Walk The Dog

So what to do when it's way too chilly out to take the dog for a walk??  In our case Tybalt prefers the treadmill :)

Grandma Time

We have been extremely lucky to have Kyle's mom visiting us since Wednesday.  Bella was super excited for Grandma from Oregon to be coming to stay with us :)  It has been non-stop coloring, playdoh sculpting, finger painting, bubbles galore in the house, just a BLAST!!!  I need to take more photos, but here's one of Grandma and Bells (Bells is wearing her $1 sunglasses from Target, a great find :))

Kyle and I were also able to FINALLY FINISH the playroom today while Grandma entertained Bella :)  The trim is all up (not perfectly, but our way :)), all that is left is to put in the rubber tile flooring that will have to wait a while.  We decided to hang a bunch of Bella's artwork from the ceiling too, as I was doing this Bella walked in the room and saw what I was doing and said, "Wow, thank you mommy!", now if that doesn't melt your heart I don't know what will!  So here's the finished product, a room full of creativity, fun and it was all inspired by Bella.

Cha-cha-cha-cha-CHANGES!!

OH yes, I have been painting....AGAIN! :)  I finally did our family room downstairs, I am so thrilled with how it turned out.  It was a LOT of work and took me three days of like 9-10 hours of work, but it's done and I LOVE it :)

Here are some before photos of the boring old white walls, so long white walls I couldn't stand anymore!! :)

I had to do at least one photo of the hellish stripes, it seriously took me about 6 hours to map it out and put the tape up, YUCKY!!  Now, I will probably never do a room like this again, just because of how long it took, but I truly love the outcome.  So it's totally worth it in case anyone thinks they want to do this, it's just a lot of work for one person!

And now for the big finish...

I of course had to do a close up of the beautiful stripes :)  It's amazing to me that this is one color, the base is a flat finish and the stripes are a semi-gloss finish, for that subtle stripe look :)

I think I'll be done with painting projects for a while, now to convince Kyle to let me put up the awesome wallpaper I found for our bedroom :)

Tanner and his Giggles

My handsome "little" nephew Tanner who is about 2 1/2 months old. He is the happiest, sweetest little baby and had lots of smiles for Grandpa :)

Honesty is the best policy....

Right?? Well last night I got to chat with my Stephie for quite a while, she is 18 weeks prego and was asking me some questions. I answered them ALL completely HONESTLY, now I'm thinking, man I hope I didn't put the fear of god into her!!!!

I feel though that it's good to get all the stories about everyone's pregnacies/birthing process. Stephie W. and I are two of a kind, seriously, I think it's a bit scary how alike we are. So I hope Stephie W. that you get some more stories or just ignore all the stories and look at your pregnancy and future birthing of squirt as unchartered territory and just think positively about it all.

It had me remembering a lot of moments from my pregnancy and birth of Bella. I seem to have a different take on all of it constantly. Sometimes I think back and think that my pregnancy was perfect and the delivery was no big deal. Then I REALLY think about it and yes the pregnancy was pretty much perfect, but the birthing of Bella certainly was not. When the epidural only works on one half of your body (thanks to a pinched nerve I just happened to get on my right side when they gave me the epidural) it's really not a great birthing experience. Don't get me wrong, every second of that hard work was more than worth it for Bells!!!

Then I think about the fact that I have two older sisters who have birthed good sized babies and I feel like such a weenie. At least Bells was only 7 pounds, not almost nine or ten!!!! Jenn and Laura - you guys are amazing and thank you for your hard work on pushing out my big baby nephews :)

Here's a look back at our amazing little Bells, the angel in our life that we love more than we could have ever imagined.

Songs of Bella

Clamping Mitre Box

I spent my lunch hour at one of my favorite stores.....Menards :)  I was on the hunt for a coping saw and found so much more.

I found a Clamping Mitre Box that came with a saw on sale, jack pot, a file set, a coping saw, AND The Ultimate PushUp....also on sale :)  So I got some of my favorite things (tools) and found a nice little surprise for Kyle, everyone wins!

