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Bella's Favorite Songs

2012-01-31T18:44:00.000-08:00

If you know me, you know I love music. I have my iPod or iPhone going on shuffle pretty much all the time in the kitchen or car or whatever, so Isabella hears it a lot. And I have to say she has pretty good taste! In the last few months she has come up with what her favorite songs are and she will request them all the time in the car. Every year since I started this blog I have put out my top ten songs of the year list. So before I put that list out this year, I thought I would share with you Isabella's top songs. Most of them were either on my list last year, or are this year, so again, I am proud to say she has good taste. =)

5. - Little Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharoah - She is obsessed with the story of Little Red Riding Hood right now, so when she heard this song, she literally gasped out loud. Of course, when we tell her the story we tell her how the wolf was really just misunderstood and was a nice wolf.
4. - Children of God by Third Day - This one has posed some interesting questions. When she hears it she tells me she wants to see God and Jesus and I don't really know how to answer that. I tell her they live up in heaven and she looks at the sky and says she can see them. I just say ohhh really? Oookkk...
3. - Shot in the Dark by Augustana - This is her current fave.
2. - The Cave by Mumford and Sons - She loves how they hold the notes at the start of the sentences in the chorus and she will belt it out and shake her head. So cute.
1. - Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People - This is by far the biggest request I get. I sing along and change the words gun and bullet, to gum and belly. I would rather her not sing gangster type lyrics, especially at school or something.

As you can see, she has no country songs that she has taken a liking to, and she also begs me to turn off Adele's 'Set Fire to the Rain'. So I obviously still have some work to do in our musical education, but I love that she is so in to it!

First Trip to the Aquarium

2012-01-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

Isabella had never been to the Aquarium in Downtown Dallas before, and I had never been except for an event one time. So we planned a play date with our friends Kyli and Caroline to go last weekend. It was a blast and I was amazed at the array of animals they have! I figured it was just fish, but no. There are penguins, snakes, a jaguar, monkeys and a sloth! I don't think I had ever seen a sloth before but they are CUTE. Apparently they don't come down from their tree but like once a month to use the restroom. Guess that is where the name comes from.

Here is Caroline with the flamingos - her favorite!

Isabella had a blast. She loved looking at the sharks and she has been standing on one leg like a flamingo ever since. It is also funny how people are just innately scared of snakes. I have always tried to act like they are no big deal. Like when we see pictures and we have seen them at the zoo. But we got up to the python cage and I said 'Bella look at the snake!', and before she saw it in the cage she immediately gasps, jumps towards me and searches the ground for a snake. Ok, the child has never seen a snake on the ground in her entire life. Isn't it just weird how kids know things? She wasn't crazy about looking at it in the cage either.

Here they are with the Jaguar. Sorry for the crummy iPhone pictures once again! I hear the new iPhone takes great pics, so hopefully one day soon my blog will look a little better. =)

Her absolute favorite part, though, was when randomly these Aboriginal dancers came out and did some tribal dance with incense and such. She still talks about it and shows me how the dance goes. Not sure if you can even see it, but up on that balcony is one of the dancers.

Christmas 2011

2012-01-18T19:39:00.001-08:00

We had another wonderful Christmas this year. We started it out taking some pictures on our front porch for our Christmas card. This one is my favorite, although not the one we used.

The week before Christmas, we celebrated with the Trents. We had Christmas dinner at Perry's (SO good if you haven't eaten there) and opened gifts the next morning. Here is Bella opening her new pink Uggs from her Grammy and Poppy.

Here she is in her new apron.

The next week we went to see Santa, and she didn't cry this year! She had been practicing what to ask him for and it took a little prompting once she got up on his lap, but she smiled for the picture! Afterward we went to Starbucks and took some pictures of Bella in front of the huge Christmas tree at the Galleria.

We ended up having 'Christmas morning' on December 23rd so that we could head to Tyler that night. Bella got an OU hat. I wouldn't have mentioned it, but she does look pretty cute in it. =)

The thing she had been asking for the entire month before was a Cinderella doll.

She also loves high heels. I think she now has like seven pairs or something.

We headed to Tyler the Friday night before and Bella immediately got sick. She had the most horrible cough and Christmas Eve she just felt awful. All she wanted to do was snuggle and watch TV. I honestly kind of love those times, although I hate that she feels so bad. Here is a cute one of her laying on Bopaw.

By Christmas morning she felt a lot better, thank goodness. The last present my parents brought out for her was this dollhouse. She LOVED it.

Jason got a helmet so he can go race his car on the race track. He is so cool. =)

Isabella's First Haircut

2011-12-08T09:40:00.004-08:00

So I know what you are thinking. 'Wow, first haircut huh? I knew you were behind on blogging, but seriously when was this like a year ago?' Annnnd you would be wrong. I have been putting off and putting off her first haircut. Even though it was getting stringy and was constantly in her face, I just somehow couldn't bear the thought of cutting it! Is that weird? Oh well.

After about the hundredth person said 'wow her hair is SO long!', I figured they were just trying to be nice about saying she needed a haircut. =) So the week before Thanksgiving we went down to Snip Its in Snider Plaza and got her very first haircut! She was really excited about it.

She was so good the whole time. She sat totally still and did whatever the hairdresser told her to do.

They styled it so cute with a little bow. I can never get it to look this cute!

And yes, it is still pretty long. I couldn't let them cut more than like half an inch. Baby steps you know?

Halloween 2011

2011-12-08T09:40:00.003-08:00

This year Isabella went trick or treating for the first time ever! I had been asking what she wanted to be for Halloween for a while, and we went back and forth through several options, but she finally decided on Snow White.

We went trick or treating with our two neighbors. This picture was really the best one we have of all three of them where they are all in focus, even if they're not smiling. The elephant is Felix and Minnie Mouse is Kate.

Bella thoroughly enjoyed getting to go to every house on our block and ask people for candy. She would just reach in to their bowl before they even had a chance to get any candy out. We will have to work on that for next year. =)

Here she is enjoying the fruits of her labor. We let her have a few pieces when she got home.

Have I also mentioned how I LOVE our neighborhood? There were so many kids out trick or treating we actually ran out of candy around 7:30 and had to turn off the lights. Next year we will know to stock up!

Goblins in the Garden 2011

2011-12-08T09:40:00.001-08:00

For Halloween the Arboretum does what they call Goblins in the Garden. Basically they have fun little things set up all over for the kids and there are trick or treat stations where the kids get either candy or little toys or something. This year we went with Bella's friend Caroline and her parents.

Here is a picture of Bella with one of the "princesses" that was available to take pictures with.

Bella really likes stickers...

This picture just warms my heart. Bella LOVES Caroline.

The two pretty princesses together

So cute

It was a really fun night. Might have to make it a tradition!

Arboretum

2011-12-08T09:34:00.003-08:00

Well, it is almost Christmas, so I figured I would go ahead and try to get all my fall/Halloween blogs up a little early. ;)

About a week or so before Halloween we went to the Arboretum with our play date crew. From left to right it is Caitlin, Isabella, Presley and Kiley. If you haven't ever been to the pumpkin patch there, it is super cute and prime picture taking territory. Thanks to my friend Tamra for using her way better than my iPhone camera!

I love this one for some reason

My little princess in her carriage

I also have to mention how much I love this dress she is wearing. I don't do a lot of her clothes shopping - her grammy and nana have always kept her stylin' for the most part - but I just loved this dress so much I had to have it!

Destin 2011

2011-10-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ever since Bella was born, we have taken her once a year down to my parents place in Destin for a week. The first year was tough, the second year was better, although she did NOT like the sand. But this year was actually pretty fun. It helped that we flew instead of drove for sure. She is finally old enough to like to play in the water and she also really enjoyed building sand castles (or at least watching me build them) and then destroying them. Although, as soon as she is done, she wants her hands clean immediately. Yeah, she is a girly girl. Not sure where she gets it from!

I just love this picture of her for some reason.

Here's one from the front.

Back at the house, about to go eat at Fuddpucker's. We used to eat there all the time, but hadn't been in forever. They now have this whole alligator attraction where you can feed them and even hold one. Once we mentioned it she would not stop talking about it, so we felt like we had to go.

The whole time we were there, she wouldn't go anywhere without her purse. Did I mention she was girly?

The last day we took her to the Gulfarium that has been there forever, but we have never been. They have all kinds of shows with dolphins and otters and seals and stuff. She really loved it and now watches the videos I have on my phone over and over of the dolphins doing tricks.

I am hoping she will grow to love the beach as much as I do, she just needs to get over that whole sand issue. =)

It's a Boy!!

2011-10-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

That's right. I am pregnant again! I know most of you already know this, and if you read my ACL post, then you know as well. But I thought I would send out the official word and give some more details for those who are curious!

Jason and I found out we were expecting again in June. We were super excited, of course, and I told Isabella at once. She has been really excited, saying it was a baby sister from day 1. She said she wanted her baby sister to live in her room with her. I don't think she is too keen on the idea of the baby taking over her playroom just yet.

We found out we are due March 3. 2012 is a leap year, so if the baby came a few days early it would be a leap day baby! Most people I tell this are like 'oh no how awful!', but I guess I am weird because I think it would be kind of cool. I am not one to induce, though, so we will just see when he decides to make an appearance!

Yes, I said HE. I think we all thought we would have another girl for some reason. I know nothing about boys, I had a sister and I wanted Bella to have a sister. So imagine my surprise when the doctor said there was no doubt in his mind it was a boy. I won't lie, I cried. I wanted Isabella to have a sister like I did and to play barbies with her and, oh yeah, I have a MILLION girls clothes and toys and other items.

It took me a few days to get used to the idea of a boy, but now I am getting really excited. Everyone I know who has one of each says it is the best. I do look forward to having a son, and hopefully he will be just like Jason - ie totally sweet and laid back. Bella is just like me, which is to say a little high strung and dramatic. A boy might be a nice change of pace. =)

We have not decided on a name yet, but I will let you know when we do! We are tossing a few around trying to see what feels right. Anyway, I am now about 5 months pregnant, but feel like I look like I could give birth any second. You definitely pop out quicker with that second child!

Any advice on how to raise a boy? Feel free to post that right here, because I am kind of clueless, but excited to learn!

ACL 2011

2011-10-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, oops! I didn't mean to post this blog yet, but I guess I will go ahead and do it since I can't figure out a way to delete it without starting over. =) I guess my blogs will just be a little out of order. Oh well!

So Jason, Amanda and I all went to ACL again this year. Jared was supposed to go with us, but he wasn't digging the lineup as much so he sold his ticket to Sarah Bella (sorry I can't say your name any other way!). I was worried, being pregnant and all (yes I am pregnant and I apologize for not having my 'I'm pregnant' blog up yet - remember the whole thing about not meaning to post this yet?), because the weather is usually brutally hot. So I prepared to hydrate like there was no tomorrow and try to stay out of the sun. We got SO lucky, though. It was cloudy and even rainy most of the trip, so I rarely got very hot at all!

The first day we went straight to see Brandi Carlile. I have wanted to see her forever and was not disappointed. She was so great live. She talked a lot and was really funny and likeable. She even covered a couple Johnny Cash songs and finished up with a rendition of "Forever Young". Here are all the girls we went to see her with. From left to right is Amy, Sarah, Amanda and me!

That day I also saw Allison Krauss, who is always awesome and beautiful, and closed the night with Coldplay.

This is the second day. My friend Courtney was at ACL as well and so she told me where to find her. As soon as I walked up, everyone was freaking out. Christian Bale was walking past with his crew. He is in the black right in front of the flag here.

They kept walking back and forth and they were filming so I have no idea if this is for a movie or what, but it was cool to see him. Everyone was shouting 'Hey Batman!'. Haha.

That night was Stevie Wonder. I was not sure what to expect. We saw Bob Dylan a few years ago here and he was TERRIBLE. So I worried, what with Stevie being pretty old, if he would be awful as well. Plus I could only think of like 3 SW songs I knew. Well, he was AWESOME. I promise you know way more Stevie songs than you think you do. I think I knew every song and he sounded just as good as he ever has. Here we are that night. Thanks to my friend Meagan for the super cute maternity dress!

Me and the hubs.

This was the last day. It was sunnier and hotter, but we survived. Me and Court met up early to see the Head and the Heart. This was the other band I was SO excited to see and they were really good. If you have not heard the song 'Down in the Valley', go listen to it. LOVE it. It will be making an appearance on my yearly top 10 countdown. =)

I definitely did not see as many bands this year as usual, just because of how hard it is to walk all over those park grounds when you are pregnant. But it was a great year and I was SO glad the weather cooperated for me. It was seriously an answered prayer.

Next year they changed it back to October, so we will see if we can get someone to babysit TWO kiddos so we can go again. Mom? Rhonda? Anyone? =)

Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas

2011-10-11T10:25:00.001-07:00

This year my family wanted to do something all together, before there were any more small children in our clan. We narrowed it down to a cruise, so my research began. I think everyone knows I love my job - planning trips is SO fun. But what do I love even more than planning trips for other people? Planning trips for MYSELF!! So I researched every possible cruise line and itinerary that they had to find the one that would fit us best.

After many calls to multiple cruise lines, we settled on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas Itinerary. It left mid-July and went to CocoCay, Bahamas (RC's private island), St. Maarten (which none of us had ever been to) and St. Thomas (which we had all been to, but really liked).

Also, just to note, my parents nixed Disney Cruise Lines right away, or else that would have been the perfect choice for my two year old. More on that later.

We got to the ship pretty early, and luckily they were boarding early that day! So we got on board, got to our room and then went to meet up with the family, who were already on board. This is where things start to go wrong for the children's portion of the trip. Remember how I made multiple calls? Well I must have called RC four times asking for sure about their babysitting policies and children's activities for children under 3. Usually cruise lines don't have much for that age group so I wanted to make sure. Every person I talked to assured me there was babysitting from 8am to 2am daily. So we had decided to book a shore excursion for St. Maarten since none of us had been there, intending to secure babysitting the moment we got on the boat for that day.

So as soon as we find everyone, I head off to guest services to book our babysitting and also to let them know that we did not have a crib in our room like we had requested. They promised to have a crib sent right away, and then proceeded to tell us that babysitting was not available during the day, only at night. They advised me to go talk to the Adventure Ocean club for kids to see what my options were. At this time I am annoyed, but had been assured by people on the phone this was not the case, so wasn't too worried. At AO, they told me they didn't have babysitting for children that young during the day, but that there was private babysitting and to just call "0" from our room. So I go back to our room, call 0, and they tell me I have to come to guest services to book babysitting. If you will remember, that is where I went first. Oh, and there is still no crib in our room.

At GS, a very nice lady puts in my request for babysitting, no problem and tells me as soon as it is confirmed they will call our room to let us know. Sigh of relief (for now) and then off to the sail away party on the top deck. Jason stayed in the room to wait for the crib (by now we have also requested that our state room attendant bring us one, as well as have called guest services again) and to give Bella her nap.

We go up top and the weather is great and we all get our sail away cocktails and watch the crew dance and stuff. Don't we look happy?

As far as the ship goes, it was beautiful. It was by far the largest cruise ship I had ever been on and it was really well decorated, with tons of activities such as rock wall climbing, mini golf, surfing, a karaoke bar. All kinds of stuff.

After the party, I go back to the room to get Jason and Bella up so we can go eat. Well, they had never gotten a crib, therefore our daughter had taken no nap. We go ahead and get ready for dinner and as we are leaving here comes our room attendant with our crib. After 6 hours and asking 3 different people for it! We were pretty annoyed, but we tried to shrug it off. We went to dinner with the fam and here is Bella on no nap.

Yeah, she was still pretty happy so we got over it pretty quick.

Now I do have to give RC some props on how they treat children. They must be highly instructed to ooh and aah over kids like they are royalty. Every single wait staff member was always so nice to her and talked to her and fawned over her. This was our friend Richard who would come over every night and make a bunny out of a napkin for her. The bunny only liked Sweet N Low, so Bella would feed it Sweet N Low and then if she gave it anything else, the bunny would spit it out. It was seriously adorable and she ate it up!

Our first port was CocoCay, Bahamas. I love the Bahamas. I recommend them all the time to clients because they are absolutely beautiful as well as a lot closer than the more southern Caribbean islands! One of my favorite things that I have found, is that the waters are so calm and very shallow for a ways out. It was perfect for us because Isabella could walk out quite a ways, not get knocked down by waves and it was still shallow! My dad is her water buddy always, so she loved having him swing her around.

Since it is a private island, they don't have restaurants, they just have a huge barbecue with hot dogs, ribs, etc and normal sides. Isabella must have eaten ten hot dogs on this trip. She loves dipping them in ketchup. I would say the food at the barbecue was just ok. I say that only because I found the food on the ship to be way above what I normally have on cruise ships. The food in the dining room was exceptional.

Back on board, we still hadn't heard back from babysitting for our confirmation so I go to talk to someone. I won't bore you with every encounter I had with Guest Services about babysitting, I will just say that they obviously do not have their act together when it comes to children under 3, most of the staff had no idea what was actually available to her, and I still couldn't tell you what the actual guidelines are. All I know is they worked it out to where we had babysitting for half the day, and the other half, Bella went to the Ocean Kids club for kids under 3 (that NO ONE had even told us about in all my inquiries). I was highly frustrated by all of this, but we got it worked out so I tried to take a lot of deep breaths and not yell at anyone.

The next day we were at sea and went to the pool. This ship is great if you have kids over 3, that are potty trained. There is a huge area with all kinds of fun water stuff for kids who are potty trained. For kids who aren't? There is this...

It is a tiny little wading pool that is not much bigger than this picture. Bella had fun in it, but after about 15 minutes would want to go on to other stuff. Also, this pool is adjacent to all the cool stuff, so of course she wanted to go over there! But she had fun splashing her Aunt Amanda. =)

Pretty much all cruise ships now have what they call 'Specialty Dining'. These are restaurants on board that you pay extra for - anywhere between $5 and $75 or more, depending on the ship and restaurant. This is Chops, the ship's steak house. It was pretty good, but honestly we had a better experience on the Coral Princess ship last year at their Crown Steak House for cheaper. Plus the food on this ship is so good, I am just not sure I would pay extra to go here again. But here we are with Amanda and Jared, enjoying some alone time while Bella played with her grandparents!

The next day was St. Maarten. He is a view from our balcony.

We had booked a shore excursion where we rode four wheelers all over the island, and stopped at Orient Beach for a while before heading back to the ship. It was pretty fun. The French side of the island is much prettier than the Dutch for sure, and you can tell the second you change over. Orient Beach was pretty, but one side is nude and it is NUDE. So if you are in any way modest, don't go to that side. We ate at Andy and Cheryl's on the beach and it was really good. It is owned by some Americans who moved down there to live, and the seafood was really fresh and good.

Here we are with our cute little helmets for four wheeling.

A picture of one of the marinas on St. Maarten.

Here is Isabella in our (very messy) stateroom. She LOVED the cruise by the way.

Royal Caribbean has partnered up with Dreamworks to have their characters appear in parades and shows and stuff on their cruises. They did a character breakfast with the Shrek characters so we went to that one morning. You can see from the pictures below that as long as there is someone between her and the character she is fine. She wasn't crazy about being so close to Puss in Boots. =)

She really enjoyed the Dreamworks parade, too. We have watched Shrek 2 (because that is the one we own) about 2,582,945 times since we got home.

This is a cute picture of Bells in her A&M attire when she woke up. Our room was on the very back of the ship so our balcony was huge and also had more ship after it. That was a very comforting thing to a mom who had nightmares about Bella falling overboard from our balcony. Wasn't going to happen on this balcony!

On our St. Thomas day, we decided to stay on board since we had just been a year before. It was actually great and I think I may start planning cruises where I know I can be on board one port day from now on! There was NO one on the ship so you could have any poolside chair you wanted and do anything on your own. It was really nice and Bella liked having the run of the pool area.

We also went to eat at the other specialty restaurant Portofino that night, while mom and dad watched Bella. It was actually really good. I would have gone back there, especially because it was cheaper than the steak house.

