I broke the other one...

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so dumb and yet so funny...

I have seen these all over the place and finally decided to make one with our pictures. I was probably procrastinating taking a final for one of my classes. I couldn't find a picture of Dusty where he was looking at the camera, but I think this is better because it's so funny. What's weird is, he is shown the least and that wasn't even planned. So it's even more funny every time you see him. Of course Isabella looks the best. Although, it is a little creepy to see her dancing about when in reality all she does is roll. In the end I'm glad I finally made these because I cry laughing every time I watch them. They are that funny. You should all make one!

What a fun waste of time

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piggy play

There was very little chance that Isabella was not going to like pigs. Well, one of her favorite toys is a giant stuffed animal pig that Uncle Jared got for me when he was out in Utah getting ready to go to the MTC. I've always loved this pig and now Bella does too. And look, Dusty is the one instigating this play session (so it's not all my fault).

I remember our friend's son, Hyrum, doing something similar when he was this age. He would tackle any stuffed animal in sight.

Wearing Mommy's PJ's

Here is Isabella wearing my old pajamas. I had put her in these a couple of months ago and they were way too big for her. Now they finally fit. Many thanks to Grandma Sue for holding on to these for so many years (... man, I'm old...). It's a lot of fun to see her in my old clothes (even though there aren't too many, since a lot of my stuff was hand-me-downs from Jennifer).

Thanksgiving

We got to spend Thanksgiving in Redding (as usual). Unfortuantely this year Dusty's side of the family was in Utah, so we didn't get to see them. We did get to hang out with my family and spend some extra time with Grant before he left. We didn't take too many pictures, but I did get this one. What's sad is, this is before all the extended family got to my parents house and before turkey dinner. I guess they were tuckered out after cleaning the house all morning.

Saying goodbye to Grant

We went to Portland today to see Uncle Grant off at the airport. He headed off to Salt Lake so he can report to the Mission Training Center tomorrow. He's going to serve a mission for two years in the Dominican Republic. It was hard to watch him go, but I know he's going to have such a great time while he's there. I know the time is going to fly by and he'll be home before we know it. We are excited to see how he changes over the next two years and to hear his stories about his time in the DR. Dusty has some of the greatest stories from his mission and I'm glad Grant will have the same opportunity. We got to spend some time with Grant over Thanksgiving and a few moments with him today. I guess that was meant to be because he flew from Redding to Portland then to Salt Lake City, usually they fly from Redding to San Fancisco then to Salt Lake. We liked having those extra few minutes to see him. Here are some of the highlights...

Uncle Grant and Isabella at his Alumni/Student soccer game on Thanksgiving day.

Playing games with the family. Notice Kurt is in there too, hopefully he's going to fill some of the void left by Grant. I'm sure he'll be over eating my parents food often enough.

They were both out... well sort of. It was funny Isabella fell asleep about 10 seconds after Grant sat down.

Saying goodbye to Uncle Grant. We waited until he went through security so we could see him one last time walking down to his gate.

I can't wait to see the "after" pictures to see how much we've all changed.

Blood Test results...

As many of you know we have been waiting until Isabella turned six months so she could have some blood tests done. When we were in the hospital, when she was born, one of her tests showed an abnormality of her hemoglobin. At that time they were unable to identify exactly what the abnormality was. We had to wait until she was six months so the abnormality could express itself (we were assured that if it was something that was hazardous to her health it would have shown up in the hospital tests). So at her doctors appointment she had some blood drawn (not a fun experience for either of us, I swear the needle was the same size as her arm!). We got the test results back saying that she had hemoglobin D. We are going to go over it with her doctor at her next appointment, but I couldn't wait, so I looked it up on the Internet. This is what it said "Carriers of hemoglobin D are at little risk themselves, but if they should have children with other carriers, there is a 25 percent chance that their children will have either sickle cell disease, or milder variants known as hemoglobin SD or just be carriers of the trait." I guess that means that she has little to worry about until she wants to get married. We'll keep everyone posted on what we find out.

6 Months!

I've been trying to post this for a week, but I couldn't get the pictures to work. So here it goes..
Yay! We've made it to the 6 month mark. We've been having so much fun with our daughter, it just doesn't seem possible that it's been 6 months already. Here are some things that she can do now that she's 6 months old...

