Baking time with mom

We decided to keep Bella home one more day (or at least I hope it's only one more day).  She had another bad night of coughing, but is in good spirits this morning.  We decided to make some pumpkin cheesecake muffins.  Bella helped me run the mixer, although I wasn't talented enough to get a picture of that.  So here she is posing behind her masterpieces.

Notice she is still in her pajamas.  I think anyone who stays home from school should get to wear their pajamas all day long.

It's Pink

We started painting Bella's bedroom this weekend.  It's very pink.  You know how most people will blame their children when the room is a bright bold color.  Well obviously I have no one else to blame but myself.  Bella definitely didn't tell me to paint it pink.

Do I have your interest yet?

Well it's a two scheme color and we only have the first one done, so you will have to wait another week to see it done.

Granted with Bella being sick, I was really wishing she was in her bigger bed, so that if needed we could sleep with her and make sure everything was going alright.  As it is now, she gets to join our bed, and that means one of us gets kicked out.  So we best get on painting and then out to buy a new mattress for her.

I'm sick.....or sick and tired

We had a little bit of a scare on Saturday morning.  Bella woke up around 5am and I went in to check on her.  She seemed to be doing her, I'm up and happy, but it's way too early to actually get up.  So I left her to talk to herself as I went to get a little more sleep.  At 6am I told Jesse that maybe he should get Bella and put her to bed with me, so that she could possibly fall back asleep.

Jesse went into her bedroom and Bella was lying in bed staring wide eyed at the ceiling struggling to breathe.  He grabbed her and brought her into our bedroom.  Once in our bed she was still struggling to breathe and her arms were shaking, she was not making eye contact with either one of us.

I began to wonder if she was having a seizure and told Jesse to grab the video camera and film her.  I was holding and rocking her and trying to get her to come around.  We then took her downstairs, where I was holding her in my lap.  We were trying to figure out what was going on, and in the back of our heads were even contemplating that we might be running to the hospital.

I thought about how when I have a fever and am sick, I tend to get the shakes.  And usually it means I feel freezing cold.  So I told Jesse to grab and blanket and wrap her up while still in my arms.  Moments later her breathing went back to normal and the shakes stopped, and she immediately went to sleep.

We still are not sure what happened that morning, but since then we have been dealing with a child who keeps coughing and is very irritable.  We aren't sure if she is fighting a cold or just teething again, as a big one is on the move through the gums.  Regardless it's been a couple nights of bad sleep in this household, so let's hope whichever it is, it gets better soon.

Working on the Stairs

It was time to finally start installing the new stairs.

It was a slow process removing the existing pine treads and replacing with the new oak ones.

The treads had to be shimmed, as the existing stairs were leaning to the left.  After we had replaced about half of them, we realized the new stairs were squeaking.  So we had to buy some lag screws and secure the stair stringer to the wall.

They were really long lag screws.

Once the white painted risers were attached the stairs looked much better.

We had a little time left over to start working on the newel posts.

Hopefully we can work on the railing this weekend.  It's a little unnerving to walk around and not have any railings up.  Especially since the dogs like to walk on the very edge every time they go up and down.

The bus is here

Bella took her first bus ride to school on Monday.  The bus drivers seem to be very nice, and Bella is their only passenger.  That means they pick her up and immediately drive to school (or vice versa) and the trip takes all of five minutes.  In fact I'm pretty sure it takes longer to load her and unload her, than the actual drive to school.

We haven't quite decided if we are going to keep her on the bus, but we are giving it a try for now.  We are still in the process of figuring out how everything will work with me not being at home.  And in typical crazy fashion, I was sent to Florida for work this week.  So we still haven't quite gotten into any type of routine.  

Busy Week

It's been a big week over in our neck of the woods.  Bella had her birthday, which meant she is officially part of the school district and we had our first IEP meeting.  For all of you that don't know what that stands for it's an Individual Education Plan, and is especially designed for children with special needs.  It's a program that the school uses that sets out the goals that you hope to accomplish through the teaching and therapy she will receive at school.  You usually meet yearly to see how things are going and what new goals and changes need to be done.  Being that this was our very first meeting we didn't really know what to expect, and I imagine we will learn a lot more as the years go on.

After our first official school meeting on Friday we rushed around to get our house ready for our first Nebraska party on Saturday.

Go Huskers!!

Then on Sunday we had Bella's birthday party.

Then on Monday I started my new job.  That's right, I started back to work at an engineering company.  I am working part time, but it's actually going to be 4 almost full days from Monday to Thursday, and then I will have off on Friday's to spend with Bella as she doesn't have school.

Jesse won tickets to Monday night football, so after my first day of work, we headed off to the Chief's stadium.  Let's just say it was a slow crawl as it took us 1.5 hours to go less than 5 miles.

We had great seats on the 14th row.  Did I mention the game was at 9:15pm, and it rained almost the whole time?

Then on Tuesday Bella had another round of horse therapy.

We looked a lot like last week.

Except we got to ride in our favorite position for a little bit, which was upside down.  If only that actually helped us sit....we would have it made.

I think it's time to go to bed, we need to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Birthday Pictures

It was Bella's third birthday this weekend and we had ourselves a little county fair over at our house.  Well mainly we just had a bunch of "fair like" food and pies.

And a bunch of balloons.

And in typical Bella fashion, we didn't want any of the pumpkin pie mom had specially made for the occasion.  It doesn't matter that we loved it a year ago, we wouldn't even open our mouth for our birthday slice.

Bella had a great time!