Becoming a "Big Girl"!

Took Rex and Bella to Wal-Mart today. Shopping trips with Bella are always interesting, because I'm never sure if she'll stay content for the whole trip. It usually works best if she is allowed to move into different positions and be distracted by a lot of different toys. Today, we tried riding in the basket of the cart, next to Rex's carseat.

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Checking Out The World

Bella is definitely into the mobile-get-into-everything stage! She is not walking yet, but wants to pull herself up on everything! I have not baby-proofed our drawers or cabinets yet, but definitely need to do that soon - she gets into it all! She loves the kitchen and will throw a little tantrum if I don't let her play under the sink. Her favorite kitchen activity is when I bring groceries home. I end up leaving the fridge open as I'm unloading, and Bella thinks it's heaven!

Bella's 12 mo. Checkup

Bella went in on Tuesday to get her checkup. She is now 26 pounds! I can't remember how long they said she was. She had to get 4 shots which are never fun for any baby. She is not feeling great right now, so I think that made everything a little worse. Bella is in a new stage where she cries whenever we lay her down to change her diaper, so that combined with being sick made the "shots" experience a real treat. I'm not even sure if she knew that she got shots since she was already so upset that she was being held down on the table. There is a plus side to everything! Here's a picture of Steve consoling her when he got home. She still has a little band-aid on her arm.

Bella's Birthday Party

Bella's birthday party was on Saturday and it went off pretty well! I think everyone had a lot of fun...not Bella, but everyone else. Bella was fine as long as I was holding her and she was away from all of the people. When we all sang "Happy Birthday" she completely lost it. I guess it was one of those quintessential "baby moments".

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This is our dining room decorated for the party.

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The party was an "owl" theme, so I made an owl cake from a recipe I found online. It didn't turn out exactly like the picture, but I was still proud.

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We finally convinced Bella to play with the cake...until her foot got messy...then she started crying.

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This is a spring horse that Grandma and Grandpa Meyer got for Bella. She wasn't too sure of it at first, but she seems to like it now.

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Grandma and Grandpa Wires got Bella a beautiful wooden rocking chair and also sent her a goodie box with clothes and a "first birthday" figurine. Here is a birthday cake toy that you can actually blow out the candles on!

Gardening and Bella's Room

We spent some time on Sunday gardening. I usually kill everything that I plant, but there is still somthing wonderful and relaxing about playing in the dirt. We planted a jasmine next to the wooden swing in our backyard and will hopefully train it to curl around the swing's frame as it grows. We also planted some colorful bushes around the bed that we share with our neighbor. Here is a picture of the flowers in the bed...

They are still pretty small, but I'm hoping they'll grow to become really good ground cover. Our crowning achievement was this forsythia. It will eventually bloom with yellow flowers and look very "flowy". My mom always jokes that she wanted to name one of us "Forsythia" so she's very proud of us for planting one!

While we were busy gardening, our friends, Ben and Carolyn, were upstairs in Bella's room, painting her mural. They completed most of the tree and finished up a lot of the flowers. Ben is super creative, so I've let him pretty much do whatever he felt. He is doing bright, bold colors, like Dr. Suess. I think it's going to turn out awesome!

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Spring Fling at Church

This morning was our Spring Fling at church, and it was packed! We had so much fun and we enjoyed having Bella out in the gorgeous weather. Bella had fun looking around as long as we didn't make her do any of the traditional stuff. As you can see, she didn't really care for the Easter bunny...

As long as we kept her moving around, though, she did okay. We met Mel at Marietta Square a little later for ice cream, and now we're crashing. We are hosting a large Easter dinner tomorrow with our friends, so I'm off to clean and start baking!