Princess Belle Bug

  

This may be a long one because A LOT changes in the first two years of a baby's life :) AND she was with me the MOST!!!! Well maybe I should stay pretty much STUCK to "momma" I always said I wouldn't do what my mom did and not have time to write about my last babies, b/c I had literally NOTHING wrote in my baby book. BUT here I am struggling to find time to write about my Baby Belle :) Well to start with I have to acknowledge how tender hearted this baby is. She can't stand to get into trouble and never has taken it well. She puckers that lip out, tucks her head down and usually starts crying so hard you start to wish you hadn't gotten on to her in the first place. (Especially if you are her dad who thinks little girls didn't MEAN to do anything wrong, and that they shouldn't get into trouble)





While she may be tender and sweet to her parents' scolding her, she does NOT put up with those boys picking on her. She will set them straight and will come tell on them if she can't scream loud enough to make them stop. Which brings me to her first spoken sentence "Dais hurt me." (she leaves the v out of his name most of the time and especially when she first started talking) She loves her brothers and most of the time refers to them as My Sam or My Davis. She loves tucking them in at night and closes their door (the boys hate that they have to go to bed first when that happens).

 I hear her giggle with them and she tries to keep up with them even when they are racing down the hall. I see the boys fly past and then hear a little giggle and pitter patter feet coming around the corner as fast as she can to catch up. Sam takes care of her and trys to make her smile when she is sad. They both go to each other after the other got into trouble and cry while hugging each other. Sam gets worried about her when she is sick and comes to check on her often.

Their connection is strong and it makes me tear up thinking about them together. She and Davis had a rough run there at first, mostly b/c they were both babies :) But recently since she has started talking better and can play pretend more, Mondays are my favorite days to stay home and let the two of them PLAY! They are precious together when it is just the two of them here at the house. Davis goes to school the other days, but these Mondays are special. I think if he had another option for a playmate, he'd choose option two at this point, but since there is only Belle he makes the best of it and has even started having fun with her. He even said the other day after they had played all morning and were going down for a nap that he could probably play princess with Belle after nap time, since she loves them so much (but he backed out when he woke up to find Sam home, lol)

Dancing, singing and "shaka my bootie" are some of her favorite things too. When we have little church the kids get up and lead a song or two each. Recently, Belle decided she was ready to get up there too. She LOVES Jesus Loves Me and I Know that My Redeemer Lives. ME and STRONG are her favorite words to sing out real loud in the first and I KNOW is about the only words she can sing in the second, but they also come out very loud and with much excitement. She lead these two songs in front of us during little church and put on a show with her swinging, dancing, smiling, and singing very loud on the parts she knew. We were all belly laughing by the end of her songs. It was really a great memory and some of the best laughs I've ever heard out of the boys. Her Daddy loves to call her his Princess Belle and dance her around the room to the princess song "Dadada, dadadadada, dadadadada" I think the words are "I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream"

 But mostly when they are dancing there are no words just dadas. Belle will twirl and squint her eyes and grin and you can tell that she feels like a real princess when her daddy treats her like one. Her two favorite princesses are Aurora and Belle. I think Aurora b/c she is pink and she loves that movie and Belle b/c that is her name :) She loves to name them on her frame in her room almost every day and tell me what color their dresses are. She also started laughing randomly in the back seat while I was driving a few months back, right after she turned two. I asked her what was so funny and she said "Dada funny" Dada wasn't in the car, she was just remembering him and something made her laugh :) She did it a couple more times and mummbled to herself the same thing "Dada funny" It was quite precious that she remembered so well and that he was still really funny to her. She loves him and he likes her a little bit too :)

Pooh has been her most favorite thing for about a year and a half, but recently princesses have entered the picture. Pooh is still loved and hugged and needed at bed time but is slowly taking the shaft for the princess stuff. She got Pooh shows at Christmas from her granny and HAD to have them on for months as soon as she took her shoes off or got out of the tub. If she didn't have to wear real shoes pooh shoes had to be on her feet and they very much made her happy :) We have gotten away from them now, mostly b/c I think they are too small and hurt her feet. While I am talking about Pooh, she loves the song "Up down, up. When I up down touch the ground it puts me in the mood, up down touch the ground in the mood for food...." When she was barely talking, I'd hear her trying to sing that song. Another one of her first favorite words was "Shooooo Wee" You can imagine when she said that one. But she would giggle pretty much every time it came out of her mouth. Today was a big day in that area!!!! She woke up with a dry diaper and so I put princess panties on her and told her not to get her princess panties wet. She went teetee 3 times (one being in a store) and pooped twice and only had two accidents. Both times she had accidents, I think she was trying to get to the potty.

