Miss Bella's Baptism

Yes, it's quite amazing- we're actually posting another update within a week rather than the normal 3 or 4. But that is only because we had a very special day today- Miss Bella's baptism!
Here is our sweet little princess all decked out in her fancy attire. She rather enjoyed playing with the tulle on her dress.
This is quite possibly my new favorite picture of her! If that isn't an angelic expression, I don't know what is.
We were told that Bella was acting pretty cute during the baptism! She just STARED up at Pastor Kevin when he was speaking. After Pastor Kevin was done, we went and prayed with some of the elders. At our church, they pick out a Bible verse for each child based on what their name means. Isabella means "consecrated to God," so her verse was something in Isaiah 60... but neither of us remembers which one- oops! We get a video of the service, so hopefully they will maybe include the verse with that.
After the service, we had over some of our family members for lunch. Here is Bella's pretty cake- which was quite delicious! Bella took a nice nap throughout the whole lunch though.
But after she woke up, she was the focus of many many pictures! Here is our little family on Bella's special day!
Miss Bella with her cousins- Jager, Dylann, and Tatum. This picture turned out a little better than the last one we took as I believe Bella started bawling during it.
We FINALLY took a 4 generation picture with all the ladies in my family- my Grandma Zylstra, my mom, myself, and Bella. We almost had 5 generations of straight girls, but my Great-Grandma Kooistra passed away just a couple of weeks before Bella was born. Four generations of all girls is still pretty neat though.
My parents and us!
Hmmm, do these three all look alike? Hee hee, just kidding Derek- she looks like you too! That has been quite a debatable subject- one person will say oh she looks exactly like her mom and then the next will say oh she's her daddy! So we have concluded that Bella is a perfect combination of both Mommy and Daddy. Bella's eyes are currently a brownish olive color, and her hair is coming in brown. (And she is finally getting some hair!)
Here is the 4 generations picture for Derek's family!
Derek's parents and us!
Overall, it was definitely a great day. We were glad that so many of our friends and family were able to come to the service to celebrate with us. We feel so incredibly blessed that God chose us to be the parents of such a special little lady. She is definitely the light of our lives, and we are so thankful for her!
Here is a couple add-on pictures, obviously not baptism related! This sling has been a new favorite of Bella and Mommy's lately- Bella because she gets to be carried around and Mommy's because her hands remain free!
Bye until next time!

Thoughts from the Male of the House

Lindsey requested that I make an appearance on the blog again, so here I am. She does a great job keeping you all up to date, but I said that I would take over the duties for this round. We have some new images of Bella ready to go for your viewing pleasure. She's getting bigger and bigger each and every day. Here are some new "FIRSTS" again for Bella, along with some other pictures that we wanted to share.
Here is Bella's five month picture. A nice big smile for the camera.
Another big smile from Bella during some photography time in her chair.
Here is Bella's cheesy smile. She does this funny smile quite often, especially when she's in a really excited and hyper mood.
Another cute picture of Bella smiling in her chair.
How sweet!

Another cheesy smile from Bella. She is quite the little smiler!
Here's Bella's first time in our swing. This past weekend it was really nice, so we decided to take advantage of one of the last remaining nice days of the year. I think she liked the swing quite a bit. However, the weather proof rope did break later and she just about had a big fall.
Bella has also started eating some very yummy foods. We have her eating carrots, sweet potatoes and squash. Here she is getting nice and messy during her dinner before bed time.
Here's chubby Bella, getting ready for bath time.
This was Bella's first bath with bubbles. She seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.
Bella also began sitting up on her own this past week. She has done it before, but not nearly as well as she is doing it now. We still have to watch and make sure she doesn't tumble over, but she's getting quite good at sitting up all by herself.
This was Bella sitting on our bed. She sat in this position for a good 15 minutes.
Bella in her Iowa gear and a new bow that somehow clips onto her very thin hair.
Just a cute side shot of Bella and her new bow.
Here's Bella and I trying to fake a smile after the disappointing loss on Saturday. There's always next year, I guess.
Here's Bella sleeping. Her mouth is hanging open and that's when you really know she's out cold!
Here's Bella after church on Sunday morning. I believe this is one of her outfits for her six month pictures as well.
Sitting up and smiling! If you look closely, you can see her two bottom teeth. We believe that she is working on some more teeth as well as her extreme drooling has resumed.
Looking very cute and snoopy as well!

Happy Halloween!

