A little Holiday dance for the holiday's!!!!

Happy Belated Halloween

This was a fun Halloween this year. This year I went a a hippie ( again), Quinton was supposed to be Joe Dirt but kind of ended up looking like Brett Michael's, Sydney was Belle and Bella was a leopard. For some reason no one recognized Quinton and I with both of us wearing our wigs. It was so much fun... I loved it. O how I miss my long hair sometimes. Besides being Bella's first Halloween we went to our wards Trunk or Treat where in my opinion she got way to much candy. They had tons of games, pie eating contest for the adults and even a donut eating contest for the youth. Sydney had a blast and was so tired when we got home.

Our funky family

Princess Belle

Lil miss Leopard

Sydney and her BFF Avery who was a lady bug

Our little princess and leopard.. aren't they so cute!!!

what can I say..... Bella loves to make faces

Sydney getting ready for the Trunk or Treat. I think she looks like a 50's house wife with her curlers in her hair and apron.... She loves to wear her curlers

I did not want Bella to feel left out so we put a curler in her hair too

Bella Update

Bella is almost 7 months old now and I can not believe how much she is growing and changing. She rolls around everywhere and is starting to get into way too much stuff for just being 6 months old. She still has her little health problems but is the happiest baby you have ever seen. She is always smiling. Bella truthfully is such a goofball. She is hilarious. She is always making some kind of weird noise, that usually resembles a screeching cat or something. Bella has the longest tongue as well and is always sticking it out... ALL THE TIME. Jokingly I said she should go as one of the members of KISS because of her always sticking out her tongue. She is the joy of our lives, but the biggest news is that her GI doctor has given her the okay to eat solids. Because of her reaction to rice cereal we just skipped that part and went straight to solids. So far she has had carrots, sweet potatoes ( her favorite), squash, and green beans. She loves her food, unfortunately she still has her spit up problems so her spit become either orange or green... so not fun. Another thing Bella does is that she is always moving her legs and feet. She will just sit there and twirl her feet... yes twirl her feet. We call her twinkle toes. And I know that when she really figures out how to use her legs I am going to be in BIG trouble!!!! But we are just so happy how things are going for her and just love having our little Bella-boo.

Here is her famous long tongue 

Her 1st time eating carrots

She loves her jumper so much, mainly because she can use her legs for something useful 

Happy 3rd birthday Sydney!!!!

Okay I know this is really late but Sydney had her 3rd Birthday September 25. She had such great day, we started out taking her out to breakfast ( where they sang and made her a special b-day pancake).  Later that day we had all of our family and some friends at a park and had a great celebration. The kids loved feeding all the ducks and geese. It was such a special day and we love you special princess and are so happy you are in our family. Happy Birthday Sydney!!!!

Sydney and her B-day pancake

All the kids feeing the ducks and geese

Our little family

A tender moment with my Bella-boo

Sydney and her animal cupcakes.. so cute

You have got to be kidding.....

As many of you know I got the okay to give Bella rice cereal. I was so excited to begin this new chapter of Bella's life. Her GI doctor was saying that she is doing so good and how pleased he is about her progress. Just when you think life starts to get a little easier you get pulled right back in. I started to notice that Bella's spit up was getting worse since starting the rice cereal ( please note that I was only giving her the "babies first feeding" which is thin enough for her to drink out of her bottle). I thought, " well Stephanie, just give her a couple of says to get use to it, then her body will be used to the cereal and stop the extra spitting up. Well things were not getting better. Today I noticed that her "stools" were really hard and BAM then it hit. Constipation followed by extreme crying and screaming every time she was trying to have a stool. Why is this whole situation seeming so familiar? O yeah, before we found out about Bella's allergy to breast milk this is how she acted for 3 weeks. AHHHHHH. All I could think about today was "you have got to be kidding me, not again". My poor Bella can never catch a break. So I called her doctor ... again ( I am starting to feel like family now), and he said to take her off the rice cereal until the next time we go in. Seriously?..... Seriously!!!! The only thing that keeps on going through my mind is " if she can't even handle rice cereal... what CAN she handle? Rice is the most gentle food out there. I still can not believe this. I feel like we are at square one again. 2 steps forward 1 step back. I hated seeing my poor Bella in so much pain. Not to mention how hard this is on Sydney. All she keeps on asking is "what is the matter with Bella" and "is her tummy sick again?".

 Okay I feel a little better now that I have that off my chest. I just feel so bad for my little Bella-boo. I have no idea how her life is going to be, or how hard it is going to be. Mommies should know how to make boo-boo's better. We kiss away the pain, we scare away the monsters from the closet. And here I am feeling like I have no idea what I am doing and have no idea how to make it better. I guess only time will tell.

David and Erin

So over the weekend my cousin David and his family Erin and Lylah were able to come to my parents house while on their way to Erin's parents house in Denver. It was so much fun to see them. Their sweet little girl Lylah is getting so big and so beautiful. And even better news Erin is pregnant with a boy and will be due at the end of October. I swear that she is the cutest pregnant women I have seen. We are so excited to be so close to Erin while David is away getting things set up for them ( going from the Air Force to the Navy). It was a great weekend and Sydney just loved playing with Lylah as well. It was great seeing you all and I am even more happy when their little boy come to this world. Congrat's you guys!!!!!

