Bella's second birthday!

We had a WONDERFUL time with family for Bella's birthday. Everyone came into town - both sets of grandparents, both sisters, and both brothers-in-love. It was a full-out party weekend! And, as always, it's just great to be with family. There were two grandmothers with their cameras and me with my camera...so, i'll post her pictures in installments. On Sunday, we all headed to Liberty Community Church, the church that Mike pastors at. We certainly LOVE that church and it is definitely our second family. I had a hard time keeping it together through the service - being surrounded by all our family, having a sweet two year old, hearing my dad play an amazing song on the piano, and hearing the hubby preach a beautiful sermon just did me in! Actually, I didn't hold it together but that's ok. They were all good tears. After the service, we had a potluck meal with everyone at the church and they were sweet enough to get Bella a cake!

Enjoy the pictures and i'll post the rest of the party pictures later.

Here's our church. Yes, it is as cute and precious as it looks in the picture.

Bella decided she wanted to take some pictures. Here's the first one...
and here's the second one...
See her little fingers? It took her a while to hold two fingers up. For a while it was one or all 5! But she was so cute when we would ask her how old she is...she would enthusiastically respond by putting both fingers up (sometimes it would just take a while) and say "TWO".
A great picture of Nana and Bella.
This picture gets me every time.

Bella is Two!

Yesterday was Bella's second year birthday! I flew in the night before from a great trip to the Rosalynn Carter Institute and was quite excited about being here on her real birthday. We started the day with family pancakes, made by Mike, and then lots of playing. After naptime, we went to enjoy some ice cream.

And then went to get her birthday present - a play table that converts to an easel!

Y'all know she loves her coloring! All in all, it was a fun day of just us three. Today after church, we made our way to the pumpkin patch. This is what part of the day looked like. Us trying to keep her in our reach and Bella looking mischievously away at where she could run. Awww, the joys of a toddler. Yes, she tried to pick up the big ones and finally found the smaller ones she could handle.She was not sure what she thought of all the animals at first!

Then, she thought it was funny when the goat tried to eat out of her hand. Then, she thought the goat was trying to bite her.Then, she wanted far away from the goats.
Then, she put both hands on her face.
And, lastly she ran to her daddy outside of the gate. Oh well...


The rest of the blog is a little letter written to our birthday gal!
Dear Sweet Bella,

Somewhere in the midst of going through life you turned two. I distinctively remember when you came into this world. We did not have that "movie moment of overwhelming love" at that time. While we had lots of love, we also had lots of "oh my goodness" moments. But, throughout the last two years we have experienced many moments of overwhelming love and joy - more than we can tell you. Since you probably won't remember this period in your life, I wanted to give you a glimpse of what happened.

I want you to know that your daddy is singing you to sleep as I write this - Grace, Grace God's Grace, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and The Wonderful Cross. One of his favorite times is singing hymns to you at night time. And when you fall asleep on him, he literally melts. He'll come into the living room where I am and be completely at peace and enamored because of you. I want to remember that your daddy sang over you with sheer joy and love and contentment. And, you were the cause of these emotions.

I want you to know that you love the outside and act like it's a huge discovery every time you hear a dog bark or a bird sing or the ice cream truck go by. "What's that?" you say every single time!

I want you to know that last night I rocked you to sleep. Well, I thought you were asleep and you started playing with my face with your hand. Then, you started chuckling and put your little head up. We were basically nose to nose at this point when you pointed out my nose, eyes and ears. Then you gave me a huge hug. And I melted. I want to you to remember that your hugs and sweet heart and spirit are a joy for me to watch develop and a blessing for me to experience.

I want you to know that your daddy and I love to watch you play. I want you to know that you could do nothing more than dancing your little sumo-wrestler/honky tonk dance and we both look at eachother to say, "She is so cute". I want you to remember we say it multiple times a day.

I want you to know that you have helped us experience love and grace and peace in a way we didn't think existed. You truly do have a sweet spirit, displayed by your hugs (when we don't ask for them), a game of pick-a-boo after bathtime, and you wanting kisses before we leave the house. I want you to know that one of favorite things for you to do is climb up on the couch, stand up between us, put your arms around both of our heads, and pull us to you for one big family hug.

I want you to know that we will support whatever you want to do in life. We can only dream and imagine what God has in store for you when you're 8 or 14 or 29. And, we will be here supporting and loving you along the way.

I want you to know that we think you are absolutely beautiful. There are many times, even when you have your crazy "I just woke up" hair when we audibly tell eachother how pretty we think you are. And, you didn't do anything to provoke this. You were simply you. I want to remember that for nothing more than being you, you are beautiful.

I want you to know that you say what you're thankful for at mealtime. Before every meal, we hold hands and tell eachother what we are thankful for. Even though we can't understand what you say, you usually will say something, then bow your head to pray and say Amen. I want you to know that we absolutely love these times of thankfulness. But I think there is someone in Heaven who loves to hear what you're truly saying more than we do.

And lastly and, arguably, most importantly, I want you to know that your mom and dad pray for you. We pray for you to just simply have fun in life. To experience what life here on earth has to offer in joy and fun! We also pray that you would grow and be rooted and grounded in love, you would experience what the true love of the Father is, the height, breadth, depth, and length of that love, and that we would be able to show you little glimpses of that. We pray that you would know the One who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask of imagine. We do pray all of this. But most of the time we have simple prayers of thanksgiving to God for giving us you, Bella. I want you to remember we prayed for you and thanked God for you. You were the cause of these prayers of thanksgiving.

We love you and happy second year birthday! Thank you for those movie moments of overhwhelming love.

Daddy and Mommy

A little video to tide you over...