The rest of the workday went by about as quickly as this winter is going.  Then I decided that Bella and I should meet my parents for dinner and visit my grandma.  Dinner was great, Bella was a ham, is anyone surprised??  Our waitress was this super cute, kind of gothic girl (not trying to stereotype!).  She had black hair with bright green stripes and quite a few facial piercings, she was such a sweet, pretty girl and Bella LOVED her :)  After our dinner she brought Bella hot chocolate with LOTS of whipped topping AND marshmallows.  Bella thought she was just the coolest kid in the restaurant :)

Then we headed over to see grandma.  She is staying at a Care Center for the time being, it's actually a really nice one.  They have two dogs and a cat that wander around to visit everyone.  That was a big selling spot for me, I love animals so much and feel that they can bring joy to people just by being by their side for a little while.  Grandma was very happy to see us, she has a pretty small room but it seems cozy.  We saw the cat on the way to her room, it is a HUGE long haired calico, so pretty.  Bella was thrilled when she saw it, so you can imagine what she was wanting to do the entire time :)  She actually did pretty well in grandma's room, but then Grandpa decided to let her wander in the halls and she found the kitty, it wasn't good.  Dad could not get her to stay in the room, so we just had to leave, it was 7:45pm and she was not cooperating well with me.  One amazing thing she did though....she hugged great grandma goodbye :)  Bella usually acts pretty shy around her and hasn't let her hug her since she was very small, so it was really sweet.  We got to say goodbye to the kitty as well and Bella was very cordial and just ready to head home.

Once we got home I was ready to try out my new tools.  So I grabbed a piece of trim and got started.  I figured, I'm a strong girl I can definitely get this trim sawed down.  Well I did get one piece sawed with the mitre saw, but the coping saw??  No freaking way, poor Kyle, now he's going to have to help his meek little wife ;)  I got some shots of my new saw (Shalae I really took these for you ;-)), and also of my four legged helpers.

Otis is our big boy we adopted from David.

It's kind of strange how much they look alike, and that they're named Milo and Otis just by coincidence.

Milo thought he'd give the sawing a try ;)

They grew tired early and decided to show some brotherly love ;)  They're so cute because they really do love each other, if only they would stop pestering Tybalt.

22.9 Pounds

Our little peanut weighed in well yesterday :) She is scaring me with her knowledge of how to get people to do what she wants. She knows that they have bubbles back by where she gets weighed, bp and all that fun stuff. So she kept telling the nurse, "I want bubbles please" before she would stand on the scale, or get measured, or get the bp done, it was so "funny" I guess :) A little scary though, I don't think a two year old should already know how to manipulate people to get what she wants! The nurse was willing to do anything for Bells though, only because Bella was so polite and kept saying please and thank you, we must be doing something right ;)

After that fun stuff we actually got put into a room right away. Usually she gets her weight and everything done, then it's back to the waiting room to wait for the nutritionist, head to one room for that appointment, back to the waiting room again, finally the doctor appointment. This time it was really nice to just get into a room and wait in there for everything.

The nutritionist was thrilled with Bella's weight gain :) Last time she only gained 2.4 grams a day (that is below average for a child her age, 5 grams a day is average). But that was due to her four ear infections and loss of appetite. This time she gained 7.5 grams a day!! I got the same advice, add butter to everything, condiments with calories, blah, blah, blah.

Our doctor was equally happy with the weight gain, but will not release Bella until she has one more appointment with a good gain. So we will be going back in two to three months.

Bella showed off her "acting". The doctor was asking her a question and Bella wouldn't look at her. Then she peeked at the doctor and saw that the doctor was still looking at her, she dramatically leaned on her chair and put her head down, then peeked to make sure we all saw it. The doctor was just cracking up and thinks we have a little actress on our hands :)

So all in all it was a good day. I do wish we didn't have to go back, but hopefully it really will be just one more time!

September 26, 2009 - A Bechthold Wedding

My amazing little sister Missy and her wonderful man Ed got married on Dec. 29th in North Carolina at the courthouse in Greensboro. Missy Koch is now Missy Bechthold :) They will be having a small ceremony here in Iowa with a reception on September 26, 2009......let the fun begin!!

It's going to be an interesting few months getting everything put together for their wedding. Thank god there is email, texting, cameras, and Missy's artwork :) Missy drew out how she would like the ceremony set up (it will be outdoors at Palisades park at sunset), it will be BEAUTIFUL, here is her vision.



I can already picture how beautiful and amazing their ceremony will be, surrounded by those closest to them, outside at a beautiful location.

Here is the vision for the hall set up and the head table layout, AWESOME!!





Mindy is in charge of flowers (we found some really amazing roses), I think Jenn and I are just trying to make sure things continue to get done and we all stay on track. I feel so badly that Missy can't make it back here before the wedding, but she does really trust us to get everything done for her exactly as she wants it.

Don't worry Missy, you and Ed's day will be AMAZING and we will all do everything in our power to make it so!!

I love you guys.