Whew!

The excitement is over and we were finally able to breathe last night!

Frank and I came to Utah to spend Christmas with my family. Isabella was a little overwhelmed when we got to my mom's house. There were all 7 other cousins and 6 aunts and uncles around. If you've ever been around my family you will know they are LOUD!! We walked in and everyone wanted to give Bella hugs and kisses, but she'd have none of it. She sat on my lap and just stared at everyone for about 30 minutes. Then she got on Katie's shoulders and has been loving every minute with her cousin's since!

Every year my mom does a "Grandma Party" with the grandkids. My mom makes sugar cookies with all the grandkids for Santa Claus. Santa then comes and brings everyone an ornament. You have to sit on his lap to get the ornament though, which is pretty funny for the grown men in our family. My brother is almost 6'3" and over 200 lbs - he looks VERY uncomfortable perched on Santa's knee.

Christmas eve Stephanie and her family, and Travis and his wife came to dinner at my mom's house. The older girls put on a live nativity and recruited Doug and Frank to be in it. That's Frank in the blue turban he's being very wise. Isabella refused to be an angel!Alesa's family came to my mom's house about 9:00 that night. My family has a tradition of giving the kids new pajamas every year. This year we got all the kids matching pajamas. They went to bed all in the same room. 8 kids and 5 adults all in my mom's house over night -- it was a lot of fun. We were up until 2:30 helping Santa. It was a fun first year for helping Santa.
We caught Santa in the act! The kids that were questioning if he exists were VERY convinced after seeing this picture!

Christmas day we were very laz letting all the kids play with their toys. Bella didn't even want to open her toys she was overwhelmed with all the activity! She's not used to all this excitement!

On the 26th, Alesa's daughter Savannah got baptized so we drove to Alesa's house and have been here since. We went and saw the lights at Temple Square. It was a balmy 14*. Every time I think we might move back to Utah we come in the Winter and we both change our minds.

The lights were beautiful as always. Sunday morning we got up and went to see Music and the Spoken Word. It's a television program that the LDS Church puts on, it's a non-denominational spiritual message with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing. It was AMAZING to hear them sing live. I've ionly heard them in person once when I was 8. As Frank said, it was like there were angels in the room. The program was being recorded and broadcast live so we had to be VERY quite. Not so easy when you have a cough like 3 of us did! They have been doing the program every week since 1929 - pretty amazing!

Since then we have just been hanging out and relaxing. It's Stephanie's birthday today so we will head back to Logan to celebrate with her.

Frank went home last night so he could go back to work - Isabella and I will be here until Wednesday night. I'm sure we will be EXHAUSTED by time we get back home!

I hope everyone has a VERY happy New Year!

'tis the season

Happy December!
The house is decorated, the lights are up, now it's just time to enjoy the season! I hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas season. It's definitely my favorite time of year!

Thankful

I'm thankful that we have one day out of the year to stop and give thanks. I have a friend that is a Jehovah's Witness, because of this, she doesn't celebrate holidays. Today this makes me sad for her, she is never forced to stop and give thanks for everything she has and that God has provided for. I know we shouldn't NEED a day, but it seems like days pass by and we never seem to just stop and say thanks.

I'm thankful for my family - not just for my amazing husband and my daughter but for all my family, both my side and Frank's. I'm thankful for my loving giving husband who is more than I could have ever asked for. He is so generous in his love. I never have to doubt his love and dedication for me (this I am VERY grateful for). He is an amazing father and is always willing to help with Isabella and around the house without me asking.

We decided not to be with family this Thanksgiving at first I thought I would be okay with not having to travel during this crazy travel week. Instead it's made me a little sad and very grateful for all our family. I have an amazing mom and sisters that I have come to really appreciate and love the older I get, the more I love them. I also am blessed to have wonderful in-laws. Frank's brother and sister-in-law and their boys have been a great blessing in our life. I'm so glad that Isabella has a family that loves and cares about her. We don't get to see our family often enough, living so far from all of them. Hopefully that will change soon.

It's been a rough year around here, but I'm SO grateful for the trials we have been through. Frank's lay off allowed him to spend an entire year at home with Isabella and I. We didn't even want to kill each other being with each other all the time. I'm of course grateful he has a job now, but I wouldn't change the last year.

I'm grateful that I have a great team of people that work with me to help me build my business and are supportive of my vision for the company. I'm also grateful that Frank is so supportive of me and my dreams. He never doubts that I can accomplish what I dream of. In fact, he is usually more supportive of my dreams and believes in me more than I believe in myself.