-She weighs 12 pounds and 10 ounces.

-She's 24 inches tall.

-Her head is 16 inches around.

-She can sit up on her own... mostly.

-She eats veggies, fruit and meats and all things pureed. She's liked almost everything we've given her.

-She still loves her jumper. She goes crazy in that thing.

-She likes to spit and blow bubbles. It's very messy.

-She really loves to throw up on her Daddy. She hardly throws up on anyone else.

-She likes to grab people's noses. Especially when you say, "Where's my nose?"

-She's getting better in her car seat. For the most part she hardly cries when we're in the car.

-She wakes up one time at night, usually around 4 or 5am.

-She goes to bed in her own room at the same time every night, 7pm.

-She takes two naps a day, around 9 or 10am and around 2 or 3pm.

-She loves watching other kids play and wants to join them.

- She still loves to kick. If she gets excited, watch out, because she might kick you.

-She loves to watch everything. If you're holding her you have to face her outward or she gets mad. She wants to know what's going on all the time.

-She loves going on walks and being outside in general.

-She can roll and roll and roll until she gets stuck on something.

-She can spin and move around on her tummy, but can't get up on her hands and knees yet.

Twilight

Well, I finally went and saw Twilight. So I'm taking the count-down to the movie's release off my blog. (Are you happy now, Dad?) As most of you know I love movies so I was really excited to see it. I didn't expect it to be as good as the book (and it wasn't) but it was still pretty good.

Our little Pterodactyl

Bella has been screaming up a storm lately. When ever she gets bored, annoyed, tired, happy, mad or just about any other emotion, she screams and screams. It's not too bad because it's a happy sound, but it's very high pitched and very loud.

The only time she wasn't screaming was when she discovered this spinning toy on her jumper. She got very into it.

Here are a couple more random pictures that I thought were pretty funny.

"Huh???"

"Get me off the floor now!" (This reminds me of Anna's "I hate pizza face." For those of you who know what that is, it is very funny)

With an oink oink here and an oink oink there...

I had to get a picture of Bella in her piggy wear (onesie and slippers) before it didn't fit her anymore.

Daddy was cracking us up tonight. I was trying my best to keep her in the frame with her sitting on my lap. Usually when the camera is pointed at her (especially this close) all she does is stare at it so I'm glad she kept laughing.

I found this picture when I was looking through an older file. It is from a month ago, just before we moved up to the bigger sized swaddle balnket. You can see why she needed a bigger one.

I was just talking to Grandpa Jerry and he wanted to know if Bella was rolling over and then back. She can do this, but I have yet to get it on a video that is short enough to post onto Blogger. This isn't exactly a video of that, but it's a video of her rolling. She almost rolls one way and then changes her mind and rolls the other way. If you listen to the TV in the background (it's Cash Cab, one of my favorite shows) it sounds like the guy talking (Ben Bailey) is commenting on what Isabella is doing.

Watch the birdie... and other fun things

Bella just discovered the bird on this toy. Even though she was facing the wall she was still so excited to be able to reach the bird.

Bella rolled over and ended up wedged between the Giraffe and the mirror. She couldn't move, it was funny.

Look at those cheeks!... I meant the ones on her face...

Bella's got her Daddy wrapped around her finger. She likes to look out the window and she knows Daddy will hold her up there until she's bored. Notice her hair sticking up in the back, it always does that. I can't wait until she has enough hair to put a clip in it.

We got to hang out with Cole a little bit on Saturday night. It was fun to see him again and fun to watch Bella watching Cole. Apparently he's very entertaining. After Bella went to bed, Cole had to check out all her toys, just to see what they did and weather or not they could hold him. Here he is checking out her Play Mat.

Bella has been getting better and better at sitting up on her own. She's able to sit alone for a couple of minutes before falling over. She still 'melts into the floor' (where she leans forward and can't upright herself) some times, but it's usually only when she's reaching for a toy. Man, look at that drool... yuck.

I couldn't decide which picture was cuter so I posted them both (hey, it's my blog...).

It finally happened...

