Bella's Birthday Party!

We celebrated Bella's birthday the Sunday before the actual day. All of her grandparents, great-grandparents, and local aunts, uncles, and cousins came to our house for lunch and to open gifts, so we had quite a full house! It was horribly hot that day, which kinda stunk because I had wanted to open presents outside. But we stayed in the nice air conditioning. :) Here are some pictures (actually a lot) highlighting the big day!

Her birthday decorations were pink and princess themed... of course! I forgot to take a picture of the plates and everything, but it all matched the balloons.

Here is Bella's adorable cake, which is shaped like a crown. A lady in Pella made it out of cake, big cupcakes, and little cupcakes. It not only looked cute, it tasted awesome! Which was good, since I ate the leftovers for the next week. I am now officially sick of cake however.

Bella's birthday centerpiece... which she maybe didn't care so much about, but I thought it was very pretty. We've had a lot of fresh flowers around lately with all of our holidays! I'll be sad when everything dies.

And here is the birthday girl with her birthday princess hat on staring at her cupcake with a suspicious look. It was pretty funny; Bella just started at the candle like this the whole time we sang Happy Birthday. Apparently she has not seen fire before!

Bella was not too sure about this whole cake thing. She was probably thinking ummm, Mommy doesn't usually let me get messy.

I had to help her give the frosting a try before she would touch it...

And as you can see, Bella definitely decided she liked it! However, she never dove into the cake a and made a mess, even when we gave her another cupcake on her actual birthday. That might pose a problem for her one year pictures- I'm planning on doing a cake shoot, and I don't think she'll be into it!

Posing with her big cake!

Bella obviously has many new fun toys to play with- all of which she loves I might add! She doesn't even play with her old anymore.

She received money from Great-Grandma Vermeer and Great-Grandpa and Grandma Huyser, which we used to buy her a baby crib and highchair. Great-Grandpa and Grandma Zylstra bought her a Little People School Bus.

Aunt Anna gave her a Baby Einstein book that plays music. This was one of the first presents she opened I think, and after she opened it, all she wanted to do was look at the book. As I've said, the girl loves her books.

Uncle Shawn, Aunt ChyAnne, Dylann, Jager, and Tatum bought her a Baby Alive doll. When the baby gets fed its bottle, it talks and makes noises, so Bella thinks that is pretty fun. Uncle Jer gave her a stroller for her babies.

Grandpa and Grandma De Haan gave her this Little People Riding Toy. Although Bella is sitting on it here, she hasn't really used it to ride a whole lot. However, she does like playing with all the buttons and making music! Plus, the seat can be opened up, so she likes to put all of her rocks inside the seat.

Grandpa and Grandma Huyser gave Bella a dress and shoes, along with a Little People castle that is in the background of this picture. Derek and I also gave Bella a Little People dollhouse- and she is loving the Little People! She has them go nigh nigh, puts them in their chairs, loads them up in the bus... it's so cute to actually watch her "play." Derek and I also gave her this learning home playset that is supposed to be like an actual house.

After everybody left and the birthday girl took a nap, we took some pictures outside. I received a new camera for Mother's Day/our anniversary/my birthday, so I have been taking a ton of pictures of Bella. :) She is a good model for me to practice on!

Bella was dressed the part of a princess on her special day- even with her bruised head!

She looks like an actual little ballerina here with her skirt all flounced up. :)

Showing off those big beautiful eyes!

We've noticed recently that Bella is starting to thin out and lose some of her baby chub- Her little body is looking more like a toddler, so sad!

Mommy painted Bella's toes for the special occasion, which actually went well. I wanted to do her fingers too, but Daddy vetoed that idea.

Bella actually didn't mind wearing her hat during the party. If I got it on and she didn't notice it was there, she would just leave it be. She's obviously quite used to wearing headbands, so it's not too big of a difference. :) Hopefully I will someday get to put some bows in her hair- it is starting to grow just a little bit!
Angel face. :)
Or crazy happy face! :) Bella is a very special little one year old. We can hardly believe that an entire year has gone by already, but it has definitely been so amazing and one of the best of our lives. We are so very very blessed with our little lady. Bella is such a happy good girl with such a sweet and fun personality. I'm sad that the baby stage is ending, but yet I know that much more fun lays ahead as she continues to grow and develop into the person God made her! Happy birthday Bella- we love you!

One Year Old!

