It's the end of the school year

Bella's last day of regular school is today.  A couple of weeks ago I observed in her classroom to see if any noticeable changes had occurred.  I could tell that Bella did a better job paying attention to the activities around her and the kids in her class.  As mentioned in previous posts she is doing a better job grabbing and holding onto objects.  And while we still have to feed her and puree her foods, she is doing a better job at controlling them.  She hardly ever coughs/chokes while eating.  Although frustrating to us, she will still sometimes lean her head to the side while eating.  Because we know she can hold her head up, it must be a preference for her, especially when she isn't feeling well.

And most importantly Bella really enjoys going to school.  Even when she doesn't sleep well at home and I know she is teething, I am told she does great at school.  It has made a big difference these past couple of months to have a happy child at home.

We have really enjoyed the teachers and therapists that work with Bella.  And we thank them very much for all of their hard work!

I was able to make little clutches/wallets again for the teachers as a thank you.

It reads "Thank you to all who have impacted, taught, loved, and pushed Bella to achieve all that she can.  Bella has really loved going to school this year and we have been delighted to see progress."

Repeat

Colby had knee surgery on Friday.  This is Colby's third surgery.  Her last surgery was 1 month prior to Bella being born.....anyone see a pattern here?  While we may have repeated the knee surgery, really hoping to not repeat the "Bella experience".

It also makes for an interesting time around here.  You have one dog that can barely hobble around on three legs, a pregnant lady who can barely hobble around with a huge belly, and one child that refuses to move around on her own.  Oh and a scrambling dad trying to get a million things done before the second child arrives.

Concert

We went to the Josh Groban concert last night.  We very much enjoyed it, more laid back with a great orchestra behind him and of course a voice that can change octaves with such ease it's amazing.


Apparently the new baby also very much enjoyed the concert as we had constant movement for the whole 2 1/2 hours we were there.


As I was listening to the lyrics of one of his songs, it reminded me of Bella.  I thought this could be her theme song, "You are Loved".


Don't give up
Because you want to be heard
If silence keeps you
I...I will break it for you

Everybody wants to be understood
Well I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don't give up
Because you are loved

Progress

Slow progress is happening around here.  After moving Bella into her bedroom last September, we finally have a functioning closet and her clothes have been moved into the new room.  Hmmm......9 months to finish one closet, that's pretty sad.  Especially if you notice the closet doors are not installed yet, that's because they are not finished being painted.

 Onto the nursery.  We are 1 month out from the due date and the nursery still looks like a construction zone. 

I am generally a procrastinator, but this is kind of bad.

The good thing about this being the second child, the number of things you need to buy is considerably reduced.  We did finally purchase a new double jogging stroller.  We have been trying it out and trying to get Bella used to staying on her side.

 I'm thinking a stray arm might end up on the babies side once in awhile.

 And this has been my personal nightmare for the past week, shop drawings for work.  I am lucky enough that they are allowing me to work from home (this allows me to put up my feet and rest my back when needed, because this current checking of papers and being in one position for hours on end has actually been pretty painful for an 8 month pregnant lady).

At least I only have a couple more days of this, and then we can really start tackling the nursery, or else the baby is going to be "done" first.

6 days and counting.

It's been a little bit of a rough week around here.  As I mentioned before it's my last week of work....warning I'm about to do a lot of complaining here......I chose the end date I did so that I could finish out a project for work.  I was supposed to start working on it May 12th, which would give me 2 weeks to complete.  Well things didn't go that way, and I finally got the information needed to start working on it May 18th, the same amount of work that needs 2 weeks to finish, and only a week to get it done.  Who wants to have to work evenings and weekends on their last week of work?  It depresses me and let's just say I have very little motivation to actually work on it.

Then we can add in the fact that Bella is getting two new molars and hasn't been sleeping well, and to top it all off, I keep getting migraines and am no longer able to take the medicine that helps them.  So as I stated it's a little bit of a rough week.

But luckily even though Bella is teething, not sleeping the best, and coughing, she is normally in a good mood when awake.  She has been laughing a lot lately.....take a peek.

The Landscape Project

When we moved into the house we knew we had a problem with water drainage against the foundation.  This is why we have had some of the water problems in our basement.  Of course it took us 1.5 years to get around to fixing it.

We had quite a few evergreen bushes as landscaping, they were nice, but needed to be mixed up a little.  I wanted to keep half of them, as to save a little on the budget, and Jesse was all so happy to have to work around the remaining bushes while trying to regrade in the swampy mess of a yard with a skid loader.  Which all led to this problem.

 A torn up yard and many, many, many ruts running throughout the yard.  Needless to say mowing this season is at half speed, and you basically end up with a headache when you are done, or at least I assume, as it's too bumpy and I am currently not allowed to mow in my pregnant condition.

But after a little over a month, we finally have grass growing back in the front yard.  So take a look at the after product.

 The new smaller bushes consist of azaleas and hydrangeas, and a new skinny evergreen with holly in it's name (I am horrible with plants and their names).

 We also added 6 ton of river rock and new landscape edging.  It was 2 very long days of working to get it all accomplished.

We even landscaped a small area near our driveway and added a solar light, our address sign, and a lilac bush.  I absolutely love the smell of lilacs and hope this spot is sunny enough that it will take.

 So there you have it, a newly landscaped front yard.  A little less crowded than before, with a little more color (when the new bushes are in bloom).

