Holy Crap!!!! She peed on the potty!!!!

Nic got Belle ready for a bath and sat her on her potty just for fun and told her to "go potty", and guess what, she did. I'm just floored. She's never wanted to sit on it with a bare butt before.

I was downstairs on my laptop when Nic came out and said she had peed on the potty. I had to see it with my own eyes. Sure enough!!

I was gonna wait til she was 2, but she might be ready now.

Belle's Cousin is a . . . . .

Working at a hospital has it's perks. Check out Sara's blog for the sex of Belle's cousin.

Where's Waldo?

The suspect returned to the scene of the crime to find that her work was cleaned back up, but in no time it was back to it's original mess. Can you find her?

I've been robbed!!!

Suspect: 24lbs and 32in tall white female
Last seen: in the vicinity of the living room wearing pink footie pjs

Belle meets Belle

When we were in Ohio about a month ago, we went to Duck Duck Goose, a little children's boutique. They have tons of cute stuff and this visit just happen to be during their birthday celebration. They had Belle from Beauty and the Beast for the kids to meet. Belle was less than interested, but I thought it was neat that Belle got a picture taken with Belle.

I look like I'm striking some sort of model pose. I don't know what happened there.

Fun with the Macbook

Belle wasn't feeling good this morning and all she wanted to do was sit on my lap. Of course my laptop is pretty much attached to me, so it was on the couch with us. We had a little fun with the photo booth program.

Feeling crappy, but amused that she can see herself in the computer.


Look, I can see my hand moving


Giving "the look"


Now this is just weird

Do you think we should trust her on this thing?

Mom and Dad dug out a horse similar to this one and has kept it at their house. Belle LOVES it. My mom rode it, Sara and I rode it, now Belle is?

Well Nic found this horse at a garage sale to have at our house. Its a little different in that it has a frame that comes up around the horse and the springs are looser. The movement of the horse goes a lot farther.

Belle has a blast on it, but you really have to watch her. (ignore Nic in the background, for some reason I couldn't upload the file where I got rid of the sound)

Insurance sucks!

Would Universal Health Insurance be that bad? No, I don't think it is the answer, but I'm infuriated with the issue of health insurance.

Why am I so mad? Nic's employer whom I won't name (though a lot of you guys know) has changed their insurance offerings that will be effective in 09. Now the company is selling it to their employees as the next greatest thing, but I am not buying it. Sure its great if you don't get sick, but with kids it's just not practical.

Right now we've got the normal PPO (co-pays and deductibles). In 2009 we will be forced to go to a Consumer Based plan. Here is how it works. The company pays $300 for preventive care, then we pay a $400 individual / $800 family deductible. Once that is met, the company pays $1000 individual / $2000 family, and then we have ANOTHER deductible. THEN the insurance is 80/20. With a total out of pocket being $3500 individual / $7000. RIDICULOUS.

Why is it that a company making record profits can't take better care of their employees? Why aren't more people mad about this? Is it just me?

I have several other issues that I have with this company and their policies. But I guess in I could look at it another way, atleast we have insurance and atleast Nic has a job.

Its really coming down to companies not appreciating or valuing their employees. Its happening all to much. I've experienced it, Nic's experienced it and so has my dad. Sad but true and there is really nothing we can do about it.

We survived!

Well we did survive camping. We had a good time over all, but I'm not jumping up and down to go again any time soon. Belle really enjoyed the new surroundings. She found the dirt, sticks and rocks much more entertaining than any of the toys we brought.

The weather: It was cold, but not unbearable (except early mornings). Belle didn't seem to notice the weather at all. Her love for her hat and mittens didn't last long though, but she was usually bundled up with 2 or 3 layers of clothes. Early mornings were rough because Belle gets up between 5 & 6 and at that time its down right frigid.

The food: It was fun just sitting around by the fire eating those foods we usually only get when we go camping. Stuff like Pizza Pockets, Sausage & Potatoes, Chili dogs, & Apple Pies.

Feeding Belle was a different story. She would not eat. She usually likes to eat breakfast early so we brought waffles to make her. The only problem is that we forgot the toaster. Her other breakfast option was scrambled eggs, but she wouldn't eat them made in the microwave. And going outside, building a fire, just to cook an egg she probably wouldn't eat, wasn't an option. So what did we do? We fed her Teddy Grahams. Yes I know it wasn't the best idea, but it worked.

Belle's eating problems continued throughout the weekend. She refused her favorite, a grilled cheese sandwich, and anything else we offered her. She'd eat part of any baby food jar we'd offer her, but for the most part she stuck with drinking milk. This morning when we were packing up, Nic was cleaning out the cooler. We had stored a grilled cheese sandwich there.(we had intended on warming it up later). Nic sat it off to the side and went to do something else. Belle found it and started eating this ice cold sandwich. Gross!! Sometimes its hard to understand that girl.

The sleeping arrangments: We slept in Nic's parents pop-up instead of our tent. We slept 3 across on one side. For the most part Belle stayed parrellel with us. She was quite the nice cuddle buddy. It got pretty cold at night (despite the heater we had in the pop-up) so I'm sure she was cuddling up for warmth. The last night we decided to sleep with our heads towards the middle instead of towards the end of the pop-up in an effort to stay warm. It worked, but we woke up to a thud and a scream last night. Belle had scooted her pillow off the end of the bed and fell off. She calmed down with a quick hug and a paci and went back to sleep.

