Bella Pics

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

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

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...