Girls' Night Out

I'm really looking forward to a night out with some other ladies from church. We're meeting at church and carpooling to dinner and to see "Get Smart". It's been a long time since I've gone out without David or Isabella so it should be a fun night. Thanks to Stefany for organizing the outing!

Pretending

It's so amazing to me how much Bella has grown in just the past couple of weeks. I guess it's pretty common for 2 year olds to flourish at this time in their lives as they are taking in the world around them and really starting to understand it. One of the things that Bella has really taken to is pretend play. This morning as I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes (from very yummy french toast) I heard her say, "I'm going to California" as she pretended to drive off on her little ride-on toy car. She did this several times after returning to gather more items from her play kitchen to bring with her on her "car". She is also good at pretending to drink tea and makes slurping sounds. Bella also loves to give her baby dolls pretend baths. She has the cleanest babies in town, some of them get "bathed" multiple times a day.

Park, Strawberry Shortcake, and Thunder

It was a hot day today, but the wonderful thing about CO is that it is not humid here. Before we left on our walk to the park this morning, I covered both Bella and myself in SPF 50 sunscreen, but after about 20 minutes at the park I felt like I was getting sunburned. Since we are so high up here, 6,200 ft, the sun is very powerful. I really try to be careful about protecting our skin more since being here than I did while living in CA. I'll be purchasing the new SPF 80 sunscreen very soon. We had fun at the park, then walked over to WalMart (a 10 min. walk from our house) to eat lunch at Subway, then to pick up a few things. When we left the store, the sky was gray and the wind was blowing, that's how it is here. It can be hot and sunny one minute and cooler and rainy ten minutes later. Not much else new here in CO, except I'm really trying to make more of an effort to meet people. Isabella really misses her friends in CA and loves playing with other kids. We can be out anywhere and she will spot every kid around to wave to, say "hi", run after, or say "come here girl/boy". She is in definite need of some play time with kids her age. So, we're really looking forward to a play date we have scheduled with some new friends from church for tomorrow. I feel guilty for spending a lot of time getting our house together and not getting out more to meet people, but now that Bella does so well playing on her own for long periods of time it's easy for me to forget that she still needs the interaction.

Here are a few pics from today:

Peaking through at the park.

Debating on going down the hot slide.

Our after-dinner stroll would not be complete without bringing
Strawberry Shortcake baby (Bella's new FAVORITE).

Bella set this pose up on her own with Shortcake, how cute!

Sunset and Thunder clouds from our back patio.

Same as above pic, but 5 min. later. . . . then we went inside when we saw the lightening, heard the thunder, even though Bella was not afraid, it's me who still holds onto my childhood fear of thunder storms.

Fun In The Sun

We had fun playing outside in the pool this past weekend.

Compassion of a child

Tonight after we read books we said our night time prayers. After we said amen, I started singing to Bella and she stopped me by saying, "pray", while folding her hands. Of course, I never want to tell her we already prayed, we always need more prayer, so I asked her to pray. So she said "papa and grandma". It was then that I realized that I had forgotten to mention them in our prior prayer, but of course she didn't forget. That's our sweet, compassionate Bella.

Spring or Summer Cleaning

So now that we have the house we need some more furniture. We went from 800 sq. ft. of living space to 2,500 sq. ft. We did buy some furniture from Ikea (one of the two stores I miss the most, Trader Joe's being the other) before we left CA, but we could only fit so much into the moving truck, so we mainly bought master bedroom furniture, Isabella's bed and a few other small items. The closest Ikea is in Salt Lake City so it looks like we'll be getting some non-Ikea furniture for our now empty living and dining rooms, but the good news is that we have a huge furniture store nearby and although it's not Ikea, it has some potential future purchases. There's a dining room set that I found there that's exactly what I want, but as you know a whole dining room set is not cheap and I really want to avoid putting it on the credit card. So, I'm spring cleaning the house. As I've unpacked things, twice in one month, I really got a chance to see EVERYTHING we own and I really want to slim down. When I unpacked, I immediately put things into boxes in the garage that I knew we didn't want or need, then I had a garage sale last week and made over $500, that's right!! Fridays are big days for garage sales here believe it or not and I made most of the money that day and only a little more on Saturday morning. I'm also selling anything I can think of that we don't have a use for or just don't need on Craigs List. It's great! I sold our moving boxes today for $30 and I didn't have to do any work or pay any seller's fees like on eBay. Each day I'm a little closer to getting that dining room set, my goal is to have it by Thanksgiving, but I think we'll have it before then especially after I sell our extra washer/dryer (the previous homeowners left theirs' and we had just bought a set). Then I'll work on furnishing the living room.