This was quite an experience, but it was fun. I didn't take many pictures because I didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets very often.

Here is a pic of one of Belle's new looks. We're seeing this one a lot.

We're going camping!

Yes, we're going camping in this cold weather. We like going when its cooler, but this will be the first time with Belle. While I enjoy camping and just lounging around the fire, eating and doing nothing, I'm afraid our time will be spent running after Belle and keeping her out of the fire.

I was a little worried that Belle wouldn't like being all bundled up. But we tried her hat and mittens on last night and she looooved it. She screamed when we tried to take them off of her.

I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories and pictures when we get back. Say a little prayer for us, that we make it through this weekend. Oh and pray that Nic and I get some sleep. We'll be sleeping with Belle in the pop-up along with Nic's parents. Sleeping with Belle is worse than sleeping with our dog, she knows nothing of personal space. =)

Deal or No Deal Tonight!

I'm going to try and go to Ohio early tonight so I can watch Deal or No Deal. The lady who has been cutting my hair for 7 years is on the show. Not as a contestant, but as one of the friends who stand off to the side. It'll be fun to watch someone that I know on a tv show.

So if you watch Deal or No Deal tonight, you can say "Hey, Mandy knows that girl." She's got short hair and is wearing a pink and black shirt, her name is Cindy.

Jump! Jump!

Belle learned two new tricks this weekend. One of which was jumping. It didn't take her long to get the hang of this one. Here's a video.



Her second trick is learning to blow her nose. Which comes in handy now that there seems to be a constant stream coming out of her nose.

Another trip to the zoo

We went to the zoo today with Kelli and Michaela. The weather was perfect, not too cold and certainly not hot. Belle warmed up a little better to the animals this time.

Thanks Kelli and Michaela, we had fun.

As you can see, the girls didn't cooperate well for these photos.

She ate meat!

Belle ate something new again! Granted what she ate wasn't the healthiest, but it was meat and she never eats meat. Nic and I were having sausage biscuits for dinner and I made some sausage links just to see if she'd eat it.

I sat her in her highchair with her sippy and threw a sausage link on her plate fully expecting it to be thrown back at me. Nope she gobbled it all up. Hmmm I wonder if it was just a freak event, cause she's never eaten another PB sandwich since that one time.

Waking for waffles

I'm really missing the days when Belle would sleep in til 7. Here recently she's been getting up in the 5 o'clock hour. I just can't figure it out, but I'm starting to wonder if she's getting up to eat waffles with daddy. Nic eats waffles every morning and when Belle is up she'll help him eat them. Not just your normal waffles either. Nic puts peanut butter along with syrup on his waffles, something I got him hooked on.

And most mornings after she's eaten with Nic, he'll put her back to bed. Which doesn't work with me at all.

A wonderful night of Cheeseburger in Paradise

Kelly and Jamey decided that they would come to Indy this weekend to go to the zoo and we were really excited when they asked if we'd meet them for dinner. We met at Cheeseburgers in Paradise and ate. It was a new restaurant for both of us and it was really good.

Belle must of felt that Jacey wasn't getting enough food because she kept feeding her. Jacey was a good sport and ate whatever it was that Belle kept putting in her mouth. After leaving a huge mess on the floor by our table, we made a run for it and headed to our house.

Once at the house Belle had a good time playing with the girls while we all caught up. We had a good time and it was nice to have someone visit us for a change.

Exploring the bug world

Nic and Belle did some exploring the other night before she went to bed. There seems to be an abundance of crickets in our yard, or maybe we can just see them now that our yard is brown and dead. Belle seemed to have no fear of the bugs until one grabbed hold of her finger, then she was done.

What does the cow say?

Why is it that the sunday school teachers can teach our daughter what a cow says in an hour and a half, but when we've been working on other sounds for months, she's never really picked it up.

On the way home from church Sunday Belle kept moooing. We decided to test her. There was a picture of a cow in her nursery rhyme book and we asked her what a cow said, mooo. There was a cow on a commercial, moo. She certainly knows what a cow says.

Ah look, a baby one!!

I decided to make Belle one of those scarfs. This one was my third attempt and Im still not completely happy with it. I wish it was a little longer and the button was closer to the end. My first one was too long, second too short, this one still not long enough. But Belle kept it on and didn't pull at it so it must not be that bad.

PB and veggie noodles!

I guess its a mom thing, but I got really excited with what Belle ate for dinner tonight. Here recently its been getting harder and harder to feed this girl. Even our standard scrambled eggs and grilled cheese weren't cutting it.

So what did she eat? A peanut butter sandwich (about 1/4 of a sandwich) and about 3/4 cup of veggie noodles with butter and Parmesan cheese. I'm excited about the noodles because she's been a little apprehensive about them, like maybe she knew there were vegetables in them. I love the fact that she likes them with just butter and Parmesan cheese because that means we no longer have to open up a whole jar of Alfredo sauce just to feed Belle.

It's been months since she's eagerly ate something new, so this was very exciting. I'm crazy, I know.