10 Months Old!

Yep, it's already been a month and Bella has hit the 10 month mark. She actually turned 10 months old on the 26th but we haven't had time to post yet! Here are her 10 month milestones..

• She can shake her head yes and no.
  
• She can say "oh wow, "nom nom" (yum yum), da da, & ma ma.
• She waves to everyone and everything.
• She LOVES dancing. She can dance standing up without holding onto anything.
  
• She can stand up really well.
  
• She is learning to play peekaboo.
• She learned how to feed the dogs. She isn't too sure about sharing :)
• She will hand something she is holding to you when asked.
• Her favorite songs are Cowboy Casanova (still), Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus (I even caught Justin playing it for her the other day), the Spongebob Theme song, and the Ellen Show Theme song.
  

I'm sure there are more things but this is all I can think of right now. She is learning new things everyday! She is so much fun and I can't believe how fast her first birthday is approaching.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas was seriously the best EVER! On Christmas Eve we went to my Aunt Carlene's for dinner. The picture above is Bella with her great great grandparents. How special is that? We cherish every moment that we have both of them here with us.

Christmas day was so much fun. Bella helped open all of her presents and played for about a hour before she ate breakfast. As we were opening presents, she said "oh wow!". I was saying it as I helped her unwrap her presents and I couldn't believe it when she copied me. We are definitely to the point where we have to watch what we say :)

Later we went to my mom's to exchange presents and to eat dinner. By then Bella was too excited and there was too much going on for her to be interested in opening gifts. She had lots of fun trying to keep up with her cousins and Uncle Ty.

This Christmas was simply amazing. It wasn't about the gifts or the food, it was about seeing Christmas through a child's eyes. It's about cherishing the special bond between family and friends. It's about the gift Heavenly Father sent to the world so long ago.. and so much more. And I am more and more grateful each day that I have Justin and Bella in my life. They are the only gift I needed (although I'm not about to give up the remote start I got for my car, getting Justin to install it will be next year's Christmas gift..ha ha ha).

Happy Birthday Mom!! Sorry about the cake..

Last Saturday was my mom's birthday. We went to Lorena's and then went home for cake & ice cream. Bella taste tested the cake to make sure it was good. I'm pretty sure it got her seal of approval. Happy Birthday Mom!! Love you!

Secret Santa

A lot of you know my friend Sierra and her wonderful family so you might have heard about this already. I wanted to share it here also because I think it is a really special story.

I'm a really huge fan of the Morning Zoo on 97.1 ZHT. I've listened since high school and every year they help out a Utah family that has had a rough year. I submitted Sierra's story on their website and prayed that they would get picked. I got a call from the radio station several weeks later saying that they were chosen! I was so excited! We had to find a way to keep Sierra home the morning that they were going to surprise her so her boss told her they had an emergency meeting at 4 pm and that she need to come into work late. I recruited my buddy Steph who also happens to have lots of ties with Sierra's family. We worked out the details with the radio station and everything was set! The morning of, the radio station had me go to the studio so that I could read the story that I submitted. I was so nervous to have to talk on the radio and I was nervous that somehow something wouldn't turn out right. I got to the radio station and DB came to waiting room to escort us back to the studio. They got me headphones and handed me a printed out copy of the story to read on the air. You can listen to the whole thing below.. just a warning.. you may need tissues! It was so awesome! They provided her family with an entire Christmas.

This Christmas has been really special for me anyway because of Bella but this really reminded me what the true meaning of Christmas is. It had nothing to do with all the gifts that they were given but it was so nice to relieve some stress and bring joy and happiness to a family who has been through such a rough year. It was unbelievable to me how many people were involved in this to make it happen. It just goes to show how wonderful Sierra and Bob are. They are so very loved! Lots of thanks to everyone who helped me, including Steph and Kim (Sierra's boss). And of course a HUGE thank you to everyone at 97.1 ZHT, especially Stacy (the promotions director) and Frankie, DB, and Jessica. Read the story and listen to what was played on the radio here..http://www.971zht.com/pages/secretsanta/ It's the one listed as Jaxon, Ashton, Alexia. Merry Christmas everyone!

{gobble gobble}

We had such a nice Thanksgiving. We spent the day at my parents with my sisters family. It was a nice day of food, family and chasing Bella around. She had so much trying all the different foods and liked everything. Including pickles. She really likes pumpkin pie and pistachio salad.

Bella also turned 9 months old yesterday! She is so much fun right now. She is crawling really well and can pull herself to standing. She is also brave and will let go when she is standing for a few seconds. Her little forehead is sprinkled with little bruises from bumping into things. I guess I better get used to it, but it's hard to see her get hurt! She loves to eat and is eating more solid foods and slowly eating less and less of her bottle. She also started "dancing" this month and loves to bee bop to Carrie Underwood's Cowboy Casanova. So cute!

Bella loves..

• Baths..still! She is mommy's little mermaid.
• Grape juice. It all started with a taste of a lime rickey. She really loves grape!
• Getting into everything and crawling around. She's a little explorer!
• Dancing to music.
  
• Food! She now says "nom nom nom" when she likes something she's eating.
  
• Boxes, paper, mommy's car keys and cell phone. We've decided for Christmas she isn't getting any real toys. We are just going to wrap empty boxes and let her play in those. Ha ha :)
  

Bella doesn't love..

• Getting her face washed.
• Being confined in her play pen, car seat or jumper.
• Getting scared. And she's super jumpy, just like Aunt Skye.

