Trip to Kansas City!

The last weekend in July we embarked on our first family trip of the summer to Kansas City with my whole family. We went to Oceans of Fun one day and Worlds of Fun the next. Although it was EXTREMELY hot outside, it was a lot of fun spending time with everyone.

We left right around Bella's naptime on Thursday thinking she would sleep a good part of the way down. Well..... not so much. She slept all of 20 minutes and was awake for the other 3 hours. However, she was happy watching DVD's and playing with Mommy! Blowing kisses...
Making silly faces...
Kicking the chair and playing peek-a-boo...

And snuggling with her little buddies, Elmo and baby!

Daddy walking around with Bella outside of a restaurant on the first night. That night, she was so completely wiped out. When we got to the hotel around 4, I tried to get her to take a nap since she had only slept 20 minutes the whole day. Well, apparently she just had too much energy from being cooped up in the car, because she definitely did not go to sleep! So Bella had a 20 minute nap the entire day! :) She was still happy though, but conked out quickly that night.

Bella had lots of fun playing with her cousins, especially "Dee Dee" (Bella's term for Dylann).

On Friday, we went to Worlds of Fun. We never ventured too far from the baby pool area because Bella refused to leave the water. Anytime I took her out for a drink or to eat, she started saying, "Pool! Pool!"

She kept us very busy following wherever she decided to take off to!

Pretty sure nobody should look this cute in a little bikini. :)

Bella loved splashing around in the water!

Mommy and Bella- notice her mad expression because she wanted me to let her down to go back in the pool!

Bella is apparently telling stories to Jager here!

The best picture I got of all the kids- not so easy to do with busy Bella who wants to take off all the time!

Thankfully Bella slept really well at the hotel. I was a little nervous because the last time we tried to have her sleep somewhere besides home or her carseat, she was scared. We brought the pack-n-play along, and although she was a little scared at first, she did fine and slept great every night. This was after she woke up on Saturday morning- everything had to be on her lap!

Saturday we went to Worlds of Fun, and it was ridiculously hot. We ended up going to the car for a bit because Bella needed a nap and she wasn't falling asleep in the stroller. I think it was just too hot for her! So Derek and I brought her back, which was fine because we got to cool off as well. And actually, the power ended up going out in the park during that time, so we really didn't miss anything at all!

Bella is obviously too little to go by herself on any of the rides, and they wouldn't let adults go on any of the kid rides. However, there was this ball house in the kid part of the park, and Bella had lots of fun playing around in there!

I think she may have even swiped a ball from here. However, we disposed off it as it was very dirty!

We stayed at an Embassy Suites, so Bella had lots of fun playing with the water fountain!

Saturday was also my dad's birthday, so we had a nice meal at the hotel restaurant to celebrate it. We ordered a piece of chocolate cake for him... but I'm pretty sure Dylann and Jager might have taken down more of it than he did. :)

Uncle Jer with Bella, Dylann, and Jager after we ate on Saturday. Tatum unfortunately didn't feel very good on Saturday, so she didn't want to be in any pictures.

Our family- complete with Bella's precious nigh-nigh! It was a very fun weekend, and we are ready to go on our next few trips soon!

14 Month Update!

July has been an incredibly busy month for the De Haan household! We have been very busy enjoying the sunshine (and humidity!), swimming, hanging out with family and friends, and taking our first vacation of the summer. Bella has been busy continuing to grow and develop as well! She is talking SO much and is definitely starting to become even more of a little girl rather than a baby! She is still Miss Independent and knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it! She loves to show off and make us laugh and smile, but she also is so sweet and loving. We love this little girl more and more every day!

We still spend lots of time in the "wah-wah" (Bella's term for water). We have been able to enjoy swimming at Grandpa and Grandma's pool a few different times! Bella is not too sure of the floatie toys- in fact, she is pretty terrified of them. But she likes just splashing around with Mama and Dada.

Bella loves dancing and singing to music. She often makes a singing noise to herself when she is playing, which is so cute to hear. She also helps sing along to some of her favorite songs, like Skidamarinkidinkydink, the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

For some reason, Bella thought she needed to put her toys in Tommy's little bed- which is pretty gross since it is covered with cat hair. She loves putting stuff into places and taking them back out. It's a fun never-ending game!