I feel like I have been complaining a lot in this post, but I just want to make sure anyone with small children would know what they were getting in to. They have amazing programs for children over 3 and are consistently rated one of the most family friendly cruises out there. We did have a great time doing all the on board activities. Jason and I won movie trivia for the second time running on a cruise, so we were pretty proud of that. Amanda sang "Fancy" at karaoke one night, and Jared should have won the belly flop contest. He was ROBBED I tell you! Also, Bella got to be in the ice skating show! I wish I had pictures of that! They put her in a sled and took her all over the ice rink. She looked so cute!

Thanks mom and dad for taking us on such a wonderful vacation! I love that our family actually likes to do these things together. I am a very lucky girl.

When we got back to Port Canaveral, we were docked next to the new Disney Dream ship. Mom, Amanda, Bella and I are booked to go on this ship next November (way too far away!), so I was SO excited to see it. It is beautiful, no?

All in all I loved Royal Caribbean, they just have a few logistical things to work out. Loved the ship, loved the food and all the on board activities. I would highly recommend taking them for a spin. Unless you have a 2 year old. Then just go on a Disney cruise!!

Isabella's First Trip to Walt Disney World!

2011-09-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

This summer our whole family went on a Royal Caribbean cruise. Once we decided which cruise we were going to take, and that we would be flying in to Orlando to go to Port Canaveral, I told Jason 'You know I am not going to Orlando without some sort of Disney experience'. He heartily agreed (ok maybe not heartily) that we could go a day early and take Isabella to the Magic Kingdom.

I won't lie, I planned more for that one day than I did for the entire cruise. I was SO excited. We had Starwood points so we decided to stay at the Dolphin hotel. It was nice, but it doesn't really have that 'Disney' feel. Not sure I would stay there if I was paying for a room. But it did have lots of dining options, and it is also on the Boardwalk loop where you can either walk to or take the boat around the lagoon and see the Boardwalk, as well as the Yacht and Beach Club hotel. Here is a shot of the Swan, the Dolphin's sister hotel, from our hotel room. We could also see Illuminations at night!

We got there that night and ate at Kouzzina, which is Cat Cora's Greek restaurant on the Boardwalk for you Food Network fans. I definitely give it a thumbs up, but only if you like Greek food. It was pretty authentic.

It was pouring rain that night and Jason slipped and twisted his ankle. It swelled up to about twice its normal size so we iced it a lot and he soldiered on to the park the next day. Thanks for being such a trooper honey!

The next morning we got up early to be at the park before opening. Here we are having a little breakfast getting ready. Bella is all set to go in her Alice shirt.

When we got to the park we got up as close as we could so we could see the opening show. What happens is that the train comes in to the Main Street station with all the characters on it, and they do a big song and dance welcoming you to the Magic Kingdom. I think for about the first hour or two we were there, Isabella barely said a word. She was just in awe. During this first show she would point and say 'Alice' or 'Snow White', but not like she was excited, more like she couldn't believe she was seeing them in REAL LIFE. I seriously had to hold back the tears it was so precious.

Once the park opened, we quickly made our way to Fantasyland, stopping, of course, for our picture in front of the castle.

Like I said she was pretty stoic for the first bit, so when we rode Dumbo first, she barely showed expression, but she did NOT want to get off. Luckily we had timed it to where Jason was in line just in time for another ride right after that.

By the time we got over to the Astro Orbiter, she was warming up a bit. You can make yourself go higher and lower and it also goes faster than Dumbo. She would just laugh as we went up and down.

This picture melts my heart.

We had lunch at the Plaza, which I had not eaten at since I was little when they told my mom she should work at the World as Snow White. I thought that was like the coolest thing ever.

The plaza was good and Bella got ice cream so she was happy.

After lunch, Jason took Bella back to the hotel for a nap and let me stay in the park. I rode all my favorites that Bella can't ride, and then we met back up right before dinner. We took the boat over to Wilderness Lodge (my personal favorite resort) and ate at the Whispering Canyon cafe. I had never eaten there and we all thought it was very tasty. They also do a lot of funny things like if you ask for ketchup, they make everyone with ketchup on their table bring it to you, so you basically have every bottle in the restaurant on your table. They also make you ride a stick horse to the bathroom if you ask where it is.

After that we only had time for a couple more rides before the parade. We rode the Carousel first, which Isabella always loves, then we made our way to It's a Small World. She sang and danced the whole way through it. SO cute.

After that we lined up for the parade, only to be told right before it started that it was being cancelled because of the storms in the area. I guess they have to be careful because of lightning. I was bummed, but we were pretty tired, so we decided not to stay for Wishes and instead to get a good night sleep so we could be well rested for the rest of our vacation.

Up (hopefully) soon...how Royal Caribbean could definitely improve their communication on small children's activities, but excelled in most every other aspect.

(Kind of) New House

2011-09-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the other day Jason said something to me to the effect of 'you know it was this time last year that we first saw this house.' It was at that point that I decided it might be time to post a blog about our 'new' house. I meant to do that when we moved in, but what can I say? Sorry. However, instead of boring you with pictures of the house and rooms and such, I figured I would do something different. I mean most people who read this blog have seen the house, so here are some other things about our new house that you might enjoy.

One of my favorite things about this house is having a back yard. Our last house had practically no yard, so I am so glad to have a pretty back yard where we can go outside and sit or Bella can play. At least for the 2 seconds it has been nice weather since we moved in. =)

A nice surprise last spring was when that first nice weather came through and the vines over our fence bloomed in to these gorgeous coral flowers.

The first thing I did to the back yard was plant stuff. I was determined to grow my own herbs and vegetables for the summer so I planted all kinds of herbs, tomato plants, bell peppers, jalapenos. Here are a few shots of my plants.

I can't bear to show you pictures of what they look like now after the brutal summer we had. I watered them every day and did everything I could to keep them alive, but by the end of July they had just burned up. I did however grow enough jalapenos to make these babies. And they were YUMMY.

Here is a full shot of our lovely yard. We spent a lot of time in the water toys as you can see. Did I mention this summer was the hottest on record? Ever?

In the spring we also had some crazy storms. Three different times we had huge branches like this fall off our tree in our back yard. Not sure if that guy is going to make it much longer.

Another thing we have close to us is a couple of splash parks. This is new to me, but a great thing that the city of Dallas does. It is just a public park!

One of the best things about our new house is our neighborhood. I knew just about everyone around us before we even moved in totally. They are so friendly and some people even brought food over! We have also been blessed with the best neighbors ever. They have a 3 year old daughter name Kate and she and Bella are now BFF. Not to mention that they are super cool and we hang out a lot. Here is Bella, Kate and Liz one night that we went to see a Movie Under the Stars thing this summer.

There is also a Braum's not too far away so we have walked down there to get ice cream together.

Bella and Kate at the Arboretum with her dad Pete.

And this is my absolute favorite picture of them playing dress up next door.

So, yeah, you could say we are happy with our kind of new house. I honestly feel like this is where God meant for us to be, and I imagine we will be here for a very long time.

I LOVE Isabella

2011-07-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

I remember asking a friend before I had Isabella which age was the best (she had two elementary age daughters). She said whatever age they are is always the best. She was right. It just keeps getting better and more fun. The latest thing Bella is doing is she is obsessed with pockets and she also has taken to telling me when she likes things. So if she is eating something good she says 'Mommy I LIKE this'. With an accent on 'like'. Well a couple of days ago I was dressing her for Little Gym and she, per usual, asked if what I was putting her in had pockets. I said yes and she got really excited and goes 'I LOVE pockets'. It was the CUTEST thing. She usually reserves 'love' for people, but I guess pockets are just that good. Look how happy she is!

So adorable!

NKOTBSB, Baby

2011-06-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you had told me when I was in 6th grade, that I would be going to a New Kids on the Block concert when I was *mumble* years old, I would have said 'Duh, because I am going to be married to Donnie and be on tour with the whole group!'. Then if you had told me when I was a Junior in college, that I would be going to a Backstreet Boys concert when I was *cough* years old, I would have said 'Duh, because I am going to married to Nick and will on tour with them year round!'. As you can see I have grown and matured a lot over the years. :)

When Sterling, Brooke, Amanda and myself went to see BSB in college, we made shirts to wear, because that is what you do if you are totally cool, right? So we figured since two of the four were going again, it was only appropriate to recreate said cool t-shirts. Luckily, the two new people coming with us are just as awesome as us, so of course they immediately agreed to the idea. Here we are in all our awesome t-shirt glory...

The concert was, in one word, seriously freaking awesome. I am not kidding. It has to be one of the best times I have had in a long time. I was honestly never a big New Kids fan. I remember friends of mine literally crying about them when I was in the 6th grade, and I knew the songs, but I never had a picture of Donnie hanging (tough?) in my locker. I actually knew girls who had the New Kids bed sheets. Weird. But I SO enjoyed seeing them. It was still a huge dose of nostalgia and they still sound pretty good! Some have aged better than others, but overall the entire show was great.

They basically took turns singing their own songs, brought people on stage, went in the audience, rose up in the air on platforms and pretty much just rocked it. They performed for 2 and 1/2 hours, sang all the popular songs, and even some that weren't singles that only the TRUE fans would know. :)

Anyway, I won't keep going on, but I would suggest if NKOTBSB comes to a city near you, that you get a seat near the stage so that you can be one of the lucky ones selected to be serenaded.

Welcome to my NEW World

2011-06-23T19:51:00.001-07:00

Greetings everyone. Notice anything different? I have finally joined the world of people who actually try to make their blogs look presentable. My genius friend Tamra helped me (ok she basically just did it for me) put together a beautiful new blog! If you are like me, you read your blogs in Google Reader and you never see what people's blogs actually look like. If you are not, then you may have been avoiding my eye sore of a blog. Well, now you have some catching up to do! =)

I am doing my darndest to actually write in my blog more, and keep your eyes out for a new blog announcement! What is it you ask? Well, you will just have to stay tuned. And NO I am not pregnant. It is blog related.

Anyway, hope everyone likes the new updated blog!

Destin

2011-06-21T12:08:00.001-07:00

At the end of May, me and some of my best girlfriends took a trip down to the beach house in Destin. These are the girls who I worked with at TXU, some of whom I knew in college, and we all went to A&M, so we have a lot in common, except that we are all pretty different! I love these girls and I thought I would take a minute to introduce them before getting to the details of the trip.

Here is a group shot of them. This was the first night we got there. By the time we got in and got settled, it was too late to go to the beach, but we did take a quick walk just to check things out.

Private note to my girls: I promise to try not to show a bunch of pictures of us in our bathing suits, but it is, after all, a beach trip, so there may be a little skin showing. I promise I have only included shots that were flattering.

Here is the cast of our trip. First up, KC. KC lives in Lake Highlands, obviously the cool place to be, and was friends with Courtney in college, but I did not meet her until TXU.

Courtney - Sorry, Court, I realize this is a full body shot, but I just think it is a cute picture and wouldn't put it in here if you didn't look awesome! Court and I worked at Bath and Body Works together in college, and she also worked with my roommate at Old Navy. She was a busy girl. =)

Shawna I have known the longest, since Freshman year at A&M. We had some good times cruising College Station in the Camaro...

Lacey - Also did not meet her or Tamra until I worked at TXU, but now we have regular playdates with her two daughters Kiley and Presley, Bella and Tamra's daughter Caitlin. She is also one of my "Blogs I Love" if you would like to know more about her. :)

Tamra - Obviously likes to party as evidenced by the double-fisting below. ;) Ok, I think she was actually holding my drink, but it looks funny. Tamra is mother of Caitlin, and also one of the "Blogs I Love", as well as the executive producer of my blog (ie - she took it from totally geek to totally sheik - if anyone gets that reference, you are my new best friend).

The first night we went out to eat at one of my favorite places, The Back Porch. I think we go here almost every year. And every year I order crab legs and make a mess eating them and I love it! Here is a pic of me and T down on the beach after procuring some drinks.

All the girls while waiting (and waiting and waiting) for our table...

Pretty much most of the trip we just spent all day at the beach. Laying on the beach with a good book, a good drink, soaking up the sun is about my idea of heaven.

Shawna and Lacey boogie boarded...

The other place we went to eat while we were there is in the town of Seaside (most famous for being the location that The Truman Show was filmed) at a place called Bud and Alley's. It was a great bar/restaurant right on the beach, with an upstairs bar so you have a great view. Here we are in the square...

Having a toast on the balcony...

Another shot of the group enjoying our beverages...

After a couple of days we were pretty crispy so some of the girls went shopping at Baytowne Wharf. It is a little place in the Sandestin community that has cute little shops and restaurants. I just think this picture is really cute...

So that is pretty much it. No major stories, just had a blast with some of my favorite people. I honestly can't believe that in the 10 years we have all been friends that we have never done a girls only trip with all of us!

Science and Nature Museum

2011-06-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Isabella and I have made some friends recently at Little Gym. Our new friends Kyli and Caroline invited us to go to the Science and Nature museum recently. I had been once a long time ago, but Isabella really wasn't old enough to enjoy it at that time. This time around, it was a blast. If you have not been here with your kiddo - or even yourself, there were some awesome displays for adults as well - I would highly recommend it. There are all different sections that teach about science while also being really fun for the kids.

I took some pictures with my crummy iPhone camera, but most of the time they were blurry since the kids were running around the whole time. Here are a few of the better ones...

Isabella and Caroline 'took turns' (meaning Bella kept grabbing the magnet wands from Caroline) playing with the magnet wall.

There is also a water section that the girls loved. I think we spent more time in this room than anywhere.

Bella giving Caroline a hug at the water table.

This is in the farm section. Bella is once again channeling her inner farm girl.

Caroline riding on the tractor.

Thanks Kyli and Caroline for inviting us to go with you. We had a blast!

Thank God I'm a Country Girl

2011-05-20T13:58:00.001-07:00

My dad's dad has a large piece of land down the road from his house that has a little house and a large pond. We have been going there my whole life for family get togethers, and Bella had never been before. So for my granddad's birthday the whole family went out there to celebrate. There is a huge tree out front of the house with a couple of swings on it. Swinging is one of Bella's favorite things so she spent a lot of time having me or Grandpa swinging her.

Isabella loved sitting at this little picnic table with her cousins to eat. She found a new favorite snack - strawberries covered in whipped cream. This was her third serving.

After eating, we went down to the pier and fished for a while. Uncle Jared showed Bella how to hold the pole and reel in a fish. They caught several little brim that we had to throw back. My mom was showing her the worms and she would touch them and then just squeal! It was pretty funny.

My dad was the only one that caught anything worth keeping. A big 'ol catfish!

This was the first day in Isabella's entire life that I did not put her down for a nap. I kept thinking I would, but she was having such a blast so I just let her play. About 6:30 mom started kind of holding and rocking her and she just passed out! We put her down in my cousin's babies pack n play that she had out on the porch.

After she woke up we got in the car and left. That is when she started getting cranky. The funniest part is that as we were heading out she started crying that she wanted 'sweet milk' from Starbucks. She loves those Horizon Vanilla milks so I usually get her one when we go to Starbucks. So we are in the middle of nowhere in East Texas, probably 100 miles from a Starbucks and my 2 year old is crying in the back seat "Starbucks! Want Starbucks!" Haha. Ohhh I am raising a city girl. Note to self - take more trips to granddad's farm!

Hawaii: Maui

2011-05-20T13:45:00.001-07:00

After the traffic and busy pace of Oahu, we were very relieved to get to Maui. It is absolutely beautiful and a much slower pace. We were also there in off season, so we had no traffic or anything. Not sure if it is usually like that.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua. It was a beautiful resort. It is kind of set up on a hill away from the beach and you walk down this path to get to the beach and restaurant.

I had never stayed at a Ritz before, so I was excited and had some pretty high expectations. As soon as we pulled up, the valet says 'Mr and Mrs Trent?'. How do they know that!?! I seriously want to know if someone knows how they figure this out. Do they have the rental car records or something and read our license? It is amazing to me.

When we get to the front desk, same thing. They know who we are and tell us we have been upgraded to a suite. Yea! When the bell boy took us to our room he gave us the tour and I had to try to stay cool so as not to show myself as a Ritz newbie, but I wanted to be like 'Holy Moly!' The room was bigger than my first apartment. They had a whole bowl of fresh fruit waiting for us as well as a huge assortment of teas and coffee and I was just in heaven.

It was after dark when we got in, so we just ordered some room service and went to bed. The next morning I got up and put on my fancy robe and then went out on to the balcony. Again I wanted to just jump up and down. We had a beautiful view out over the pool and you could see the ocean on the other side of that. It was absolutely beautiful. We decided since it was our first day, and we were still tired from Oahu, we wanted to take it easy and be pampered for the day. So we rented one of the pool cabanas where you have your own fridge, TV, iPod dock, chairs and a waiter to get you whatever you want. It was pretty awesome I have to say. Here was our view from our cabana.

Another perk of going in February is that you are there in the height of whale season. I had kind of just forgotten about this, until that first night. We had reservations at Mama's Fish House, so we headed that way and on the drive out there I just happened to catch a glimpse of this in the water...

If you can't see that very well, it is a whale's tale sticking out of the water. We pulled over and Jason took a bunch of pictures. This whale was just slapping his tale on the water for I swear like 2 or 3 minutes straight. And this is just right off shore! For the rest of our trip, just about anytime you were looking out at the water you would see a whale either jumping out of the water or just a blow hole or something. They were so omnipresent that by the end of the trip you would just be like 'Oh yeah, there is another whale'. Ok, not really, it was pretty exciting every time you saw them, but they were just everywhere!

The second morning we found this little place called the Gazebo. It was this little random place in a little motel on the ocean. We got there right when it opened and still waited an hour for our food. It was worth it. If you go to Maui, eat there. I think it might have been the best meal we had and it was also the cheapest (which isn't saying much for Hawaii - everything is freakin' expensive). While we were eating we could see three whales jumping around. The waitress told us that morning before they opened that one of the whales gave birth! We started watching and you could tell one of the whales was a little baby whale! Crazy stuff.

That afternoon we had a reservation to go ziplining down the side of Haleakala. Right before we got to the point where we were supposed to zipline, we stopped at this restaurant called the Kula Lodge. This picture does not do the view justice. We were basically up on the side of this volcano, and there were all these tiers on the way down to sit at. There was a big wood burning stove for pizzas out there and the weather was kind of cool. I would highly recommend you eat here on your way up Haleakala.

After lunch, we went ziplining. If you have never done this, do it! It was SO much fun. It even started raining half way through, but we didn't care. It was a blast. We were going to go ahead and drive to the top of Haleakala after that, but then it started raining really hard and you could barely see around those curvy roads. We opted not to go careening off the side, and decided to head back to our sunnier resort.

Ahhh, isn't that better?

That night we went to the Old Lahaina luau. It is the oldest one on Maui and I loved it. I am an adventurous eater, so I enjoyed all the interesting food (except the Poi - seriously who likes that stuff?). I also loved all the dancing and the stories. I thought it was great. Jason enjoyed it for one reason only. You get one guess...

Our last full day on Maui, we decided to go exploring some more. I had read about these pools you could find if you really went looking. They were made of lava and the ocean had filled them in. The book I read this in was the only place I found any information on them and I am SO glad we sought them out. It was probably my favorite thing we did. You had to follow very specific instructions to get to them, and we got off the trail a couple times, but finally found them. We were told to look for a 'heart-shaped' pool. We finally came to the top of a cliff and saw this.

It may be hard to see, but the middle pool is kind of a heart shape. You had to kind of scale down the side of a cliff (it wasn't actually as hard as that sounds) and then there were all these little pools. It was the neatest thing. We were the only ones there at first, so we kind of felt like explorers who had discovered something all on our own! After a while a few other people came, but we got some cool pictures of it. This was the view over the side. I mean where is water this blue?

We got the first couple who came down next to take this picture of us. That main pool was probably 10-15 feet deep.

This mountain was the view across from us at the pools. Anyone know what this is called? It is too unique looking not to have a name.

