Teeth, steps and chocolate cake!!!

Everyday is something new with our beautiful little girl. She will be one year old in tomorrow, hard to believe God has given us a full year with her already!!
Bell has two new teeth coming in on the bottom, so now has six in all. But she does just fine with the four that are fully in, as she eats almost everything. This week her new additions were dried Blueberries and pinapple chunks. I think she thought the blueberries were raisins (which she loves), so it was funny to watch her face - you could tell just when she knew they were different. But I guess she decided they are as good as raisins, as she ate them all.
Speaking of eating, I am awaiting some pictures from our neighbor Steph (got them) that they took Sunday night of Bell eating her Birthday cake (our camera is giving us a VERY hard time lately!! ). Anyway, we had a little pizza / Birthday party for Bell Sunday with our friends from Delaware. Bell had a great time playing with her birthday balloon, her new toys and eating her piece of CHOCOLATE cake!! Don did not understand why the first birthday cake had to be chocolate, until he saw his beautiful little girl a mess in chocolate. Everyone should have pictures of them eating their first birthday cake!! I have some great ones of Austin at that age. We had fun making her birthday cake (the first one flopped due to our electric going out half way through cooking it!!)

I really can open a box of cake mix and make a cake, but NOT when the power goes out in the middle of baking it!! Since our oven is electric, the cake looked like a cake with a big glob of pudding in the center. By the time the power came back on it was to late to salvage it, so back to the store for another box of mix!
She is also taking steps everday now!! She took 6 in a row at her party. Mostly she is doing three or four at a time. Not long now and she will be running all over the joint.
Saturday was a beautiful fall day here, clear and a bit cold. I am one of the Activities Coordinators for the local Mothers & More group, and we had set up a family outing day at the local orchards for Saturday. The weather and the turnout were both great! Don was helping out our neighbor Brett finish up putting together his Corvette before they move :((((, so Austin invited his friend JD. Well the boys had so much fun doing the corn maze, painting pumpkins and playing in the grain boxes, they did not want to go home!
We are off to New York on Friday for the weekend and another Birthday Party for Bell. It will be nice to see family and friends on Saturday. But of course, we will be out bright and early to get home to see the SAINTS game. They are having a GREAT SEASON this year!!! GO SAINTS!!

Pics will not post right now - ugh!!

Karen

4 steps !!!!

Don't have much time to write, but just have to share...
Bell took 4 steps tonight (actually she did it twice!!). Both times to her DAD!!
YEAH!!

My Tuesday update..

This morning Bell did not want anything to do with me. She cried and reached out for daddy. When he picked her up she snuggled up in his arms and almost went back to sleep. Of course he eventually had to give her up to get ready for work, but the she cried again. All she wanted was dad!!! It was such a beautiful sight to see Don holding his little girl. I love the look he gets on his face when he holds her, just so full of love. He was not able to hold her much in the past week due to the surgery on his neck (he had a very fast growing cyst taken off in out patient surgery). He is feeling much better now, with a nice little scar to show for it. When dad leaves for work in the morning I hold Bell at the door so she can wave bye. Dad is the only one she says "eye-eye" to when she waves goodbye.
We finally got the pool covered this weekend and now with all of the rain today will need to pump off the cover. Pools are such fun!! It is supposed to be rainy here all week long. I hope it clears for the weekend.
Bell has made a new friend Roxanne in her playgroup. The group is the 0-1 age group and we meet every Tuesday morning, so some of the ones are babies, and some are Bells age. Bell and Roxy are about the same age, and like to spend the time trying to take each others sippy cups and snack traps. They had a great time chasing Jenny's cat all over today, but never caught him. There are 7 of us and we each take a week hosting it at our house. It is a fun time for the kids to play and the moms to chat. I am learning about the pre-schools and other things for kids to do in the area (from the other moms with older ones). Roxy is already signed up for 2 year old pre-school for next September. I didn't even know there was two year old pre-school. Needless to say we will be doing stay and plays, playgroups, library time and stuff like that at two!!
Austin started swimming yesterday for the winter season (until mid February). He will be swimming three days a week, with meets every other Saturday morning (8:30 AM warm ups - yuck!!). Today they switched specials in school, so he now has gym everyday for two months.
As for me, I have to go ship some packages and do the dishes.....
Karen

Beautiful days

Yesterday and today were beautiful!! After two days of cold and rainy weather (we got 1 1/2 inches of rain over two days), the sun and warm weather are so welcome. Today was 85 degrees, on October 9th! Bell had a great time playing outside with the dogs. She has a little picnic table that she is now big enough to climb on, so she does. She loves to give kisses, although they are mostly to the dogs! You know how little kids give kisses, with their mouths wide open, they dogs don't hesitate to lick her up. But she gives as good as she gets by playing in their water bowls!!

Don and I worked on the pool today while she played, after finally tracking down the manufacturer of the pool (almost impossible if you do not know the make and model!!). It is almost ready to be covered for the winter, but today we were wishing the water was a little warmer to go for a swim.

I am in the process of staining a bookshelf that I picked up at a yard sale to store her toys in the living room. As you can see, her car needs a new home as well, other than next to the end table!! Boy is she quick, one moment she was playing with her car, and the next she was tossing stuff off of the table. Our little climber.

More later, time for bed now!
Karen

Up, Up, and Away

Isabella is standing on her own all of the time now. Of course I sat on the floor for a half an hour this evening trying to get a picture, but could not get it fast enough before she fell down. She is reaching out for things while standing and will be taking that first step any day now!! She also now knows how to get down steps as well as up them and off of the couch. Then again she also knows how to climb from her little car onto the end table next to the couch.

Austin is doing great in school, interim report grades were all 94 and above, with two 100 grades!! He really seems to like his new school, except for carrying his backpack all day as his locker is so far away from everything! Austin and I took the dogs to Saint John's church on Sunday afternoon for the Blessing of the Pets. There were about 25 dogs there and a few cats. Then we took them to the park and had them jumping over the benches. To round out the day, Austin got to vacuum out all of the dog hair from Dons car. Don and Bell stayed home to watch the Saints game :( - they lost, but with a 3:1 record are off to a good start this year - GO SAINTS!

I have been busy with the business. Last week I had quite a few local customers come to the house to try on - and buy :) carriers, a great customer of mine who is a photographer is coming here tomorrow to do a photo shoot of some new carriers (and my two babywearing friends Lori and Virginia and their babes are going to be my models), and Saturday I am doing a local children health fair. Keeping busy and having fun.

We are all so sad that our next door neighbors will be moving in a few weeks (to Guam of all places!). They have been great to us over the past year, and we will miss them (and their three dogs). We are hoping and praying for nice new neighbors, who hopefully have dogs that get along with ours!

That's it for now, more pictures soon!
Karen