to shuttle them back and forth to church, get them all fed, make sure Bella napped, and kept Steve in bed! Whew!

We decided to come home after Sunday School today. Mel stayed home with Bella until we got back from dropping off the boys. Steve and Mel seem to be feeling a little better - very weak and comepletely exhausted. Hope no one else gets sick!

Getting Ready For The Weekend

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I don't know if everyone else's fridge and pantry normally look like this, but ours does not. We are literally overflowing! This weekend, we will have TEN 11th and 12th grade boys and two leaders staying at the house for an event called Disciple Now. It's probably one of our favorite weekends of the year after holidays. Our whole youth group gets divided up by age and gender, and then sent to different houses in the area. They have bible study, games, discussion, and service projects. This is our third year doing it, and we know from experience to not expect much sleep in the next 48 hours. We'll let you know how it goes!

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Poor Baby!

The kid has had quite a week so far! We got a new nightlight in the hallway that uses a larger bulb. I normally remove it during the day so the kids don't play with it or break it. Early yesterday morning, Bella grabbed the bulb for just a second, but she burned her little thumb. It looks worse than it is - she's actually coping really well! At first, it was just really red, but this morning it had a blister on it. It's located on the thumb that she sucks, so I'm hoping that won't hinder the healing at all. Poor thing!

Bella's 18-Month Checkup

Monday was Bella's visit to the pediatrician. She started out really well; she was in a great mood and she loved the aquarium in the waiting room! We started off being weighed and measured...Bella is about 29 lbs. and 32 inches long. That works out to be the 95% for weight and the 75% for height. She has stayed pretty consistent to those percentiles since she was born. We definitely have ourselves a healthy girl!

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The pediatrician spent a lot of time asking about naps, food, and talking. About three weeks ago, I had been concerned about naps because Bella was taking two 3-hour naps a day! And then sleeping for 12 hours at night - it was crazy! Even in that short amount of time, though, her system has finally sorted itself out and she seems to be sleeping for a total of about 3 1/2 hours during the day.

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The pediatrician also wanted Bella to be able to say more words. Bella can say: Mama, Daddy, bear, tree, dog, bye, wow, baby, and we just added "ta-da!" tonight. The ped. said that Bella should be able to say an additional 5 words in the next three months. I'm not really worried about Bella and the talking. The other babies that we come in contact with who know more words are babies that are in a daycare of some sort. Anytime we meet a baby who stays at home with mom, the baby is right in line with Bella. I AM going to try and find some word books that have simple, practical words that she can work on.

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Bella also got a flu shot. She doesn't really notice shots because she is usually already screaming from simply being laid down on the table. And that's where the visit became stressful. Bella has entered a rough stage. I know that one of the negatives of staying at home would be that Bella would naturally be more clingy with me. Lately, though, this has seemed on over-drive. It usually happens when she is tired or in a new environment, and I know that's normal, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant. Bella also HATES to be restricted - either physically or in her environment.

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When I laid Bella down to be weighed by the nurse, she went ballistic. I don't mean she was fussy; I mean she went berserk. She stayed that way throughout the entire visit with the nurse and pediatrician - either sobbing silently or screaming straight out. And it wasn't just with the doctor; at one point, she and I were in the room by ourselves. She didn't want to be touched, she didn't want to be laid down, she just sat on my lap and screamed. She's smart enough to realize that she's trapped in a little room or trapped on the table, but she's not advanced enough to understand that she will eventuallly be out of the room.

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Needless to say, I left the office pretty much exhausted. I have been praying for calm and patience in those sitautions. I know there are many more potential disasters in our future and I don't want to go crazy for each one. The fact that it's always in public doesn't make it much fun, either. So that can be a way that you pray for us! I don't expect Bella to change much since she's still a baby-toddler; but I do need help staying calm in the heat of the battle.

Apple Orchard

On Saturday, we met friends that Mel and I have had since elementary school, and went to an apple orchard. I'm realizing that I have extremely idealized expectations for these events, and how I expect them to go. It must be a new mom thing...in my head, Bella is happy and loving the apple orchard and laughing the entire time. Oh, and there are never any crowds. In reality, we enjoyed the time with friends, but the two toddlers missed their naps, traffic doubled our road time, it was really hot, and I think everyone in Georgia was at the same orchard on the same Saturday. Whew! I'm glad we all survived! Here are some "idyllic" pictures from the trip.

The orchard looked beautiful...and smelled awful. There were a ton of rotting apples on the ground and we laughed most of the time about the smell of fermentation.

Bella and Brock, eating apples as they go. Brock is just a month younger than Bella and they enjoyed each other's compnay.

Bella holding on to daddy's hand and her apple.

Tractor time! She loved sitting there and turning the wheel! She was very proud of herself!

Bella sticking her face through the moonshine guy! They had a Moonshine Museum, but we didn't get a chance to go in.

And finally...we milked a cow! Well, Mel and I each got to milk the cow; Bella just poked poor Buttercup, but she still loved it.

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The orchard was crowded and hot, and Bella was cranky and hot, but we had a great time catching up with friends and I learned the valuable lesson that I should start to have realistic expectations when doing an outing with a toddler. Maybe when she's three...

Moving Up In The World

I don't know if he has passed this on to our family yet, but Steve has been nominated to be a deacon at our church! This is a big step for him to take a place of leadership, and we're so proud of him! Steve is not the kind of man that puts himself in the spotlight. I'm extremely proud that he is willing to go through an ordination ceremony, as well as committ to meetings and serving in the church. God gave me a great husband, and Bella a great daddy!

Videos

I have tried about six times to post videos from our weekend and haven't been able to do it, so I'm going to load them on Facebook instead. There are two videos - one of Bella in a pile of leaves, and the other one is of all the cousins jumping in the pile! I'm so sad they won't post on here!

Great-Grandma's Birthday!

Steve, Bella, and I are flying to Ohio this weekend to spend time with his family, and especially to help celebrate Great-Grandma Ferguson's 90th birthday! She's an awesome lady and we're excited to spend time with her! Bella and I worked on a craft today using Bella's hand print. It took me a couple of tries, but here's the final product! Bella drew her name on by herself! (With me helping to hold the marker)

Soccer with Daddy!

This past weekend, our pastor and his wife were out of town, so we helped our friends take care of their kids. On Saturday morning, the two 6-year old twins had their soccer games. Bella enjoyed playing with Daddy during half-time.

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Tuckered our after running all over the field!

Ladies Night Out...and the Crazy Caterpillar

Last night was Ladies Night Out at our church. I was really looking forward to having some time to talk and catch up with the women in my Sunday School class withouth Bella. Steve babysat at home and a lot of men from church signed up to be waiters. It was a lot of fun! An added bonus was having Mary Perdue as our special speaker - the governor's wife! She did a really nice job of sharing her story about being a governor's wife and relying on God's will through all of their decisions and difficulties. She was really a blessing.

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I forgot to post it earlier, but on Tuesday, I got stung (or bit, or something!) by the craziest bug I've ever seen! I researched it online and it's called a saddleback caterpillar. I was pruning some of my plants and reached down to rip off some dead leaves. I ended up wrapping two of my fingers around this demon animal and it hurt like crazy!!! I was really paranoid for awhile that poison was going to enter my bloodstream and kill me, but after looking it up online, all of the information said that it was incredible pain for a couple of hours. And it was, but I survived.

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