After leaving the pools we kept going around the north part of the island to find this small town that touted it had the 'Best Banana Bread on the Planet!'. There is a part on the map that our rental company gave us that says 'do not take your rental car past this point on the road'. Well, that is where we headed next. The next 2-3 miles around the mountain was a one lane, curvy road. If you could not see around the curve, you just prayed no one else was coming around at the same time. If they were you both slammed on your brakes and whoever had the widest berth would kind of back up and let the other person go. It was exciting (read terrifying) to say the least. But we got our banana bread, as well as some delicious coconut candy, and made it back to our hotel room alive. I don't know if it was the best in the world, but it was certainly tasty.

Our last day we spent shopping in Lahaina, and then took an overnight flight back to Dallas. I honestly was not sure what to expect in going to Hawaii. Maui is my in laws favorite place on the planet, and so I worried it had been built up a little too much. No chance. Maui is amazing. There is SO much to do, and see there, or you can just lay at the pool and enjoy the beautiful scenery. It is so beautiful and the food is so good and the people are friendly and I will definitely be going back one day.

Hawaii: Pearl Harbor

2011-05-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

We finally made it to Pearl Harbor. This second morning on Oahu our shuttle arrived right on time. They had our reservation. Everything was a go. The guide on the bus was a wealth of information. He told us all kinds of interesting facts on the way there.

I don't know what I expected for Pearl Harbor. I think in my mind I had it envisioned as a tacky, cheesy tourist attraction. It was nothing of the sort. First off, it is beautifully landscaped. Take a look at these pictures...

Beautiful right? Second, there are so many moving monuments and tributes throughout the memorial. This is one of the submarines. You had to pay extra to see this and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it!

This an anchor recovered from the USS Arizona.

And a bell...

There is also this area that has a ton of plaques with the name of submarines that were lost in WWII. Each plaque had the name of the sub, who the commanding officer was, how many were lost in the attack and then a brief synopsis of what happened, in many cases it is just what they think happened, to that sub and the men on board. At the bottom of each plaque it has a headline saying 'On Eternal Patrol' and then a list of the men's names who were lost at sea. That part was probably the most heartbreaking for me, besides the USS Arizona.

We had a while to look around, then we had tickets to the movie you watch before heading over to the Arizona. It is pretty sad how little knowledge I have about things in history. I mean I guess I know a lot about Germany's involvement in WWII, but I knew next to nothing about Japan's role. I seriously had no idea how powerful they were at that time in history, so this movie we watched was so interesting in recounting what led up to the attack at Pearl Harbor. On a separate note - if you have not read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, read it. It has a lot more information on what went on in the Japanese camps and such as that. SO moving.

After the movie, you get on a ferry and head over here...

I have seen the image of this memorial a million times, so to see it in real life is kind of surreal. You can see the ship right under the water and there is even still oil leaking, just a few drops a day, in to the water from the ship.

Here is one of the smoke stacks that sticks up above water.

A look inside the memorial.

This wall holds the names of all the men on the Arizona.

I have always heard that lines for Pearl Harbor are crazy long, but we never saw any lines. I guess maybe since it was an off time of year. We went to Oahu, mostly just to see Pearl Harbor, so I was glad we did get to go. It was a very interesting and moving memorial.

After that, we got back on the bus and it took us on a tour of downtown Honolulu and then up to the Punch Bowl cemetery. Again, our guide had so much interesting stuff to tell us. We even saw where Obama went to school. Haha.

As soon as we got back to our hotel, we checked out and walked down to the Moana Surfrider hotel Beach Bar to have lunch and a drink. We didn't get to spend any time on Waikiki so we wanted to at least have an hour just sitting looking at the water. We soon had to head out to the airport to catch our plane to Maui. Stay tuned!

Hawaii Trip - Oahu

2011-05-18T11:55:00.001-07:00

For Christmas and our birthdays this year, my wonderful in laws sent us on a trip to Hawaii. It is their favorite place and we had never been, so they just really wanted us to go. Since we had never been, we knew we wanted to make at least a quick trip to Oahu and go see Pearl Harbor. So we decided to go to Oahu for two days, then over to Maui for five.

We left one morning and were at our hotel in Oahu by around 5 or so. My first impressions of Honolulu - crowded, trafficky, kind of dirty. It is basically a huge city. When we finally got to our hotel, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was beautiful! We stayed at the Royal Hawaiian right on Waikiki.

It is one of the oldest hotels on Waikiki. Just look at these doors. All the doors in the hotel had these old hand carved Hawaiian style doors.

We went to check in and they gave us leis, cold towels and a welcome drink. Then we headed up to our room where I found these waiting for me!

Did I mention we left on Valentine's Day? Jason thought ahead and called the concierge to arrange to have these waiting for me!

That night we went to eat at this Sicilain restaurant, Taormina. I had this delicious seafood pasta that reminded me of a dish I had eaten in Cinque Terre on our trip to Italy. It was divine! After dinner we crashed, knowing we had to get up at like 5 the next morning to make our tour to Pearl Harbor!

The next morning we went to wait for our shuttle to Pearl Harbor. I had called the night before to double check everything, where to wait, which bus we were on, etc. Well, when our bus gets there, they have no record of us. Mind you I have already paid for this excursion and everything. We sit on the bus for a while trying to figure out what the deal is. I call the company I had booked through and while I am sitting there on hold, the driver tells us we have to get off the bus! He says they can't wait anymore and we have to leave. Now readers, if you have never been kicked off a tour bus with a group of people staring at you, I will just let you know. IT IS HUMILIATING! The second I stepped off the bus, the company I was on hold for picked up and I just started crying in to the phone. That's right. I was that girl. The lady was so nice and tried everything she could think of to get that bus back or to get us on another tour. Unfortunately, ours had been the last one and there were no more for the day. We were leaving at noon the next day, so it would be too late. Did I mention the sole reason we came to Oahu was to see Pearl Harbor?

After some sobbing, deep breaths and realization that I was in Hawaii and should at all costs try to simmer down, we finally worked it out where we would take another tour the next day and change our flight to later in the day to go to Maui. We decided we would just do an extended tour of the North Shore that day instead of the shorter tour we had planned to do the next day.

So we got out our guide book, put down our jeep top, and headed toward the North Shore. We really started at the East shore and basically just drove in a loop around the entire island. Our first stop was the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. You drive in through a cemetery and then come to this breathtaking Buddhist temple.

It almost looks fake it is so beautiful. Here is Jason. =)

Before you enter you are supposed to use this wooden log to bang this huge bell for good luck.

After that, we headed around the shore and stopped to take some pictures of the beaches. If you are a Lost fan, you should know that they filmed a lot of Lost on Oahu. Can't you just see Kate, Jack, Sawyer and Hurley running out of those woods away from the smoke monster?

Here is another beach.

We actually looked up places you could go see where Lost was filmed, but the most obvious was this place. Look familiar?

Yep! That is the camp where the Others lived! It is actually a YMCA camp in the middle of nowhere!

We also got caught in the rain with our top down. We couldn't figure out how to get it back up so Jason would hold it while I drove and looked for a place to stop that was covered. We stopped a few times and tried to get it back up, but those suckers are impossible! After about an hour we found an apartment complex with covered parking so we pulled over. It took us and two passerbys to get the darn thing up and then, you guessed it, it never rained the entire rest of the day. Ugh.

Oh well. We got some shave ice and saw lots of surfers and had a pretty enjoyable day in spite of things. That night we ate somewhere close to the hotel and crashed, knowing we had to get up AGAIN at 5am the next day.

Life

2011-05-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite quotes is "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". John Lennon said that.

Well, I have been planning to write in my blog more, but my busy life got in the way lately. Gosh, where are my priorities?

In all seriousness, life has been crazy the last few months. We bought a house and sold our house (in that order), had Christmas, a trip to Hawaii, Bella's birthday (and mine and Jason's in there somewhere), and Jason has been traveling a ton on top of that. So life has been busy and I have been super tired and stressed. I think trying to buy and sell houses at the same time is one of the single most stressful things I have been through in my life. I am definitely glad it is over.

Last week I got to go on a trip to Destin with some of my best friends and it was a seriously nice opportunity to wind down and relax. I feel like we are finally moved in to our house, now we just have to buy more things to fill it up!

Anyway, I say all this to say I apologize for not blogging more, and I really am going to try to do better. I have several blogs I will be posting in quick succession here shortly, so I hope you enjoy!

Bella in Wonderland

2011-04-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

In March of 2010, my mother and I took a trip to Disneyland. I had never been and she hadn't been since she was 18 so we decided to go. The very first ride we rode on our first day was the Alice in Wonderland ride. They do not have one of these at Walt Disney World, so it was a fun new ride for both of us. Once we got off, my mom said "Wouldn't that be a cute idea for a birthday party?" And an idea was born. I immediately latched on to the idea and started thinking how cute that would be. I mean one of the biggest themes in the movie is having a "Very Merry Un-Birthday". So for over a year I had been planning this party and getting ideas for it. We did a Mad Hatter tea party theme and decorated with little tea cups all over the place.

Here we used a large tea cup for the White Queen's Punch, but we had the Red Queen's Champagne close at hand for adults (none for Alice!)

Instead of a cake, we did Mad Hatter Cupcakes

I got this cute banner off Etsy. Etsy and I became good friends during the planning phase of the party...

Signs for the front yard - also from Etsy!

For party favors we had little tea cups with goodies in them

Tea cup centerpieces. If you look close you can see a paint brush. My mother-in-law has a keen eye for detail and wanted to give the impression we had painted the roses red. There was also red paint close by.

Another centerpiece. My mother-in-law also did all the flower arrangements. She is so talented!

Isabella dressed up as Alice. Aunt Amanda got her all excited about wearing her dress and then she would not take it off until late in the day!

She very much enjoyed her cupcake

Her big present from us was her new water table. Bella's friend Andrew has the same one and I just thought it was so cute! It was a hit at the party. Apologies to all the parents who took home wet kiddos! =) This is Bella's friend Madison.

Her big gift from Grammy and Poppy was a new tricycle. She is putting on her "I'm 2" riding hat to take it for a spin.

This picture of Isabella and her friend Caitlin cracks me up.

These are my girls! From left to right is Tamra, Caitlin, Lacey, Presley, Kiley, Shawna, me and Bells.

I was really happy with how everything turned out. It is amazing how much work can go in to a 2 year old's birthday party. Not sure I will be able to go all out like this in years to come. Next year I am thinking Little Gym? =)

Merry Christmas!

2011-03-08T09:30:00.001-08:00

I know I know. You are all thinking 'wow Kelli, you are SO timely on your blogging'. Well, yes, I am a bit behind, but to my defense I have been trying to buy and sell houses in the last few months and move somewhere in between, and then go on vacation on top of that! More on all those subjects in later blogs, which I swear will be posted sometime soon. It is literally written on my to-do list, so it has to get done eventually.

Back to the main purpose of this blog. We had a great Christmas this year. It was the first year that Isabella really started to get that if she opens a present, there will most likely be a toy inside of it for her. So she started getting excited about opening things.

This year we started our tradition of staying in town for Christmas. We went to the family service at our church on Christmas Eve, which was super cute. All the kids sing and put on a show of the birth of Jesus. Bella did so good, too. She sat still for most of it and would clap when we sang. Then we went out to eat at whatever Houston's on Preston is now called. I can't remember, but it is pretty much still Houston's. By the time we waited and got seated and ate Isabella was not the angel that she sometimes is at restaurants, but we had fun getting out.

This year was the year we would normally spend Christmas day with the Trents, but unfortunately they had to stay in Norman for work until the day after, so my parents decided to come up Christmas day so they could see Isabella open her presents.

Christmas Morning - Wondering how we are all so excited first thing...

Then she starts to get in to the presents...

Modeling her new coat...

Nana helping her open a present...

She got a princess tunnel and loved it. She pretty much always wants me to get in it, but I have to tell her mommy is just a biiiiiit to big.

The next day the Trents got here. They gave her this baby doll that comes with a diaper bag, bottle, diapers, fake wipes, a bed and blanket. It is hilarious to see her change the baby's diaper, because she wrinkles up her nose and goes 'shew' to show that the old diaper fake stinks.

So we had a great Christmas and I am sure they will just get more and more exciting for her!!

Third Annual Top 10 Song List

2010-12-26T12:45:00.001-08:00

Wow. That is all I can say for this year in music. There were SO many good songs on the radio, I had a really hard time narrowing down what my absolute favorites were. I went back and forth and back again trying to make sure I wasn't leaving off something. As I am writing this I thought of another song I missed! Ugh, well, I may have a longer list of honorable mentions than I usually do, but without further ado, here they are. My top ten songs of 2010. I hope you will give them a listen!

10. Fallin' and Flyin' - Jeff Bridges from Crazy Heart - Jason and I saw Crazy Heart on our cruise in May and the music in this film was just great. I don't know why they can't write tunes like this for the radio. But I seriously love this line 'Funny how fallin' feels like flyin'...for a little while'. So true.

9. The Writer - Ellie Goulding - This song was on the target in Entertainment Weekly, and I had a hard time finding it online - not sure if it is on iTunes yet or not - but it was worth the search. It is such a beautiful ballad with great lyrics.

8. Crying Lightning - Arctic Monkeys - This song always has me grooving in my seat in the car. It is kind of a strange and freaky song about loving someone who is totally wrong for you. Haven't we all done that really?

7. The Cave - Mumford and Sons - I really liked Little Lion Man when it came out. Jason and I always would check the radio station when it came on if Isabella was in the car, to make sure it would be the censored version. =) So I got the album and I think this song is by far my favorite song on there. I love M&S's sound. How it is a little bit country (or bluegrass) and a little bit rock n roll. My favorite line? "Cause Iiiiiiiiiiii need freedom now, and Iiiiiiiiiiiii need to know how, to live my life as it's meant to be." I just feel it in my whole body.

6. The House That Built Me - Miranda Lambert - This song makes me cry every time I hear it. I am one of those super nostalgic people. Like when I go to stay in a hotel for a week on vacation, when I leave I have to give it one last look and feel a little ache in my heart to be leaving a place that I spent a week of my life. Weird right? But you can imagine how I feel about the house I grew up in. I still dream about that house when I dream of being home. We moved out when I was in middle school and yet that is still what my mind has in it as my house. I even dream about buying that house back some day. Again, weird right? But when I listen to this song, it makes me remember every detail of that house and just has me in a puddle by the end.

5. Justin Bieber - Never Let You Go - LOL, did you think I was serious? Sorry, I had to make sure you were still paying attention. I am proud to say I had to google JB to find the name of a song he sings.

The REAL #5. Something Beautiful - Needtobreathe - I bought this album at the beginning of the year and never listened to anything but this one song. My friend KC finally convinced me to listen to the whole thing, and it is a really great album. Through Smoke is especially convicting to me, but I still think this is my favorite song on there. The line that gets me when I am feeling less than worthy of God's love - "I know that I'm in reach, cause I am down on my knees, and waiting for...something beautiful".

4. Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machines - Heard this song on SYTYCD and it had me. I have listened to it, oh, maybe a million times this year. Nothing really to say about it other than it is just beautiful.

3. Help I'm Alive - Metric - Again, nothing deep to say on this one, but I LOVE it. If I listened to Cosmic Love a million times, then I listened to this one two million.

2. ONE - Yeasayer - The battle for the number one spot was a tough one. I could not get enough of this song this year. When it would surprise me on the radio, it was like Christmas. Even though I had it on my iPhone. Don't you find a song is so much better when it comes on the radio unexpectedly than when you play it deliberately? Anyway, I almost made this song number one. It's name would certainly have made it an obvious choice, but ultimately the number one spot went to.......

1. Sleepyhead - Passion Pit - I heard this song once described as munchkins on acid singing. It is an apropos description, but something about this song, I. JUST. LOVE. I love the music, the lyrics, the beat, the fact that I have no idea what the words in the opening mean, or if they are even in any language, but I LOVE it. I would highly recommend you listen to it a few million times.

Well, that is it. Disappointed? Did I leave off your favorite song of the year? Leave me a comment and tell me what yours was! Like I said, there were so many that didn't make the list that I loved, so here is my honorable mention list, in no particular order...

Chris Tomlin - Our God, Mates of State - Second Hand News, Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts, Miike Snow - Animal, Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em, Tim McGraw - Mr. Whoever You Are, Taylor Swift - Back to December

Happy New Year!!

Welcome Home

2010-12-26T12:41:00.001-08:00

So our last portion of the Orlando training was Disney. Mike Scopa -from http://land.allears.net/blogs/mikescopa/ - recently wrote some articles about your 'hook' at Disney. Not the big things like seeing the castle or the Magic Kingdom sign when you get to Walt Disney World, but those smaller things that when you get there makes you feel like you are home at last. Well, mine is sort of literal. I just love when you get to the front desk at your resort and they say to you "Welcome Home". I just smile and say "thank you", sincerely. That is how I felt when I walked in to my room at the Boardwalk Resort and saw this on my bed. Ahhh, I am home. It had been a very busy and long week, and wasn't about to slow down, but at least I was home. =)

The first day we spent the whole day in a conference room just learning about all things Disney. Fun gifts to put in people's room and different ways to make our clients stay at Disney World just a little more magical. Right before lunch, as we were wrapping up that session, who should make a surprise visit? Well, I think you can see...

For a room of Disneyphiles, you can imagine the response. I won't say there were tears, well ok yes, there were tears.

After we finally got done with the 'school' portion of the day, we had the whole evening off to go to the Magic Kingdom!! Woohoo! Sharla and I took off and got as much done as we could. I love the way MK is decorated for the fall...

The next day we started out at Epcot in France. They had this whole breakfast set up for our little group before the park even opened. It was truly an enchanting experience. It was so quiet and peaceful and just a great experience.

Throughout that day we got to go and see so many neat things. We saw a bunch of stuff behind the scenes that I was absolutely not allowed to take pictures of, but one thing we got to see was their HR building. When you walk in, instead of seeing like pictures of the forefathers, these statues were all around the room...

So cute.

That night we finished off the evening in a room above the American Adventure for dinner. We could watch the Eat to the Beat concert out of the window and there were lots of hilarious shenanigans that took place. We were all given magic wands and then we were taken to Test Track, where we were taken to the front of the line and given a ride. Then we got to go to a dessert party for Illuminations and were given these amazing, what looked like 3-D, glasses, that made all the fireworks look like Mickey Heads. I don't even know how to really describe it, but we must have looked like maniacs because every time the fireworks went off, we all were like FREAKING OUT. People must have thought we had never seen fireworks in our life.

To end the night we were taken backstage in to a back entrance to Soarin'. I LOVE Soarin'. So to get an after hours private ride was a perfect way to end the week.

I was only gone for a week for this training, but it was so busy and intense, it felt like a month. I was so glad to get home, but it was a wonderful experience. I would never have been able to experience it without MEI and Mouse Fan Travel letting me be a part of their team, so thanks to them!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-12-26T12:27:00.000-08:00

Finally getting caught up on my blogging, so here we go!

Over Thanksgiving we went to Tyler to hang with my family. We had a photographer come and take a bunch of pictures of the family. My mom has been wanting to do this forever so we finally got it together.

Here is a picture of the entire bunch...

Another cute one - I like how Bella is giving me a hug. =)

A super cute one of Isabella and her daddy...

My sister and her husband had a bunch taken and I swear every single one was perfect.

Here is one that is similar to the one we used for our Christmas card. The Trent family!

Here is Isabella with her Nana and Grampa, who she now calls Bobo - or Bopa - depending on the day. I think I have mentioned how Bells loves ice. Her Bobo has started giving her ice with a splash of soda on it, so now the first thing she says when she sees him is "Ice?" Haha, we are working on moving over to juice instead of soda...

A sweet one with Bella and Bopa...

Universal Day

2010-12-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, time to finish up my blogging about my trip to Orlando. Sorry it has taken so dang long!

We had one full day at Universal Studios. We got to tour all the hotels and then they took us to both parks and let us walk right on to all the best rides. It was a seriously fun day!