I thought she might be ready when she started coming and standing right beside me to do her business and then said "shoowee" as soon as she finished b/c she wanted to be changed. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one!!!! As far as me and that little girly go, I think we are knitted together and can't be torn apart. She is my little buddy and we understand each other. :) She loves to be beside me and doesn't mind when I trip over her as long as she can be with me. Most of the time, I don't have to be doing anything with her, she just wants to be in the same room with me. I LOVE IT!!! We cuddle often on the bed and sing "skinna marinky dinky dink, skinna marinky do, I love you" She usually replaces the you with ME and points to herself. We also sing Davis' favorite when he was little "itsy bitsy spider" We blow on tummies and just lay head to head. She acutally likes that kind of thing! The boys would do the cuddle part for about 5 minutes and then start bouncing around wanting to sing and play. Belle loves to play putting herself and her babies and her daddy to night night, lol It is like a total 180! I actually get to rock her too!

When she wakes up at night she asks me to "hold you" and I'll tell her "Momma will rock you, but I have to put you back night night in just a minute" She'll shake her head yes and then I LOVE getting to snuggle and rock her, even if it is the middle of the night. It would get old if it happened all of the time, but for the few occasions it does happen it is a little treat to me :) She makes me cupcakes and sings "happy cupcake to you" to me. I hope we are always close and that she always wants me right beside her! Those curls and those big brown eyes, her little legs and shaking bootie make me want to squeal with happiness. I am thankful for all of my babies, but am excited to have this experience with my baby girl! I know I have forgotten to write about many things, but these are some of my favorite memories when I think of that sweet little princess.

Quick Trip to ATLANTA

I had to work in Atlanta for a day during this week, so Magan decided to join me on the trip over and bring the kids.  Wait, no, that wasn't it.  I mentioned Atlanta, and she said "Im Going to IKEA".  So anyway, she dropped me off at work in ATL, then took the kids to IKEA.  There were smiles on their faces in these pictures, but I know they could have really been that happy.  That store is so bad, never never go in.  Anyway, I think she stayed in there for like 6 hours (makes me cry for our children). 

 

After IKEA, I met the family at our hotel which was right on Centenial Park downtown.  It was really nice, an Embassy Suites that made me remember being with my sweet newlywed wife in San Juan.  We went to a steak place around the corner where we got one of the worst steaks ever.  But with the kids bouncing and ready to go play in the olympic park, we just both ate some of my pork tenderloin I ordered, and nibbled on the kids plates.  :)  Oh well, did I mention the kids could not sit still and this place was also slow with their service. 

We finally made it to the olympic fountains, and got a chance to just sit back and watch the kids splashing around.  Sam was initially to shy to go out there, but just one mention that Belle needed some help out there, and he was off to help the sister.  Dave on the other hand...Hey, where did Dave go? ...Yeah, I think his goal was to hit every fountain in the whole place.  Hard to keep up with that boy. 

I had an Organic Chemistry teacher once tell me that his class was going to be like getting an enema with a fire hydrant...I think Dave will be prepared for that class (see above), maybe he'll do better than my C.  Belle tried to get away from those boys and make some girl friends.  Such a girly girl. 

And this was our seat.  Pretty nice area if you are ever in the area and the kids have suits on.  :)  Magan caught some funny pictures below showing a collection of what the boys brought on this trip...a little sample of what is important to them.  The scuba diver and blue are a must for Dave.  And Lotso is still with us always for Sam.  Belle found her a play room in the closet where it had a cool safe that she could press all sorts of fun buttons on. 

We even found a photographer to get me and mom together. 

And after waiting in a super big line for breakfast at the hotel (Found out that Aerosmith was in town), then waiting in an even longer line to get into the LEGO Discovery Center...We were in!  They began by showing us how LEGOS were made, then we got to get on a fun ride where you shot at some bad lego guys and save the princess (Think a miniature version combination of Toy Story Mania and Buzz Lightyear ride).  After the ride we found the Lego Miniature area.  Really neat.   They had a mini version of the fountains the kids had played in the day before, they had the georgia dome and Turner field, Stone Mountain, and a rock concert going on.  I also found a hundred dollar bill on the floor, then reaching for it, realized it was part of the floor, then realized someone was probably laughing at me on a video somewhere. 

Into the main area of the discovery center (Basically the top level of a high end mall in Buckhead), we found lots and lots of legos to play with.  Sam and Davis immediately wanted to start building cars to go down ramps.  Belle found the girly area and listened to some girls singing karaoke.  We watched a 4D lego movie, which was actually pretty good.  It began snowing (bubbles) in one scene, which the kids thought was great.  Not to scary like most of the Disney versions.  Belle was reaching out trying to touch all the legos, and when the bad guy starting reaching out for her, I was scared that she would no longer want any part of this movie, but that's when I saw that little hand become a fist, and heard her say "boom" as she tried to punch that monster.  We rode the "shooting" game a couple of more times. Then I got to ride basically a Lego merry go round with both of the boys.  This was really fun, felt kinda small with as many people that were in there, but I think everyone except for whoever had to watch Belle had fun.   :)  Kidding, she just was hard to keep up with on this day.  We left legoland and made it back to Chelsea for supper.  Fun quick trip.