Little Miss Bella is nearly 5 months old already! She keeps growing and growing every day, and developing more of her little personality. She is still such a happy little girl, even though she has not one, but TWO bottom teeth coming in. The bottom left is poking all the way out, and the bottom right is just starting to come through. It really doesn't seem to bother her too much though- not that that is a surprise. She is making life too easy on us!
Still as happy as ever! All dressed up for church like a pretty princess.
Her chubby legs look pretty cute in tights. :)
She is still absolutely loving her cereal. We are now giving it to her two times a day. She sometimes gets oatmeal cereal as well. The only problem with eating is that Bella tries to yank the spoon away from me, thus making the cereal go all over her face! I'm still nursing Bella as well, and thankfully we haven't had any more episodes of bottle refusal lately. I'm hoping those times are all past....
We also tried out a new food last night for the first time- sweet potatoes! As this picture shows, she wasn't too sure about it. She didn't spit it out, but she just made this weird face. However, we tried it again tonight, and she ate half the jar with no problem. Despite Daddy telling her that it's gross....
This is Bella's "cheerleading" outfit! She actually got to show her legs on a day that wasn't freezing- miracle!
I think I can stand all by myself! Bella still isn't any closer to crawling, thank goodness. However, she does have this new move where she can scoot herself around in a circle on her belly. So I know the crawling will be coming soon....
Still in love with her feet!
And still developing several rolls. :) Her belly looks pretty cute hanging over her diaper though!
This is Bella's new hat for winter! Since she doesn't have any hair on her head, we have to keep her warm in some way!A little family picture of us. Another cute thing that Bella has been doing lately is giving us "kisses." She is VERY into our faces and grabbing at them. She will then open her mouth up wide and land it on our cheeks! It's pretty sweet. :) Posing with the pumpkins for Halloween! Thankfully I took these on a nice day, as the actual Halloween day was quite chilly. A pumpkin that is the right size for Bella. :) And here is the most adorable kitty ever! Yes, such a surprise to all who know me... I wanted Bella to be a kitty for her first Halloween. I'm afraid she might not have much of a choice in liking cats... But even Derek agreed that she made quite a cute kitty. Getting to open her very first present from Grandpa Doug and Grandma Sheri- well excluding all the presents from her birth. As to be figured, she was more interested in the tissue paper. And again, notice the kitty bag and kitty stuffed animal.... We're cat people. :) Looking at her fun new books! Reading is something I have been doing more with Bella lately, although she is maybe more interested in chewing on the books. She does sit on my lap though and look at the pictures. Showing off the cute kitty costume! She went trick-or-treating earlier in the day to Grandpa Doug and Grandma Sheri, Great-Grandpa and Grandma Zylstra, Uncle Shawn, Aunt ChyAnne and kids, and Grandpa Ralph, Grandma Luann, and Aunt Anna. Then tonight we gave out candy to kids in our neighborhood- next year we'll take her out! My two favorite kitties! They even match each other. This was the first time that Bella has really noticed Tommy. She was even petting him, and he surprisingly let her! I think Tommy knows that she comes from me- he doesn't hiss at her like he does to pretty much everybody other than my mom and I. :)Our favorite kitty! Definitely a good first Halloween.

