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.

Easter

Yay! I finally have a new computer so I can actually keep up with blogging. Although I got a lot more done around the house, it drove me insane not having a laptop.

Easter was a lot of fun. Bella sort of looked for eggs and she was really excited about her Easter basket. She looked so beautiful in her Easter dress. We had Easter dinner at my parent's house.

Bella Roo and Springtime Too!

We are SO excited for spring. I've been pretty sick the last couple of days but I had to take Bella out today to enjoy the warm(er) weather the other day. It was good for both of us. Justin's dad has been really sick too lately. He's been in the hospital the last couple of weeks and then they just moved him to a nursing home for rehabilitation. He should be able to go home after a few more weeks.

I don't post as much anymore because my laptop is reaching the end of it's long and fruitful life. It will just randomly shut off... and it's really annoying. Hopefully I'll be able to get a new one when we get our tax return back. We wouldn't have bought one sooner but I wanted to wait until we could get the one that I wanted.

Bella is growing up so fast. She's really interdependent lately and plays by herself for hours. The Dr said that she is on a 14-15 month level, which didn't really surprise me. She's always been a little bit ahead of the game. Here are Bella's 12 month tidbits...

• She's really good at screaming.. this is when I wish I would have stuck to the baby sign language thing better. It's her little way of telling me she wants something.
• She likes songs with motions.. Itsy Bitsy Spider, Patty Cake..etc. I need more songs! She does the Itsy Bitsy spider part with me.
• She tries to jump. She saw me do it and she tries but doesn't get any air. I'll have to record it. It's sooo funny.
• She likes Nick Jr. and discovered Blue's Clues this morning.
  
• She still LOVES to dance.

I'm sure there is more but I'm not good about writing things down (or taking pictures!) like I used to be.. I'll make a goal to be better at those two things.

Peanut Butter Bars

{Click the picture to enjoy these delicious morsels in all their glory}

My boss Dawnell makes the best peanut butter bars EVER! I decided to make them even though I was worried they wouldn't turn out as good as hers and I'd be disappointed. Let me tell you, they were so easy and turned out so good. Here is the recipe I used:

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
chocolate frosting (I just used chocolate fudge frosting for cakes and it worked out perfect!)

Cream butter and sugars, add egg, peanut butter and vanilla, add dry ingredients then add oatmeal. Press in bottom of 13x9 pan
Bake 350 for 15-20 min until very lightly brown around the edges. Be careful not to over bake!
Remove from oven, spread peanut butter while warm let cool then frost with chocolate frosting.

When I took mine out of the oven, they were golden brown around the edges but really gooey in the middle. Once they cooled down they were perfect!

Isabella's 1st Birthday Party!

Yesterday we had Bella's 1st birthday party. We just had a little get together at my mom's with the family. We ate spaghetti, opened presents and had cake. Isabella got soooo many presents. We got her a kitchen, bathtub toys, and clothes. Grandma, grandpa and Ty got her a toy puppy, clothes, Sweetie Belle My Little Pony, a My Little Pony Baby, and a kitty keyboard. Skye and AJ got her pans for her kitchen, play food and a tea set. She got a few other little things as well. Here are the pictures from her party.

Party Time!

I had a really hard time deciding on a cake theme. Bella really likes to watch Sponge Bob with Justin but the Care Bear cake was sooo cute. I showed them to her and let her pick.. and guess who won?