I'm grateful for friends. I have an amazing group of friends. Being away from our families we've had to create a group of friends that are like family. They are always there for us when we need them. They have helped us in the last year, by laughing with us, watching Isabella for free so I could work (thanks Stef and Heather), giving Frank work to support our family, bringing in food. I hope someday I can feel like I have paid them back 1/2 of what they have done for us.

I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving and take a minute to stop and think about everything you are grateful for.

World's worst blogger

Okay, it's official, I'm the World's Worst Blogger. It's been over 6 weeks that I've posted a real post about what's happening in our lives and even longer about Bella. She really does still exist. *WARNING: IF YOU WANT TO KEEP READING IT'S A VERY LONG POST WITH NO PICTURES)*

I will post some pictures later, but my office is all in boxes and piles and so I can't find my card reader. Our lives have been so turned upside down and crazy that I didn't even decorate for Halloween this year. Halloween is my favorite holiday to decorate for (even better than Christmas). This year I managed to get a wreathe on the door and a door mat on the front porch and that's only because I bought it this year.

The biggest news and change around here is Frank HAS A JOB!! It was 2 weeks short of one year that he was unemployed. He is working at a restaurant supply company as the Floor Sales Manager. He came home the other day with both a paycheck and business cards, so it's official. He's really enjoying it. He's never been a manager before and never really wanted to do it, but this job came along and he decided to go for it. He's in a sticky situation there, but is doing a great job and the owners really like him.

My office is FINALLY nearing completion. I've been working in it for the past 2 weeks and it was closer to being put together, but I didn't like the feung shui of the room, so I made Frank move the desk to the other side. I ordered a new desk for me and for now, my assistant gets to sit with the bad feung shui. I think I will end up selling that desk because it's too big for the room. I will post pictures when it's all finished and pretty not the mess that it is right now. My business is going really well. It's growing by leaps and bounds I'm really excited about what's happening with it. I will post more about that later, for now it's Top Secret. I am getting a new assistant starting tomorrow which will take a LOT of stress off of me.

With Frank's job starting it was a tough adjustment for me having him gone and trying to run my business. I was trying to do it all and was doing a not so great job at everything. We made the decision to get a nanny. It was a very hard decision, but one that is the best for everyone. We have found someone that we love and that Isabella loves. I hope she will stick around for the long term.

We decided not to go back to the East Coast for Thanksgiving this year. We are so sad that we aren't going to be there with our family for the holiday, but the tickets were ridiculously expensive and with Frank's new job it's better for him not to take the time off.

I will do a separate post about Halloween when I get the pictures off my camera.

Body after Baby Week 5

This week was a bad week. I was traveling and in meetings all day so I didn't do the Challenge AT ALL! This week I plan to do a lot better. I'm really busy, but will post more later. BYE!

Body after Baby week 4

Last week I did ok. It was a bad eating week. According to the rules it was 2 eat two food groups, but I wanted to eat two different veggies.

This week's challenge is crunches. It's to do 50 a day. This will probably be a difficult one as well, considering I have no tummy muscles from having my beautiful 10 lbs. 8 oz baby. :D

I have to exercise in the morning or I don't get it done. Anything after 10:00 am and my day is shot and I'm tired by 2:00. I like exercising in the morning because it gives me a boost of energy for the day.

Body After Baby Week 3

Body after Baby challenge was an easy one for me this week. I was on vacation almost the full week so we walked, and walked, and walked. I earned the full 28 points allowed.

This week's challenge is to eat healthy meals with at least two different food groups. I'm not sure if she means food groups or vegetables though. I'm assuming it's veggies, because food groups is kinda easy, is there a meal that's only one food group?? The veggies is healthier too.

I'm down 5 lbs. so far! Weigh in day is tomorrow again, hopefully I lost at least a pound, despite being on vacation!

An amazing little girl

My friend Kylene posted the story of this little girl on her blog. She has cancer. Click on both of the links to see 1) what a kind, generous person Kylene is and 2) most important, to read Taylie's story. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have my daughter go through something like this little girl is going through.

Body After Baby Week 2

I know I said I was going to post every day about my water, but I got side tracked. I did really well with it this week. Carrying the bottle really helps. I made sure to drink at least 3 of those bottles every day. That's 9 glasses of water a day! MUCH better than I was doing before. I can't say I've noticed a tremendous difference, but I'm hoping I will soon. I got the 56 points available!

