These two have been almost nonstop cuteness. Bella loves her baby brother. She likes to help him hold a pencil and write his name (at least HER version of his name), and give him hugs and kisses. She can't go to sleep until she does.
I've got more material coming, including videos, so check back!
p.s. I realize those pictures are a bit small, so you might need to double click to see it up close.
It's been two weeks since my last post, but I have a good reason to be remiss in blogging. Bella has been wearing underwear since Friday the 11th, and between trips to the potty and trying do do anything else I haven't been able to really sit at the computer for more than a few seconds at a time.
While the Harvey's were in town we got her a toilet to see if she liked it. She enjoyed dismantling the thing, but wouldn't really sit on it long enough to do any business. After a talk with my mom on the phone I decided to try potty training her my Mom's way. She apparently potty trained all seven of us at 18 months, in ONE day.
During the week she'd been kind of sitting on the potty- but mostly playing with it- Bella developed a fear of making a deposit. She was happy to sit on it and color, read books, or sing songs- until she needed to do her business. This fear complicated things a little bit, so it has taken longer than 1 day to accomplish what we have.
It took her 3 days to not scream and cry when she needed to go (sometimes begging for a diaper to go in). Since overcoming that fear she has been able to pee on command- on any toilet. She had one quazi-accident yesterday (her undies got a little wet, but she held in the rest till we got to the pot), and she still uses a diaper for nap time and bed time, but other than that she lets us know when she needs to go and keeps it in until we get to the toilet.
Yay! Can I just say- I didn't think it was possible to potty train a 19 month old. Happy Day!
We've been up to lots of good around here.
I just loved these pictures and wanted to post them. She gets obsessed with the most random objects and every day it's a new one. A couple days ago it was the hat, today it's the diaper box.
She wandered the house with the tube on for at least half an hour, bumping into things and getting stuck in tight places. She didn't want to remove it until her shoe fell off and she couldn't see where it was to put it back on. And the swimsuit... She comes to me and brings me the top and bottom and insists I put them on her. She might just want to go swimming, come to think of it.
Bella is still mastering her Christmas toys.
I've resorted to imprisoning Bella in her crib while I get ready. It's for her own protection. Otherwise she turns up sucking on the toilet seat or eating treasures she finds in the garbage. To the left we see her excitement when she sees me coming toward her (to take a picture). To the right we see her realizing that I'm not going to pick her up yet. Could anyone possibly resist those compelling eyes?
Bella has been getting up on her hands and knees now for a few weeks, but today she tried crawling for the first time. It might be because there was a special something, motivating her to move. You’ll have to check out the video.
She slurped it okay the first time we gave it to her, although I’m sure she regurgitated 90% of what went into her mouth. Over the next three days she decided she would rather starve than eat from a spoon. Celia decided to take a break from the Rice Cereal for a few days, to save her strength.
Today we tried it again, this time we took her clothes off. She liked it! We’ll see if it lasts.
I really like my job. I’ve liked all of my jobs except Convergys and Weber State Credit Union. Since I was a little girl I enjoyed cleaning. Some have questioned my sanity, but there’s a feeling of accomplishment after folding three batches of tide-fresh cloths and towels, or vacuuming the carpet in neat rows without leaving a foot print. Here’s my list of top ten favorites of my part time work:
My least favorite chore is cleaning the vacuum beater bars. It is doing wonders to cure my aversion to detached hair though. I haven’t gagged for two days now.
I definitely need to get a Pack’N’Play for Bella though. She just started getting up on her hands and knees. I’m afraid she’ll be crawling before long, and access to bottles of Formula 900 and Mean Green might be a small problem.
Today I read some Dr. Seuss with Bella on our bed. After the Glunk got unthunk, I glanced at her to see if she thought it was as fun as I had. Her legs were pumping a hundred miles an hour, which is normal, but her eyes gaped with terror and her face was red. She wasn’t making any noises and she couldn’t breathe. I snatched her off the bed and whisked her into the front room.
“Ryan she’s choking!” Patting her back didn’t clear her airway and impressive amounts of spit bubbles escaped her lips. Ryan took her and tried patting her back too, but she just kept kicking and bubbling.
“Find the booger-sucker!” He said holding her up. I came back with the thing and sucked out 
some stuff in her throat and nose. She breathed again after that, and whimpered as I continued clearing who-knows-what out of her mouth. She didn’t have any foreign objects lurking in there.
Now I’m afraid when she isn’t making noises that she’s choking. Am I freaking out about nothing? Or is this abnormal? I’ve never heard of this happening to other babies, and this is the second time.
On the upside, Bella is almost sitting up by herself. She can do it for a little bit, but usually plunks backward after thirty seconds.
We have survived our first week in Kansas. We didn’t realize what a feat this was until Thursday night. We watched game 1 of the NBA finals and it almost felt like we were back in Utah. The Tornado warnings interrupted the game often enough to remind us that we are now in the Midwest. Who knows how many tornado warnings we missed the four days before we had the TV plugged in?
Since we’ve been here for a week now, and our list of belongings is short, we now have the disaster area in our apartment organized. To celebrate having a designated room for sleeping, we broke out our unused baby monitors. Ryan is also celebrating by sleeping through the night since Bella can be fed and changed in the front room.
Our ward meets in the world’s smallest institute building. It’s not a young-single-adult ward. It’s not a young-marrieds ward either. It’s the University of Kansas Young-Adult ward. We felt like we were hunting the meat market all over again, but this time we were looking for a couple we might be compatible with. A woman with a healthy appetite for the best books and literature, and a talented-sports-spectator man shouldn’t be too hard to find, should it? There are a few candidates that might prove suitable.
Ryan is doing a budgeting class right now. He almost has as much fun doing his homework as he did looking at NBA.com stats during the playoffs this year, no joke. Fortunately, interviews are in full swing for the part time internships the students will be working at for the next year. The city of Ottawa has asked for a second interview. We hope that means he has a job, because we get to go to Sheridan’s Frozen Custards to celebrate when he gets one, plus we’ll have money for food during the next year.
Isabella is learning more every day. She now knows when Mommy and Daddy forget to put her on a changing pad or use a burp cloth. The couch, the table cloth and our clothes bear the stains of her gentle reminders. She also knows the difference between her car seat and her parent’s arms, even with her eyes closed.
Cecilia is beginning to show the effects of no internet access. No internet, in conjunction with late nights with Bella, is making the twitch worse. She has enjoyed putting the house together and running errands with her husband and taking advantage of his time before he gets a job. Wal-mart is way more fun with Ryan. There probably won’t be much of that once his school and internship get into full swing.
Well those are a few highlights from our week in Kansas. We would love to hear from you. Tell us what’s going on back in Utah! We love you all!
Ryan, Cecilia and Isabella