I am about to leave to go to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving. We have our annual conference in Americus, Georgia! Remember this trip last year where we won the big award? This is one of my favorite conferences so i'm pretty pumped about getting to go! The always-awesome-Grammy came to take care of Bella and this video depicts what they will probably be doing most of their time together! I get back on Friday and then Saturday is the big TWO YEAR birthday!!

And the weather outside is beautiful!

So, that only means we are outside alot these days! Have I mentioned I love fall! When you're used to 100 plus degree weather in Texas, the 80's sounds really good! We've even had to have a jacket when we go out for our morning runs. Halleluyer! Enjoy some pictures of the outside. And, other random pictures of our life the past two weeks.

Bella likes the outside too!

And I had to post this picture. Look at that hair! She was watching Sesame Street...hence, the blank stare.
Here's her pointing finger. She usually does this with both hands, shrugs her shoulders, and pretends like she's sneaking up to tickle us. Adorable!
She looks like a toddler here!

"Hi You"
Look at that pose! We're in trouble.
Happy Fall everyone!

23 months!

A year ago today we were here. Crazy what a year does, isn't it! I get teary-eyed looking at those pictures so most of the time I don't. Little cutie!

Little happenings this past month:
1. I think Bella is taking after her mommy and her Aunt Alli. You see, when Allison and I get together we can usually pass loads of time (like hours) by looking at cookbooks. One time we took lots of new cookbooks from the library on a 7 hour trip to our Grandparents house in Lubbock. And, we looked at them most of the trip. One day this past month, Bella didn't want to read her books but she sure wanted what I had in the kitchen - my cookbook. So I gave it to her, she went and plopped down in her chair, and proceeded to read it for quite a while!
2. She still enjoys to color. As long as she is in her "chair" she can reach the coffee table. I think i'll frame some of these large portraits one day. When did I become "that" mom!

3. One of the biggest new development these days - she wants to dress herself. She went and found her hat from Mark and Gayla...

...and went and found my shoes...after she took off her pajama bottoms. She then proceeded to push her stroller around the house for a while like this. This is how we roll after breakfast.

4. We had to make a trip to the doctor for an ear infection this week. Hopefully that medicine will kick in! While we were there we found out how much she had grown. She now weighs 25.4 pounds and is 33.5 inches long - way to go Bella. That puts her around 50% for length and 25% for weight.

5. She loves to say "Where'd it go?". But imagine that in a high pitched voice with both hands up in the air. Sometimes while we're watching Sesame Street, the picture will go in and out (it's a PBS station so we'll take what we can get). Every time, she'll go up to the screen and say "where'd it go" fairly dramatically. Then when it comes back on she'll say, "There is is!". Adorable!

6. She recognizes all the animals on Sesame Street and will usually growl, bark, hiss, mooo, etc at whatever she sees.

7. She's becoming Ms., uhm, how do I say this, "I-don't-like-my-clothes" anymore. And I mean ANY of her clothes. We have to make sure we put pants on her that she can't take off. The one time we didn't was one of the evenings when we put her to bed. I walked in that morning to a cute little gal standing in her crib, without ANYTHING on. Everything, including her diaper, was thrown over the crib railing. And it gets better. She had poo-pooed! Yucky indeed! Fortunately it was little pebbles (is this TMI or what?) so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We spent lots of time disenfecting everything in her room. And she got an early morning bath from her daddy!

8. She was in her first wedding. My sister got married in a GORGEOUS ceremony. I will devote a full post on that later in this month.

9. As you can tell, the giraffe pictures are getting harder to take. But I still want to post them. Also notice her outfit she picked? Her onsie, two headbands around her waist (tribute to '80s workout videos, i'm sure), winter wool hat, pink polka-dotted socks, and sandles. I promise I did not help. She is just that awesome. And we may or may not have gone to Target wearing this. She wouldn't let me change her. You gotta keep the kids happy while we're out to avoid the dreaded tantrum...can I get an amen from the other parents!

And, I promise i'm going to cut her hair. Mike says i'm in "denial" that Bella needs another haircut. He may be right. =)

7 year anniversary!

Mike and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary this month! 7 years!

I love it! We couldn't find a babysitter on our actual anniversary. So Mike went and picked up Olive Garden, I set the table really nice with white linens and all, and we celebated at home...with a toddler. And, it was so sweet. (In the next picture...yes, she needs a haircut!)
We were laughing at how different this was compared with year 2 or year 3 celebrations. My my my, how things change. We exchanged gifts, put Bella to bed, watched a movie and fell asleep. Partay! It was actually a really nice family night.

The next weekend we went to stay a friend's beach house in Houston. And it was perfect! It was right on the bay where the ships came in - and when I say right on the beach I mean right on the beach. Private beach. After dropping Bella off with my grandparents, we settled into our quaint, beautiful beach house. No TV, no internet, no phone - just the two of us. The entire weekend was spent sleeping, swimming, reading, talking, swimming, reading, chatting, and simply being with one another. It's amazing what a few days of doing nothing but being with one another will do! It certainly was refreshing and rejuvinating to us both. And, Mike I look forward to years of life left with you. I love you more now than I did 7 years ago.

Now, enjoy some of what Bella did while she was with the Smith grandparents.

Bella saying "hi you". Bella giving a fist bump!
Watching TV with PawPaw.

See that face on Bella? She's trying to "sneak" on her PawPaw. hilarious!
Sweet little thing. This was her Aunt Christie's dress when she was Bella's age.

Bella trying her hand at playing pool.
Bella sorted wanted to play pool with PawPaw...
She really just wanted to throw the balls.
Don't you love this one! Such a sweet picture of Grammy and Great MeeMaw with Bella.

Bye everyone!Have a good week!