Trip to St. Louis!

A few weekends ago, we embarked on our annual trip to St. Louis. After moving back to Pella, we decided every summer we would go back for a Cards game and to visit our favorite spots- well, mainly eating spots! We had a great weekend together and did a lot of fun things.

We headed down on late Friday morning. Bella was a superstar for the next long car ride, although she again only slept maybe 1/2 hour of the 4 1/2 hour drive. Apparently she no longer likes to sleep in the car! But she had fun watching movies, singing songs, and throwing toys on the floor for mama to pick up.
Miss Bella did not carry over her fear of the bath tub from our last hotel stay. In fact, she decided she needed to play in this one even without water!
Decked out in our Cardinals gear before heading to the game on Friday night! The weather was definitely a change from last year- we wore sweatshirts then as it was very chilly!
This was another change from last year's game. Bella slept the entire game last year, but that was most definitely not the case this time around. She had LOTS of energy, which made it fun trying to keep her in our seats.
"Watching" the game very intently with Daddy.
Bella lasted through the game about 5 innings, and then we decided that was enough. It was hot anyway!
Showing off her Cardinals pride- again, it was funny to see Bella dressed in red!

Bella had lots of fun playing in the big bathtub- plus, she was free to splash all she wanted!

On Saturday, we went to the zoo in the morning. This wasn't Bella's first trip to the zoo, but it was the first time she has gone and actually knew what she was looking at. She loved looking and pointing at the various animals, so it was a lot of fun for her.

Before we headed out to the zoo, we stopped by the gift shop to get Bella a souvenir. We wanted her to pick a little stuffed animal like a lion or a penguin, but she spotted this white snow leopard and wasn't having anything else! She thought it was a kitty and fell instantly in love. I don't think it left her hands the rest of the morning!
Looking at the penguins.
For some strange reason, the snakes were one of Bella's favorite animals. She was very fascinated by them and kept smiling and saying hisss.
As you can see, Bella does have a LITTLE more hair in the back than she does in the front. It is growing slowly but surely! I think it might have a little curl to it whenever it does come in because it is starting to curl up at the bottom. I'll be able to do something with her hair besides headbands someday hopefully!
Bella and Daddy being some type of animal, I forget what it was. Bella thought this was pretty funny sticking her head in the hole!
There is a separate children's zoo that we have never been into before, but decided to try it out with Bella. There were a couple places that you could pet animals, but unfortunately not too many. So we were a little disappointed! However, Bella did enjoy petting the goat and a guinea pig.
Daddy, "kitty," and Bella. :)
Hot, tired, and ready to go eat!
After the zoo, we went to a Mexican restaurant we used to go to that was right by our old apartment. As you can see, Bella had a great time eating a new favorite, chips!
Bella took a nap in the afternoon back at our hotel room. After she woke up, we went to the Magic House, which is a children's museum. Although a lot of the activities and exhibits there are geared towards older kids, she had soooo much fun! She definitely was a little overstimulated though because she was almost running around in circles and didn't know where to go next.
We of course had to visit the water room, otherwise known as "wa-wa."
And Bella definitely enjoyed a stop in the ball pit!
But her favorite part was going down the various slides. This was one she could climb up, which was very fun!
Snuggling with a baby in the nursery area.
This slide was in the "baby/toddler" area, and Bella seriously went down it probably 30 times.
Crawling through the tunnel to head to her favorite slide again!
After we finished at the Magic House, we headed to the place we miss most in St. Louis- Dewey's pizza. Bella being such a pizza lover herself, we knew she would want to take part in our favorite restaurant!

It was everything we wanted and more. :) Bella enjoyed it too!
On Sunday, we made the drive back home after eating breakfast. All in all, we had a great weekend together as a family. One more trip left this fall, and then our travels will be over for the year!

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.