I was very impressed with the hotels on property at Universal. If I am being honest, their lowest price resort is actually almost as nice as Disney's Deluxe resorts. Now, that isn't to say it is cheap - nowhere near as cheap as Disney's value resorts - but it is cheaper than some of Disney's deluxe. I didn't get nearly enough pictures, but here is one of the pool at the Hard Rock. They have speakers under the water so you can still hear music when you are swimming!

In the lobby of the Hard Rock they have tons of music memorabilia, and if you don't know, I am a big Heart fan. They had this signed guitar there from them that I thought was pretty cool.

Here is a view of the Portofino resort. This is their premier property and is designed after the village of Portofino in Italy. It is a gorgeous resort and HUGE.

Here is the pool at the Portofino. Behind that stone wall is a cool water slide.

Another pic of the pool...

The Royal Pacific hotel is the lowest level hotel they have, and I didn't get any pictures, but it was still really nice. I think my favorite was the Hard Rock, but I would absolutely recommend any of these.

Buzz Report: Tom's of Maine

2010-12-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

I have another buzz agent report for you guys! As you know, from time to time I am sent products to try out and to give my 100% honest opinion on. This time it was Tom's of Maine Wicked Fresh toothpaste. It was really a great product! They use all natural products to clean your teeth, and they are a very Earth friendly company so I love that! As far as the product itself, it worked great. I definitely felt like my mouth was super clean and fresh afterward. It is one of those that actually kind of burn while you are brushing, until you get used to it.

Another thing I like about it is that it is in a metal type tube. So when you start to roll it up from the bottom, it stays! Not like the normal plastic tubes. Now, as far as keeping your breath fresh longer and all that, I can't really say that I noticed anything to that effect, but it was at least just as good as my normal Crest toothpaste. So I would say, if you are looking for an eco-friendly product to add to your daily routine, I would absolutely recommend Tom's.

Got Butterbeer?

2010-11-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

Here I am tasting my first ever frozen butterbeer. Seriously delicious.

So like I said the last night of the Ensemble portion of the conference we got to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We had the whole land to ourselves for 2 hours. It was AWESOME. If you are a Harry Potter at all, you should definitely go. They did such a good job with it. You walk in to Hogsmeade and they have all the shops and restaurants you would find there (with some Diagon Alley mixed in). You walk in first to see the train that has pulled in to the Hogwarts station.

Then you make your way in to Hogsmeade...

One of the first stops is Zonko's where they actually sell extendable ears. A thanks to my beautiful model Sharla!

They have casks in the street selling butterbeer

Next stop was to Olivander's to buy a wand. You have to stand in line and they let about 25 people in at a time. One person is selected to have a wand 'matched' to them. They then go through a selecting process and find the perfect wand for that individual.

The major attraction in the Wizarding World is called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This is the sign going in. It actually starts to disappear on the sign and then is slowly written again.

The castle is amazing. This picture cannot do it justice. Especially when we were there at night, you truly felt like you were heading in to Hogwarts. This is the whole MEI gang (at least all the ones at the training) together in front of the castle.

Isabella Loves Mexican Food

2010-11-18T08:09:00.000-08:00

I just thought this was so cute. Isabella LOVES Mexican food. We went the other night to El Fenix and just gave her a plate full of rice and beans and some cut up enchilada and gave her a spoon so she could go to town. The funny thing that you don't see in this video is that she immediately just put the spoon in the salsa and ate the salsa in spoonfuls. She loves chips and salsa, but it is spicy and she doesn't understand why her mouth burns after eating a huge spoonful. So we give her water and then she just goes back for more. It is so adorable.

This is just a cute video that shows how she really likes to use a spoon now instead of her hands more and more. She doesn't like her hands to be dirty so she now always wants a spoon. Enjoy..

Ensemble Conference

2010-11-18T07:51:00.000-08:00

I recently went to a conference in Orlando for travel professionals who belong to the Ensemble consortia. My agency does focus on Disney - although we do everything - but the conference just HAPPENED to be in Orlando, so we were pretty excited. It was a really great conference where I learned SO SO much about the travel industry. It was also a great chance to get to meet many of the agents that I work with. We work from home all around the country so even though I have talked, IMed and emailed with them all, I had never met them face to face! So it was really nice to be able to put faces with names. Here is my friend Sharla who was in my start group that I got to room with!! I'm pretty sure Smart car was a sponsor...

The first day was all business with a fancy dinner that night. However, the second night was when the real fun began (um, not that it wasn't all fun?). The second night was sponsored by Disney, since they just happened to be around the corner, and they shuttled us all over to Epcot and led us behind the gates to where they normally hold their Party for the Senses party. It is a paid, ticketed even that they have during the Food and Wine Festival, and we basically got to go to a pared down version of it to see what it was like. It was, in a word, fantastic! It was set up in this huge hall and had live music and stilt walkers and all kinds of fun stuff, as well as seriously delicious food. The picture below was taken of one of the most delightful things I have ever put in my mouth. Take a glazed donut, cook it in a pan full of melted butter, sprinkle some cinnamon on it and then flambe it in rum, and that is what you have below. Basically the world's BEST donut. Sorry it was half eaten before I could stop myself to take a picture.

After the party we all got to go to a private area where we watched Illuminations. It isn't my favorite fireworks show, but it was pretty neat to have such great seats.

The next night we went to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but I am going to do a whole other blog post on that. Here is our group after eating, before heading over to Illuminations. Best travel professionals ever!!!

18 Months

2010-11-02T08:53:00.001-07:00

How is it that I have a one and a half year old? Sometimes I look at her and can't comprehend how I have been blessed with such a beautiful little child. And I really can't believe it has been a year and a half!! Everyone tells you it goes by fast, but you just don't believe them. Especially those first couple of months. ;)

We had Isabella's 18 month doctor visit a couple of weeks ago and so I thought I should update everyone since it is such a major milestone. She is doing great basically. She is 70% in height (which is good, she was only 45% last time, having shrunk from her 93% at birth!), 45% in weight and about 80% in head size.

What is she up to? Well she is starting to say a lot more words. She says please (well at least she tries, basically any word that has an S sound in it sounds like ssss), cheese (also her new favorite food), she tries to say Amanda and Grammy now. Her absolute favorite word is NO. She is very certain about what she wants and she will say NO when she doesn't like something.

She LOVES her daddy. She would definitely rather have dad than mom these days. Everyone told me it would happen, but I have to admit it is a little sad. Jason, however, is loving it. She will just hug on him, lay her head on his shoulder, so sweet. When I go get her up in the mornings these days, the first thing she says to me is 'dada'? Like where is he?

Her new favorite thing is sock puppets. She has discovered that she can put her socks on her hands and she makes them talk in this kind of growly type voice. The last two days we went to Mother's Day Out with sock puppets on because she would not let me take them off. Haha. She has also learned to do ring around the rosie, which she wants to do over and over.

She really is just so smart. Most things I ask her to do, even if I think she will have no idea what I am saying, she does! I can ask her to go get something she left in a totally different room and she knows what I mean and will go get it. Brilliant I tell you!

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. We really have not been very good about taking pictures! Isn't that awful? If I didn't have an iPhone we would get no pictures I swear.

Since she was a baby she always liked to sleep with her arms behind her head. This does not look terribly comfy to me, but she slept like that forever this weekend!

She looooves her Nana. When we go visit my parents she loves to go out and swing in the back yard!

My parents also went to Hawaii recently and they brought her a hula girl outfit. So stinkin' cute!!

Sold!

2010-10-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, that is what I hope to be saying about my house soon. But that is what a family in Lake Highlands is currently saying about their house! We just bought a house in Lake Highlands!! Yes, this may be sort of out of left field, but we had been thinking about moving for a long time, just not quite so soon. Here's the story...

Jason and I decided to list our house just to see what happened. We figured we would put it on the market for a couple months and see if we got any nibbles. Well, then my realtor, who is also one of my best friends, and I decided to go look at houses in the area we wanted, JUST to look. I specifically told her not to allow me to fall in love with any. Well, I found the perfect house that day and fell in love immediately. You can't help who you fall in love with!!

Jason came to look at it that weekend with us and he liked it too. It was just everything we had talked about wanting. We honestly thought we would have to sacrifice on SOMEthing, but there was not one thing about this house that we really didn't like. Well, except for this awful wood paneling, but that can be painted. =) Anyway, we prayed about it a lot and decided to make an offer, just to see what they said. They accepted our FIRST offer! No counter, nothing. Who does that? Well at this point we decide it was meant to be. So we get our house on the market sooner than expected and are now awaiting that special someone to take it off our hands!

We don't close until December, so we have another month or two until we start to panic, but we are really excited. It is in a great school district and neighborhood and I just think it will be a great house for Isabella and whoever her sibling might be to grow up in. And no I have no announcements in that department, I am speaking hypothetically about the future. =)

Anyway, just wanted to share our exciting news and also ask for you to please pray for us! The stress of trying to sell this house - meaning keeping it clean at all times with a toddler in it - has been high. So please pray that we will sell it quickly, and for a good price ;), but mostly just quickly!

Well, Summer's Officially Over!

2010-09-24T17:48:00.001-07:00

So since it has been over a month since I wrote in my blog, I am going to try to catch up. First blog - all about Isabella. Since Destin I swear she has grown a foot. When I look at her these days I just feel like I have a little girl now. I mean I know she hasn't been a 'baby' for a while, but she just seems so grown up!

If you don't believe me you can see the picture below. We stopped by her Grandpa's office recently and he had her doing calculations!!

Ok seriously that picture cracks me up. She LOVED that calculator that spits out paper though. She loves grandpa's office because he will let her do whatever she wants! =)

On that same visit we went to Babies R Us with Nana and she rode in her first motorized little car thingy. Not sure what those are called...

Her new thing lately is for me to hold her. I don't think it is so much that she needs me to hold her, she just wants up high. She has been in to everything down low so many times, I think she is ready to get in up high drawers and cabinets. Anyway, she likes to sit on the bathroom counter and put her feet in the sink and look at herself in the mirror. While doing this one day, since I can't exactly go anywhere while she does this, I experimented with pigtails. They are SO cute I think.

What else have we been up to? Well we are selling our house! We were going to wait until after the holidays, but we figured we may as well put it on the market and see how it does. Who knows, we may be moved by the holidays or not. We aren't in a hurry, but I would like to be in a new house by Isabella's birthday. Mainly because I have a great idea for her birthday party and want to invite lots of people. Is that a good reason? =)

So trying to get the house all cleaned up and out with a toddler in the house has been a challenge, so Isabella started Mother's Day Out for three days a week this week! She loves it there, so I don't feel too guilty offloading her for 15 hours a week. I go to pick her up and she waves and keeps playing, so that makes me feel good.

Bella also has started speaking her own language, some dialect of Japanese I believe. She has also started saying a bunch of English words in her own cute way. Banana, goggles, cookie, juice, wet (although that sounds just like hot), and pretty much anything that starts with a 'B' she at least tries to say. It is so amazing to hear her start saying random things out of the blue. Half the time you don't even realize she is paying attention and then she blurts out what you just said. Jason and I were having some conversation in which Lady Gaga came up, and Bella immediately goes 'gaga'. Then we kept saying it and she kept repeating it. Haha. She has always been a Gaga fan, so it isn't surprising. =)

Destin 2010

2010-08-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to my parents house in Destin for a week. To say I was nervous about going on a 12 hour drive with a 15 month old would be an understatement, so I felt like I was preparing for it weeks in advance. Bought new toys, got the DVD player all ready, stocked up on her favorite snacks, etc. The way there wasn't too bad. She got a little fussy, but for the most part she was pretty good.

The beach itself was disappointing. We go to Destin almost every year and I have never seen it look like this. There was a TON of algae in the water. We had been worrying about oil, but there was none of that to be seen! I would hardly even get in the water, but you could swim out to a sand bar not far out and it was a lot nicer. The locals said it does this every few years because of some wind pattern, but I never remember it looking so gross. Oh well. Bella liked just sitting in the surf and playing in the pool, but she was not a huge fan of the sand. Here she is with Jason...

My parents also got a golf cart this year, so that was fun for us to scoot around in, and Isabella LOVED it. She loved riding in it, but she also would beg to go outside just so she could crawl around in and play in it.

Another cute thing she does lately is shrug her shoulders when she doesn't know something. Here is a good picture of it. She just looks like a little adult to me!

One day the boys went to play golf so the girls went shopping. In the middle of the shopping area, there is a little water splash area for kids so we let Bella play there for a bit to cool off.

So my daughter loves my mother more than she loves me. When given a choice of who will hold/feed/bathe/name it her, she will choose my mom every time. Look at this picture. She just looks at her with total adoration!

All in all the trip was nice. I did get some relaxation in. Read a book, saw a couple of movies, ate some delicious seafood. The ride home was a little more tense, with a total meltdown the last hour (I just couldn't get Jason to stop crying!! ;) ), but we made it! It is always sad when vacations are over, but I was also glad to get home to our normal routine.

When we got back to Tyler, my sister and bro in law were in the pool so Isabella wanted to get in too. I just thought this picture was so cute. She loves to put on adult sunglasses (she will have nothing to do with her own) and then blow kisses like she is a movie star. So cute.

15 Months!

2010-07-20T09:12:00.001-07:00

How the time does fly. I can't believe it has been two years since we found out we would be adding to the family! We had Isabella's 15 month doctors appointment yesterday and everything is looking good! She is 65% in height, 50% in weight and 80% in head circumference. Doc said she is a girl with big ideas haha. He also said we have to get rid of the bottle. This is very sad for me. I love our time in the morning with her just sipping milk in bed with us while we watch the Today show. It is a cuddly relaxing time, but now we are going to just go straight for breakfast when she wakes up. We started this morning, but she was not happy about it! She fussed and fussed until we had actual food on her tray. Then she was ok. We also have some work to do getting her to drink milk from a sippy cup. She likes anything else from a sippy cup, just not milk. But she loves milk from a bottle. Go figure.

At 15 months she knows a handful of words - hot, bye bye, dada and Gretta (our dog) being her faves - eats most anything (except vegetables, unfortunately), can almost run, loves the water, is getting much better about riding in the car (which is great considering the 12 hour trek we have coming up), waves at everyone and everything, and is starting to be very affectionate. She will run up to you and give you a hug or kiss and sometimes during a hug will pat you on the back. It is the cutest thing. She is going to Mother's Day Out twice a week, which has been SO nice for me so I can get the house clean and laundry done and such as that. She is just getting so much more fun. She has such a personality and a sense of humor and really knows what she wants. It will be much easier when I know what she is trying to tell me that she wants!

Anyway, next Saturday we leave for Destin. I have stockpiled toys, books, snacks and DVDs to get ready for the trip. We are just going to leave reallllly early and hope she sleeps a lot. I definitely anticipate some tantrums being thrown, so I guess we will have to be stopping at some McDonald's or other such places that have play grounds so she can burn off some steam. Say a prayer that it goes well for us and that we actually get some rest and relaxation at the beach!

4th of July Weekend

2010-07-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

For the fourth of July this year we went to Tyler to visit the folks. We had a pool day Saturday and grilled out and even though it was cloudy we still had a great time. Isabella LOVES the water. She has no fear I swear. She doesn't want us to even hold her she just wants to go for it. I think we need to start swim lessons soon! We also learned she loves ice. We had a bunch of drinks just iced down in a cooler and if she wasn't in the pool she wanted to be getting ice out of the cooler over and over.

I think this might be the cutest picture we have ever taken of her. She is just chillin' out with her juice box haha. She looks all relaxed, but really those sunglasses had just been put on her and remained on her about 0.2 seconds after the picture was taken.

Bella's First Real Summer Day

2010-06-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago was Father's Day. The weekend was another hot one around here. Isabella's Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jared bought her a froggy pool for her birthday and we broke it out. It had a little fountain that she really loved, mostly to try to drink all the water that came out. We also got some watermelon and let her go to town on that. She had a blast! A pool and watermelon, that is a real Texas summer. =) Oh yeah, and 100 degree heat...

Buzz Review: got2b Smooth Operator

2010-06-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

I recently got to try a new hair product called got2b Smooth Operator Smoothing Lustre Lotion for being a buzz agent, where I give nothing but my totally honest opinion! And honestly, I LOVE this product. This is the best product I have reviewed to date. For those of you living in Texas right now, you know how hot and humid it has been. The first time I put this in my hair before blow drying and styling it, it was super humid and by the end of the day my hair still looked the same as it did when I left the house. It wasn't the least bit frizzy! And my hair is naturally frizzy and the slightest amount of moisture makes it look awful. I will definitely buy this product myself when I run out of it!

As always I have coupons and samples so let me know if you would like any! You can comment here or email me at kellitrent@gmail.com. Have a good summer!

Buzz Agent Review: Dove Hair Care

2010-05-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have been a very buzzy bee lately. (Hehe). I have another buzz agent review where I share nothing but my honest opinion with you on new products! I was recently sent some conditioner from Dove. It is called Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair. It is a daily use deep conditioner that is supposed to repair damaged hair. I definitely have some damaged hair from the years and years of coloring it, so I was anxious to try it. I honestly could tell a difference after one use! I could tell as I was blow drying it, my hair felt softer and it smells good too. I swear my hair was even easier to brush that day! This is one product I would definitely recommend. I was actually sent some samples of this one too, so if you want a sample or a coupon or both, just comment or email me and I will get one to you!

Buzz Agent Review: Cover Girl Colorblast

2010-05-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have another buzz agent review for you! I recently was sent two items from Cover Girl. One was called Smoky Shadow Blast, claiming to give me the smokey look I have always wanted in an easy two step process. Another was ShineBlast lip gloss in a pretty pink color. The eye shadow was in a stick form that rolled out like a lipstick on each end. There were two colors, the grey color I was to smear all over my eye lid and the purplish one was to go in the crease. It went on easy enough and it looked pretty good on. Although I don't know it really looked any better than any other eye shadow I have. It also felt a little sticky. I wore it for the better part of a day and by the end of the day it had started to get a little gunky in the creases of my eyelid. I think if I were just wearing it for a night out it would have been fine, though. The lip gloss is fine. It is a pink shiny lipgloss. It actually tastes really good! Like strawberries or something. It looks good on, just like any lip gloss I have ever had though. I am supposed to give my totally honest opinion as a buzz agent, so that it is. It wasn't bad, but it by no means blew me away. I do have coupons if anyone is interested, post a comment below or email me and I will send some to you!

My First Year as a Mom - i.e. Whew! I Made It!

2010-05-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

Apologies, I realize my daughter is now about 14 months old. It took me forever to finish this post!

For my first mother's day last year my mother in law got me a card. I don't remember exactly what the front said, but the punchline inside was 'Holy Crap, it's hard!' talking about motherhood. She was right and I think about that card a lot and chuckle to myself. No one can prepare you for motherhood. The last year has been wonderful, but also the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. For those moms who love every dirty diaper filled second of it, I salute you. I also don't believe you exist. =) I have to admit, there are things I don't love about motherhood. Some days I would like to stay in bed past 6:45 am, or not have toys all over my house so that it never really feels clean, or reach in to my purse and not find 10 rogue graham crackers, or maybe have a nice quiet meal at a restaurant with my husband and actually get to talk to him. And sure, those things would be really nice, but then I think of everything I would have missed in the last year. So enough with the negative, it will take me much longer to chronicle all the awesome things that have happened this year.

Isabella Jane is the most wonderful, amazing, smart, beautiful child in the whole entire world. I realize, of course, that every mother would say the same is true of their child. I don't know how to explain this paradox, except for to say that all those parents are simply wrong. =) Only kidding other moms! But seriously, she makes me smile a thousand times a day, any time she does something new - like suddenly she knows where her nose is - it makes my entire day and I can't wait to tell people, she gives the best hugs and kisses, even to our dog =). In short, I love her to pieces. As hard as being a mom is, all of these things make up for it a thousand fold and I wouldn't change a minute of it, even on my worst days. Here are a few of my favorite moments of the last year and things that I want to remember:

- The day she was born. I seriously remember it being wonderful, even going through labor I remember as nothing but exciting. Ok, yes and painful. But I think I was in some sort of manic state afterward and I just remember how wonderful it was to be in the room with my family chowing down on Whataburger.