New photography blog

I have a new blog for photography. It's more of a hobby right now but I'm really enjoying it and thought it would be nice to have a place to share. You can visit it at http://sunsetstanleyphotography.blogspot.com

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone had a fun and safe day. We had a nice and relaxing day. I didn't dare to take Bella out in the cold after just having the flu so we just hung out at my mom's and helped pass out candy. It's not like Bella can really trick or treat yet anyway. Plus she was really entertained by all the little ghosts and goblins that came to the door for candy. I was sort of worried that her costume wouldn't be dressed up enough but I was pleasantly surprised how it all came together. It was a fun day!

The swine flu and 8 months old!

Ha ha..I couldn't resist adding this picture :)

This week we all got the swine flu, yep even little Bella. We are pretty much over it now and luckily Bella did really well with it. Justin got sick first but I didn't realize it was the swine flu. After a few days Bella started coughing and running a low grade fever. I started not feeling good that same day. By midnight Bella's fever was 103.3 so I rushed her to the dr. They tested her for the swine flu and 11 minutes later the dr came in with a prescription and announced that she had the swine flu. I can't believe how fast it came on! Luckily they put her on Tamiflu right away and I really think that stuff works wonders! I'm just so thankful that she has a strong little immune system and she kicked the swine's flu's hiney!




During the week Bells had her 8 month birthday! She is growing up so fast! She is in to EVERYTHING. Even when she was sick she still wanted to be down on the floor trying to get into things. She is so cute (if I do say so myself)!

8 month tidbits:

• Bella now has 8 teeth! Crazy.
• She has crawled a couple of times but still prefers to army crawl.
• She loves suckers (thanks grandma!)
• She graduated to her big girl carseat. Of course we had to splurge on the "Recaro baby race seat", as Justin calls it. Recaro is known for their adult seats for racing. I can't complain since it's super safe and super cute!
• She can clap her hands and wave bye bye.
• Her favorite thing to do is stand up on the couch and look out the window.
  
• She isn't too sure of the cold but we did buy her a new winter coat, mittens and a hat yesterday and she looks adorable in them! I'll have to post a picture of her in them soon!
  

{Fall 2009 Family Photos}

Yesterday my friend Sierra took our family pictures. These are our first official family pictures since Bella was born. I am completely in LOVE with them! Afterwards I snapped some of just Bella. The weather was perfect and the leaves were amazing. Thanks Sierra!

{fire hydrant}

I took this picture today and I really love it! Just had to share. I love fall!

Rick Springfield!

Last month (yes, I know it's been forever since I've posted) we went to the Rick Springfield concert in Wendover. My mom was crazy about Rick when I was growing up kind of like she's crazy about Toby now. So needless to say, me and Skye both LOVE Rick Springfield since we grew up listening to him..over and over and over. It was a WAY good concert! He even came down into the audience and yes, we all freaked out like teenagers. It was a blast!

Happy Anniversary!

Wednesday was our 3 year anniversary. My mom watched Bella and we went out to dinner. We normally go spend the night out for our anniversary but I've been having Bella withdrawals ever since going back to work..so I didn't want to leave her for the night.

Happy Anniversary to us!



On a side note, I have a problem... These are Bella's new faces when the camera comes out...



Anticipating the flash, she squints, closes her eyes and makes funny faces. Not good.

Baptism

Last Sunday AJ got baptized. It was beautiful and the whole family looked radiant. I think we could all feel God's love that night. Congrats AJ!

1/2 a year old!

Bella is, that is. Actually she is 6 and 1/2 months old now. I started this post the day she turned 6 months old and haven't had the time to finish and post it :( Being back to work is SOOOO hard! Although I am so lucky that my sister and my mom are able to help watch Bella. I can't imagine having to leave her with a stranger. It's just so incredibly overwhelming to work a full time job, run a small business and be a mommy. Hopefully I'll be able to balance everything out soon and I won't have to work so much at the regular j.o.b. soon. Oh, and I want to get into doing photography in the near future also..

Anyhoo.. Bella is doing great! She has both of her top teeth coming in and she is super close to crawling. I think if I didn't have hardwood floors (it's slippery with a blanket down) that she probably would be crawling. We have been to the zoo several times this summer and she really enjoys it.

Her 6 month favorites:
Cups-She really likes to drink out of cups!
Pineapple-She is definitely grandma's kid and LOVES pineapple.
Bathtime-She still loves bathtime. She really loves to splash in the water now.
Anything that makes noise.

At her 6 month checkup, she weighed 17 lbs 3 oz and is now 27" tall. She is in the 99% for height!

My Prima Ballerina

The Canon Rebel

I have wanted a Canon Rebel for awhile now and I finally decided to just get one. I am so happy I did! It is everything I was hoping for, plus some! I figure that I can learn somethings about photography and just take all of Isabella's pictures at home and save money by not taking her to the studio. I did take a photography class in high school.. but I honestly can't remember much of anything from that class. The good thing is that I have Photoshop and I do know how to edit pictures. Here are a few I took around the house today..like I didn't have anything better to do than take 2oo pictures on my new camera.

See, I can take sweet pictures of wall art.

The light switch bird

Baby Zander Rex

My brother Chris and his wife Bonnie just had their baby! Ok, so they had him on the 7th but I'm just getting around to blogging about it.. Anyway, he is so CUTE! And can you believe that hair?! Sadly they live in Texas so we've only seen pictures. I really wish they lived closer so that Bella had cousins her age to play with but so far I haven't convinced them to move yet. I'll keep working on that. Congrats Chris and Bonnie! He is absolutely adorable!

Relay For Life

Here are some pictures from the Relay For Life. This year was a lot of fun. It was definitely one of my favorite years. Maybe it was because I was on such a big team and it allowed us time away from the our booth. I think the best part was when my mom got "arrested". We had to go post bail for her before she killed one of us. Funny!

Cute jail bird

Our Snack Shack