This week's challenge for the Body After Baby challenge is to walk. I get 1 point for every 15 minutes of walking/running. I've already been planning on running MWF, but this will be good for me to step it up and walk the other days of the week!

H20 Day 3

I am getting used to this drinking water thing. Today I drank 10 glasses of water and a cup of milk.

I started wearing a body bugg. It's kinda fun to watch the numbers. I burn a lot more calories in a day of just doing chores around the house than I thought I would! I guess all the stairs in this house help with something!

H2O day 2

Today I drank 11 glasses of water and a glass of milk. I hope I'm not up all night peeing!

H20

I drank 8 glasses yesterday.

Body After Baby

It's been 16 months and I haven't lost one pound, that's right, not ONE pound since 2 weeks after I had Isabella. It's getting a little ridiculous. I went to get dressed for work today, it was cool morning, so I was trying to find pants to wear and I don't have one pair of pants that fit me that aren't maternity. 16 months and I'm still wearing maternity pants! Something's gotta start happening. So I found this Body After Baby challenge on Mama Notes , it starts today and goes for 8 weeks. Each week they give us a challenge to get healthier and we are supposed to blog about it to keep us accountable. So hello friends, random strangers, world, who ever happens to stumble across my blog, here is my quest to get my pre-baby body back!

I'm not posting my beginning weight or measurements. I'm only going to post how many inches and pounds I lose. I'll post my before pictures if the after pictures look good! My goal in the 8 weeks is to lose 16 lbs. That would put be within 15 lbs of my pre-baby weight. Pre-baby weight is probably too thin for me, I could stand to lose about 25 lbs total. That's my goal. I've decided, just now. I love thinking "outloud."

Our challenge this week is to drink water. This is something I've been trying to work on. I'm the worst at drinking anything unless it's Diet Coke, I can drink LOTS of those! Although I try to keep those to one a day and I've been making them even less frequent because I don't think they help my breathing when I run. I'm down to about one a week. I get 1 point for every glass of water I drink, so I'll be posting my points each evening.

See Jane Tri

Today I competed in my first triathlon. It was a sprint triathlon, but a triathlon none the less.

Alyson had talked me into training for it. I'm not a great swimmer and didn't think I could do the swim. I tried to talk a couple of different friends into doing the swim for me, but they wouldn't do it. So Alyson, graciously said that she would do the swim. I really appreciated this, because I knew that she wanted to do the whole thing, but there was no way I could train for all three portions of it, especially the swim, in the 6 weeks we had to train for it.

So I half-heartedly trained. I was training for my 5k that was last weekend and I rode my bike, I think a total of 5 times, if that. The farthest I went on my bike to train was 9 miles, the triathlon was 11 miles.

I went to bed last night at 9:30 after a warm bath and a chamomile tea to help me relax, and hopefully get a good night's sleep. Instead, I was up every hour starting at 11:30. I was SO nervous! I woke up at 5:00 with a pounding headache wondering what I had gotten myself into!

Alyson picked me up at 5:55 a.m. She didn't tell me that part of the triathlon until the night before. I wouldn't have signed up for that!! I couldn't figure out why we needed to be there so early, the race didn't start until 8! We pulled into the parking lot and it was PACKED! I couldn't believe it. The race last weekend, I got to 45 minutes before it started and I was WAY early. I was getting more nervous now, these people were serious about this!

We got all checked in and waited for the race to start. I was starting to get really nervous and didn't know how I was going to make it. Alyson did the first portion, the swimming, really quick! Much too fast, it didn't give me time to bail out!

She came out of the water and it was my turn to bike. YIKES! We didn't transition very fast, but fast enough.

I took off and got to the start line which was at the bottom of a hill. I didn't have my gears in the lowest gear so it was hard to get up the hill and the gears weren't shifting very well, I finally got them going and made it to the top. About 1/2 mile into the bike ride I was again questioning why I signed up for this. After about the 1st mile I got my groove on and biked along. I kept a fairly good pace, not too fast, not too slow. I just kept telling myself to not push it, I still had the 5k to do. At mile 6 there was a pretty good size hill, I didn't have any way of knowing what mile we were on, so I just kept waiting for that hill. I made it up the hill, no problem, including passing a few people. After the hill it was easy sailing.

When I turned the corner and saw we were almost back to the beginning, I was really excited and decided it wasn't so bad! Coming down the hill to people standing there was a little scary.

I was really excited when I got back and was ready to do the run. I had asked Alyson to bring her running shoes in case I needed her to pace with me so I could finish the run. She asked if I needed her and I told her to meet me at the end.