- Late night nursing. I know that at the time I was seriously miserable being up at 2 am, then 5 am, then 8am, but thinking back on it, I remember it as a quiet, cozy time when it was just me and Bella and I would play the radio in the background.

- When she first started smiling, my in laws and Jason had taken her out to the mall and they got a great picture of her smiling so big. It was probably the first good picture of it and I always think of that picture and now I think about how small she looks in it!

- My first night out with Jason alone. It isn't ALL about Bella right? We went to eat at Bene Bene and went to see Star Trek, which was one of the best movies I saw last year, btw. I just remember being so glad to be out of the house, in real clothes and makeup.

- The day she noticed the parrot. As newborns they don't really pay attention to anything, meaning they don't really focus their eyes on things or seem to be interested. I used to lay her on this activity mat where things hung over her head and it played music and I remember one day seeing her and thinking 'oh my gosh, she is LOOKING at that parrot! And don't even get me started on the day she reached for it! Haha. Thinking about that now seems so funny because she is in everything all the time and notices EVERYthing.

- How she would not eat at first. She hated solid foods and I thought she would just never eat. Then one day she started sucking down everything we gave her and hasn't slowed down since!

- How much I missed her the first time I left her. I was DYING for the time away, looking forward to sleeping in, but at the end of it I was just itching to see her. It is the same every time I have left her since, only I think it gets more intense every time!

- How she waves at everyone and everything. She is a friendly little girl I tell you! She waves at everyone as we walk through the mall or grocery store, she waves at dogs at the park, she just likes to wave. Maybe she is practicing to be Belle in a Disney parade? =)

- Along with the waving, her first word was bye-bye. She still likes to say it all the time, but now she is also saying hot, Tilda (mom and dad's dog), Gretta (our dog), ball, bow, hello and hi. And when I say she says them, I mean she tries to and I know what she means. Ha.

- Her favorite thing to eat is fruit. She would eat nothing else if I let her.

- The sound she makes when she gets excited. She opens her mouth real big and sucks in air like she is just SO excited about whatever. She does this when you ask if she wants a graham cracker, when she sees people she loves, when she sees dogs, when she sees Mickey Mouse (mission accomplished!).

- How much she knows now at 1 year (ok 14 months). She can do patty-cake and the itsy bitsy spider, I can tell her to do almost anything and she knows what I mean, and she also knows when she is not supposed to do something and she looks right at me with this smirk and does it anyway. She also knows where her nose, toes, head and belly button are.

It truly is an amazing thing to see a child grow from something so small, to a little person who can walk and talk and has a personality and knows what they want and how to get it. Amazing can't even describe it, it is a miracle and blows my mind daily. I feel so blessed to have been given this perfect gift from God and I really do try not to take it for granted. I tell myself daily that as long as she is safe and healthy, that I can get by on less sleep, that I don't need a clean house, and that graham cracker crumbs in your purse are not the end of the world.

I will leave you with just a few of my favorite pictures from her first year (this is one reason it took me so long to finish this post - how am I supposed to choose?)

I cannot believe she was ever this small.

This has always been one of my faves...

Like father like daughter...

I thought this was the cutest thing ever when Jason had her set up in bed one morning.

She's so cool...

I think she looks like an angel in this picture...

Of course, this is one of the ones I like =)

Here is about the time when she earned the nickname Scrunchy from her Grammy and Poppy...wonder where she got that from?

The family at our Texmas party...

When Bella realizes she loooooves blueberries...

Here she is. One year old at the Arboretum. Holy cow how that went by fast!

Bella Lately - No Relation to Chelsea

2010-04-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Isabella is now one. I promise to write the requisite 'First Year With Isabella' blog soon, but it is going to take lots of thinking back and probably some tears so I will have to do that later. She has actually been sick a ton lately. It is so hard when she is sick because we can't go anywhere. So we both get a little stir crazy and that makes us both cranky. But she is feeling great now so I hope she has shaken it for a while! So basically we haven't been up to a lot, but I have gotten some adorable pictures. Enjoy!

Bella in her Easter dress

She loves sitting in her rocking chair. I think she feels like such a big girl. You can see how happy she is!

We got her new car seat put in now that she is one. She obviously is very comfortable in it. =)

She is also eating mostly 'grown up' food. It is waffles for breakfast this day!

Another pic in her big girl chair...

Isabella in her chair that her great grandfather bought her. We keep it at my parents house and she loves to crawl up in it.

All dressed up for church with her daddy!

Bella's Birthday Party

2010-04-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

Isabella had her first birthday party on April 17th. We had the family and a few friends over to the house to celebrate. I cannot believe she is a year old. My mom got this cake in Tyler. So pretty and SO good!

Isabella with her proud mom and dad...

Her Nana and Grampa...

Her Grammy and Poppy...

She LOVED her cake. She pretty much demolished it...

Disneyland Day 3 - Finally!

2010-04-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Ok I realize this is wayyyy overdue, but I figured I would finish it up anyway since I said I would. I am way behind on blogging so I will try to inundate you with blogs in the next few days!

The third day we went back to Disneyland to finish up all the stuff we hadn't finished the first day.

First off, we ran in to Tinkerbell in the entrance to the park!

Finally got a pic in front of the castle...

We also went to the Diamond Horseshoe Review and saw Billy Hill and the Hillbillies Play...

We then rode It's a Small World - which is WAY better here than WDW IMHO - and then just finished up a few other smaller rides...

We finished up the day with some shopping for souvenirs for everyone and ended up buying a ton of candy in the sweets shop. They make it right there in front of you. Who can resist a freshly made caramel apple? Not me.

We ended this day a little bit early and then headed back to the hotel since the Oscars were on. If you know me, you know I don't miss the Oscars. So we just got some wine, ordered a pizza and chowed down on some of our treats we bought earlier.

I really loved Disneyland. It is truly so different, yet obviously very much the same as WDW. It is so much more manageable. You don't have to take a bus 30 minutes to get to another park or your hotel. We walked two blocks from our hotel to the parks and it was just so convenient. There is still a ton of cool stuff to do and I really thought a LOT of the rides were better here. It is just a totally different experience than WDW. Just depends on what you are looking for I guess. We had a great time!

Bella at the Arboretum

2010-03-28T18:41:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the pictures I promised of Bella at the Arboretum. I think they turned out pretty cute! This is her birthday outfit. I realize the tutu isn't exactly conducive to crawling, or walking if she is doing that by then, but it is SO cute I couldn't help myself!

Her Grammy and Poppy call her Scrunchy because she scrunches her nose up when she smiles real big. Here is a cute shot of it.

Love this one...

This is the best one of her and I because you can't really see my face. =)

Green Thumb Weekend

2010-03-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

You know how they say people are afraid of or don't like what they don't know? I feel that is me and gardening. I always think I don't like doing it, but I believe it is only because I have no idea what I am doing. Well, I definitely don't like pulling weeds, but I think if I knew more about the actual gardening part, I would really enjoy it. I mean I like flowers. I like fruits and vegetables and herbs. All of these things grow in a garden right? I just need to figure out how to get them to do that.

Anyway, the point is I spent the weekend (or at least the times while Bella was asleep) gardening. I hadn't really done any in a long time because I was pregnant forever and then since Bella has been around I just haven't had time. So our flower bed was overgrown with weeds, we have one dead rose bush and on top of that there were dead leaves and branches everywhere. So the task seemed daunting and I was not exactly anxious to get started. But I got up and went to Calloway's on Saturday morning and had to find a poor person there to drill with questions about what kind of fertilizer/flowers/soil/herbs/plants/pots I needed. I left with a trunk full of stuff and spent the morning pulling up weeds. Once that was done I have to say I enjoyed the rest. I still don't know if the flowers and herbs I bought will grow because of the amount of sunlight/soil/food they need etc. But I do know that right this second they look pretty. I took some pictures because I was so proud of myself. See for yourself!

Here are the flowers I planted in the front yard. You have to imagine that this was all huge crazy weeds a few hours before! I think they are petunias?

I have had this pot sitting outside on my front porch forEVER because I planted Impatiens in them and they decided they would rather die than live on my front porch. Let's see if these Begonias feel the same.

This is my new herb garden. There were two rose bushes, but one was dead so I dug it out. The big rosemary bush was already there, but now there is sage, thyme, basil, chives and parsley.

The basil...

Everything else...

I hope they grow fast...I hate paying $2 a pop every time I need fresh herbs!

By the way, I am not a huge fan of the camera I have. It could be I am not using it correctly, but the edges of my pictures always seem fuzzy. So I apologize for the poor quality, but you get the idea. =)

Wish me luck with my new endeavor. If you have any advice please pass it my way!

Bella Boo Bear

2010-03-27T18:49:00.001-07:00

That is my latest nick name for her. I have had a new one about every week since she was born. She is almost ONE YEAR OLD. I cannot believe it! I will have to write a 'remembering the year' in about a month, but for today I just wanted to update on what she has been up to, besides being the cutest baby alive.

She is playing peek a boo. She puts her hands somewhere on her head - they don't have to be covering her face necessarily - then takes them off real fast and we say 'peekaboo!' and she smiles real big. Then does it again. And again.

She also has a new face. She furrows her brow like she is either very displeased or concerned by something you are doing. She has, obviously, been upset before and made faces to convey that, but this face is new and she does it all the time. Something about it just looks very grown up, like she is trying to really look at you and say 'why, exactly, are you doing what you are doing?'

She also loves to play in the toilet. Gross? Indeed, which is why we are installing the toilet baby-proof things asap. She has learned how to lift the lid up and can have it up and her hand in the water before I can blink. So as soon as she goes that way I immediately just put my foot on the lid so she can't open it. She throws little fits and tries to push it off, but finally she gives up and crawls away. Or does she? She has also gotten sneaky. She acted like she was over it and started crawling away so I turned around to do something and then within two seconds she had gotten back over and had the lid up! So I got wise to her today and when she feigned apathy at the situation and crawled away, I waited for her to really go off to something else. But about three crawls in, she stops and turns around to see if I have left yet. Sneaky! But I am sneakier. =-)

She is just getting so much more fun every day. She can stand on her own and has taken a single step a few times, but mostly takes a step toward something she can grab to steady herself. We went to the Arboretum last week on a beautiful day to take pictures of her. I think she got a little fussy after a bit and you know kids won't just sit still and pose for you, but we got some cute pictures. Once Jason puts his finishing touches on them I will post some. I just wanted to write about the new fun things she is doing so I don't forget!!

Buzz Agent Report - Mahatma Rice

2010-03-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

I have written a couple of reports before, but it has been a while so I will recap. I am a Bzz Agent for this website - bzzagent.com. I am matched up with products they think I would be likely to use and I am supposed to use them and give my HONEST opinion about them. Then I tell my friends about them!

My latest buzz campaign is for Mahatma Rice. I was sent some basmati and jasmine rice and given some ideas on ways to cook them. I have made three dishes so far so I wanted to share my thoughts.

First thing I made was a recipe that they had sent to me to use with the jasmine rice. It was a Spanish rice and I made it to go along with pork chops and glazed carrots. It was delicious! I had never used jasmine rice before so I kind of thought it wouldn't work for a Spanish dish. I thought the dish would smell and taste almost perfume-ish? That is the only way I had ever used jasmine at least. But it didn't at all, there was a great tomato garlic taste and it went great with the pork and veggies.

The second time I made it was not quite as successful, but this time I branched out on my own for a recipe. It was pretty simple, just added some onion and salt and pepper basically. It wasn't awful or anything, just kind of bland. I will probably stick to their suggested recipes from now on.

The last thing I have made was the basmati rice. Jason and I LOVE to go to Roti Grill - either in Uptown or Plano - and get the chicken masala, Texas size, with naan and basmati rice. I figured it couldn't be that hard to make, so I found a chicken masala recipe that got good reviews online and made it. Then I just made the basmati rice according to the directions on the box. The chicken recipe was good, a little too much salt and not enough sauce, but that isn't what I was really testing. The rice was great. It tasted just like it did in the restaurant and went great with the chicken. I will definitely use it again and try to tweak that recipe just a bit for the masala.

Another perk of being a buzz agent is that I get a bunch of coupons for these products. So if you are interested in a coupon for Mahatma rice, comment below or email me and I will happily mail you some coupons!

Remodeling

2010-03-27T18:23:00.001-07:00

When we bought this house we thought 'oh it's perfect, we won't have to do a thing to it!', then we moved in. In the last couple of years we have tried to get a lot done to it to get it ready to sell, probably in about a year. We literally started remodeling our bath rooom two summers ago and only finished it recently so I figured I would put some pictures up to show you how drastically different it looks! Here are the before pictures...

Hideous! And here is the final product...
We also just had our kitchen painted and tile put in. You can't tell as well from these pics, because the linoleum was made to look like tile, but trust me, it is way better!

Before (this is a pic we took when we bought it so this is the former owners drapes and furniture)...

After (imagine the previous shot, standing just to the left and turning a quarter turn to the right)...

We are really happy with the changes. Hopefully our house will sell for WAY more! =)

Day 2 at Disneyland

2010-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

I apologize for taking so long to get to Day 2! If you can't tell, I am catching up on my blogging tonight, so here we go!

The second day we went to the California Adventure theme park. We actually went to this theme park about 4 months after it opened back in 2001 and didn't love it. So we were anxious to see how it had improved. First, we made a stop at DTD to get breakfast at La Brea bakery. I heard they had good scones, so I had to check it out for myself. The scones were good, but my moms homemade granola and strawberries were better!

Soarin' opened early that day and since we happened to be there right when it opened we got right on and rode. LOVE that ride. Every time it is over I just want to clap.

Then we headed to Toy Story Mania. It is a 3D ride and Mom was ready...

Mom waited for me while I rode California Screamin'. It goes upside down and she can't do it. It is a really great roller coaster, though. Very old school, kind of reminds me of the Judge Roy Scream, only WAY better. Then it was off to ride the big Mickey ferris wheel. We rode with another couple who was nice enough to take our picture...

My mom is really into landscaping and flowers and stuff, and we kept noticing how beautiful all of the landscaping was! I think in California things just grow well since it is so temperate all year. These are just some pretty flowers we saw.

It was supposed to rain this day so we had kind of written off riding the Grizzly River Run rapid ride, but it hadn't rained a drop and really wasn't that cold so we decided to don our ponchos and go for it! We got a little wet, but the A&M poncho saved the day.

Mom had been craving kettle corn, so we went on a pilgrimage all over until we found some. It was worth it.
Now came the highlight of my day. The Tower of Terror is my favorite ride at Walt Disney World. I love that feeling of dropping and I love spooky stuff, so this is the perfect ride to me. We went to Disney World when I was in high school and it had just opened so we were all going to ride it. My mom is severely claustrophobic and she ended up chickening out at the last minute. I have told her so many times I thought she would like it and described to her over and over how you aren't in an enclosed space etc. I still did not think she would ride it, but at the last minute she gathered all her courage and rode! The whole time I was worried that she was miserable, but after it was over she gave me a big thumbs up and said she LOVED it! YEAAA!! So we got some fastpasses and rode it again later. Way to go mom!

After ToT we went to see the Alladin show. Now I have to say that the shows in the parks are usually my least favorite thing. It doesn't matter how good they are. I just hardly ever go see them. I mean I have seen the movies and I know the songs and I just don't need to see it acted out for me ya know? But I had read that this one was not to be missed. Even then I still almost skipped it, but I was so glad we didn't! It was in a big theater and they had the magic carpet flying out over the audience. The genie really made the show, though. He was so funny and they had a lot of really current type jokes in the show so that made it even more enjoyable. I would highly recommend it if you go!

We were pretty much done with all the rides and hadn't decided what to do for dinner. We had reservations for Napa Rose - which is supposed to be THE best place to eat in Disneyland - for the next night, but we had kind of thought we might head back to the room early and watch the Oscars. So we decided to go that night and see if there was any chance of getting in. We waited at the bar for an hour for a no show reservation and nothing. So we finally just ordered at the bar, which was full service anyway. IT. WAS. SO. GOOD. I had this mushroom ravioli in a truffle butter sauce on a bed of sauteed vegetables. Holy cow it was so good. You must eat there if you go.

Dinner lasted probably two hours so we were stuffed and tired by the end of it. We were so lucky the rain held off all day until we went to dinner. Then it rained while we ate and stopped by the time we left. Thanks rain! We crawled in to bed and rested up for our last day at the parks. =(

One Ring to Rule Them

2010-03-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

For all my fellow nerds who love them some LOTR humor...

http://xkcd.com/712/

Disneyland Day 1 Trip Report

2010-03-09T19:02:00.000-08:00

My mom and I flew in to Orange County last Thursday night for a trip to Disneyland. I had never been to Disneyland, only Disney World in Florida about 100 times. My boss had told me I needed to be familiar with Disneyland as well. What's that? A trip to Disneyland that I can write off on my taxes? Sign me up!

We checked in to our hotel and then called us a cab to take us to the In N Out burger. For those who are unfamiliar with the ol' In N Out, it is, simply put, the most delicious tasty burger you will ever have. Mom and I had a couple of double doubles animal style. Try to keep from drooling...

Tasty-looking no? We then rolled ourselves in to bed and woke up bright and early so we could be at Disneyland before opening!

Now for those who have been to both theme parks, you know WDW and DL are so similar yet so different. They have so many of the same rides in name, but most of them are at least a little different. I will try not to bore you too much every detail of every ride we rode, just the highlights. =)

First thing, we basically did all of Fantasyland. Once all the kids get to the theme park it gets SO crowded, so if you can knock out all those little rides first, you can get on to the bigger rides quicker. I liked DL's FL waaaay better than WDW's. WDW is currently starting an overhaul of their FL to make it more like DL's and now I see why. At WDW all the rides sort of resemble a carnival facade and at DL you really feel like you are in a little Medieval village. They also have several rides that WDW doesn't have, like the Alice in Wonderland ride which was SO cute and has inspired my ideas for Bella's 2nd birthday party. Too late to do it for her first. =) They also have this cute little boat ride called Storybook Land Canal boats. You just go around and there are all these little miniature villages of the famous Disney tales. Here are a couple pics. You can see the whale's mouth from Pinocchio and Aladdin's castle.

Next up was Space Mountain. My mom can't ride because she doesn't like the dark so I went alone. Once again, better than WDW! They play music and I think that adds a lot to it.

The rest of the day we just made our way through a bunch of the rides. My mom's favorite is Big Thunder Mountain and mine is Splash Mountain. I can say I like SM better at WDW. It is longer and the logs you ride in are better. I was very sad because the Matterhorn was closed for refurbishment. This is like the classic DL attraction and I was not able to check it off my list. What's that? I will have to take another trip? Well, if you insist! I did get a picture though...

For lunch we ate at Blue Bayou which is a restaurant inside on the banks of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was really dark with lanterns everywhere. You totally felt like you were outside at night.

In the afternoon we left the parks and went walking around the Disney hotels. This is the great thing about Disneyland Resort as opposed to WDW Resort. You can walk EVERYWHERE. There are only 3 on site hotels, 2 parks and 1 Downtown Disney and they are all just right there. It takes you maybe one full minute to get from the entrance to DL to the entrance of California Adventure. At WDW it would take you a good 30 minutes door to door to get from the Magic Kindom to Epcot. It was definitely less of an immersive experience, but I don't know that you could say that was a bad thing.

We cooled our heels for a while at the Grand Californian. It was starting to get chilly so we grabbed a glass of wine and sat by the big fire place in their lobby. This hotel is VERY similar to the Wilderness Lodge hotel at WDW for those who are familiar. While we sat there, a cast member came by to engage us all in conversation and to tell us the tall tales of California. He was dressed like a hiker to fit the atmosphere and was so fun to listen to. This is just one reason I love Disney. Their attention to detail is un-rivaled. Where else can you go that has a job solely responsible for talking to guests about California legend? Love it!

We finally headed back to DL to see the fireworks and they were honestly not that impressive. They stole half the show from WDW's Wishes show and Sleeping Beauty's castle is so much smaller than Cinderella's castle that it just doesn't have that added something that the huge castle brings to the show.