And here she wants to demonstrate just how strong and determined she really is. One afternoon, Bella decided to pull out all the chairs from the table and pushed them around on the floor. As I said, she's quite persistent in what she wants to do! :)

Apparently Bella thought she could fit into her baby's crib. When that didn't happen so well, she was rather mad! Bella is still loving to play with her babies and "La-la" (Elmo). She gives them kisses, feeds them, makes them go nigh-nigh, throws them across the room when they are being naughty...

Bella loves our new family member yet. In fact, he helped introduce a new word into her vocabulary- Kitty! Bella always has big huge smiles whenever she sees Tommy and I know that she just wants to go jump on top of him. Thankfully, she does not do that and only goes by him with Mommy.

Bella has been quite attached to "Mama" this month. She is fine when I'm at work, but if she knows that I am around, she has to be nearby. I can't lie, it's pretty fun to be so wanted, but carrying around a 25 pound child can get rather tiresome! But now that she says up when she wants to be held, I really can't resist.

As I said, Bella has started talking soo much this past month. I try to write down all the words that she uses or has said, but it's getting hard to keep track of! She has said up, tractor, purse, apple, kitty, shoe, backpack, cheeka (a character on a show), and baby (she's finally not calling babies mama!). Bella also knows and identifies pretty much all our family member names. Some are a little harder to say than others, but she makes an attempt at all of them.

She started to learn our family names by looking at our wedding book. She is obsessed with looking at that and photo albums. They are looked through daily, and she points to and names all the people and things she knows.

Bella blows kisses when she tells somebody bye-bye, although she doesn't usually "blow" the kiss.

I think I mentioned in my last post that Bella loves to do silly tricks that makes us laugh. She "runs" in place, does this silly walk where she lifts up one of her legs, and makes a yodeling noise. She thinks it's so funny when we laugh at her, so she loves to keep showing off again and again!

Bella is still a really good eater and sleeper. She goes to bed around 9, and typically gets up between 8:30-9. However, I don't think she usually goes to sleep until 10- she likes to play around in her bed! She still takes 2 naps a day, although she can survive on one. But she does better with having 2 shorter naps rather than 1 longer one at this point.

Bella typically eats oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast, some type of pasta/main dish with veggies and fruit for lunch, a snack in the afternoon, and whatever we eat at night with veggies and fruit for supper. She drinks a few cups of whole milk a day, although it has taken me some time to get her to like it. She loves apple juice and water as well. Bella had been getting a bottle at night up until this week. I was very sad to take it away as she loved her ba-ba so much! But she has done fine without it, and has only asked for it a couple of times.

Happy Fourth of July!

This years Fourth of July was definitely much better than Bella's first- particularly weather wise- and we had a multi-day celebration for it!
Bella of course had to wear a special outfit to celebrate the occasion...
Complete with matching shoes...
And headband!
Our little girl is very patriotic. :)
Pella celebrated the Fourth the Saturday before. We didn't go to the parade or any of the activities that day since we knew Bella would be up late that night, and we wanted to let her have a normal schedule during the day. We went to Derek's aunt and uncle's house for supper that evening and hung out with his extended family before the fireworks started.
Bella loved running around outside and showing off her tricks for everybody- notice the rosy cheeks!
Bella wasn't too sure what to think about Uncle Case (still haven't completely lost her fear of men), but she was willing to look at her book with him- from a distance.
Here she decided she needed to look at it herself in Corbin's chair.
I was pretty worn out from chasing Bella all over. At our house, she usually sticks to our yard and doesn't stray too far from it. However, over there, she decided she needed to go up and down the driveway, the sidewalks, etc etc.
We decided to keep Bella up to watch the fireworks. They were SUPPOSED to start at 9:30, but for some reason didn't until 10- a second after we decided to just go. So we stuck around, and it's good that we did- Bella liked watching all the pretty lights in the sky and actually sat still on my lap. We were far enough away that the booms weren't loud, so she wasn't scared at all. It was definitely a late night though- we didn't get home until 10:30 and Bella wasn't asleep until 11! Thankfully, she slept until 10:30 on the actual 4th, so she wasn't too affected by the late night.
That day, we had some friends over to our house in the afternoon and evening. Bella got to meet another new baby! My friend Lori had a baby in May, and Bella was intrigued by him. She wanted to keep touching him and probably would've pulled him into her lap like one of her babies if we would have let her.
Then on Monday, we headed to Sully for the annual celebration there! Thankfully the rain held off on Monday for the parade, so Bella was able to watch it. Bella is making faces at Tatum for some reason here...
"Hi Mama! Can I have the camera?"