4 Month Check-up and 1st Ear Infection

So I see in our last post I said I need to post more frequently so I don't have a zillion pictures to upload... Oops, guess that didn't happen! We have been keeping busy these past few weeks. Unfortunately, an illness had invaded our entire family, starting with Derek. He came down with a cold (on his birthday nonetheless!) and it was passed on to Bella and me. Bella's cold spread to her ears though, and she developed her first ear infection. Due to this, Derek and I also experienced our first night of no sleep! She just screamed every time we laid her in her crib, which is how we knew she likely had an ear infection. Thankfully, that only lasted the one night, and she has been back to her normal happy self!
Daddy and Bella on his birthday. He thinks he looks gross because he was sick, but we had to take a picture anyway. :) For Derek's birthday, we had gone to Des Moines to do some shopping. We got Bella her jumperoo when we were there! She's a little small for it yet, but she is starting to like it more and more. She especially likes when Mommy and Daddy dance to the music that it plays! Snuggling up before bedtime with Mommy! Nightime has been going awesome- Bella is now sleeping from 9 till 7 or 8 in the morning without waking up to eat at all. She then will even go back to sleep until 9 or 10! Naptime is still not too successful. She still likes to take little half hour cat naps every few hours, rather than just taking a couple longer naps. However, the past few days she has been taking longer naps, so maybe the tide is turning. This was taken on Mommy's sick day- Bella was still happy, even though she was getting her cold!Mmmmmm, Mommy's Butterfinger! She actually has been eating some new foods though- we kept trying to give her rice cereal, and she is now a big fan! I think it was more a matter of figuring out how to eat, rather than suck. So Bella has some every night before bedtime. She has also had some formula now. I have started to get lazy with pumping on the days that I work, so my giant milk supply was dwindling. So when I'm at work, she now gets a mix of breast milk and formula.Bella's 4 month picture! She had her 4 month check-up today, and everything looked great. She now weighs 15 lbs 2 oz (95th %), is 25" long (60th %), and her head circumference is 16 3/4" (95th %). So she has pretty much developed at the same rate since her 2 month check-up.Our little model. :) Showing off that double chin and chubby cheeks!Starting to roll over....There I did it!This is another new trick that Bella has developed! She can now sit up somewhat using her hands. She can actually stay this way for quite some time- such a strong little girl! At her appointment today, our doctor said that not many 4 months old can do this already. He thought that she would be crawling early, which Derek and I both think as well. "Hi Daddy!"Posing for more pictures- I'm sure she wonders why she sits in this chair all the time. :) Another new thing that Bella has started doing- when she is laying on her stomach, she lifts up both her arms and legs and "flys." Derek says she is skydiving!
Notice that she actually has shoes on her feet in this picture! However, they didn't stay on for long. It might be kind of hard to tell in pictures, but Bella has TINY feet. We compared them to her footprints from when she was born, and they have barely grown! I don't even think she fits in newborn size shoes.
Speaking of her tiny feet, Bella has also found that she has them. :) They have become something fun to play with, but her hands are still her favorite!Cheering on the Hawkeyes last Saturday !These were both taken today- AFTER her appointment! She had to have boosters for all her immunizations, but obviously they have not bothered her too much because she has been super happy. It was funny when she got her shots too- when they first poked her, she didn't whimper at all, so I was like wow, she's not going to cry! But then 3 seconds later she let out a huge wail- delayed reaction. :) However, she just needed a little comfort and then she was fine.

Bella's Giggles

Since we couldn't get our video camera to upload on our computer, we videotaped Miss Bella giggling on our regular camera. So here is a short clip of some of Bella's giggles and squawks. Ignore The Office music playing in the background at first!

Bella's Busy Weeks!

So I think I really need to start posting more frequently, as I have accumulated lots of pictures from the past few weeks! There have also been a lot of new things happening for Bella, so hopefully I can remember them all. One important new development is that Bella has started rolling from her back to her belly! She did it for the first time on 9/11, and has been doing it constantly ever since. :) She likes her new trick so much that she even does it while she is sleeping! That made both of us nervous since we were lectured so much on not having her sleep on her belly. But, there's not much we can do about it! It's pretty funny to watch her- she'll roll from her back to her belly, then from her belly to her back, and so on and so forth. She needs a lot of room so she doesn't hit furniture in her path!
Bella has also been laughing since the beginning of the month. She likes to have things wiggled up near her neck- she'll even start giggling before it gets there! I videotaped her one time when she was giggling, so I tried to upload it on the computer- but with no success. So you'll just have to trust me that it's quite adorable.
Her 3 month pictures! I can't believe how big she is getting. We don't have a doctor visit until she is 4 months, but we have weighed her a couple of times on our scale at home. She was around 14 1/2 lbs near the beginning of the month. So we'll see how much she is at the next check-up.One of my new favorite pictures- such a sweet expression! Derek thinks she looks grown-up in the picture.
I have been taking "last" pictures of her in all of her 0-3 month outfits so I can remember them all. So I apologize, but I posted a lot of pictures. A lot were cute, so I couldn't pick! She is a very smiley girl...as all of these pictures indicate. Bella is so happy and always gives us big smiles! She especially likes to give Daddy big giant smiles- she thinks he's pretty funny!
Her hands remain one of her favorite things to do! She has been discovering that she can do more than suck on them however. :) She has started to grab and hold on to her toys- but of course has to put them in her mouth. We tried giving her rice cereal for the first time last week. But.... she wasn't really too into that yet. We'll try again later! Thankfully, she has resumed eating her bottle again. I'm praying that her moments of bottle hatred will now be over! I don't think I can handle force feeding her the bottle anymore. All decked out in our Iowa gear to cheer on the Hawkeyes when they played ISU. Go Hawks!Zoning out on Daddy's lap before bedtime. Bella is still going to bed around 9 each night, and sleeping about 8 hours before getting up to eat. She was getting up 2 times in the night for about a week, but is now sleeping until 5 or so, so that must have been a growth spurt time. :) Some nights she will even sleep until 7- it's crazy! However, she still isn't the biggest fan of naps. She much prefers to take little cat naps rather than a long one. Oh well, it's better to have her sleep at night!Watching tv with Daddy. Bella is definitely a little tv nut! No matter where she is in a room, she somehow manages to find the tv. The bright lights must be fascinating- not the football game as Daddy would like to believe. :) A typical pose for Bella- both hands in her mouth. She just loves to have her picture taken!