Wow- so it has been awhile since I posted anything again, but this month has been very very busy! Most notably, Bella is now a 1 year old. :) It's pretty crazy that an entire year has gone by already, but it has been an awesome year! Here is the monthly update for Bella, along with some pictures from May. I'll post on her birthday party later, as there are many many pictures to show for that!
We went to several of our nieces and nephew's events this month. Dylann had a tumbling recital, and we took a new picture all the cousins. It turned out fairly well- for the girls anyway. Poor Jager, surrounded by all these little ladies!
Bella has started talking more this month. In addition to all of her previous words, she now says nigh nigh, no no, rock, one, boon (for balloon) and wah (for water). We can also tell that she understands quite a bit of what we say - like if we tell her to go find her ball or baby, she goes and does it. She has now discovered the joy of Sesame Street- in particular, Elmo. Bella doesn't watch it for more than 30 seconds at a time, but she does like dancing to the music. She also sings la la la la for Elmo's World. :) Bella still adores playing outside. We bought some sidewalk chalk, so she now enjoys making little scribbles on the driveway and carrying the chalk around. Bella also likes playing on her playset. She still likes to swing and has recently started to love going down the slide. She used to be terrified of it, but now she tries to climb up it constantly so she can go down. Our arms get quite tired!
This past month Bella has also developed a VERY strong attachment to her blankie! I was happy about this because I like blankies. :) She now has to have it every time she leaves her crib, and every so often throughout the day she needs to snuggle with it and suck on those fingers. Bella also sometimes pretends to go nigh nigh on the blankie, which is a pretty fun game for her. In fact, Bella became quite obsessed with nigh nigh after she learned to say it. Her babies all have to go nigh nigh, her Little People all have to go nigh nigh... pretty cute though!Bella still loves looking at her books as well. She even "reads" them to herself by sticking her nose way down in the book and chattering. We bought her several new books this past month that are more interactive (flaps, music buttons, tails). She really likes those, especially this book called Tails. There are several tails in the book that wag back and forth when you pull a tab. Well, Bella just loved messing with those and yanked those tails out every single day. Many of those tails have now met their demise thanks to her!Bella likes to tell everybody how old she is! I started practicing with Bella several months prior to the big day to ensure she would be able to show how old she is- and she didn't fail me. She even says one now along with her finger! Somewhat against my better judgment, we filled up Bella's sandbox this year. It's pretty messy... especially when she has suntan lotion on. But she does really like playing in it, and she only ate some of the sand the first day. And then she really likes getting washed off in the faucet before we go inside!
As you can see, Bella is quite active when she is out and about. I'm afraid she may have inherited my gene for being a sweaty and red-faced little girl. She was probably only out for about 1/2 hour this particular day, but her face was sooooo red!
Still loving to play with those rocks- at least she now can say what they are!
Mommy helped put all the babies to nigh nigh here- she definitely doesn't do it quite so neatly. Bella loves playing with her babies. Other than making them go nigh nigh, she gives them kisses, pretends to feed them, does rock-a-bye with them, and pushes them around in her stroller. Bella has also learned some ornery and strange tricks this month. First, she has now discovered that she can throw toys down the stairs to our basement - and she gets mad if they don't go all the way down. She also learned that she can put her fingers in her ears and nose. So sometimes she walks around with both of her fingers in her ears- such a goofball!This was another fun discovery Bella made- she knew that the garbage bags stored in this cupboard were fun to play with, but she didn't know that she could climb right in the cupboard!Sadly, we had yet another accident this month. Bella was with me in our bedroom one morning (actually, the Friday before her birthday party) and I was going to make the bed. Bella likes to dig out boxes and bracelets that are in my jewelry armoire, so she was messing in that - something she has done a million times before. Well, apparently this time, she was reaching in a drawer that was too tall for her, and she managed to pull the whole thing over and on top of herself. Thankfully I was like a foot away from her so I pulled it off quickly. But as the picture shows, she had quite a banged up little head. Thankfully, she was okay other than the little bruises. And actually, this picture was really the worst that it ever was. I iced it a lot that day, and it already looked better the next day. She just had 4 little marks from where the drawers hit her face. It could have been much much worse- the armoire is heavy! I still am not quite sure how Bella managed to yank that thing over - her little body is apparently stronger than it looks. On Memorial Day, we went to my parents house and hung out outside while my dad worked on filling up the pool. Bella had fun playing with her cousins in the little baby pools! Dylann also introduced Bella to the world of Polly Pockets, which she enjoyed messing with. I'm so thankful Bella has girly cousins to play with- I would be pretty sad if Bella turned out to be a little tomboy! I want to play with Barbies again. :)
Bella's 12th and final monthly picture, which was actually one of the easiest ones to take! Sure, now she decides to sit nicely in the chair and smile!
We've celebrated many occasions recently in addition to Bella's birthday. Our anniversary is the day after her b-day, so we had to take a picture to commemorate the event. This year was a little better than last as we weren't stuck in the hospital this time!
Bella still likes messing with balls, although not as much as she used to. The obsession with saying ball went over to nigh nigh I think. However, this particular evening she liked watching Daddy play basketball and wanted to help him.
We also celebrated my birthday a few days after Bella's birthday and our anniversary. (Poor Derek- so many occasions!) We took a picture of Mommy and Bella- and figured out how to make Bella smile when we take pictures with her! (Tickle her tummy- she loves being tickled and is super ticklish!)
And here is what we have to do about 20 times in a row every time Bella sees the slide. But look at that face and her excitement- who can resist?
Whee, I'm so fast!