I'm a little slow on posting this month, which I'll blame on the wonderful weather we have had! We have spent lots of time outside, and I just haven't gotten around to writing a post. Here is what's new in Bella's life-
-Favorite games: Bella LOVES to play little games with us. Some are common children games, like ring around the rosy and singing and walking to the Ants Go Marching, but some we have made up. We play Ghost, which is when Bella goes in her room and one of us hides in another room, and then we jump out to scare her. We also play wolf like in the 3 Little Pigs.
-We started saying nursery rhymes to Bella, and she loves them! They are now part of our bedtime routine with books and singing. Humpty Dumpty, Hey Diddle Diddle, and Hickory Dickory Dock are her favorites. She also likes doing The Little Mice are Playing rhyme.
-Becoming Miss Independent. "Bella do" is a commonly heard phrase in our house. She wants to eat by herself, get dressed by herself, so on and so forth. Definitely exerting that 2 year old independence!
-Learning: Bella has started to learn some letters and pretty much consistently knows B, M, and D (for Bella, Mommy and Daddy of course. :)) She also knows the colors pink, blue, green, and brown typically. The craziest learning development has been that she can count to 10! All of a sudden one day, she just kept counting rather than stopping at 2. So all this time she has been listening to us; she just refused to say it.
Miss Bella's hair is continuing to grow, albeit ever so slowly. She definitely inherited some of Mommy's natural curls- she gets some cute little flips going on in the back and sides!
Our transition to toddler bed has gone very well. Bella was waking up earlier and sleeping less for naps than she used to in her crib, but that has gradually gotten better. However, she found that she had full reign of her room after she woke up, which left us with some interesting messes in the morning! Thankfully the only drawers she could get into just had pajamas and some summer stuff in them, so it wasn't a huge disaster. Often times many of the clothes would be ON Bella when we went in as well- multiple layers of them! Thankfully we broke that habit- she still says every night before she goes to sleep, "no drawers."
Showing off her cheesy little grin, with her beloved blanket behind her. That particular blanket is now referred to as "big nigh-nigh." We bought Bella a smaller blanket that is similar to hers so that we didn't have to take the big giant one with us wherever we go. HOwever, when we are home, she now has to have them both of course. The new one is naturally "little nigh-nigh." :)
Hiding under her "tent."
Modeling her stylish new sunglasses. :)
And for some reason, Bella thought she needed to wear Mommy's coat one evening. Complete with the sunglasses of course! She is quite the silly girl, and if she gets a laugh, she will keep doing it!
Our family of four going out to celebrate Valentine's Day! We had to go to our family favorite restaurant, the Olive Garden. Bella eats almost as much as we do there! And she especially likes the salad- quite strange that a toddler loves lettuce so much. It's not just the Olive Garden dressing either; she always wants salad when we eat it!
We enjoyed playing out after the last big snowfall for one last time on a day that wasn't too cold. Not that coldness affects Bella; she would do anything to go outside!
The slides are still her absolute favorite!
And they were even more fun when she got to land in a pile of snow!
Making snow angels with Daddy!
We introduced her to the snow mountain, which Bella thought was pretty fun.
However, she kept asking to go back on the mountain even after the snow melted!
Had to test out the riding toys too. :)
Bella received some nice presents for Valentines Day. Here she is looking at a Twinkle Twinkle Little Star book from Grandpa Doug and Grandma Sheri. Books are Bella's favorite things!
She also got a little Dora coloring set.
Derek and I further fueled Bella's obsession with Dora by giving her a book that has little Dora characters to play with. They were obviously a big hit!
We also gave her several books and a coloring book.
Bella likes to share her toys with Tommy, even if he doesn't always appreciate it. :)
I decided Bella is now old enough to start playing with Play-Doh. I personally hate the stuff as I think the smell is awful, but she had lots of fun with it. However, now anytime she sees the Play-Doh containers, she wants to take it out to make "snakes." My own fault!
One Saturday in February, we took Bella to the Incredible Pizza Company in Des Moines. We thought it would be something fun and different for her to do to burn off some energy. She definitely had a good time and wanted to play with the "toys" rather than eat! Here she is enjoying a ride on a lovely "neigh."
Helping Daddy shoot some baskets- or maybe it was more hindering. :)
There was an area designed specifically for toddlers, so naturally Bella had to hit up the slide multiple times.
Here she is enjoying a ride on a little car!
She enjoyed this a lot too!
We started to go a little stir crazy in February being stuck inside, and our trips to the library were starting to get boring. So I decided to take Bella to Barnes and Noble in Des Moines on one of my days off. We had a fun little mother-daughter outing looking at books and going out to eat for lunch!
Our most exciting news of the month is that Bella was potty trained around the end of February! All of a sudden, it just clicked for her. She started going one day and kept up with it with very little accidents. I think it really all happened in the span of a week, which was pretty crazy. But I guess she was just truly ready at that point, plus she was proud of herself for going. We did a stickers reward chart which I took a picture of at some point. It's now laden down with stickers as she likes to pile them on top of one another. :) I was thinking when she was still learning that last year at this time, she wasn't even walking. And now she is telling us when she needs to go to the bathroom! It's just crazy how much she has changed developmentally since last year.