This past weekend we went to Chicago with Derek's mom, dad, sister, and Grandma. We met up with his aunt, uncle, and cousin and spent Saturday looking around downtown Chicago. I was a little weary of taking Bella on another long car ride as her hatred of the carseat has continued, but she did very well again. It was a very fun weekend, and was absolutely beautiful outside!
Bella had her first train ride! She slept through a majority of it though.
In Millennium Park- that was a cool place to see! Neither Derek or I had been to Chicago in several years, so we enjoyed seeing the sights again.
Bella also had her first mini boat ride! We took a water taxi to get back to the train station.
We had Bella's 3 month pictures taken this past week as well. I tried to get them to upload on the computer, but since we have a Mac it did not work. However, they are posted on a website: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/storesearch.aspx?p=48295. They are under my name, and the password is Bella. We got some very cute shots of her!

Almost 3 months old!

So I thought it was about time for another update on Isabella. We have had quite a few happenings in the past couple weeks! First, just a few days after our last post, Bella rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time. She is now doing it on an occasional basis, but never when we want her to. :) Naturally! I think she is pretty close from going to her back to her tummy as well. She continues to have more and more control over her head and likes sitting up like a big girl. Bella also LOVES to stand. She has very strong legs for a baby! She kicks them against everything she can.
Here is a picture of her after she rolled over!
She continues to be a happy baby with lots of smiles! She has started to giggle some, but hasn't done a full belly laugh yet. She loves being talked to and talking back in a very loud voice. Bella also likes to be sung to- a favorite is "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" for some reason!
She is also doing AWESOME at night. She started sleeping in her crib a few weeks ago, and we were both a little nervous that it wouldn't go well. However, she seems to like it because she can sprawl her legs and arms out all over! Bella generally goes to sleep between 9-10 and sleeps until 4:30-5:30 in the morning. Then she wakes up to eat, and goes back to bed until 9ish! Some nights she wakes up one other time to eat, but generally she sleeps for that 8 hour chunk.
However... bottle feeding is not going so well. Last week she all of a sudden decided she wanted to stop taking her bottle. Not sure why this occurred, but it has been a slight source of stress for Mommy! Thankfully, with my work schedule I'm only gone from her for 4 hours at a time. Thus I know that she won't be starving when I'm away. We are going to keep working with her on taking her bottle though. It sucks pretty bad- she just sits there bawling her eyes out, and I know exactly what she wants! But she does forgive us afterwards. :)

She definitely is continuing to grow! Getting quite a few rolls of chub- which makes for great cuddling.This past weekend, we took a weekend trip to St. Louis to go to a Cardinals game. We also revisited all of our favorite places from when we lived there! Bella was such a good girl, even during the car ride. She hates her car seat, so we were both thinking that a majority of the time may be spent listening to her cry. However, she only cried a total of maybe 45 minutes on the way down, and she slept a lot on the way back! Thank goodness for portable DVD players and Baby Einstein DVD's. That occupied some awake time! Derek also got to enjoy listening to children's songs sung by Mommy over and over again.Our little family!Derek and Bella at our favorite St. Louis restaurant- Dewey's pizza.I love this picture! It kind of shows this new thing she does- when somebody is holding her, she will smile at someone else and then duck her head into their chest.She even did well sleeping in the crib our hotel provided- all sprawled out in a typical pose. Showing off her strong legs.Daddy and Bella in downtown St. Louis. He had to take a picture by the arches they had up for the All-Star game of course. :)Mommy selected to stand by the flowers with Bella.Standing in front of the arch- or rather, one little part of the arch.

We took a walk in Forest Park and sat out by the fountains. It was such a nice day!Taking a snooze on Daddy on Saturday afternoon. This continues to be her fav sleeping pose!
All decked out in her first Cardinals outfit. She had to wear pink though rather than red- I don't want to be asked is that a little girl or a little boy!So excited to go to the game apparently!
Bella did really well at the game too! In fact, she spent all but maybe half an hour sleeping. Slept through the loud crowd, the fireworks going off 3 times... she was worn out! And she still slept that nigh.Staying warm and bundled up with Mommy.
Her first jeans! The weather is changing, so it's a good thing she is fitting into some of her 3-6 month clothes. She looks so big in this picture though! Our little baby isn't going to be so little anymore.