All in all it was a GREAT day. We headed back for a good night's sleep and to say our prayers that there would be no rain the next day. There was a 90% chance!! Stay tuned to find out if we end up soaked or Soarin'. Ha, I know cheesy!

A Weekend Away!

2010-03-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

I am back from the Happiest Place on Earth! Jason was a total sweetheart to watch Bells for a few days while my mom and I went on a 'business trip' to Disneyland. I had never been and I loved it!

Jason took Bella to see her Grandparents while I was gone. Apparently she is now standing for 20 - 30 seconds at a time not holding on to anything! She hasn't taken any steps yet, but I am betting on any day now! He would send me pictures of her and I couldn't believe how big she looked. I was gone for only four days, but when they came to pick me up it was like a different baby! She is almost a little girl! Does anyone else feel this way? She will be 11 months next week and I just can't believe how the time has flown.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and that I promise I will be writing, probably multiple, blogs to detail my trip to Disneyland. I have to get some pictures downloaded first, but stay tuned!

What a great weekend!

2010-03-01T13:39:00.001-08:00

So this past weekend was a blip in this cold, wet winter we have been having. It was sunny and warm(ish) and gorgeous for once! I was determined to get outside and enjoy it.

On Saturday, Jason and I went to eat lunch at Gloria's, and even though it was a little chilly, we sat on the patio. Bella had a great time and has decided she is a fan of the black bean dip.

After that, I went to meet my friend Brooke at Katy Trail for a little exercise. I had never been to Katy Trail can you believe that? What kind of Dallasite am I? Well, I was feeling very Dallasy cause after that we went to Pearl Cup and had a latte while on our laptops. I actually had some work to do this weekend so it was nice to relax and work while Jason watched the munchkin.

Sunday we went to church and then went to eat at Dream Cafe. Cloud Cakes - yum! Jason watched Bella again so I could go see The Princess and the Frog before it left theaters. Again, can you believe I haven't seen that already? Some Disney fan I am.

All in all it was a lovely, relaxing weekend and it totally made up for the rainy mess that is this Monday. And I am going to Disneyland in 4 days!!! Woohoo!

Happy New Year!

2010-02-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I realize New Year was almost two months ago, but our year started off a little, well, not so great. Seemed like just one thing after another ya know? Migraines, stomach bugs, burst pipes, dog bites. Seemed like we would get past one thing just to have something else pop up. So I decided that February 1 would be our New Year. I do also realize that was almost a month ago, but I just have been really really busy so this is going to be a LONG post. So tuck in and hopefully you will stayed tuned to the end. =)

I won't chronicle every step of January - just the good stuff. First I got season tickets to the new Dallas Center of Performance Arts downtown and so I got to see South Pacific early in the year. Then a couple weeks ago I got to go see August:Osage County. Both were awesome and I still have two more shows to go! If you haven't been to the new theater, I highly recommend it. SO much better than Music Hall at Fair Park.

So the last weekend in January my mom kept Isabella for the weekend. Jason and I did WHATEVER we wanted all weekend. It was such a nice break. We saw like 3 movies and ate out every meal. So great. Here is a picture my mom sent me of Bella trying to give my sister's dog a kiss at my mom's house. Looks like she is trying to eat her though haha.

The week before Bella had a stomach bug and I worried she wouldn't be able to go stay with Nana. She felt so bad that she would just fall asleep at any given moment. I caught some cute pics of her falling asleep on our bed, which she has NEVER done. Made me just want to cuddle up with her...

She has gotten so big lately. She just loves to play with all her toys and she pulls up on everything. Case in point...

Here she is giving me her scrunchy nose smile. That is also what she looks like sometimes when she is mad so I am not always sure. I just love this picture where her hair is all crazy after a nap. So adorable...

A few weeks ago Dallas had the biggest snow ever on record. It was so gorgeous. Even though I am so so sick of the cold weather - 85 and sunny is the perfect weather to me - if it has to be cold, I guess snow is a nice touch.

Bella liked the snow too...

Here is another recent picture of Isabella with her horse that her Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jared gave her for Christmas. She likes riding on it, though she can't really balance yet. Is she the cutest thing you have EVER seen or what?

So those are just a few things we have been up to. Jason had his 31st birthday - happy late birthday honey! - and Bella has started going to Mother's Day Out one day a week, which is keeping me sane. Now that she is so mobile I feel like I get nothing done! I am getting more and more busy with my job so that is fun! Other than that, we are just loving being parents to the cutest 10 month old baby in the world. What's that? YOUR baby is the cutest? Not possible, sorry. =)

I thought about listing all my New Year's Resolutions so that I might actually stick to them, but in January I had like 20 and now I can't remember them all. Ha. Some resolution right? I do remember a couple that I still have a chance of keeping. I got the Rosetta Stone for Italian for Christmas so I want to work through that and then continue taking Italian lessons. I also have a couple of scrapbooks that I want to start working on. I am really NOT an artsy/craftsy or creative person at all, so it is hard to motivate myself to do it, but I know I will be glad I did. Hmmm, yep those are the only two I remember.

Well, I hope everyone else's year has been great. Our February has been great so far so let's hope the rest of 2010 is great as well!

Sweet Dog Needs Good Home

2010-01-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

So 2010 didn't start out great. The first four days of it I had a migraine headache that I could not get rid of. The fifth day, I was feeling so much better and then the worst thing happened. Our sweet dog Boomer bit Isabella. She was crawling around in the kitchen while I fed the dogs and once Boomer started eating, she just went straight for him. I turned my back for two seconds and didn't see her or even think about the fact that she shouldn't be on the ground while they were eating. Anyway, she got too close and Boomer just turned and snapped at her and got her in the face. I, of course, freaked out. She is totally fine, her wounds are almost totally healed already, but obviously it could have been a lot worse.

The reason I am writing this bummer of a blog is that Boomer needs to find a new home. He is really a sweet dog. He isn't a big fan of kids so the ideal home would be an older person(s) who has no kids around. He loves adults and we are absolutely heartbroken to have to get rid of him, but we just can't risk it happening again. So basically if you are reading this and know anyone looking to rescue a dog, please let me know. They or you can email me at kellitrent@gmail.com with any questions. We are just praying we can find him someone who will love him as much as we do!

Second Annual Top 10 Song List

2010-01-09T08:19:00.002-08:00

So last year I made a list of top 10 songs for the year. When I thought about doing it this year, my first thought was 'when did I have time to listen to music? There is now way I could come up with 10 good ones!' But I just started thinking about it and suddenly I had a ton to choose from! So I put together my list for 2010. Just like last year, this list is not necessarily songs that came out this year, they are just the ones that were on my personal radar for the year. So here we go!

10. The Resolution - Jack's Mannequin
I am pretty sure I heard this song last year, but I really listened to it, over and over, this year. Nothing profound to say about this one, I just like it.

9. The Climb - Miley Cyrus
Yes, I know. Miley made my top 10, but I LOVE this song. When Isabella was first born and I was up many times during the night feeding her and feeding her took a LONG time at first, I would have the Christian radio station playing. And they played this song all the time. So whenever I hear it I always think back to those wee hours of morning when it was quiet and dark and Bella was so tiny. Sounds so sweet right now, but I am pretty sure at the time I was tired and wishing I could sleep. =)

8. Geraldine - Glasvegas
I can't understand 90% of the words in this song without looking them up because this band is Scottish. But this song has a great beat and tune and I love the way he says Geraldine.

7. Til Summer Comes Around - Keith Urban
This song FEELS like what he is singing about. When I listen to it I feel like I am standing on this pier as the sun goes down on another summer. I need a jacket and am just feeling so sad and hopeless. Ha, not sure why that means it makes my top ten but it does.

6. Lights Out - Santigold
No idea what it is about, but I used to sing the 'darlinnnn' part to Bella all the time and she would always smile, so maybe that is why I like it.

5. Ramalama (Bang Bang) - Roisin Murphy
I first heard this song on So You Think You Can Dance this summer. They were showing some routines from past seasons and this was a group Wade Robson routine that I had never seen. It was awesome and so is this song.

4. Very Busy People - The Limousines
So I have always been kind of a goody two shoes, but there is this tiny little rebel in me that secretly likes vulgar songs that are full of swear words. That little rebel picked this song to be on my list. If you decide to go give it a listen, please don't judge me. =)

3. You Don't Know Me - Ben Folds
A great song that has great insight about way too many people's relationships. When I was pregnant I would get things stuck in my head all the time - songs, phrases, names whatever - and I would literally wake up all the time with this song already going. At least it was a song I loved!

2. Should You Return - Copeland
This is a band that I heard about on the ACL message boards and after giving them a listen on My Space (does anyone use that anymore?), I got their CD 'You Are My Sunshine'. The whole thing is great, including another haunting song Strange and Unprepared, but this one is my fave.

1. Hey Now - Augustana
2009 was the year of Augustana for me. I bought their last CD when Sweet and Low came out, but only listened to that song for the longest time since I didn't love their first CD, even though Boston is a great song. This year I started listening to it and played it over and over and over while I got Bella's nursery all painted and put together and then it became my CD of choice for those late nights when I wasn't listening to Miley on 94.9. =) 20 Years almost made the list, but I decided to stick with just this one song. SO good. I was lucky enough to get to hear them sing it live this summer on their tour with Counting Crows.

So that is my list. Like last year I will add a few honorable mentions that didn't make the list, but also were some faves of 2009. First is Use Somebody - Kings of Leon. I really liked it when it first came out, but now I am honestly kind of sick of it. Bad Romance by Lady Gaga is another one that I heard first on SYTYCD and loved. I have to admit, I am a LG fan. Jai Ho, the theme song to Slumdog Millionaire, is another great song - put it on your workout playlist. Last I am going to add Cath... by Death Cab. It was actually on my HM list last year, but only because I had really just heard it, but I kept loving it all this year, so I am giving it another mention.

Last year I asked for comments on what your favorite songs were for the year. I don't think anyone replied, but I will ask again because I always like to hear new music. So let me know! Happy listening in 2010!

All Bella wanted for Christmas...

2010-01-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

...was her two front teeth, and she got 'em! The weeks leading up to Christmas were trying for me and Bells because she was not sleeping well. She would take forever to go down for naps and would wake up several times at night. That is VERY unlike her so I was starting to get very frustrated. However, when we were at my parents, she got her first tooth! The bottom left one and then within a couple of days she got the matching one to the right. You could barely see them at first, but now they are much more pronounced and when she chews on my fingers now I have to be careful to get them out of the way of the teeth. And now she is sleeping MUCH better. I can't believe she has teeth!! She seems too little. It just reminds me how I need to really enjoy every second. She is getting so big and I know I will turn around and she will be a grown person.

She is also crawling and pulling up on everything so I am having to be super careful about watching her. We have started baby proofing, but still have a lot to do. I know every stage is cuter than the last, but she is at the cutest stage! She smiles so much and gets so tickled about things. Her newest thing is to shake her head when she gets really excited. She will smile and just shake it real quick back and forth. No idea why, but it is cute. Here she is with her horse that Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jared got her for Christmas...

Isn't she the cutest?

Christmas 2009

2010-01-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

We kicked off our Christmas celebration this year with our annual Texmas party that we have every year with some of our friends. This year it was at Lacey's house. We had a delicious meal and played Catch Phrase, per usual. We brought Isabella with us and put her to bed in her pack n play so we could stay up late! Here is a family pic...

The next day we drove to Tyler and back to have Christmas with my mom's side of the family. My Uncle Ronnie hadn't seen Isabella yet and we haven't gotten to see them in forever so it was a nice treat!

The next weekend Jason's parents came down for our Christmas celebration with them. I got to use my pretty new chargers and table runner and we busted out the china for the occasion. =)

We opened our last, and best, bottle of wine we got in Italy and Jason and his dad grilled out awesome steaks, and we of course opened presents and had a great time. I got some much needed Northpark gold so I spent the next day at the mall!

We headed to Tyler on Wednesday before Christmas and had the gathering with my dad's side of the family that night. So many of my cousins have kids now so it is fun to watch all the kiddos and one of them is exactly a year older than Isabella, so it was fun to see how she reacted to everything, thinking that is how Bella will be next year.

Christmas Eve we braved it and took Bella to church with us. It is a short Lord's supper service so I just came prepared with every trick I could think of to keep her quiet and she actually did REALLY well. Jason took her out at the very end, but for the most part she was good. We changed our normal tradition of going to Outback to eat afterward and tried a new Chinese place. Then we went home and watched Home Alone before hitting it.

Christmas morning Bella was up early and Amanda and Jared got there around 8 so we spent the morning opening gifts. Here is my sister's outfit. =) Sorry Manda!

I truly love Christmas morning opening gifts with my family. I realize that is probably a 'duh' statement, but not just because we get gifts, but just because we are all so cozy in our pjs and we just sit and talk and enjoy each other for two or three hours. I mean when else do you do that? Anyway, I got season tickets to the new Dallas Performing Arts Center for their Broadway series so I was SO excited about that and am going to see South Pacific this Sunday! Bella got the cutest little slippers...doesn't she look adorable?

Every year we bundle up and go out to my dad's land and make a bonfire and roast hot dogs and make s'mores, so this year we took Bella out. I was worried she would get cold and fussy, but she did great!

It was a great Christmas this year, as always, and I really can't wait until next year when Bella will be a little more aware of what is going on.

Christmas at Disney Trip Report

2009-12-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

I fully realize how far behind I am on my blogging so I am going to just have to kind of scan over my trip to Disney so I can get to all my Christmas, end of year lists and updates on Bella blogging!

Day 1 - It was snowing as I left DFW and then I flew in to MCO where it was a lovely 80 degrees. I hopped on Magical Express and was at Pop Century in no time. I had never stayed here, but had heard good things so I was excited. The theme was pretty cool. Each section is a different decade so there were giant homages to the 70's, 80s and so on. I was in the 80s and so there were over sized computer type things and it said like 'Radical' and had people wearing leg warmers all over the place.

I headed out to MK first. It is all decorated for Christmas as you can see...

They just redid Space Mountain so I rode it first. They now have these games you can play while waiting in line. The ride itself didn't seem much different, but maybe a little smoother. After riding a couple other things I toured Wilderness Lodge, Contemporary, Poly and Grand Floridian to see all the cool decorations. Here are a few pics...

WL (my personal fave)...

Contemporary (that tree is made of real ginger bread)

Grand Floridian and the mother of all Gingerbread Houses. Made totally of edible ingredients!

I then headed back to MK for a reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern - which was my FAVORITE meal the whole trip. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes. Yum. I also got to see the lighting of the castle. They do this whole show where Cinderella has a Christmas wish that her castle would sparkle like her glass slippers and the fairy godmother grants her wish by lighting up the castle. It is so pretty. Sort of makes you tear up. Ok, well it makes me tear up. =)

Then I watched Wishes and headed back to my hotel.

Day 2 - Slept in until almost 8 o clock! Then I headed to Epcot. I rode Soarin' first. I always go back and forth on which ride is my fave. Soarin' or Tower of Terror. I still think ToT wins, but I heart Soarin'. I had a lunch reservation at Rose and Crown, but I went by to see the Canada movie first. I hadn't seen it since they redid it with Martin Short and I really liked it! R&C was delicious. Had some Bangers and Mash and then headed off to try to see all the holiday storytellers. Each country has their 'mascot' of the holidays tell the Christmas, or whatever holiday they celebrate, story and it was SO much fun. Norway had a funny gnome that helps tell the story and in Italy there is a witch. I didn't get to hit every country, though, because I had tickets for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!

MVMCP Review portion of the blog - I definitely had fun. You get 'free' hot chocolate and cookies and they had a cute show in Tomorrowland and in front of the castle. There is also a special parade, which I didn't love. It was VERY slow, with sometimes minutes between floats. Not sure if it was just an off night, but just wasn't great. However, the Christmas Wishes fireworks were just as good if not better than normal Wishes. LOVED it. They also had snow on main street which was fun. But I would say I like Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party better for sure. Also, really only like Main Street and the hub are decorated. If you are anywhere else in the park you might not even know it was any other time of year. Kind of disappointing.

Day 3 - Today it rained. All. Day. Long. Lots and lots of rain. And it turned cold. I braved it and went to Hollywood Studios. Luckily all the rides there are inside so I rode ToT, Rock N Roller Coaster, Great Movie Ride and Toy Story Mania. Then I headed over to the Boardwalk because I had lunch plans at Captain's Grille. I so wish it hadn't been raining so hard. I had never been to the Boardwalk area and it looked really neat! I would really like to go back on a nice night. I bet there are lots of cool things going on. Captain's Grille was good. Didn't have as much seafood on the menu as I had hoped, but still tasty. I really didn't want to get back in the rain at this point, so I went ahead and headed to my room and took a nap and watched TV for a while. It was honestly really nice to just be able to relax and do nothing. You moms all know what I am talking about. =)

That night was the only day I had to see the Osborne Lights so I made myself go back out in the rain back to DHS to see them. I had been told they had them no matter of rain or what. So I go back out there, head to the Streets of America annnnnd...no lights. I asked a cast member what the deal was and he said he didn't know. That they always have the lights even when it rains so there must be a malfunction. I convinced myself it would be just minutes before they came on so I walked around for a bit and then on the loud speakers you hear 'Ladies and Gentlemen. Due to adverse weather the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights has been CANCELLED'. =( Talk about disappointed. This was like THE thing I wanted to see on my trip and I had to leave the next day. I was pretty bummed, so I just went back to the hotel, got a pizza and some wine from the food court and went back to my room to gorge and watch TV.

Day 4 - I had gotten breakfast ressies at Boma, so I headed to Animal Kingdom Lodge. I was almost 40 minutes late due to no busses coming to pick us up on time, but they still let me in! =) It was really good, but I don't know if I would have gone there if I had to pay for it. (I had free dining this trip) Kind of pricey. AKL was awesome though. Reminded me a lot of WL. Here is a pic...

I then headed to Animal Kingdom and rode Expedition Everest. It wasn't raining as much this day, just sprinkling, but going on a roller coaster in the rain is not the best idea I learned! Kind of stings. I decided to spend the rest of my trip at Magic Kingdom. They were supposed to be filming the Christmas parade that day at MK, but they had canceled it due to the weather. This worked out to my advantage when I was boarding Pirates of the Caribbean only to see Kelly Ripa (she hosts the parade) and her family boarding right behind me! Pretty cool. I just rode all the things I hadn't gotten to yet. Saw the new Hall of Presidents with the new Obama animatronic. But alas, my trip had to end sometime. I hopped a plane back to DFW around 7 and was home around 9. I missed my baby girl SO much. I think it was even worse since I was alone and had all the time in the world to think about her. Not sure how I will do if Jason and I go for a week's vacation sometime later this year!!

Bella - Almost 8 months!

2009-12-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry I have been so bad about updating lately. I was gone for almost two weeks straight - first for Thanksgiving to Norman and then I went to Walt Disney World for a few days (trip report coming soon I promise/hope!) and so I have been playing catch up all week.

While in Norman, we visited Bella's great-grandmother. Here is a pic of four generations of Trents!

Bella is growing so much! She stayed with my mom while I was at Disney and while she was there she started sitting up on her own. Meaning she could be laying down on her back, would turn over and then push up in to a sitting position! She is also starting to pull herself up to her knees. She likes to grab on to the handles of her dresser and pull up and play with them.

And I mean look at just how gosh darn cute she is!

Another new thing is she likes to say 'dadadada' allll the time. No mama yet, but I am trying! She has also learned to whisper so she says dada real quiet. It is so cute!

She has also started something new that is not so cute. We have always had a real good routine with nap times and bed times. I have a routine that I do before every nap and bed time. She knows it and usually cries when I start, because she knows it is time for a nap. But she has always been fine once I put her in her crib and falls asleep within like two minutes of being put down. All the sudden this whole week she takes FOREVER to go to sleep for her nap. Like right now. I put her down at 9:20. She was yawning and rubbing her eyes, acting super tired. It is almost 10 and she still isn't asleep. I don't know what to do!! If anyone has any wisdom to impart on this subject please help!!