When people ask me what Isabella's name is, they usually say, "Oh Isabella, that's so cute/pretty." Today was the first time that someone said, "Oh, like Isabella (Bella) from Twilight." I knew it would happen eventually. Now, there's no way to prove that this isn't where I got her name since we didn't tell anyone what name we had picked out before the books were released. But Dusty can testify that before we got married I told him that if he wanted to have kids with me I already had names picked out for two of our daughters (assuming we have two girls). One of those names was Isabella and the other one is still highly classified (you'll all just have to wait until the next girl comes to find out what it is). Hopefully no one will publish a best seller with _______ as the main character.

Tagged

I have been tagged by Jen. Anyway you are supposed to post the fourth picture from your fourth folder and explain it.

This is a picture of my little sister, Kellie, with Isabella. This was a week after we brought Izzy home from the hospital. Look how little Isabella is. Kellie came up to stay with us for the weekend. And Isabella waking up in the middle of the night didn't even faze her. I think this was one of the few times that Isabella didn't cry when Kellie held her. I'm pretty sure Izzy has grown out of that, but it was still pretty funny at the time.
I am tagging: Shiara, Brindy and my sister Jennifer.

I love Twilight!

I'm sure most of you out there have read the Twilight Series. If you haven't I highly suggest it. Well, I am almost done with the series for the second time. I started rereading the first one so I could refresh myself for the movie, but I ending up reading them all again. I also read the 5th book on-line. She never finished the book because someone released the manuscript without her consent and so she released what she had done. Sad, I really want to read the rest. Anyway I would love to hear your thoughts on the books (just to see if I'm the only one in love with these books) and see if anyone has any inerest in going to see the movie (so I don't have to make Dusty go with me, he would go but I know he doesn't really care).

New favorite spot...

Isabella has a new favorite spot in our apartment. She would prefer to be outside all day long, but, those of you who also live in Oregon can attest to this, it rains so much that that isn't always possible. Well... today we did take a walk in the rain, but that was mostly due to the coercion of our friends Katrina and Lizzy. ;) But usually that doesn't happen (I'm a wimp). So we came up with an alternative that Isabella likes a lot. Here it is...

I know this isn't the safest idea, but she loves to look out the window and watch this leaves on the tree move. She also loves to drool all over and wipe it on the window (I think she loves the squeaky sound it makes). And for those of you out there that now think I am a terrible mother know this, I sit on the couch right below her so if something should happen, I am right there. :)

Fun on Halloween

This year for Halloween we went to a party at our friends house in Salem. It was nice because we hardly ever get to see them (this is my friend who had her baby 5 day before me) and our friends from Portland came down too. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up.

Here we are, Isabella is a ballerina (in the tutu that I made her, I am so proud of myself) and I am her dance instructor (notice the ballet shoes...)

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Jerry sent Isabella this card for her 1st Halloween. She was very interested in it. She really wanted to eat it. Yumm...

5 Months!

Be prepared this is a long post...

This weekend we went down to Medford to meet my family and to go through the Temple with my little brother. We had a lot of fun. We got to stay at my cousin Stacee and, her husband, Jonathan's house and then at my Uncle Dexter and Aunt Linda's house. It was nice to see my parents again and Isabella was excited to see them. On Saturday Isabella passed the 5 month mark, so we got to take her 5 month pictures while we were down there. Here are some highlights:

This is actually before we left, Isabella has been making these funny faces for the last week or so. Every time she does it it cracks me up.

Here's Isabella playing with Grandpa Jerry on the deck of Dexter and Linda's house. They were having so much fun.

Playing with Grandma Sue. We took her Halloween costume so Grandma and Grandpa could see her in it. By the time Halloween comes around it will probably look a little different, but this is the general idea.

She was so excited to see Uncle Grant. He was making her laugh and teaching her to make farting noises on demand.

This is the view from Dexter and Linda's house, it was so pretty.

Here's Isabella on October 25. 5 Months old! She was having fun while we were taking her picture. Dexter and Linda's dog, Katie, was coming up to sniff her and Isabella was very interested in her (I'm sure Katie found Isabella pretty interesting too).