5 months old

I can not believe that my little Bella is already 5 months old. Where has the time gone? Well I do have some idea. This summer has been filled with Bella and her doctors appointments and tests. Seriously I had a doctors appointment every other week and even had 3 appointments within 6 days... crazy I know. Unfortunately none of these tests or appointments have been in Woodland Park, all of them expect 1 ( which was in Denver) were in the springs. Do not think that I am complaining, I am not, I am just saying if some of you have felt neglected like my poor blog this is the reason why. Bella is fine by the way ( well fine for Bella at lease). Most of the tests had to do with her GI doctor, she just has a incredibly sensitive tummy. She got put on this formula Alimentum which was $25 a can. Which did help her but did not do everything. She still has really bad acid reflux which is still causing her pain so this is the main reason why she has had so many tests done. Her doctor took her off of the Alimentum formula and put her on even more Hypoallergenic formula Neocate which is ......get ready.......$40 a can. AHHHHHH a living nightmare  I tell you. Unfortunately I can not complain the formula is working, her spit up is getting so much better and so is her pain. As many of you are wondering we do not qualify for WIC, and our insurance will not pay for it as well. So out of the kindness of the doctors heart he always gives us 2-3 cans of formula every time we come it. Such a saint However, Bella is such a happy baby. She smiles all the time and talks even more ( she has more of my personality ). She weighs now 13 lbs 11 oz. She is a smaller baby but doing really well compared to all her health problems. A big development is that her GI doctor gave her the okay to try rice cereal. Since her tummy is so sensitive we have to take things extremely slow with her. She is not quite sure what she thinks of the rice cereal but it seems to be helping  her spit up.  Bella is the happiest baby in the mornings.. I love it. I look into her bassinet in the mornings and she is there kicking, smiling and talking like crazy. How could some one not be happy when they see that. We love our little Bella so much and are so happy to have her in our family.

Ward campout

A couple of weeks ago my parents were having their ward campout. And since our ward did not have one this year the girls and I went with my family to have some camping fun. Quinton had to work that night so it was the perfect weekend for us to head out. Sydney had so much fun being with her cousins and having a great time. Both of the girls did absolutely amazing the entire time and slept through the night ( like they do every night). My brother and his family came as well. All we were missing was Quinton and my sister and her family and it would of been a family reunion. I am so glad that we were able to go camping at lease once this summer before winter sets in.

The girls snuggling with grandpa in the morning

Bella is always happy... O how I love that smile

Grandma with some of the grandkids

All of us

1st Day of Preschool

September 7th was a big day in our house. Why you ask? Sydney had her 1st day of preschool. She was so excited to go to school like a big girl. She only goes 2 times a week for 3 hours but she loves it!!! Naturally she was nervous the 1st day but she loved that Quinton and I were there to cheer her on. She did so good, not even a single tear ( compared to some of the other kids there ) she just got really quite.... something she gets from Quinton. I am so proud of her and the big girl that she is becoming. One of the requirements for preschool was that they had to be potty trained. Well, we are about  95% there. I still have her wear her pull ups just in case but she goes potty all by herself. Such a big girl. We love you Sydney princess.

Sydney with her Dora the Explore backpack....so excited

Believe it or not this is a happy face for Sydney

                                               Sydney with her new teacher

Sydney's first hair cut

A couple of weeks ago Sydney had her first hair cut. Quinton actually has been trying to get her hair cut sooner, but I would not let him. Sydney has these beautiful baby curls and I was so afraid that they would go once she got her hair cut. Anyways, she still has her curls ( thank goodness), and she did amazing sitting still while quinton cut her hair. She loved that she got to go to Daddy's work and have some fun.

Getting ready for daddy

Quinton told her to look at herself in the mirror.... she had no problem with that

              So excited to get her hair done

Tender Moment

This is Quinton reading to Sydney at our old apartment on our last night there. She loves it when it is just Quinton and her reading books together. Sydney is such a daddy's girl, she loves her daddy so much. I will always cherish this picture of them together. It is incredible how fast our little ones grow up. Just today at breakfast she told us "I am 7 years old and man, I am getting old". It was so funny, then she asked how old both Quinton and I were then she said" wow that is old...". Thanks Sydney for all the laughs and tenders moments.... we love you princess.

We have moved!!!!

Yep, you all have read that right.  I have been bugging Quinton that we need to move to a bigger place for a while now. And about 2 weeks ago I found the perfect townhouse. So this meant that we had 1 1/2 weeks to move to our new place. Not an easy thing to do especially with 2 kids. But by some miracle we did it. So we went from a 700 sq ft to 1,000 sq ft. We still have 2 bedrooms but a lot more room. Quinton and I gave the girls the bigger room... it is huge. And they love all the extra space, well at lease Sydney loves all the extra space so far. We also now have a front and a backyard, 1 car garage, washer and dryer and the best thing of all...... A DISHWASHER!!!!! O how I have taken for granted a dishwasher. It is fabulous and I love our new home. Nothing is better. I will post pictures after we get the house all in order.