A quick kiss from Isabella and Frankie and I was ready to go again!

The first 1/2 mile of the 5k was difficult because I couldn't get my legs to move in the right direction. They kept wanting to go up and down and I wanted them to go forward. From .5 miles to 2 miles I was doing okay. Not great, but okay. I had to stop a walk to catch my breath and I had to keep reminding myself to breathe deep and not short little quick breaths. Breathing deep is my biggest problem with running. My legs never tire out, my lungs do. I'm sure it doesn't help that I've had bronchitis and some kind of cough for the last 4 weeks.

Olivia and Isabella waiting for it all to be over. Excuse my messy daughter, Daddy got her ready today and he doesn't know how to fix her hair.

Alyson came and met me at mile 3. It was a good thing she did. I wanted to run into the finish, but I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it! Having her there next to me helped push me, she was all fresh and full of energy! We didn't mean to wear matching outfits, but we happened to. Finishing the race was very emotional. As soon as I saw Alyson standing there I started to tear up, as I crossed the finish line, I really lost it. It was so much adrenalin and then just a release. It was a great feeling to accomplish it. I can't wait for the next one!

fun on the slide

Our friend Alyson was getting rid of her kid stuff, so we were lucky enough to get the Little Tikes slide and play house. Bella loves them both. Mallory came over to play last night and they both had so much fun on the slide. Bella is quite the little daredevil. She will stand on the top of the slide and jump in the air and fly down the slide. Twice yesterday she fell off the top of it, once onto her back and once onto her belly and both times when I asked her if she was okay, she said, "Yep" and jumped up and climbed up it again.

Oh, notice the grass? It's the in backyard! FINALLY!

Puppy Love

As worried as we were with Bandit and Isabella, he has really been a great dog with her. She loves to pet him and climb on him. Of course we always watch her when she's with him and if he gets irritated he'll just stand up and walk away. Smokey on the other hand is NOT her biggest fan. He doesn't like her coming anywhere near him. It could be that he has hair she likes to hang on to!

5k run

I did it! I can't believe I did! During the race I wasn't sure if I would. There were a lot of hills, I've never run on hills, where I run it's completely flat. The only time I walked was when they were handing out water, I couldn't run and drink at the same time. It was difficult enough to walk and drink.

I finished in 32:22. I was pretty excited about that! I have never run more than 30 minutes all at once.

It was a bitter sweet race. I was glad I did it and I finished, with a good time to boot, but Frank wasn't able to be there and so I didn't have anyone greeting me when I crossed the finish line. I didn't think it would really bother me, but it made me really sad. My neighbor was there supporting his ex-girlfriend that's when it bothered me that Frank wasn't there. Oh well, I did it. I'm VERY happy about that!

C25K

Stephanie, my sister, recruited my other sister, Alesa and I to run a 5k with her about 10 weeks ago. I didn't really want to do it, but I said ok. I half heartedly started running a couple times a week. I started out barely being able to run 3 minutes. We were doing an interval training program called Couch 2 5K. You would run 3 minutes, walk 90 seconds. Each week the running times would increase. Each week I would think that I was going to die before the podcast would tell me I could stop running and start walking. I've never been a runner, even in middle school when we had to run the mile I jogged/walked it.

Well, this Saturday is the 5k. I'm REALLY excited about it! I haven't yet done a complete 5K in my training. I've been really close, but not yet. I'm off this morning to do it. Wish me luck! I would like to finish the race in 30 minutes, but if I can run the entire thing, I'll be pretty excited.

Because of this, I've been training for a sprint triathlon as well. Although, I'm not much of a swimmer, so Alyson (who asked me to do the triathlon with her) has graciously said she would do the swimming and I will be doing the biking and running. That's next Saturday.

Master Bathroom (this is for you, Alesa)

As most of you know, we have been working on remodeling our house for about 5 years now. I've only been involved in 4.5 years of it, but it's still been WAY too long!

3 years ago, this month we started on the master bathroom. I'm VERY happy to say, it's FINALLY complete! There is one room in our house that is 100% complete. Oh wait, there still isn't a door, I can live with that though. I can now do everything it takes to get ready in the morning in one room instead of walking between bathrooms and on mornings we are both getting ready, there are now two sinks and two mirrors that we can get ready in and I no longer have to get ready in the closet mirror. I also LOVE all the natural light that comes in the windows next to the mirror!

I met a celebrity

Okay, maybe not really a celebrity, but I feel like I did!