So Bella enjoyed most of the parade... except when they fired off cannons after raising the flag not once but four times. She was scared half to death. And she also was not a fan of the fire trucks blaring their horn. I can't say I blame her for either one, they made me jump too

Bella with big cousin Dylann. Dylann is our babysitter for Bella whenever she's around. She is such a good little helper, and Bella loves her!
Aww. :)
Bella on the way home at the end of the day. We were at my parents house until from 9 until about 3:30, and Bella went without a nap that entire time. I tried putting her in the crib in the afternoon, but she was scared of not being in her bed. I even had her rocked to sleep, but she woke up the second I laid her down. However, she didn't get grumpy or crabby- just took a long nap when we got back home!

13 Months Old!

It's amazing to me how winter goes by so very slowly, but summer flies by with no time at all! I can't believe a month has passed since Bella's birthday, and she is now 13 months old! We have been very busy enjoying the nice weather and doing different activities. Here is the latest happenings in Bella's world!
This illustrates a new trick she developed in June- her "silly face." She of course has been smiling like this for quite some time, but now can do it on command! Bella loves to perform and get smiles and laughs, and showing this cheesy grin definitely does the trick! She also started doing "blinky eyes," where she blinks her eyes a bunch of times in a row.
Bella still loves playing with her Little People. Her castle is the first thing she needs to drag out every single day without fail!
Bella also still adores reading books. I got her this Baby Einstein book that has pictures of different objects, and she loves to listen to what all of the objects are. This book gets us through church services much better now! Yes, Bella remains with us during church. I forgot to mention this in past posts, but we had brought her to the church nursery two times in May. Each time, our number flashed up on the screen about 10 minutes after we brought her, signifying that there was a problem. We go to get her, and she is bawling her eyes out. :( We think that she just gets scared when she realizes that there is nobody around she knows. Derek sat with her for like 10 minutes one Sunday, and when he was there, she was fine and playing around. So it's not like she doesn't like the environment; it's just she realizes she doesn't have mama or dada around. So I am taking a few month hiatus from trying the nursery again. Thankfully, Bella has not been so squirmy in church, so it hasn't even really been an issue. She's learning how to sit still and be quiet pretty well, which I figure is good for her anyway!
Bella plays with her babies a lot as well. This baby is "ba-ba," since it is the baby that has a bottle attached. She loves to feed her the bottle and snuggle just like a real mommy! Bella got to meet a new real baby this month. My cousin Jen had a baby girl in May, and we went to meet her with my mom. Bella was pretty fascinated by a "real" baby and didn't even mind it when I held her! I think she'll be a good big sister someday.
Here is Bella "texting" on my new phone. Derek and I got new phones a few weeks ago, and Bella decided she liked them very much! Daddy doesn't allow her possession of his, but she somehow always ends up with mine.
Whenever I lay on my stomach on the floor, Bella has to climb on top for a ride- even if I'm talking on the phone!
Bella snuggling with her "nigh-nigh," which is what she calls her beloved blanket. Nigh-nigh has to go everywhere Bella goes! And when nigh-nigh is near, those precious fingers go right in her mouth.
These next few pictures show what we have been doing a lot of this past month: swimming! We filled up Bella's baby pool, and she love love LOVES it. The picture above is the first time she saw it, and she instantly started splashing away! She wanted to get in, but it wasn't that hot out so we didn't let her.
The next evening we were outside, and she desperately wanted in it again. It still wasn't that warm, but we decided to grant Princess her wishes- and she was ever happy, even though she only had on a diaper!
So very excited to finally be in it! We had some other fun swimming activities this month as well. Bella got to go in Grandpa Doug and Grandma Sheri's pool with her cousins on a hot day. She liked being in a big pool even better than hers so she could really splash around! And she liked being able to play with the big girls of course. :)
