Bella is 2!

Miss Isabella Lynn turned 2 on June 2- golden birthday already! Our little baby is now officially no longer a baby- not that she has been for quite some time, but still. :) We celebrated her birthday with most of our family members the Sunday before her birthday. And of course, it was a Dora themed extravaganza for our Dora-obsessed girl.

I had this made on Shutterfly- hee hee, couldn't resist! Bella didn't even notice her face for awhile. Apparently she already thinks of herself as part of Dora's gang.
There was lots of "Big Dora" balloons around the house, which of course Bella adored. These two balloons and another one are still present in our house as well. I don't think they are ever going to lose the helium! Dora plates, napkins, and cups- how lucky were we all. :)
And these are the cupcakes that I ordered for Bella. If you look closely, you can see a somewhat brown haired girl on the cupcake. Is that girl Dora? I sure didn't think so. I was quite disappointed in how they turned out. It was the same lady that did Bella's cake last year, which I loved. This time, however, I didn't specify exactly how I wanted it, and my vision did not exactly mesh up with these. They tasted wonderful, but I didn't think Bella would even be able to identify them as being Dora. Soooooo the day before her party, I decided to embark on my own Dora cake making project. Specifically, I started to make the cake at 11 pm that night! :)
I was up until 2 that morning, but it was well worth it. :) I was quite pleased with how my Dora head turned out! It definitely wasn't big enough for everybody at the party, but Bella got her own personal Dora cake- one that actually looked like Dora!
Bella got many many fun new presents at her party, all centering around princesses, Dora, and all things girly.

Big cousin Dylann was an excellent helper. :)

Apparently presents are good for standing on as well!

Bella's final present was found out on the deck- a new playhouse from Mommy and Daddy!

The house has been a very loved toy outside ever since. Lucky Mommy and Daddy get to cart her play food back and forth from her kitchen inside the house to her playhouse outside.

Bella, Tatum, Jager, and Dylann all managed to fit in the house together.

And here are all the Huyser cousins eating supper. Poor Jager, he is surrounded by girls!

After we ate, Bella got to see her Dora cake for the first time and blow out her two candles! She loved having everybody sing Happy Birthday to her, one of her own favorite songs to sing!

Apparently the tongue sticking out signifies that she thought it looked yummy. :)

Bella started digging in before I even gave her a fork. This year's cake reception was much more enthusiastic than last years- I can tell she has developed more of a sweet tooth!

It definitely made me cringe a little to see my hard work be malled... but Bella loved it, so that was the most important thing. :)

And here is our little princess on her actual birthday day, taking a very important phone call.

It took some work to get her to stand still enough to take some pictures. She's a busy gal when outside!

Can't believe that our little girl is 2 already!

I had planned fun activities to do on Bella's birthday since it was a day that I didn't work. Unfortunately, it rained that morning, just as the day she was born, so that ruined many of my plans. Thankfully it cleared up that evening, so we were able to take Bella to one of her favorite places- the park!

We are both so thankful that she goes on this big slide by herself now- it is a real pain to get up, but she now does it like a champ!

Bella enjoyed more of her Dora cake throughout the day of course. :)

And she enjoyed another rendition of singing happy birthday!

Blowing out her candles was a little more difficult when her cousins weren't there to assist. :)

We also gave Bella several small little presents throughout the day to open. A Dora birthday book when she woke up, a Dora snow princess figurine later in the morning...

Some Dora bouncy balls... (noticing any particular theme here?)

And the final present, a little treehouse complete with a Dora and Boots! All her little Dora people are one of her favorite things to play with, and now they have a house to live in. :)

It's crazy to think that two years have gone by since our little girl was born, but they have been an awesome two years! We are so blessed to have such a loving, sweet, crazy, silly girl as our daughter. Can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

May Pictures!

Another month has came and went, which brought about a very special occasion for Bella. Before her big birthday posting though, here are some pictures from May!

One big event in May was that Bella was moved to her "big girl" room! We have had the furniture in there for a couple months, so she has known that she was going to start sleeping in her big girl bed soon. Having everything set up prior to her actual move was nice because she was able to play in the room and get used to the whole idea.

We were both a little nervous to have her switch rooms, both for the bed freedom and the fact that this bedroom is in our basement.

But being the little rockstar that she is, Bella transitioned to her bed without a single problem. :) In fact, we heard her tell us many times "I love this bed! It's comfy!" :)

I would like this room too though; I think it looks pretty cute!

Mommy and Miss Bella on Mother's Day- I was treated quite nicely by my little lady on that day! She told me "Happy Mother's Day Mommy!" many times with big hugs and kisses, and has even continued to randomly tell me that since. Daddy is hoping for the same kind of treatment.... but I don't know if he'll be so lucky. :)

Bella is definitely a little Mommy's girl!

We enjoyed lots of time outside this month, especially since we had some very hot days! We have a kids picnic table for our deck, so we had lots of picnics there.

Bella also needed to wear her shades to keep the sun out. :) Pretty stylin!

Striking a little model pose- Bella is very much a performer!

Daddy tries every chance he can get to get Bella interested in playing ball with him. On this particular evening, she was all about it as she was HYPER and running around like a crazy lady!

Making a basket! In a hoop that was obviously lowered. :) The hoop has since gone back up as Bella remains more interested in playing other things outside. Sorry Daddy!

A very pensive look- perhaps debating whether she should be crazy again?

And it was decided that yes, she definitely should! Bella next decided to start dancing around and singing!

As I said, she likes to perform. :)

And she has excellent dance moves!

A fun outing we took in May was going to see Sesame Street Live in Des Moines! Bella used to be an Elmo fanatic, but now of course her love has switched to all things Dora. However, she still likes Elmo, and we thought she would have fun watching all the characters sing and dance- two of her own favorite activities!

She was quite enamored to see all the characters onstage. She wanted to go "touch" them all, but thankfully didn't freak out when we said that we could only watch them.

The Elmo's World segment was obviously a favorite. :)

Bella would also become very alarmed whenever a character left the stage at any point. "Where'd Elmo go? Where'd Abby go? Where'd Cookie go?"

Bella and her baby Emma, one of her favorite little outside activities. Poor Emma is an outside only baby and has been carried all over, so she is not the prettiest baby anymore. She gets to go on stroller rides, down the slide, have picnics...

And Bella likes to sit and sing to her of course.

She discovered how to go down the slide on her belly- obviously it was enjoyed!

I even broke out her little pool during some especially hot days! I'm on a mission to find a bigger plastic pool, but this little baby one suited her just fine.

Miss Bella loves the water no matter what!

Plus she has fun princesses and animals to play with!

Bella also got a new water table for her birthday, so she has even more water choices now!