Here are some highlights of the last month:

-Isabella has added veggies to her diet of milk and rice cereal. It has been fun watching her try new things. For the most part she has really enjoyed everything we have given her. She's had carrots, squash, sweet potatoes and peas. Tomorrow we start green beans. She won't start eating fruit until 6 months so hopefully she'll still eat her veggies after she gets something sweet.

-She's mastered the art of rolling over. She still only does it when she wants to, but once she starts going there's no stopping her. She continues to roll until she gets stuck on something. Some times she can roll back, but I've only seen her do it a couple of times. I think she can tell when we're watching her, waiting for her to roll because she just lays there. What is the saying... A watched baby never rolls...? She also loves to stand up (with help), jump and laugh (she loves when people play with her). She has also started sitting up on her own, some times she still tips over, but she's getting better at it.

-She is still transitioning between size one and size two diapers. We had switched her to size two, but I ended buying more size one because the twos were half way up her tummy. So we'll do another pack of size ones and then try the twos again. She's still wearing 3 month clothes (in Carters) and some 3 to 6 month stuff. She can still fit into some of her 0 to 3 month stuff, but mainly that's just the stuff the I like so much that I keep putting it on her. ;)

-She has reached the point where she can entertain herself! Yay! She likes to lay on her play mat on the floor and check out all the toys. She is also able to be distracted by toys. If she's mad we can usually give her something to hold and she quiets down. Some times this doesn't work, but for the most part it's been a life-saver.

-She has gotten used to having a pretty set schedule. She goes to sleep (mostly) on her own at 7pm every night. She wakes up one time at night, usually around 2am (we're working on getting her to sleep through the night and for the last few nights she hasn't been getting up until 5 or 6am so hopefully this is progress toward 12 hours straight). She gets up for the day around 8am, just in time for Mommy to get her ready before I have to go to school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She usually gets to hang out with Daddy in the mornings (so Mommy can sleep in) and then spends the day with me and some times our friends.

-She's getting better at hanging out with people without her Mommy. She stays with our friend, Katrina, and her daughter, Lizzy, on Mondays while I'm in class. For the first few weeks she took her nap while she was at their house, but for the last two weeks she's been up and ready to play when I drop her off. So far there haven't been any major blowouts (as far as Katrina has told me) although they did have to play outside today so Isabella would calm down. Luckily the weather cooperated so they still had fun.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

This week Isabella has perfected the art of rolling over. For the last couple of weeks she would only roll over when she was naked, but now she's rolling even with clothes on! Once she starts rolling she has a hard time rolling back (she only goes one direction) and sometimes once she gets to her tummy she runs out of energy and she gets stuck (though, there have been some exceptions to these last to problems). I have video, but it's too big to upload. If I can solve that problem I'll post it (it's pretty funny).
Today we went to Portland and Isabella hardly cried in the car at all. She was so good. We have to go back on Thursday (why didn't anyone tell me the distribution center is closed on Mondays?). We still had fun shopping and visiting friends, though.

Our child is a genius...

So Isabella and I were outside taking advantage of the little bit of sunshine that we were getting. We decided that we would go over to the swings (not the swings that we usually go to because there were a bunch of older kids over there and they can get annoying, so we went to the swings across the parking lot). We were having fun swinging (just the two of us). Well, this lady pokes her head out her door and see us. So she decides to come out with her son and swing too. So she comes out and starts talking to Isabella and me. I'm thinking 'who are you and why are you talking to me. I don't know you.' Whatever. So she starts talking to Isabella in some other language (Mandarin, maybe?). Isabella starts cracking up. She thought that lady was so funny. I can only conclude that Isabella can speak Mandarin, she could understand what that lady was saying and that she has an excellent sense of humor. I'm telling you, she is a genius.

Sleepy time...

