Milk Bath

Bella found out that if she pushes the spout into the floor juuusssst right, the milk will gush out all over the floor. She is curious and T-R-O-U-B-L-E at this age but we are having a blast!!





All clean after her bath :)

Week 1 = Fail.

photo via the notebook doodles

This first week being home has been sooo hard. My shop has been slower than normal. Which really should be no cause for concern because it always has its ups and downs. Then I totally planned on getting the entire house cleaned, like windows washed and ALL of the laundry done, etc. Fail, fail and more fail!

Really I should give myself credit because it hasn't been all bad. I've gotten lots of new designs posted, I've spent a lot of time working on my shop blog (don't mind the background bareness, I'm working on designing my own background..), and I've done a TON of cleaning around the house. It just doesn't show as much as I wanted it too. Oh and I started a DI box, yay for getting rid of junk. I also did some vinyl for my pal who owns Kaffe Mercantile in Ogden. I need to go back up and take some pics once he is done installing everything. So I think once I get a better routine down & maybe even a to-do list this is going to be great. Plus I'm getting to spend tons of time with Isabella. That makes it all worth it.

I love the picture I posted above, it really summarizes it all right now.

New Adventures

Today was my last day at Citi.. such a bittersweet day. I've worked with this company for 8 years. I practically grew up there. I started working there when I was 19 years old. It was definitely my first "real" job. While working there I met Justin, got married, graduated college and had a baby. I met some of the most amazing people that I'll be friends with forever. The work itself was not always the best but I learned so much and I'll never forget that.

I'm going to be staying home with Isabella and I'll keep doing my vinyl decal business. When I chose graphic design as my focus in college I knew it would be something that I could do from home but never really planned on it. I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom but figured I'd need to work and that it wouldn't really bother me much. Boy was I wrong! These past 9 months since I've been back to work has been one of the most challenging times in my life. Working moms deserve so much credit. It is HARD keeping up with a full time job, keeping up with the house & meals, plus trying to find time (and I mean quality time) to spend with your family. I know some moms who do a great job at it.. but it wasn't for me.

So from now on I'll be promoting my business, hopefully getting a website up this year, designing new decals, & most importantly.. spending time with my beautiful, smart & silly 1 year old. Wish me luck!

Happy Mother's Day!

My expectations fell WAY short this year on Mother's Day... I had a nice busy weekend planned and instead I was home sick the whole weekend! So next weekend I'm asking for a redo. Bella had a fun day with her grandma and got to wear her new dress. My favorite mother's day present was Nyquil. Sad!

Even home sick in bed, I'm really grateful for God giving me a chance to be a mom. I hope I'm making Him proud! Isabella is my whole world. I can't imagine my life without her. I finally feel like things are falling into place and soon I'll be home with her more instead of working so much. More on this soon. I feel very blessed!

I'm also grateful that I have the best mom in the world! She is one of my best friends and I look up to her so much. She is the first person I call when I have questions or to share good news with. Bella loves spending time with her grandma and she has learned if she wants something to just bring it to grandma and it's hers! They have so much fun together.

GRANDMA
Like mom but with NO rules!

Bella Ballerina

Bella at 14 months

Bella is learning things so fast now that I can't keep up! I started teaching her sign language around 8 months but didn't really stick to it. A couple of months ago she signed "More" to me and I realized how much she had picked up despite me only showing her a few signs. Since then we've been doing a little bit better and she will pick up a new sign after showing her a few times. It's supposed to help with language development and I really think it has. I got a book called Baby Signing by Nancy Cadjan and it has a chart showing babies at 12 months usually speak 2-3 words and signing babies speak 16 words and can do 25 signs. She definitely doesn't know 25 signs, because I haven't taught her that many, but she easily uses 16 words.

Words she says.. Dada, mama, Ty Ty, Grandpa (kind of), puppy, tickle tickle, roll it and mark it (from patty cake), kitty, hi, Spongebob (sounds like Bob Bob), monkey, oh wow, ouch, sit, no.
That's all I can think of right now. I need to be better about writing things down!

• Plays patty cake, including the motions.
  
• She loves pulling everything out of the diaper bag and my purse.
• She LOVES climbing. It's so bad! She climbs onto everything that is low enough. She likes climbing into her high chair.
  
• She has 11 teeth
• She is learning animal sounds. She knows meow for kitty, and rarrr for everything else. LOL
• She understands lots of what we say to her. I can ask her to get a diaper and she will. She knows what bathtime means and will try to take her clothes off. If you ask her where something is she will hold her hands up.
  

She is so much fun right now! I never imagined being a mommy would be this rewarding!

Discovery Gateway

In one day Bella was a frog, a news anchor, a cowgirl, she rode a horse, drove a car and went grocery shopping.. and she had a blast! Last weekend we took Bella to Discovery Gateway. She is so curious lately so she just loved it. It's fun having a little one and having an excuse to go play.