We also took her to the Pella pool one Saturday, which was so much fun. Bella loved walking around all the stuff and wading through the water. We went on the family slide, which was fun, and the lazy river, which was not so fun. I thought it was a normal lazy river, which at first it was. Bella liked sitting in the tubes with us and going down the path. However, the lazy river is apparently an adventure river, one complete with waterfalls dumping on your head. Oh my- that scared the living daylights out of this girl. I thought she was going to be traumatized by water forever, but she recovered fairly quickly. Not going to be doing that again anytime soon!
Bella went on her first boat ride a few weeks ago as well! Our neighbors asked us to go out with them one night, so we introduced Bella to Lake Red Rock for the first time. Like the good little water girl she is, she liked it on the boat and didn't even mind wearing the life vest! I foresee that our future summers will be filled with lots of water activities, which is great since both Derek and I love water as well.
Modeling her adorable figure in her bathing suit. :)
Splashing away! Bella can even say the word for pool now. She also says one, whoa, cat, papa (for grandpa), baba (bottle), la-la (what she calls Elmo since that is the song he sings), along with all of her other old words. She tries to repeat a lot of what we say, which is really fun! I think she'll be a good little talker. She also has continued making some new animal noises. Bella can do now do the sounds for a chicken, tiger, duck, cat, and sometimes an elephant. They might not sound EXACTLY right, but they are her version. :)
Bella also understands about everything we say to her. She follows lots of our commands and knows what objects are when we tell her to go get them. One night, Derek and I were just naming some of her toys and telling her to bring them to us, and she did every single one, even random ones like the prince and princess (her Little People castle figurines)!
It's not too surprising that she understand so much because she copies a lot of what we do. Just today, a show was on tv where people were running in place. Bella was watching that, which I thought was kind of strange because she doesn't usually pay any attention to tv. Then all of a sudden, she started moving her feet around really fast- just like on tv! I was cracking up, which she of course loved, so she kept doing it. Bella is definitely a little monkey-see monkey-do!
I started teaching Bella body parts this month as well. She can now point to her belly, her ears, her pretties (earrings), her hair, and she does her blinky eyes when we say eyes.
Her two top molars have popped through, which you think would make her fussy. One even started bleeding one night, but she hasn't seemed to care at all. I think Bella does have a pretty high pain tolerance though. She always has skinned up knees and legs from falling on the cement, but she never even cries. I think she may be an accident prone child unfortunately!
So hard to believe this precious little doll could be such a crazy wild girl!
This has been the other big happening in our household- we adopted a new family member. :) This is my beautiful cat Tommy, who I received for my 12th birthday. He has lived at my parents house since then. I wanted to take him to our house when we moved to Pella, but due to his age and somewhat "stubborn" personality, I didn't think he would adapt well. Well, a few weeks ago, after a series of incidents involving hairballs and poop, my parents served him his eviction notice- either move out or be put to sleep. I'm quite attached to this little furball, so I wanted to try having him live at our house. However, I didn't think it was going to work. Tommy is 14 years old, which is pretty up there in human years, and cats don't always adapt well to new situations. Plus, he only really likes my mom and I, so I didn't think moving in to a new house with two new people would leave him very happy. And the first night, he definitely wasn't. We locked him up in a room to get him used to the smell of the house, and he was pretty ticked off. However, after we let him out, he was fine.
See? Tommy has adapted to his new home quite nicely. He now has free rein of the house, but tends to stay downstairs when Bella is up and around. She loves him and would want to go jump on top of him if she could, so he avoids that if possible. However, Tommy does sleep on the dining room chairs in the afternoon when she is up. He is even adjusting to Derek and hasn't hissed at him since the first few days. He even jumped up on Derek's lap once! Bella and I will make Daddy a cat lover yet. :)