Father's Day

We had a great Sunday celebrating Father's Day with Daddy! We started out with homemade waffles and scrambled eggs, then we went out to lunch and to buy bookcases for David's office. The highlight of the day was when I told Bella about it being a special day for Daddy and to tell him, "Happy Father's Day". Well, she did not forget to tell him and she must have told him 20 times throughout the day. She also told all of the men at church that night, it was great. Thank you, David, for all that you do and for being such a wonderful dad to Bella and a spectacular husband to me! God truly blessed me with you and Bella!

Here are some pics David took of Bella while I was making him a special Father's Day dinner:

My Little Reader

In the past couple of weeks Bella has become more and more fond of reading books. She's always liked her books, but it wasn't until recently that she really started spending time focused just on looking through her books, carefully examining the pictures on each and every page. If I'm busy around the house and I realize it's a little too quiet, I'll go check on her and most times I find her reading books. She'll read for a long time, like 30 minutes or so by herself, which I think is pretty good for a 2-year old. The best part is when I hide around the corner and listen to her telling the story the way we have read it to her, just by looking at what's happening in the pictures. She reads inside the house, outside the house, on the grass, in a chair, on the swing, on the slide, in the car, in her stroller, and even in the bathtub (she has books made for the bath)! Bella also asks us, "Read to me, please" very often. I love to hear her make that request and I have told myself that whenever possible I am going to drop whatever I'm doing so I can read a book to her. I really want to encourage her more and more with the books because I was never much of a reader and that didn't help me in college or when I applied to Med school. That's also why I've really made a point to buy more and more books and why we have a bookcase downstairs and one upstairs for her books. Isabella just amazes us, she remembers titles of books, characters' names in the books, specific things that happen in the story, and the main point of the story. That's some great comprehension, something that has always been more difficult for me. Looks like she's taking after Daddy and his love of reading and books. Yeah!!


Here she is standing on her favorite rock in the front yard reading a Winnie the Pooh book.

Reading to her baby on the slide!

New Purchases

We bought patio furniture this past weekend, a very exciting thing for us! Here's the set we decided on:

We opted for this set because it is more versatile. We can eat on the coffee table, or just lounge on the bench with a cold drink, which is what we do most while we watch Bella play on the grass. We'll probably also get a outdoor dining set that matches when that goes on sale.

Isabella is enjoying the patio furniture too!


I also purchased another outdoor toy for Bella:

. . . and she's already hitting the ball!

The Great Outdoors

Like I've mentioned before, we love spending time outside, especially here in CO!

We love desert too!

The Things She Says

Every day Isabella amazes us with her ever growing vocabulary and speech capabilities. Here are just a couple of things she's said lately that have made me stop and think about how bright our sweet Bella is especially for a 2-year old.

1) "Excuse me, sorry" - said while stepping over my stretched out legs to go get another book for me to read to her.

2) "Mommy, I got ready self" - said after she got her shoes on, doll stroller packed up with 3 purses and 2 dolls to go for an after-dinner walk. self = by myself

3) "Daddy is in California" - said as we were walking into Chipotle to eat dinner tonight. She actually pronounced California as Cal-forna. I told her yesterday that daddy is in California after she was asking for him. She doesn't forget a thing and I think she thought of it just then because most nights she'll tell daddy when dinner is ready.

4) "Mommy, I go sleepies" - That's right, lately she's been telling me when she wants to take a nap especially with all of our playing outside. sleepies = night night

5) "Mine, mine, no share, share" - said while playing with Little People figures in the bathtub. She was pretending that one doll was trying to play with the ball and the other doll didn't want to share. She was telling the dolls to share. This one really made me feel good because we've been working on sharing and to see her set up a pretend situation like this blew my mind!

More Pics. . .

The grill was first on the list to purchase for our house and we're putting it to use!

It' so nice outside in the evenings, we love to eat dinner outside. Next big purchase: Patio Furniture.

Chicken Fajitas done on the grill were oh so delicious!

Bella enjoyed having dinner outside too!

Mommy and Little Pup enjoying the beginning of the sunset.

The sunsets are late here this time of the year, sometimes 8:30pm or later.

Colorado sunset as viewed from our back patio.

All dressed up (even with mommy's slippers on) for tea time with baby dolls!

Bella and her favorite book, "Strawberry Shortcake". We've read this book over a hundred times this past week and reinforced every page with packing tape. She knows the story so now we ask her to read it to us. It's the cutest thing ever when she says, "Apple Dumplin".


Bella and her friend, Jonah, at the mall fountain.


Some interior house pics:

The entryway of our house:

The Family Room:

The kitchen/eating area:

More kitchen:

The Best Room in the House: Isabella's Room!


Bella's "Big Girl" bed which she absolutely loves!




The Guest Room:
Bella's bathroom/Guest bathroom:




View from the master bath window:


One of my favorite features: the master bath tub



















That's all for now. I'll take pics of the master bedroom once we have our second dresser assembled and things put away. We also have a living room, dining room, 4th bedroom, and basement, all of which we are still organizing. We don't have living room or dining room furniture, so Bella has a lot of room to run and play for now:)