{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!