Yum Yum!

2009-11-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

I had mentioned before that Bella wasn't really taking to solid foods too well. We tried cereal first, then we tried a slew of other things, both veggies and fruits and she was not interested. Until one day. Literally all the sudden she just decided she liked to eat. The first thing she really ate was pears. Up until then she would take one or two bites and then just refuse to open her mouth at all. This day she would open her mouth wanting more and more. I couldn't believe it! Since then she has eaten just about everything I have given her. She doesn't seem to love peas or cereal still, but she eats everything else! Here is a pic of her after lunch today with peas (yes I keep trying) on her face. Sorry it is a little dark...

Kiley's First Birthday

2009-11-22T19:08:00.000-08:00

Recently we went to my friend Lacey's daughter Kiley's first birthday. She had a Minnie Mouse themed party so Lacey made all the kids Mouse Ears with bows on them that would match what they were wearing, which was such a cute idea.

Here is Kiley with her very first birthday cake. She wasn't really sure what to do with it though...

The funny part came when we tried to get all the babies on the couch for a picture, but Bella and another little girl were only interested in checking each other out. So cute...

What I don't have a picture of is Bella trying to lick that little girl as well as trying to gouge her eyes out.

Here is a better pic of Bella so you can see her cute ears...

It was a great party and it is getting me thinking about what we are going to do for Isabella Jane's first birthday!

Get Up for Cheap!

2009-11-13T07:28:00.000-08:00

So I am a couponer. Since I quit my job to take care of our little munchkin I have been trying to save money any way I can and sometimes I find some really good deals. I just wanted to share a great deal I found yesterday. If you like Disney movies (or technically Pixar) you will love Up. If you have already seen it you know how great it is. Well, right now Walmart has the Blu-Ray DVD 4 pack unit on sale from $24.96 to $19.96. If you go get this coupon - http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/up/couponoffer/ - you can get it for $9.96!! It comes with the Blu-Ray DVD AND the regular DVD, as well as bonus features and the digital file to download on your computer. Pretty good deal if you ask me! Not sure how long this will last, but I just thought I would send it out.

Happy Halloween

2009-11-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

This year for Bella's first Halloween we dressed her up as a mermaid. I know what you are thinking. It's Kelli, must be Ariel from the Little Mermaid...but no! I am trying to lay low on the Disney until she is older. I don't want to over Disney her, I mean what if she got sick of it and decided she didn't like Disney? That would be bad. So anyway, she was an adorable little mermaid. My friend Lacey has several friends with babies so we all got together to take cute pictures and have some delicious food!

Here is Jason with our little amphibian...

I think this one is funny because it looks like Bella is concerned about the crying baby...

This gave me chills...

2009-11-01T18:20:00.001-08:00

http://fromthepasture.blogspot.com/2009/10/other-september-11th-attack.html

Bella - She's getting so big!

2009-10-28T19:43:00.001-07:00

Last weekend Bella, Jason and I met up with my mom's group from church at the Arboretum. Believe it or not, it was my first time there! We tried to go last spring before she was born, but the line just to get on the shuttle to take you over there was crazy long, so we didn't end up going. It looks like fun and I am sure we will go back a lot once she gets a little older. We didn't really explore too much, but we did get some cute little pictures of her in the pumpkin patch. We also did a group shot with all the kiddos in their Halloween costumes. Bella is supposed to be a mermaid, but she was super fussy and I couldn't quite get her 'tail' pulled down over her feet in time for the picture. Also her seashell headband wouldn't stay on. My friend Allison's daughter Lila was the same thing so see the bottom row second from the right for what she should have looked like. =)

Also, like I have mentioned before, I have been doing training for my new job in my spare time. I have gotten all kinds of certifications from all sorts of cruise lines and destinations. But the best one? Disney of course! I got my graduation pack in the mail the other day and Bella wanted to model for me...

How cute is that?

ACL 2009

2009-10-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am so far behind on my blogging, I apologize. I have been SO busy still with my training for work, but it seems to be slowing down a little bit so I will try to catch up with everything I have been putting off!

First up, ACL 2009. Let's see if I can still remember what we did...it was almost a month ago.

We left Bella with my parents for a 4 day weekend to Austin. We love ACL and go pretty much every year, so I had asked my mom to babysit that weekend before Bella was even born. We headed down Thursday night so we could be there first thing Friday when everything starts. It was hard to say good bye to my little angel, but in the end it was SO nice to have a weekend where I could sleep in!

Friday morning we made the requisite trip to Kerbey Lane for breakfast and I had my staple of baked potato omelet and blueberry pancakes. SO delicious. We got to the festival around 1:30 that day just in time to catch Blitzen Trapper who I actually liked more than I anticipated. I liked the music I had heard from them before ok, but in person I thought they were really good. Reminded me a little of Counting Crows, who we all know are my favorite!

After BT we met up with Amanda and Jared over at Todd Snider. He was hilarious! If you get a chance to see him live you must do it. He is so funny. I had never heard any of his music before, but he was a hoot for sure. Next up was Phoenix who was one of the bands I was most excited about seeing. And they were good. Sounded just like the radio and they played all the songs I love, but that was about it. Nothing stood out as an amazing performance or anything, although I did learn they are French and the lead singer has a kid with Sofia Coppola. Interesting.

After that we pretty much just walked around and got something to eat, then staked out a place for Kings of Leon. I really don't know much about them except for their new stuff, but they were really good! They put on a great show and even the songs I didn't know I found myself bopping along with them. =) Also, I have to mention how great the weather was this day. Normally for ACL it is at least one million degrees outside and not a cloud to be seen. It was probably 85 and partly cloudy most of the afternoon. Greatness.

Saturday didn't turn out as good. It was in the forecast to rain so we brought some umbrellas and rain jackets, but it was more than a shower here and there. It would just pour down rain for an hour or two at a time. By about 4 o clock we declared ourselves huge wusses and went home. It was kind of a bummer, because I was really looking forward to seeing Flogging Molly, The Scabs and The Decemberists. Flogging Molly we did see, but I was hunched under an umbrella trying not to get soaking wet. They were so good, I am going to try to see them again under dryer circumstances.

After we left, we went to a place to eat where the waitresses wear orange shorts and tights. We had some wings and watched the devastation that was the Arkansas/A&M game. It was fun, but I wish we had won. If you are following the Aggies this year, they are continuing to baffle me. Super inconsistent. Anyway...

Sunday we actually spent a good portion of the morning going to Academy and every other store in the vicinity looking for rain gear. And guess what? So was everyone else. They were out of EVERYTHING. We did find one awesome A&M umbrella...not sure why no one in Austin wanted it. So we didn't get to ACL until a little later, but we did catch the Toadies and they sang all the cool songs I remember from college. Ahh, made me feel young again. =) I got to see a little bit of Ben Harper and The Dead Weather, and some of Michael Franti while waiting for Pearl Jam, who was also great. But what I have not mentioned was how awesome Zilker Park was. And when I say awesome, I mean muddy. I wore flip flops because it was all I had. About two steps in I realized that was not going to work. They were getting stuck so far in the mud I finally took them off. I and about a third of the people at ACL, spent the day barefoot, walking around in a good 2-6 inches of mud. Honestly it was kind of fun. And though the forecast called for it to be cold and rainy all day, it was perfect weather. Maybe a little cloudy early on, but as the day passed, the sun came out and it didn't rain once!

They are having ACL in October again next year which makes me SO happy. Hopefully this time it won't rain!

Hi ho, hi ho...

2009-10-14T19:26:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned before I have a new job. It is pretty much the most perfect job I could have asked for at this stage in my life. First let me talk about how I came upon it. When I first decided to stay home with Isabella, I knew it would be hard. I knew I would miss my old job and my friends there and I knew I would miss having a second income! But I kept thinking, if it gets that bad I can always get another job.

So after a few months of staying home with Bella, I started trying to think of things that I could do from home to make some money and not have to put her in day care. Now if you know me well at all, you know I am somewhat (to put it lightly) of a Disney fanatic. I also love to travel and I really think half the fun is planning out the whole vacation. So I listen to these Disney podcasts, and had always heard about this company called Mouse Fan Travel. They are a travel agency that specializes in Disney travel, but also does all kinds of travel as well. So I inquired about job opportunities on their web site and it just so happened they were going to be hiring in the next couple months. The job was a work from home position that was completely flexible around your schedule and you work whatever hours you want. I couldn't think of anything more perfect for myself so I applied and after a few weeks of interviews and such I got the job!

So now I am an affiliate of MEI & Mouse Fan Travel. I am currently going through training, which is intense to say the least. The first few days were going through the College of Disney Knowledge (did you know there was such a thing?), and now I am learning every detail about all aspects of the cruising industry. Last week I learned all about Princess, Carnival and Cunard cruise lines. This week it is Royal Caribbean and Celebrity. Not sure what is up next, but I have also had to take courses on Mexico, Weddings and Honeymoons, Spa Excursions and Orlando in general. I have learned about every port in the world and everything you can do there. I am seriously going to be equipped to be the best travel agent ever!

So if you like to travel or know someone who does, send them my way! It doesn't cost anything to use a travel agent (well, I think some charge a fee, but we don't). We get really good deals with Disney, cruise lines and all kinds of packages and I seriously love to plan vacations so I am excited to get started! Alright there is my little plug for myself. =)

Anyway, the training is a LOT more than I thought it would be, so I have been SO SO SO busy with that. Three days will go by and I realize I haven't even left the house because every spare second I have I am doing this online training. But it is fun! If this whole thing works out, I think it could seriously be the most perfect job for me. So wish me luck, and now...back to training....

Bella's Play Time

2009-10-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

So I am sure you parents all have this issue. How to keep your little one entertained. Obviously you can't play with them 24/7, so I am constantly trying to find new things that will entertain Bella. Has anyone noticed that their kids seem to like random non-toys better than anything? Currently spoons are much adored while we are in the kitchen. However today, after making her play on the floor alone so I could do some cleaning, I decided I needed to give her some attention. We went in the nursery and got on the floor and I got out a bunch of stuffed animals. I was putting on a production of Annie with her doll rattle as Annie and a bunny as Daddy Warbucks, but was she interested? Nope. What did she want to play with? The carpet. I am not kidding. She just wanted to lean over and grab the shag carpet and run her hands over it. Wouldn't even look at me.

Want to know what her absolute favorite toy right now is though?

My iPhone! I cannot blame her as I am also addicted to it, but she is so funny. When she sees it she gets this frenzied look on her face like 'I MUST HAVE IT!'. Especially if I turn on the iPod.

She went to stay with Nana and Grampa while we were in Austin last weekend and it was so weird when I got back. I missed her so much and I swear she looked different! She also basically could not have cared less that I was back. She just looks at me like 'hmmm you look familiar, but whatever'. She did the same thing to me this weekend after she visited her Grammy and Poppy in Oklahoma. My husband took her to visit his parents and when she got home she wouldn't even smile at me and only wanted Jason. It made me pretty sad, but I guess that is normal.

Other than that we are doing good. She turns six months in TWO DAYS!! I can't believe it. She has her checkup on Friday so I will update later with all her new stats.

I know! I know!

2009-10-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

I realize I have not updated my blog lately with any news about Bella, Austin City Limits or my new job (yes I have a new job!). I apologize, but I have been SO SO SO busy with the three aforementioned things in the last couple of weeks that I just have not had time. I promise details are coming soon on all of these things, but for now....back to my job training!

Look Ma! No Hands!

2009-09-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

So in the last few days Bella has gotten much better at sitting up. In the past if we would just kind of barely support her she would sit, but now without holding her at all she can sit up! If she starts moving around much or goes to grab something she usually topples over, but if she is just sitting there not doing much she is completely self sufficient! Here are a couple pics of her new achievement. She looks a little shocked. =)

I don't heart gardening

2009-09-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

I really don't like to garden. I would think, being a woman, it would be ingrained in my DNA somewhere to love to plant things and watch them grow, but no. I am missing that gene. And I am really not sure why I don't like it. I love doing things outdoors. I actually am fond of manual labor. I know that sounds weird, but I worked at Bath and Body Works for seven years and my favorite part was doing stock in the back room. I love putting together furniture from Ikea and Target. I even like cleaning, doing laundry and I love cooking. So I am not sure why gardening seems such an awful task to me. Maybe it stems from the times when my dad used to make me pick up sticks in the yard as a kid. On those rare occasions I truly felt as if life was beyond unfair and my dad was trying to torture me.

I have not done anything with our flower beds in a year. Last fall I was in my first trimester so I was either too tired or feeling too sick to do it and then this spring I had something else that needed nourishing. =) So the gardening has taken a back seat. A few weeks ago I bought some pretty flowers with every intention of planting them, but then it rained for the next three weekends. So today I was all geared up and ready to go on the gardening front. It was nice weather, so I got out there and fertilized our yard. Ran out of fertilizer, but so far so good. Then I raked out all the leaves and old mulch from the beds. Not too bad. Then I have to get down on my hands and knees and pull up weeds. Ugh. They are so hard to get out. And I am pretty sure most of it is actually grass that somehow didn't get fully dug up when we created these flower beds. It is a pain in my, well, knees and back mostly. I swear it was in the 70s this morning, but I was sweating profusely. I was also trying to hurry because I was trying to get this all done before Bella woke up, since Jason wasn't home.

I finally get all the weeds up and then I sort of hoed up the dirt and then mixed in some new soil. About this time Bella wakes up so I didn't get to actually plant the flowers, but that part will be easy. Anyway, this is only the first flower bed. My next task is to plant my tomatoes that Jason got me and then I have to dig up a rose bush so I can turn our back yard garden in to an herb garden. I am actually excited about that part. I would love to have fresh herbs to cook with!

Anyway, if you have any ideas how to make gardening more enjoyable, please send them my way! =)

Mark 10:13-16

2009-09-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend we baptized Isabella Jane. It was a big weekend for her and all her grandparents and her aunt and uncle came in to be a part of it. She did pretty good. She didn't cry or anything when they sprinkled water on her head or held her up to be showed off to the congregation. But then she cried when he started baptizing the other babies. Guess she still wanted to be the center of attention. =) Our good friends Gabby, Jessica, Jarrett and Chris also came to see as well as Gabby's sweet parents who I have known for many years. Here are some pics from my little angels special day!

Bella with the whole fam...

Our friends the Reeds and Jordans

Bella with her Aunt Amanda...

The girls...

Bella with Grammy and Poppy...

Bella with Grampa and Nana...

Bella with Grampa...

It was a great weekend. We went to Breadwinners afterward to celebrate with some tasty food. Thanks to everyone for coming to visit! I love you guys.

Happiness is a Beatles Top 10 List

2009-09-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

Recently Rock Band released a version of their game entirely dedicated to the Beatles. Because of this, Entertainment Weekly - my favorite magazine - dedicated last weeks issue entirely to the Beatles. One of the articles they published was what they considered to be the Top 50 Beatles songs and they also did a Top 5 Worst songs. I am a Beatles fan. My dad had the Abbey Road record when I was little and we would listen to it, but I really got in to them a lot more in college. I don't have all their albums, but I do have quite a few. The White Album is probably my fave. After reading EW last week I went through a few days of listening to nothing but The Beatles. I have told you all before how much I love to make lists for everything, so I thought I needed my own list of best Beatles songs. I don't have the time or erudition to make a Top 50, so mine will just be a Top 10. But here are my favorite Beatles songs and a quick blurb as to why. Enjoy!

10. Maxwell Silver Hammer - This is the song my dad and I would listen to when I was little. Why did I love a song about a serial killer at such a young age? Who knows. I guess I just liked that it was creepy.

9. Helter Skelter - Is it weird that my first two songs are related to serial killers? I am just now noticing this relation. Anyway, Charles Manson loved it and so do I. It rocks.

8. Michelle - I feel this song doesn't get the credit it deserves. You never hear it on the radio and no one really talks about it, but I just love it. Maybe because I like to sing in French that I don't understand.

7. Let It Be - What if we all just 'let it be'? Wouldn't the world be a better place?

6. Here Comes the Sun - This song was on my wedding video. It is just such a happy, pretty song.

5. Strawberry Fields Forever - This is the first song that I really latched on to when I started listening in college. 'Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see'. Great line.

4. Yesterday - Who hasn't felt what this song says? When I hear it my heart hurts.

3. Rocky Racoon - I have no idea what this song means, but I just love it. 'Her name was McGill, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy'. What?

2. A Day in the Life - I really have no comment about this song other than I just really like it. I never get tired of it.

1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps - This song is just plain beautiful. I mean just the title alone paints such a lovely yet aching picture of someone just letting their instrument share their emotions for them. Gets me every time.

Ok that's it. What do you think? If you are reading this list thinking 'how could you forget...' then let me know what your favorite Beatles song is.

A weekend of firsts

2009-09-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Well this weekend Isabella went to her friend Madison's first birthday party. Her mom and my friend Jennifer had it at Gymboree in Plano. We had never been to Gymboree so I wasn't too sure what to expect, but the lady running it made sure that she gave Isabella activities to do since all the other kids were much older.

Here is Bella in a little rocking chair of sorts...

And here she is getting some tummy time on a ball...

Here we were supposed to hold on to a big round parachute thing, but Bella decided she would rather eat it...

Here Bella was having fun with Dad bouncing her around...

And here is Jen and the birthday girl...

The rest of the weekend I spent cleaning. I had actually bought all these flowers to plant and had grand ideas of doing some major gardening this weekend. However if you live around Dallas you know that it has been acting like a minor hurricane around here the last few days. I can hear someone mowing their yard right now and I am imagining them ankle deep in mud! So no gardening got done, but I did get the house nice and clean.

I am sort of a nerd and make lists for EVERYTHING. So I have a clean the house list on my fridge on a dry erase board. I basically try to clean a little every day and once I have finished a room on my list I check it off and move to the next room. That way I make sure I know every room has been cleaned in at least the recent past. Also, every iteration of this list I have one room that gets a 'deep clean', meaning I do fan blades, baseboards, move everything out of the way instead of vacuuming around it, etc. This weekend I did the kitchen and talk about gross! I got Jason to move the refrigerator this time. I literally have not moved it since we moved in to this house. I am guessing (hoping?) this is normal, but I am going to start cleaning back there more often. There was so much dust it was just disgusting. Anyway, my kitchen is spotless now and I am pretty sure you could eat off the floor, but I will just leave that up to the dogs. =)

Today we are starting to try to get Bella on more of a schedule. I have been obsessed with reading about how her sleep habits should be forming and the book I am reading now says at this age (she is 5 months today!!) she should be able to be on more of a schedule and probably start taking only two naps a day. So this morning we started the day a little after 7 and then I put her down for a nap at 9. She was really tired and went to sleep pretty quick. She only slept for about 50 minutes though, so we will see if she can make it to her next nap time, which is supposed to be around 1. She usually gets tired within a couple of hours of her last nap, so should be interesting!

Little Monkey

2009-09-03T08:11:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of pics I snapped of Bella while I was making my breakfast this morning. She is so darn cute I can't help myself!

How am I ever going to say no to this sweet little smile?

Her Nonna got her this little monkey (a little monkey for my little monkey!). I am not sure if she is giving him a kiss or trying to eat him. My money is on the latter.

Here is another picture from Destin, but I just uploaded it today. She was just too cool for riding in her car seat this day...

Crisis of Faith

2009-09-02T07:55:00.001-07:00

I don't usually write about this kind of stuff, but I really liked this blog that my preacher from my church in Tyler wrote. I have a feeling that every single Christian in the world has had doubts about God and wondering if everything that we believe is real. I mean you can't see any of it and the bible was written a very long time ago. So as much as I really do believe it, I definitely have times when I wish there was more actual PROOF. So I subscribe to my preacher's blog and he wrote one yesterday sort of on this topic and I just thought I would share the link for anyone who is interested.

http://fromthepasture.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-faith-blind-or-is-it-unbelief-that.html

Sleepy Little Princess

2009-09-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

So Bella has started sleeping a LOT more lately. We always put her to bed around 7pm and since last Thursday she has slept until 7am - and sometimes 7:15! - every night but one. Sunday we had her out all day at the mall after church and so she missed some nap time and then ended up going to bed late so she woke up at around 2:30 am and was up forever and then got up for good around 6:30. And yesterday, now this is definitely not the norm, but she slept for 6 hours during the day and still slept until 7:15 this morning. She never takes that long of naps during the day, but I guess yesterday she was just tired!

