Hello Again...

Okay So it has officially been forever since I last updated our blog. So sorry to everyone. It truly has been crazy busy in our home. So instead of stalling,  here are the updates with everyone.

Quinton has been super busy with work. That is especially good considering he is self employed. He is still doing some construction work but he mostly specializes in finish work  aka  countertops, different wall finishes etc. After months of research and a ton of trial and error he has created his own plaster. Yep, plaster. It is awesome and I am so proud of him and all of his accomplishments. Quinton still does hair styling 2 days a week as well as playing guitar. He is one amazing dad. The girls love their daddy so much.

Me... hmmm what I have been up to.... Everything. I am in the Primary Presidency in our ward so that consumes a lot of my free time. Not to add that I had to glorious pleasure of writing our wards Primary Program for the first time... ever. I got back into wedding photography as well. I LOVE photography and I feel so blest to have a side job that lets me stay at home with our girls but I am able to do what I love. Truthfully there is never a dull moment in our home!

Sydney is now 4 years old and started her 2nd year of preschool. She is gone 4 days a week for 3 hours a day. She loves it, something even better is her preschool is at the elementary school so when she goes to kindergarten she already knows the school. To make things even better Sydney's best friend Avery is in her class as well and they have a blast. She is getting so tall and is now in the 86% for height. She will be my tall girl. She loves music and is always singing, she loves anything to do with art and animals and she pretty much has the best imagination I have ever seen. She can make anything come to life in her world and I love it. Sydney is an amazing sister and she loves Bella so much. Sydney's biggest news is that she finally has her bunk beds. She has been asking for bunk beds forever then I saw this amazing deal online so we got them. It took her a couple of days to be "brave enough" to go to the top but we are so proud of everything is accomplishes.

 Our little Bella is now 19 months and is doing awesome. A couple of months ago we went to her GI doctor and he finally cleared her of everything. She has absolutely no allergies to anything now. I know this small miracle is only possible through our Savior Jesus Christ. She is such a joy to be around. She has an amazing energy level and will climb on ANYTHING she can get her hands on. Sometimes it is exhausting but we love all her silliness more for it. Her vocabulary is incredible and she is ALWAYS saying something. She just looks too small to be talking if you ask me. She is a total mommies girl but always a cuddle bug. She has to sweetest heart and is willing to talk to anyone. Literally anyone. Sometimes going to the store to get a couple of things turns out to be an hour long trip because she will talk to anyone that walks by. O how we love our little Bella. Our family would be so boring without her.

Sydney's Update

I can not believe that my little Sydney is 3 years old already. She is a busy busy bee. She is always doing something. She has the best imagination I have ever seen. She can make anything become real in her world. Sometimes it get's a little frustrating when she is too busy making her food talk and not eating. But o well. Sydney loves going to preschool and is always coming home with new things she learned. She can count up to 20 and up to 10 in spanish. She know's the alphabet in sign language and loves to sing even more. O does she sing. She will sing to the top of her lungs whether it is song she knows or a song she made up. She is mommy's little helper in the kitchen and becoming actually really good in the kitchen. Once she has on her apron she channels in her inner Julia Child and bam! She is in the zone. 

Sydney still loves to read books and especially loves to be read to before bed. She is growing like a weed. She is the tallest girl in her sumbeam class. People who meet her for the first time always thinks  she older then she really is. Then they look at me and try to figure out how she is so tall until I tell them that daddy is 6'3''. She still is a huge daddy's girl and will give him the biggest hugs ever. She is such an amazing big sister to Bella. She loves to share her room with Bella. But does complain sometimes that Bella is a too loud in the mornings. Sydney is not the best morning person in the world. She is more like Quinton in that way. Sydney is a girl that needs sleep. She will go to bed around 7:30 and wake up around 7 am the next morning. She still takes naps that are usually about 2 -3 hours long. Yep, she loves her sleep.  Sydney also LOVES animals and has no fear towards any animal. Her favorite right now are dogs and horses. We love you princess and can not wait to see what is next.

10 months old

The other day Bella had her 10 month check up. So here are her stats...

Height 28 inches ( 50 percentile)
Weight 17 lbs 7 inches ( 16 percentile)

 Bella is doing so well. As her doctor says she is a consistent  light weight. Her acid reflux is totally gone after she got roto virus a couple of months ago. She still is the happiest baby you have ever seen. She is always smiling and always moving. That girl can not hold still if her life depended on it. Changing her diaper is pure torture. She is crawling everywhere is and pulling up on EVERYTHING!!!!!! She even knows how to climb to the top on the stairs. Yes we now brought out the baby gates..

Bella still has a very sensitive tummy. She can not have anything with rice in it. For some reason it really bothers her tummy. She is now on some protein baby food. But I recently had to take her off because of some other problems. She makes more different sounds with her mouth then I have ever seen with any baby. Needless to say she is not a quiet baby at all. She loves to give kisses and hugs ( especially to mommy). Bella always has he tongue sticking out. She loves her tongue and will twist it all around and just keep it out. She is our crazy girl. She still is a huge mommies girl and loves to give me hugs all day. Poor Bella still has NO teeth. Yep no teeth. Her pediatrician says it is not going to be pretty when they come in.... yep they will probably come in all at the same time..... YEAH! She waves hi and claps all the time. She still says dada and mom mom (isn't that cute, I love it mom mom. THat is what Sydney called me as well). Bella loves her big sister so much. Sydney pretty much get's the biggest smile out of everyone in the family. Bella is a very sociable baby, she will let anyone hold her and just be fine. Sydney on the other hand glared to everyone and was very picky on who held her. Bella's newest thing is that she is learning how to dance when she hears music. She will sway back and forth. It is the cutest thing in the world. O how we love our Bella boo. She is the joy of our lives.

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