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!

My baby is no longer a baby

I woke up this morning and thought, Baby Bella is officially no longer an infant, she is now a toddler. We had a big party today for her. Thanks to every for coming and we missed our family that couldn't be there. There were so many great pictures that I made a movie of them, rather than posting all the pictures.


Here's an update on Bella:
She loves: food (as can be seen in the video), the dogs, her friends, Mallory, Walker and Stefanie especially (I'm convinced she likes Stefanie over me), being outside, eating anything she can get her hands on, and climbing EVERYTHING, if it has any sort of a ledge, she'll figure out how to climb it. At 1 year old exactly she finally decided that she liked the swing at the park.

She's crawling still. No signs of walking, she will stand for about 2 seconds and she's done.

The first thing she does when she wakes up in the morning is crawl to the edge of the bed and say "Bam bit" (Bandit). She loves both dogs. They are both VERY good with her. Smokey will just lay there and let her lay on him and pet him (which is really more like hitting, we try to make her be soft). She can crawl off of anything. She learned VERY quickly how to go feet first and slide off the bed, couch, changing table, stairs. She goes up and down the stairs all day long.
She hates to nap, and is not a happy girl when she wakes up from those naps (she gets that from her mom, dad always wakes up chipper, MUCH too chipper for me!)

She is a talker, most of what she says is not understandable, but she has a few words, standard Mom, Dad, Bambit (Bandit), dog, eese (cheese, not the kind you eat, but what you say when you take a picture), eat

She will be going to her one year check up next week, so I will let you know her stats then.

Pond FINALLY!

After the debaucle with the pond our landscaper built, we have been trying to get a new one built. 7 months ago Frank started it.

The Hole:

It sat like this for 7 months. Finally last weekend, Frank trenched to get the pipes for the pond, the sprinklers, and the office we are building done. Yesterday, Wesley came over and helped him lay the pipe and start getting the pond put together.
Isabella watching the action.

They got the underlayment in:

Then the rubber:

Finally it was ready for water! It is so neat seeing it full of water. The water reflects so nicely on the wall. You can see it from the kitchen, the bedroom upstairs, when you walk in the gate, and soon I'll be able to see it from my office window!

For Renee

Her outfit look absolutely darling on her!

Water fun take 2

Since Bella didn't love the sprinkler we got her a pool to try instead. I thought the water would be a little warmer. She liked it as long as she stood outside it. She just stood there and splashed.

Pantry clean out

I've been needing to reorganize my pantry for a long time. It's been so crazy around here, every time I go grocery shopping the groceries just get left in the bag on the floor in the pantry. Here is the before:

Isabella insisted on helping me, as she does with most things I try to do. She fell down the stairs while trying to reach a bag. Daddy had to take a picture of the bruise (see the swelling above her eye). It left a nice bruise for quite a while.

Here's the after. You can't really tell as big of difference from the picture. I have to say thanks to Ashley Carter for the idea of using Diet Coke boxes as can holders. They work GREAT with the wire shelving!

My birthday (only a month and a half late)

I'm WAY behind on my blogging, so I'm going through my old pictures (which I am just now uploading from my camera).

I was pouting on my birthday weekend because of Frank not getting that job and wasn't in the mood to celebrate (something that is SO not me, I usually think my birthday should be a national holiday). Frank was going to have a party for me on Saturday night and I put the kabash on it. So my sweet friend Alyson had us over to her house for my birthday. It was also Stefanie "Mormon" husband, Wesley's birthday too. So we got to have a joint birthday party.

By Sunday I was back to feeling like myself. Frank and I got up and were doing some gardening and then headed to Home Depot. On the way back we were going to get something to eat and swing by Paul's house. He started going towards Paul's and I thought he forgot we were going to get something to eat, so I asked him, and he said we would go to Paul's first.
As we passed Paul's neighborhood pool, I saw Stefanie's car and Kristie's (who works for me) car and I was like, "Hey, there's Stef and Kristie! What are they doing here?"
We pulled over and I asked them what they were doing and Stefanie said, "having a party for you!"
"WHAT?"
"Happy Birthday" Stefanie exclaimed!

I was so surprised I didn't get it until then! Thanks to everyone for making it a great day!

Then on my actual birthday, Monday, Alyson brought doughnuts to the park to celebrate after our walk and she and Stefanie gave me a gift certificate to Texas Roadhouse, one of my favorite places, and Stefanie watched Bella for me so Frankie and I could have a date night! Thanks a ton both of you! You are amazing friends!!

Fun with the Sprinkler

A couple of weeks ago we had record breaking temperatures of 90+*. We decided to let Bella play in the sprinklers. She liked it until she picked it up and it sprayed her in the face. Than she just sat on my lap and whined!

No place like home

We just got back from going back to my hometown to see my family. We had a great trip. Lots of fun with family and old friends. It was nice to go back and see everyone, but it's nice to be home. I'll post all the details after we get the pictures upload. Just wanted to let everyone know we are back safely.