Fairyland

A group of my friends are doing field trips with our kids every Friday. This Friday we went to a place called Fairyland. It was a lot of fun. They have all the fairy tales and their "houses." It's made for little kids, all the rides are for kids under 54". Bella loved the train. She was so excited and pulled her "seizure face" the whole time. It was great to be at a place where you could just let the kids run and not have to worry about them. You could see them from about anywhere and they only let people into the park with children, so it was pretty safe.

Carousel. It only went around, not up and down. Bella really enjoyed it.

Bella just wanted to climb on everything. She wouldn't go back down the slide, just up and down the stairs.

I'm ruining my reputation

With my mom being here, she's inspired (or forced, depending on who you asked) to try to broaden my domestic skills. Not only did we make apricot jam, but we've also tried pizza on the grill, I made some new cookies (pumpkin spice) and we ever tried our hands at rolls. They were very yummy, especially with the homemade jam on them! I didn't roll them thin enough, so they turned into very large french rolls. They were still yummy though!


Bella has started climbing up on the chairs and getting into the fruit basket on the table. She'll pick anything out of it and eat it, skin and all. She picked up an apricot and took a bite, then she picked up a cherry tomatoe (they are yellow ones) and took a bite. I think she was expecting it to be another apricot. She pulled the funniest face, I missed it with the camera though.

Happy Anniversary!

I just wanted to say happy anniversary to my amazing husband! The last two years have been interesting to say the least, but I couldn't imagine going through it with anyone else. We have managed to grow as a couple and love each other more every day despite the huge obstacles that have been in the way! Thanks for the last 2 years and here's to many many more!

Apricots already?

My friend Stefanie lives on a very cool piece of property. She has all kinds of land and trees. Her apricot trees ripened up this week, so we decided not to let them go to waste.

We picked four bags of apricots and ended up making 31 pints of freezer jam with the help of my mom. It was quite the production. Frank was making fun of us, we couldn't remember if we had the sugar in, the pectin in, the day sounded a lot like this:
"Okay, this one's ready"
"Oh, it's tart"
"Oops, I forgot sugar."
"Wait, this one now has twice the sugar."
"This one needs to sit for 10 more minutes."
"No, it's done."

It was very funny to say the least.

Virgina Trip

I'm finally getting around to blogging. I've been too tired and too much playing to blog lately.

We've had a busy month. The first week in June, Frank, Bella and I flew to VA to see our nephew, Paul graduate from high school. He graduated Cum Laude and has a track scholarship to Georgia Tech. We are VERY proud of him! My mom met us in VA and we took the week to sight see. I won't bore you with all the pictures, just a few.

Butterfly at the exhibit at the Smithsonian. Do you see an owl's eye or a snakes profile?


Inside the butterfly exhibit, my mom, Bella, Me, SIL Renee and Nephew Brian
Mount Vernon. Notice Bella is sleeping (she did a LOT of that in the stroller), excuse the hair, it was HOT and humid!!
Bella with Grandpa Frank
Bella loved all the attention she got. She had a ton of fun with Paul in this box. They were determined to get her to walk while we there, no such luck, she still isn't walking.

Paul receiving his diploma

Panda at the National Zoo

Bella slept in her stroller, A LOT!

Thomas Jefferson's house. I have to admit going there, I wasn't really sure who he was. I knew he had something to do with the starting of this country and he was a president, that was the extent. Seeing his house and learning more about him was VERY interesting. He is definitely someone I would like to have dinner with, if I could.

New growth!

Everything around here is growing (these are in no particular order, blogger is being a pain)!!
Look Ma, no hands! Bella started standing on her own, over the weekend. She is funny though, she doesn't hang on to something and then let go, she will just stand up from squatting in the middle of the room.

Sweet peas
bog in the pond
Pond and filter. The waterfall should be done this weekend. We have 2 goldfish and 2 koi that we transferred in there. They seem very happy, so far. Hopefully the green will clear up in the next week or so.


Our garden is doing so well. We've had LOTS of lettuce from it, and the tomatoes should be ready in the next week or so. We have about 10 zucchinis that are going to be ready in the next couple of days too.

Bella is getting so big. I love her face in these two pictures!

She's climbing EVERYTHING!!!

Dr. Visits

I have spent the last two days seeing doctors. It started Thursday morning when I woke up with an incredibly painful, itchy, burning rash on my hands. I'd had it since Wednesday and Frank insisted I go to the doctor, so I went. She told me it's excema. The tree hugger, naturalist in me, knows that excema is a symptom of something bigger going on in your body. So I went to my chiropractor that does NET, he told me I was allergic to the dirt in the pond plants (it was pretty, I wasn't surprised). So he gave me some allergy stuff, along with the doctor's steroid. I was all set to get better.
Then, I meet Frank at the doctor to take Isabella for her check up. She is perfectly healthy. No longer an abnormally large baby. She's 29" tall and 22.4 lbs. She's only gained 2 lbs since she was there at 7.5 months. She's 90th percentile for heights, 75th for weight and still 50th for her head.

We came home and I thought I would scratch my hands off. The rash was spreading, to my feet and my thighs. Friday morning I went back to the doctor. It was now all over my tummy, down my thighs, up my feet to my ankles, up my arms. My throat was sore and my ears were congested. She found an ear infection, and decided it wasn't excema. She ran a bunch of blood tests and a throat culture, found out it wasn't strep or scarlet fever (whew!). So now I wait until the results come back. In the mean time I might lose all my skin!