The Cable Experiment

Or should I say Non-Cable Experiment.  That's right, we have officially canceled our cable and are trying the realms of living with local HD channels, Netflix and the internet.  It's a definite summer experience that we are hoping might be permanent, but you never know how that football season is going to go.
We have only been off cable for one week, so I can't really give a good report on how it's going.  I will say I miss my DVR.  I have a couple of shows that I watch and having to catch them at 9pm live, well let's just say that puts me past my normal bedtime.  Not too mention I really had no idea what night the shows were on, I would just watch them sometime after they were recorded.
In other big news....maybe even bigger news.  I have officially turned in my two week notice at work.  We have decided that I will take an extended break for my maternity leave.  Right now we are planning on around 7 months, but only time will tell how that works out.  Of course just as I started work right as Bella started school (meaning I had no break from watching her) I am also ending work right as she ends school.  Bella does have summer school 2 mornings a week for 6 weeks, so that gives me just a little bit of time to try and get everything done around here, or just time to run errands as needed.

It's Bella the pirate.....again

This week in school they had pirate week where they did different crafts and activities related to pirates.  Here Bella is showing off her buried treasure (ring), pirate ship, and pirate hat.

Mainly I wanted to show you how she is getting better at grasping and picking things up.  She will now pick most things up even heavier objects that surprise me.

 At school they have been working with making her pick things up across her body, otherwise known as crossing mid-line.  This is a big goal for Bella, and she is starting to do it more often.

She is even starting to use her left hand a little bit more, but the right hand still clearly dominates.

I can't believe she only has two weeks left at school, where has the year gone?

Are you excited?

This is the question we get asked often about the arrival of baby #2.  And usually I reply with "I have too much left to do before the baby arrives to be excited yet."

Of course if the baby where to arrive today, we would just need to load the car seat, pick up some newborn diapers and a new monitor and we would survive.  Granted it's still too early for baby #2 to arrive, so really hoping that doesn't happen.  But I do have a long list of things I would like to get accomplished before that happens.

1.  I need to paint 5 doors white, which of course means many coats on both sides.

2.  I have a changing table I bought of Craigslist that needs to be fixed and re-stained to match the crib and dresser already in the nursery.

3 and 4. I have an old lamp I would like to spray paint and new fabric to spruce up the shade.  We also have a brass ceiling fan in the nursery I would like to spray paint and reuse.

5.  I got new fabric to recover Bella's old bumper.  

6 and 7.  I also have fabric for the curtains and a new crib skirt.

8 and 9.  And fabric for a baby carrier/sling and a new diaper bag/purse.

And of course the whole time I still have this one to take care of.

This is a picture taken after bath time.  Bella loves to curl up in her towel and hide from us, she thinks it's funny.  A couple weeks ago at school they were learning about butterflies and the kids got to take turns being wrapped up in a blanket like a caterpillar in a cocoon and then emerging as a butterfly.  I'm thinking Bella probably enjoyed that lesson!

Happy Mother's Day

I may not be able to tell you in words, or express to you with a hug or a kiss, but I want you to know that I love you and appreciate all that you do for me.  You have sacrificed so much, and even though I may not be the daughter you had anticipated, I hope I have been able to bring love and happiness into your life.  Thank you for taking me to all of my doctor's appointments and preschool over the years.  Even though you may feel that your efforts go unnoticed... I notice them and dad notices them too... and that makes me appreciate you all the more. I am looking forward to a sibling to teach me all the things you and dad have tried to do... I promise I will surprise you :)
Love Always,
Bella (and Dad)

So Frustrating

Bella did not sleep last night.  We have no idea why.  She wasn't upset or in pain, just talking and talking and talking away until the wee hours of the morning.  At some point around 2am, we finally just turned the monitor off so we could get better sleep.  And she did fall asleep eventually, but we don't know when.
Of course I had a doctors appointment early this morning, so neither I nor Bella could sleep in.  I woke her at the last minute, threw clothes on her and put her directly into the car seat and off we went.  I figured she might be  in a bad mood, but she was actually in a pretty good mood and ate her breakfast as we were in the doctors office.
So I thought I would push my luck.  You see I have three different grocery stores I wanted to stop into this week.  Normally we do not take Bella to the grocery store by ourselves, but I didn't have any large items to get, so I thought we could at least get one knocked off, since it was on our way home.  So we stopped at the store, and back into her kidkart Bella went.  She actually did really good in the store.  She was talking the whole time.  I gave her one of her yogurts to hold onto on her tray (yogurt is of course her favorite and I'm pretty sure she knows what the containers look like when we get them out of the fridge to make her meal), so she actually had her hand on the yogurt container the whole time, which made me laugh.  I on the other hand had things under her cart, on her tray, and a really heavy basket I was carrying around.  Good thing they had drive up to pick all the groceries up.
Since that trip went so well, and we were going to be passing one more of the stores on our way home, I thought I would push my luck even more.  This store I only needed 3 items, so I grabbed Bella and put her in a regular grocery cart (these items were going to be a little heavier).  Apparently at this point Bella had her fill of grocery stores, and would not support herself in the slightest.  I was trying my best to support her, keep her straight, and grab the things I needed.  By the time we made it to pay, I could barely get the items on the checkout counter.  Then the best part came when I was trying to dig out a coupon and my credit card to pay. I had to let go of Bella to accomplish this, and she immediately fell over and conked her head good on the counter.  I think the checkout guy was about to call me in for child abuse at this point.
And I was very frustrated with her.  I know she was probably tired from not sleeping last night, but sometimes it's so frustrating that she won't do the things she is capable of.  She has gone in the front of grocery carts before.  She isn't completely stable, but she does well enough that as long as your trip is 30 minutes or less, she will support herself with a little correction from me periodically.  It isn't the prettiest sight, but it works in a pinch.  But today you would have thought she was a rag doll.  And for some reason to her bumping her head (she probably did it a total of 6 times, the last at the checkout being the worst) was better than using a little bit of muscle to help stabilize herself.
It times like these you wonder if she will ever actually make progress and stick with it.