I've been blog stalking this girl for a very long time. She's a friend of this girl and this girl, who I actually do know and am friends with. I've been reading her blog and definitely feel like I know her. We have a lot in common, mostly the fact that we are both, as she says, lovers of fine foods such as Diet Coke and Oreos.

Stefanie's baby shower was tonight and Ashley was supposed to be coming, I have been quite excited. I've been reading her blog and definitely feel like I know her. We have a lot in common, mostly the fact that we are both, as she says, lovers of fine foods such as Diet Coke and Oreos.

We forgot to get a picture together, so can't prove it, but it was great to meet you Ashley!

P.S. I just went back and reread this and it sounds like I'm a little crazy, but it's not as scary as it sounds!

Arachnoid takeover

I was sitting at my kitchen table feeding Isabella breakfast yesterday morning. I was looking at the pond and the flowers, all the sudden something moved and caught my eye.
















That's right, is a TARANTULA!!!! Excuse me?!!? I thought they only lived in the desserts or South American jungles??!! Are you freaking kidding me?!?! It was on the wall right above our pond. I'm usually not an animal killer and think that even spiders are great in the outside world, but one this big??? NO! It was about 5" across. Frankie took care of it and it's now living in spider heaven!

sick

It's been a yucky week around here! We went boating last weekend and Sunday we woke up and all felt crappy. We all laid around all day being sick, Monday was a repeat of the day before. Frank and I started feeling better, and Isabella still had a little runny nose. I was feeling better Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday my throat started to hurt again and today I'm KNOCKED out! My throat feels like I swallowed glass and every time I cough my lungs burn. BLECH!

Isabella's 15 months

It's been a long time since I've given an update on Isabella. She turned 15 months last Sunday. She's walking and starting to run. She climbs everything STILL. She says about 15 words, still gets "doggy" right 100% of the time, but still confused on Mommy and Daddy. She knows who we are but will call us by the wrong name. She will copy anything that you want her to say. She knows the meaning of "ow", don't know how she learned that, we didn't teach her.

Something we did teach her, that she is very good at saying and we are proud of, is "thank you." It's probably the clearest words she says, as well. When someone hands her something she always says "tank ew,"

She is able to answer "yes" or "no" to most questions. It's a little tricky though, "Yes" always means yes, but "no" doesn't always mean no. She has two distinct no's. Either "no" or "uh-uh", but "Nooo" with a head shake means yes. We are working on that one!

She eats everything that we eat. We have yet to find something she won't eat. She didn't like olives the first time, but will eat them now.

First thing in the morning she wants to eat, if we don't get out of bed fast enough she will go down the stairs to the kitchen, open the cupboard, get out the cereal box, and carry it back up the stairs to us. We got a video of it one morning, I'll post it later.

Walk this Way

Isabella has been a slow starter in the walking department. She's been cruising since 7 months, and started taking steps the beginning of May, but just last week she really started to walk.

Jones Family Reunion

My mom's cousins have been planning a family reunion for a year now. They haven't had one in 60 years, pretty much. My mom threatened all of us that we had to be there. Grudgingly we all went. We ended up having SUCH a great time! In fact, we decided we would do one again in 3 years.

My pictures from the reunion didn't turn out, so I'll post those later. After the reunion we went to my mom's house and hung out. We took Isabella over to the barn to see the cows. She loved them! She thought they were funny and as soon as she saw them she started to moo at them. She spit at the horses (that's her way of doing the horses sound). She's a genius, I tell you! Travis was out there laying pipe, Frank offered to help him, so he got to drive the 1953 John Deere.

The next day, Isabella, my sister Stephanie, and her kids all went swimming. Frank opted to stay at my mom's house and help the contractor finish up her remodel.

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Last year after Halloween I pureed the pumpkins that we bought. I never carved them, I just used them as decorations and then pureed them. It was quite the process.

First I cut up all the pumpkins and put them on cookie sheets.



Then I baked the pumpkin in the oven for 2 hours.

After the pumpkin has cooled you peel off the skin and put it in the blender. Mine ended up making 6 gallons of pumpkin.

I didn't really know what I was going to do with the pumpkin, but I was pretty proud of myself for doing it. When I went to Stephanie's house for Thanksgiving they made pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies, they were heaven! And they are only 30 calories! It took me 6 months of looking for spice cake mix to find it, I couldn't ever find it in CA, I had to buy it in UT.

Here they are. They are YUMMY!
Recipe:
32 oz. pumpkin puree
2 boxes spice cake mix
1 bag chocolate chips

bake in the oven for 12-15 at 375*.

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!!!