"Daddy's Home!"

The favorite part of my day is the moment that Steve walks through the door. It doesn't matter what's happened throughout the day or whether it was stressful; at that moment, Bella is over-the-moon overjoyed! She runs to him, laughing and squealing! Today she wanted a ride on Steve's motorcycle as he pulled it into the garage.

I Am A Rock, I Am An Island...

(Am I too young for a Simon & Garfunkel reference?)

I didn't cry this morning during carpool! I took my place in line, handed Bella's school bag through the window to the Preschool Director, and watched as she unbuckled Bella's seat. Bella held her hand and walked into the school. I was a little too proud to be sad. Plus, knowing that the director of the program and her assistant teacher love her as much as I do always helps.

One of the items on her supply list was to send in 4 pictures of our family for an art project that they'll be working on this year. We don't normally get a lot of opportunities to take pictures of all three of us, so I was very thankful for all of my Michigan pictures! Another reason to be thankful that Julie took about 500 pictures during that trip!

How cute is this? I love that her teachers did an art project while also reassuring mothers that their child is wonderful even if an art project doesn't come home every, single day. P. S. Do you like that I stuck it to the fridge with a stamp? it was all I had on short-notice.

"Bweeeeease!"

We're working on "please" and "thank you" at our house, and we're in the habit now of asking Bella, "How do you ask?" if she starts demanding something. I end up asking her as much as possible, but not because I consider myself a big stickler for manners; it's more that I think it's really cute to hear her say it!

Bella's Words

Bella was chattering away this morning, and it made me think that I need to write down some of her recent "Bell-isms" to remember and share.

Bella says her "f" as a "p", so...

food is "pood"

fork is "poke"

foot is "poot"

Bella's "s" is said like an "h", so...

sun is "hun"

and when she wants us to sing, it comes out as "hing"

She also tends to put the ending consonant in the beginning, too. A giraffe is a "faff" and a fish is a "sheesh."

Bella identifies lots of her animals by their sound instead of their name, and my most recent favorite is when she calls her elephant her "boo." Apparently, that's her version of an elephant blowing its trumpet.

Bella's First Day Of Preschool

This morning was definitely not what I expected! Ironically, the least emotional part of my morning was leaving Bella at the door...that actually went off without a hitch, and Bella reacted as though she were being dropped of at nursery.

I think the most emotional thing for me was that Bella's teacher is not very "feel-goody." I may look back at this by the end of the year and have a completely different point of view, but I was a little disappointed that she wasn't a little more gentle with the parents. Does that sound weird? I mean, I think she will be a wonderful teacher for Bella, and I am confident that Bella will actually learn new things this year instead of just being babysat, but I wish the teacher had come across as a little more understanding of the fact that I was leaving my 2-year old in "school" for the first time.

There were good things, too, though! I didn't get a ton of pictures because I still had the other two kids with me, but here are the ones I got...especially for the Grandmas!

On the calendar for weeks! We've been so excited!

I mean, come on! How could I not include this picture?

Making sure everything is in her school bag.

Forcing Bella to take a "Mommy and Me" picture

Impatient and independent! We can't wait for everything this year will bring!

An Experiment...

If you know me well, you know that I get restless with my house. Not discontent, I just frequently like to move furniture, pictures, stuff around until I feel that it is "just right." We are pretty limited in the living room with furniture placement because of where the cable jack is; the TV always has to be in that same corner.

Drumroll please...Steve and I talked about it, and he agreed to move the television out of the living room! Wow! I have to admit, we like to crash in front of the TV, and I'm a little nervous that we'll be going crazy after a week, but I'm willing to try it. Really, the decision is completely decor-motivated; we're not placing a memorandum on TV watching. Although, we are looking forward to the living room being a place to hang out, talk, listen to music, and not just automatically turning on Office re-runs. Last night, as I was cleaning up, we had some Harry Connick Jr. playing and Steve was reading on the couch.

I also LOVE the look of the room now! It looks so good! I'm very thankful to have a husband who is willing to agree to my random epiphanies!

Not the best angle, but here is the entire room from the kitchen - very open and uncluttered.

The new spot for the couch; the TV used to be in the left corner. I really like that you see the open seating space as soon as you walk into the room, instead of the TV and table.

The wall that the couch used to be on. It's so cozy and "nook-ish" now. I love being curled up in the chair in the corner.

Never A Dull Moment

How many times have I used that title since I started this blog? We don't have an extremely exciting life, but we do our best to keep it interesting! This will have to be my "last night" post, because I have another post I want to share for today.

Mel and I had a baby shower to go to on Saturday morning, so Steve watched Bella. He decided to get some yardwork done for the party we were hosting that night for Mel's birthday. I got a call towards the end of the shower from Steve saying he had caught his finger in the hedge trimmer and cut himself. I asked if he felt light-headed from blood and he said no, so we headed home without calling someone else who was closer and could get to Steve quicker.
It was not a deep cut (thank goodness!), but it was in a jagged "Z" pattern, so we thought stitches were a possibility. We drove to the first urgent care center and they wouldn't take us because they closed at 2:00 (seriously, it was 2:02...not even lying!), so we headed out to the next one, but they sent us to a hospital, because the doctor said he couldn't accommodate that jagged of a cut.

FINALLY...we made it to the hospital and through the crazy-long waiting time! Steve got stitched up with five stitches in all, and I think his hand was throbbing by the end of it, even with pain killers.

The original wound.

Busting out his best "Have some sympathy" face!

Waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. At least the people in the next bed provided good entertainment!

Instruments of torture...it was too fascinating not to watch, but I did have to look a couple of times when the needle went into Steve's skin.

The finished product...hopefully, that's not too "yucky" of a picture. I have to say, it did seem to look worse AFTER being stitched than before, but I know it will improve with healing. The doctor gave us special antibiotics since Steve is diabetic and more prone to infection. He cleaned it out last night and there was no swelling at all, so that's a good sign!

I warned him that if he keeps hurting himself in freak accidents, I'm going to strap him into a wheelchair.