It is so true what I have been reading about the more they sleep, the more they will sleep. When we put her to bed late she almost always wakes up early or in the middle of the night, compared to when we put her down early.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I am ecstatic! I still have a lot of sleep to catch up on from the last 4 and 1/2 months, but we are getting closer.

Here are a few more pictures that Jason took in Destin. I am so happy he has developed this hobby of his. He has such a talent for it I think!

Out on the patio...

I love this picture. She looks so mischievous!

Destin

2009-08-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

My parents recently bought a house, along with three other couples, in Destin, FL. We have been going to Destin almost every year for vacation since I was little. I think it is probably one of the most popular beach destinations in the US because I feel like everyone I know has been a million times too. And why not? The sand is white (usually), the water is blue (usually), the weather is good (you got it, usually), and the seafood is delicious (always!). So anyway, we had planned to go last week and take Bella on her first beach vacation. She was only 4 months and so she wasn't allowed to wear sunscreen, which meant she would basically have to stay in this little UV protective tent we bought her. We also bought a portable fan to try to keep her cool. Well, if you can tell from this pic, she wasn't very happy in the heat...

So I think she was on the beach a total of 30 minutes and we decided maybe next year would be better to try her first beach time. So Jason and I took turns going to the beach and one day my mom was nice enough to let us have a whole day to ourselves on the beach while she babysat. I got nice and sunburned, since my skin barely sees the light of day every anymore, but it was a great time.

It was definitely a different trip than I am used to. We usually rent a condo on the beach where you can walk out on your balcony and see the water. So I kind of missed that, but it was still fun. Their house is in the Sandestin community for those who know it, and it is right by all these restaurants and shops and stuff. We ate breakfast at Another Broken Egg which was amazing. Try the blueberry jumbo pancake. YUM. It rivals Kerbey Lane, and if you know my love for KL, you know that statement is not made lightly. We also went to this place called the Beach Walk Cafe one night on a double date with Amanda and Jared. If you are a foodie and you go to Destin, you must go here. It. Was. Delectable. It was one of those places where the service was impeccable and the waiter really knew everything about the food, wine, you name it. Everything is bought fresh daily and made fresh daily and is just so good. We had fried oysters to begin with. Then Jason had a steak that he said might be the best steak he has ever had. And for dessert. Hold on I need a minute to reflect upon it. Mmmmmm. We had a banana creme pie that can only be described as a revelation. Every bite made my mouth so happy. =) Anyway, all I can say is eat there. You will see.

So we have been back about a week now and Bella went to get her shots this morning. She was so upset and I hate to hear her cry like that. But the doc said she is doing great. She weighs 14 lb 9 oz now and is in the 90% in height. So she is definitely on her way to that ballet scholarship at Juliard! =) (Bella when you read this in 20 years, I am just kidding. A basketball scholarship is also perfectly acceptable. ;) )

Here is another pic of Bella at the beach in her cute hat...

New Bella Pics

2009-08-12T13:26:00.001-07:00

Bella is getting so big and cuter every day. I may be a little biased but I think she is the cutest baby I have ever seen. I just want to eat her up all the time! Haha, do I sound like a mom or what?

So Bella has been standing up in her jumper thingy. She has to kind of lean against the front of it, but she seems to enjoy it!

She has also found her feet. Today she was trying very hard to get her left foot in her mouth, but did not quite accomplish it.

I don't have a pic or video or anything, but on Monday Bella did a very exciting thing! She rolled from her stomach to her back. She has been rolling side to side for a while now when on her back so I thought she would roll back to front first, but she has surprised us! I know those without kids are thinking 'big deal', which is what I used to think when people told me these mundane things, but now I know how exciting it is! I freaked out when she did it and she just gave me a big ol' toothless grin.

Last thing I would just like to request some prayers for our trip to Destin in a couple of days. It will be a definite experiment to have her in the car for that long and I worry how she will do. I am going to try to bring some toys and we will also be taking frequent breaks and getting her out of the car seat, but I know how nerve wracking it is when she starts crying while you are going down the road, and there is nothing you can do about it. So wish us luck!!

Goodnight Elisabeth and a Good Night for all!

2009-08-07T07:06:00.001-07:00

I recently went to see Counting Crows and Augustana play here in Dallas, and while I will get to the talking about the show I just want to go ahead and apologize if this post seems somewhat nostalgic or whimsical or whatever you want to call it. In the four short months since having Isabella I have experienced a myriad of emotions, mostly good, although I have had my days where I just want to crawl in bed for a year. I am sure all you moms out there know what I am talking about. But one theme keeps repeating itself over and over and that is just to try my very best to enjoy every second of being a mom because I know how fast she will grow up. So even when she is up at 4 am eating or crying because she doesn't want to do anything but be held while I need to be doing laundry or cooking or whatever, I try to tell myself to cherish these moments. I don't always succeed, but I do my best.

Continuing with this theme, we recently read a book for the book club my friends and I are in called 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'. This is apparently a very famous book, though I had never heard of it. I checked it out of the library so I don't have it now or else I would print a passage from the book. I promise one day I will find that passage and type it out for you all to read. =) Toward the end of the book there is a paragraph that puts a cliche we have all heard in to words that make it hit home a little better I guess. Or at least put it in to words that pull at your heartstrings. But the cliche I am talking about is you never know what you have until it is gone. Something we have all heard a thousand times but it just got to me and I have thought about it a lot since then and I guess I sort of have this goal to really just live life to the fullest and try to enjoy every single second, even when things aren't going the way I want them to. I know that before I can believe it, Jason and I will be old and gray and Bella will be in college and I will wonder where the time went. And I don't want to get there and have a bunch of regrets or feel like I didn't take advantage of everything I have.

Ok, sorry if you are reading this going 'woah this is a bit much for a Tuesday morning!'. =) Just something I have been thinking a lot about lately. You are also probably wondering what in the world this has to do with going to see this concert. Well basically in a nutshell, I love Counting Crows. They are by far my favorite band ever. If you don't know their music you are probably sitting there thinking 'oh my gosh, they sing that Mr. Jones song and if they play that song on the radio one more time I will lose it'. If that is you, please go buy their albums and give them a listen. I actually like Mr. Jones after all this time and after hearing it one million and one times on the radio, but they are SO much more than that. I could listen to their albums over and over and never get tired of them. And I have. And they are even better live. They are the kind of band that doesn't just get up there and sing their songs just like you have heard them a million times. Now I know some people hate it when bands don't sing their songs just like they are on the radio, and I get that, but Adam (the lead singer) will literally like make up new verses on the fly and he is just so in to what he is singing that you can't help but be in to it too.

The show was at Nokia in Grand Prarie and they played with Augustana, who is another band I have grown very fond of, especially their last album. I started listening to their last album about a month before Bella was born and I listened to it a lot right when she was born and it did a lot for my soul in those wee hours of morning when I was up every two hours feeding her. There are a few songs on there that I know I will listen to years from now and it will remind me of those dark, quiet hours just me and her, when at the time I probably would rather have been sleeping. But hopefully I can think back and remember them fondly. Anyway, to make a long story short (too late) the concert was great. I was there with good friends and we were all having a great time. Counting Crows sang some songs I have never heard them sing, namely Goodnight Elisabeth which is one of my all time faves. Augustana sang Hey Now which I was SO hoping they would and in the encore they all sang Simon and Garfunkel's Cecilia together, which is one of my all time favorite songs! At the end of CC concerts Adam almost always comes out and talks about their foundation Greybird. It is a foundation that helps people find ways to volunteer in their local community. Adam is really big on everyone being a part of something and pitching in and especially voting. He always gives his schpiel about how everyone can make a difference and he doesn't care who you vote for as long as you exercise your rights and it is just always really uplifting and ends the show on a very positive note. They then ended the show by singing This Land is Your Land. I mean when is the last time you heard this song? Maybe 3rd grade? It has been a long time for me and it just made me smile.

Alright, I know this post is running way long, but the whole point of it is that I had such a good time at the concert. My heart was just full listening to my favorite songs with my friends and husband and I was just happy that I got to spend those hours that way. There is a line in A Long December that sort of sums up the theme of this post that says 'I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass'. If you haven't heard that song (and if you haven't I would be wondering what rock you were under in about 1997), then go listen to it. I wouldn't say it is even one of my favorite CC songs, but it is worth it to just hear that line sung. Seeing it typed doesn't quite do it for me.

I hope everyone is having a great day and I hope this post finds everyone happy.

Bella Pics

2009-07-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures Jason has taken lately. He is getting so good with his camera!

Bella after bath time...

Bella can now sit up in her Bumbo seat all by herself!

Bella on her Boppy...

Summer in the City

2009-07-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday my mom and sister came up to Dallas to go shopping. My birthday is May 11 and Isabella was born April 15, so, as you can imagine, my birthday was pretty much a non event this year. I had told my mom that all I wanted was for her to take me shopping later on this summer once I was skinny again. Well, I still have some weight to lose, but I was in desperate need of clothes that fit, so we went last Sunday. (Side note, last weekend we also FINALLY got our house painted and it looks so much better!)

That morning Jason and I got up early, got the munchkin ready and went to church at the 9:30 service. We were only 20 minutes late... Then after church we met mom and Amanda at La Duni in Northpark for brunch. We always go to Breadwinners when my mom comes in, so I wanted to try something new. So I basicallly Googled 'best brunch in Dallas' and La Duni was something I kept seeing. It was really good. Great coffee and tea and French Toast. Jason had some enchiladas that were delish as well. So La Duni got the thumbs up from us and then we began shopping after Jason took Bella home with him. Trying on clothes is not quite as fun as it used to be, but I did find some cute outfits and some fabulous shoes!

Since it has been a million degrees outside lately, I thought spending some time at my parents house, which has a pool, was in order. As much as I love being a stay at home mom, I do get kind of bored and lonely during the day. Those little smiles and giggles go a long way to lifting my spirits, but some times I just need some adult interaction. So I had planned to go to Tyler for the week last week. So after we finished shopping, we went back to my house, packed up all Isabella's stuff and headed to Tyler. So I spent the last week in Tyler with the family. My parents are so in love with Bella that I hardly even feed, change, hold her at all. Wednesday my sister took a half day and we spent the afternoon by the pool and then grilled out once my dad got home and bro in law came over. Thursday we went to see my cousin's son Kale play some T-ball. They were in the playoffs and ended up winning 1st place! Go Kale and good luck at state! It was so cute seeing the kids play. It reminds me of when I played when I was little and I so hope Isabella will be in to that kind of thing.

After T-ball we went to see the new Harry Potter movie. I loved it! It was actually pretty funny in parts as well as really dark and scary. Seriously, some parts were almost shot like a horror movie. Very suspenseful and it makes me so excited for the last two to come out.

Friday I came back to Dallas after lunch at Cafe Tazza in Tyler - if you live in Tyler try it, it was REALLY good! So Jason and I had a nice relaxing weekend. We didn't really have any plans so we just kind of did some errands and stuff around the house. I went to yoga for the first time in about a year. All I can say is OUCH. I am still so sore. It made me realize just how out of shape I still am and how un-flexible I am! Luckily, now that Bella is 3 months old I can take her to the child care at the gym and work out during the days. So hopefully I will go more often now.

This Sunday we went to church and then out to eat. Jason and I have a new edict in our house. We always go eat the same places over and over so I decided we need to expand our horizons. There is an app called Urban Spoon on iPhone and if you don't know what it is, basically you input some guidelines on what you would like to eat and it gives you suggestions. So yesterday it suggested we eat at a place called Henk's. It is a German restaurant literally a mile from where I used to live and I had never heard of it! To say we love German food is an understatement so we were pretty excited, and it did not disappoint! It was a great little find and we had some very tasty schnitzel, saurkraut, german potato salad and leberkaese. Delicious!

So that was pretty much my last couple of weekends and now I am back in to my normal routine. While I was home Bella started sleeping longer. Like three nights in a row she slept until after 6, so that counts as all night as there is no way she is going back to sleep once the sun is up. Since she has been back home, though, she has woken up a little earlier. Last night she woke up for a 5 o clock feeding so that kind of stunk. I thought I was done with that, but that's ok. Hopefully she is on her way to a solid 12 hour night!

The 4th

2009-07-10T13:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went up to Norman to visit Jason's parents. He took a couple extra days off so we could have some family time. He only got to take a couple of days off right when Bella was born because his job was so hectic. It has finally slowed down so it was nice to be able to have some quality family time.

Thursday we drove up to Norman and basically just hung out with the family and took it easy. Friday we went to see Jason's grandmother and went to eat at Bison Witches. If you are not familiar with Norman, Bison Witches is your basic college town dive/sports bar/restaurant and they have the BEST chili. This, in turn, makes for the best chili cheese nachos on planet Earth. So it is pretty much a requirement to eat there whenever we are in town. That night the Trents were nice enough to babysit and we went to see Public Enemies. It was good. I didn't know much about John Dillinger so it was interesting, but after about the third shoot out with the cops scene I got a little bored. Also, Marion Cotillard plays his girlfriend. In real life she is French, and to me, in the movie about half the time she sounded French and I think she was trying for a Southern accent. I don't know, but it was sort of distracting to me. If you like those kind of movies I would say see it, but it isn't the best movie I have seen.

Saturday was the 4th of July so we were going to drive up to Lake Eufala to see Jason's extended family. None of them had seen Isabella so we were excited, and also his cousin had a baby a couple months before us so we wanted them to get to meet. Well, it ended up being a lot further away than we thought, so we didn't get there until around 6. Basically we ate dinner and visited for a bit and then Bella started to get really cranky. We were going to put her to sleep in the bedroom but it was really loud and she was fussier than I have seen her in a long time. So we ended up leaving around 8, right as it was starting to pour down rain! It came down in sheets on the drive home, but she slept like an angel the whole time.

Sunday we pretty much just got up and got packed, then went and had some lunch at Ted's and then headed home. It was a good trip and nice to spend some time with Bella's Grammy and Poppy. =) Here is a picture of her in her Fourth of July outfit...

Productive Weekend

2009-06-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was great. I had a bunch of errands piled up that I hadn't gotten to do, so since we were home with no real plans, I asked Jason to watch Bella and I ran errands for over five hours! I got groceries, got my eyebrows waxed, got lunch, got gas, went to the mall and got a new outfit, went to World Market to get this ottoman thing that they were out of, just got a lot of stuff done.

At the mall I went to J Crew cause I had a gift card. I really don't have many clothes that fit right now. I can mostly fit in to my normal clothes but they are all tight and my maternity clothes are mostly too big, except for a pair of capri pants. So I wear a lot of flowy dresses right now. =) And though I have vowed to lose this weight by our upcoming trip to Destin, I wanted at least a new thing or two that fits NOW to wear for the summer. So I found some shorts at J Crew that fit pretty cute, but you know you always have that price point that you think 'if it costs this much I will get it' and then it is always more, but you think 'well, maybe it is still a good deal', but then you sometimes have that buyers remorse thinking you spent too much? Well, the shorts were $40. Obviously I don't want to spend a lot on shorts that won't (hopefully) fit in a couple months. So I was thinking more along the lines of $30, but I also wasn't loving clothes shopping so I thought, ok fine I will spend $40 so as to be done with it! So I get up to the register, and lo and behold!, they were on sale for $30! It was a nice surprise and totally validated my expenditure. =) I also got a really cute hot pink shirt at Nordstrom in the 'young folks' department on sale for like $15!

Saturday night we rented Fanboys, which I had heard wasn't good, but wanted to see anyway because it has Veronica Mars, I mean Kristen Bell in it. Well, it wasn't very good, but it was nice to just sit with my hubby and watch a movie like a normal couple. =) Bella goes to sleep now, usually, by about 7:30 and sleeps until between like 3:30 and 5:30 for a feeding, then usually sleeps until 7ish, give or take. So that is really nice to have our evenings free. I usually get 8 hours of sleep now, just not all at once. So most days I am feeling great, but every few days that getting up in the middle of the night catches up with me and I get in serious need of a nap.

Sunday we went to church for the first time since she was born. We got Isabella all dressed up and took her to the nursery. I was a little nervous but there were only two other babies in there with two women, so I felt like that was a lot better than I had envisioned. I thought there would be like a bunch of kids. So it was nice to get to go to church and when we picked her up from the nursery she was sound asleep and she stayed asleep for us while we went out to eat at Cafe Express and went to Tylers to get some new workout clothes. I always think I need new workout clothes to motivate me to work out. Does anyone else do that? =)

Here is a picture of Bella in her Sunday best...

Happy Father's Day

2009-06-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Jason and I had a GREAT weekend. It was Father's Day weekend, obviously, so I had a little surprise planned. I know since we have had Isabella, one thing we miss is just being able to go do whatever, whenever. We are kind of movie nuts so I know he misses just being able to go to the movies whenever. So I asked my awesome friend Jessica to babysit on Friday night, but didn't tell him. She was all over it, so thank you for that Jess! Jason beat her home on Friday and I acted like no big deal. Jason said he really wanted to go out to eat because he had been cooped up all week. I told him we could do whatever he wanted. When Jessica knocked on the door, he answered it and was like 'what are you doing here?'. I told him I was serious about doing whatever he wanted, that we had a night out on our own! He had really been wanting to see The Hangover, so we went to eat at Fireside Pies (YUM!), and then headed over to the movies. The movie was hilarious, I highly recommend it. And Fireside was delicious as always, so it was a lovely evening.

Saturday, we got up and met my parents at Breadwinners for brunch. They are currently on a 10 day trip to the Grand Canyon, driving the whole way. So they were heading out that morning, but couldn't leave the state without seeing their granddaughter. Jason and I don't matter anymore, only Isabella. =) That afternoon Jason's mom came in town. Sunday Jessica was having a surprise party for Chris on a boat at Lake Grapevine, so we wouldn't be able to take Bella. We asked Jason's parents if they might want to babysit and they were super nice to come in town to do that. Jason's dad couldn't come until Sunday, though, because he had to work. So since Saturday night Jason's mom was in town, she offered to watch the munchkin so we could go out, AGAIN! That is two nights out in a row people! So we went to the Bavarian Grill, our favorite German restaurant. We had a couple of delicious German beers and some delicious German schnitzel. I wanted to see The Proposal, so we went to the movies, again. =) It wasn't really that good. Not as bad as Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, but still not great, so I think I am not allowed to pick any more romantic comedies for a while...

Sunday I went and got Jason donuts for his first Father's Day and then went to the gym. I had to get in to a bathing suit that day, so I was feeling pretty motivated to work out. =) The party was at 3, so we headed out around 2 to make sure we got there before the big surprise! Chris was totally surprised and we had a great time. Jessica had rented one of those two story party boats and we grilled out and swam - yes I got in the lake, for those of you who know me, you know that is a huge step. Here are a couple pics from the party...

We got back home around 7 and just got some pizza and went to bed early. It was so hot outside, it zapped me and I was exhausted!

Monday Jason left for Orlando for his new client. **Sigh** He is coming back today, but I am secretly, or not so secretly, hoping that this new client will need him to come out for a few days at some point when my parents are around and can watch Bella while I go play at Disney World! Probably not going to happen, but oh well. I can dream.

Last night I put Isabella down for bed around 7:15, she woke up around 8:30, but fell back asleep after a while. She then slept until 5:30 in the morning!! That means she slept for almost 10 hours in a row! This is very good news. And at 5:30 I fed her and she went right back to sleep until after 7. The goal is for her to sleep from 7 to 7 eventually, so we are getting close! Very exciting.

New Bed for Bella

2009-06-19T13:52:00.001-07:00

Well, she has already outgrown her bed...