Mouth-watering GOOD

All seems to be right in the world. Bella is back to eating, even if what she's eating is Lovie. No, seriously she had a bad bacteria that attacked her colon and turned everything she ate into diarrhea. I know more than you wanted to know. Needless to say, she dropped some lbs. Ok, she dropped one. But on that small a frame, it's NOTICEABLE! She almost lost her thunder thighs completely. It's so sad to see them disappear like that. I might sound a little dramatic, but truly it did make me sad. Oh, and on top of all that she also had an entero virus (hand-foot-mouth disease), which causes sores in the mouth and throat, so for a while we didn't even know she had this bad bacteria because she wasn't even eating enough to have diarrhea. But through it all, Bella has been a real trooper. When she's sick, she's not even all that fussy. In fact when we first saw the doctor (not her normal doctor because it was a Sat.), she said there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with her. If she had "c diff" (the bad bacteria), she wouldn't be such a good mood, but go ahead and collect the poop samples if you think it necessary. Just to be sure, I went ahead and collected them, and what do you know, she had the nasty bacteria.

OH no they didn't

Late last night we had a U of M school official knock on our door - they want their outfit back. Flags were immediately raised when Bella (being a Texas native) was seen in the blue and maize. She was put on a watch list, and when Michigan lost its second game of the season, the authorities assumed that Bella had put some kinda Longhorn curse on them. So, they confiscated their memorabilia. Bella was a little bit upset over the whole incident, but fear not Michigan fans. The curse has been lifted.

Biggest Upset in History of Football

Bella, hiding after she receives the embarassing and shocking news that Michigan lost to Appalachian State. Later, she could be heard mumbling in her sleep, "hook'em horns".

Just kidding. But she did go over to cousin George's house today to try and cheer him up. He broke his arm yesterday monkeying around on the monkey bars. STUPID monkey bars - the biggest nuisance on the playground. Seriously how many limbs has that apparatus been responsible for breaking. I'm not sure she cheered him up much, but look, you can really see her teeth now. (also note the ever changing position of the ponytails)

Too cool for school

I ran across this picture while I was cleaning off the memory stick today, and I had to post it. This was taken a few weeks ago. Bella normally doesn't like for things to be on her face, but she was in a rare mood on this day and didn't mind the shades.

This picture was taken this morning. She reminded us of Sherk in this picture, but a much cuter version.

This past weekend has been the most fun I've had with Bella so far. We played hide and seek upstairs and crawled around chasing each other. She still squeals when she sees me, like after I get home from work. That will never get old.

The dog days of summer...

have brought about lots of changes for Bella. This month she has started crawling, pulling up, and now her teeth have come in. The bottom two teeth poked through this week. If you look closely, you can see where the two teeth are struggling to break free. Good-bye gummy smiles, hello smiles with teeth!

Yeah, look at me!

Tada! Bella is crawling, and I have finally posted a picture of it. She started crawling just before she turned 7 mos. on August 7th, and ever since then she has been getting faster and faster. She'll try to crawl after us as we leave a room, but she is still not fast enough and will sit down and cry if you walk beyond her line of sight. She has also successfully pulled herself up while in her crib and play pen, so we have had to lower them so she doesn't tumble out. In fact yesterday when we tried to put her down for her afternoon nap, she did NOT want to go to sleep, so when we finally went in her room to get her, she was kneeling in her bed and peering over the railing starring at the door waiting for us to rescue her.

To "da" or not to "da"

OK, as we already established, Bella has had "ba ba ba" down. Well, she has also mastered other consonant/vowel combinations since that entry and has most recently added "da da da" to her repertoire. Now, would somebody please tell Bella's daddy that when Bella says "da da da", she is not referring to him, and that no, we cannot put "da da da" in her baby book as her first word. He says I'm just jealous. Yes, you're right. I am jealous that she doesn't address her shoe, toy frog or granny as "ma ma ma". Because guess what, she's called all of those things "da da da". I've tried to tell him that around 1 year she'll say it and mean it. She'll cry out "da da da", and that will mean, "Daddy come get me. I'm lonely." or it will mean "Hi daddy! I'm so glad you're home." Of course she already lights up when she does see him, and they've had fun on their walks together (see above), although it has gotten too hot recently and the walks have been temporarily suspended.