For the last few nights we have been working on getting Isabella to fall asleep on her own in her crib. I do realize that most babies do this much earlier, but hey, what can I say, I'm a push-over. Anyway, we are also working on getting her to sleep through the night. If she wakes up I would let her fuss for 5 minutes then go in there and soothe her (without picking her up) and then let her fuss for another 5 minutes and so on. The third time I go it I pick her up and feed her like our normal routine. Well the last few nights she has fussed for about a half hour before falling asleep and then when she wakes up in the middle of the night I would always have to feed her (I could never soothe her back to sleep). Well last night she slept through the night! I woke up this morning at 6:15 and I couldn't believe that it was already morning. She was still asleep when Dusty went to wake her up at 7am (we have also been working on getting her on a regular schedule since we are both back in school and she needs to take regular naps). Another exciting thing happened about a half hour ago. I put her down to sleep and she only cried for 10 minutes! I am so excited and I am hoping that these good habits last.

Yummy!

At our doctors appointment yesterday our doctor told me that we could start Isabella on some veggies. So last night we gave her some carrots (we'll introduce a new veggie each week starting with yellow veggies then green ones. We won't do fruits until six months). At first she was excited to get something other than rice cereal, but about five bites into it she was not digging them. It was pretty funny. She has definitely reverted back to spitting out more than she eats. And the problem with carrots is that they are much more messy than rice cereal (and Isabella manages to get them everywhere). All in all it is pretty funny to watch her eat.

Happy...Not so happy...
Today when I fed her she took one bite and knew what I was trying to give her. She didn't want to eat any of it. I distracted her and got a couple of bites in, but that was it. After that I gave her some rice cereal and she ate a lot of it.

Dr. Appointment

Isabella had her four month check-up yesterday. She did really good during the whole appointment. When we went to weigh her she wouldn't hold still and the scale was going crazy. So the nurse gave her a plastic cup to play with and she loved it. She held still long enough to get a reading and then laid on the table and kept playing. She did cry when she was getting her shots, but was soothed pretty quickly. Her official stats are; height: 23 1/2 inches and weight: 12 pounds 3 1/2 ounces. She is in the 17th and 16th percentiles for weight and height so she's little, but at least she's little all around. At first the nurse measured her at 22 inches and when the doctor came in he remeasured her (she was a little scrunched during the first measurement). He said that if she was really that short she would have been a "dwarf" on the scale. I'm glad that she really is taller than we first thought. We are still looking forward (or not) to her six month appointment when she'll have her blood tests done.

Re-shoot

Before we left Redding we went and re-shot all of our family pictures. It was a horrible day. We went on a Saturday and they were so busy there were three people waiting to take their pictures at the same time we were (we even had an appointment). There was another couple there that was doing a re-shoot of their engagement pictures. They were just a mad about the whole situation as we were. He has called corporate about the whole thing and was told that all of their pictures would be free. We told the girl working that we were going to get the same deal. So we finally got our pictures done even though Isabella didn't smile in any of her individual (the girl kept saying, "oh, I got a good one, let's move on to the next pose." I knew she was full of crap.). I'm glad it's all over and that we got our pictures for free because they were definitly not worth $70. Here are some highlights...

Isabella peed all over when we were taking this picture. It was the perfect end of a terrible photo shoot. The camera girl was so pissed. I thought it was hilarious.

Looking worried... how cute?
Worried again... nice.
Finally a smile.
Worried again... lovely.
Oh good... two smiles.

Just having fun...

I realized that I hadn't taken pictures of Isabella in a while so I got the camera out today and documented what we did. Here she is trying to eat her arm. This has been happening a lot lately. I hope it has more to do with teething than cannibalism. She's trying to conquer her boppy. She's getting better at moving her legs and she almost made it over the top. She loves the swings at our apartment. She was trying to eat the air as the swing swung forward. It was very funny.
"Here's lookin' at you, kid."
Swinging with Daddy. He took a break from studying to hang out with us a little.

Hanging out in her jumpper. She loves this thing. Today she was fascinated with her ability to suck on the front of the seat until it was soaked through. Yumm. Notice how she's sucking on her bottom lip, she's been doing this a lot lately. I think it may have something to do with teething.

Playing wth her Horton doll on the day she turned four months old (okay, okay... it was the day after. She was being a pill on the 25th and I didn't want a bunch of pictures of her crying).

Playing with her cousins Hunter and Ellie the day before we left Redding. It was fun to see them one last time before we had to leave.

Dusty went on an adventure with his brother, Jason. Apparently, they had a lot of fun.