Christmas Time, Missing Teeth, Moving Forward

Life continues to be ever changing, multiple obstacles thrown our way, my health becoming more of an issue, but somehow we are moving forward.

Our little Bella has lost TWO teeth this month, I can't believe it, she is growing up far too fast!  I'm so proud of our little girl, she pulled both of them herself, yes they were extremely loose and just ready to fall out but still she pulled them out :)  She is in awe of how sneaky the tooth fairy is, she tried to stay up for her but couldn't do it.

She lost her second tooth on Christmas Eve at our house, we always spend Christmas Eve night at my parent's house.  We took the tooth with us and Bella was so excited that the tooth fairy managed to find her and the tooth at Grandma and Grandpas house :)

Christmas was pretty wonderful, besides my fainting spell on Christmas Eve (the fourth one in a week).  We had a great time with my siblings and their families and my parents of course.  We played Pepper, ate way too many sweets, opened so many gifts and played our annual Christmas Eve game of Risk, I got fourth this year.  I was kind of sad but then again happy because I got to go to bed at 2:30 am while the rest had to stay up to finish the game :)

Bella and Evey Belle, they are so close, love watching their amazing cousin bond growing.

This is our beautiful "snow lady" as my sister Mindy calls her.  We didn't get out for the wet, heavy snow it was powder by the time we got out, but with Kyle and my father-in-laws help we got one made :)

My little princess showing her missing two front teeth! 

Bella was so excited to get a lot of Barbie house furniture from my parents for Christmas....

She was even more excited when she opened gifts at home and got her new Barbie house!  She really couldn't believe it :)  My father-in-law built it out of an old bookshelf we had and I decorated it.  We'll add some other stuff to the walls eventually, but it is a pretty awesome Barbie house :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a very happy New Year.  We are hoping and praying for a good 2013, the past few years have been quite a struggle.  I'm ready for a good year, less stress, a good job for my husband hopefully, better health for me (the less stress would help with that greatly as it seems to be the cause of my continual fainting spells), continued good health for Bella along with Bella continuing to love school as much as she does :)

Bella is the light of our lives, without her I'm not sure how we could get through half of what we've gone through.  Her smile, hugs, kisses, sweet disposition and even her sassiness get us through a lot, we are so blessed to have her!

Welcome Princess Luna!

Our family is definitely a family full of love for animals.  When our kitty Otis passed away suddenly we were all heartbroken, especially Bella.  Ever since nearly daily she has spoken of him, talking about how he is in heaven but always in our hearts.  Her biggest wish for Christmas this year was a kitty.

Kyle and I had many discussion about our options.  This year has been rough for us, emotionally, financially, we knew it would be a tough Christmas.  We didn't want a kitten, we wanted a cat that had already been spayed/neutered and up to date on its shots.  Also Bella would be afraid of a kitten, I know that sounds weird, but kittens go through crazy phases and that's just not for Bella at this time.  She acts brave, but really we were wanting to find a grown cat that would be lovey and cuddly.

Once I got the final OK from Kyle I started hunting around for anyone trying to find a home for their cat.  I came into work talking about it and Jonnie (my office manager) said, "Hey!  I have the perfect cat for you, oh my god, I can't believe I hadn't thought of her!"  Jonnie went on to tell me that down in Missouri one of her friends had a beautiful white cat wander onto their farm about a year ago.  They took her in, nursed her to health, had her spayed and all shots done.  Jonnie told me she was perfect for Bella, pure white with blue eyes.  

Now I thought, this has to be too good to be true.  Bella received a Furreal kitty that is all white with blue eyes for her birthday from her Aunt Jenny, and we could really get a cat that looks just like her!?!

Sunday afternoon Jonnie brought the cat home with her and I met her to get her picked up.  I about died when I saw her, she was even more beautiful than I imagined, she was so sweet just purring and snuggling.

When we got home I put her in our bedroom and we had a gift wrapped for Bella with a cat collar and cat toy.  Bella was confused at first and then I went to get the cat, Bella was SHOCKED and so, so appreciative and over the moon happy.  We have video but I can't get it uploaded on here for some reason.  When the cat came out of the crate she went right to Bella and was rubbing on her and purring :)

Bella decided to name her Princess Luna, and is she ever a princess!  We gave her a bath the first night, she was so good.  She is so soft, fluffy and beautifully white!  She truly walks around the house like a little princess and is ready to give everyone some love, besides Tybalt.

Luna will take a while to get used to Tybalt as he just wanders around the house hunting for her because he wants to "play".  Luna will figure out she is faster than him soon and I'm sure then she will enjoy teasing the crap out of Tybalt :)

Welcome to our home Princess Luna, we already love you so much and you are the perfect kitty princess for our little princess Bella :)

Thankful

I've been horrible about updating our blog, I really need to try to do better.

Life is moving forward, Bella is growing she had her Kindergarten check up and she is in the 16th percentile for height!  She grew 2 1/2 inches and gained six pounds, still in the 6th percentile for weight but that is the biggest growth spurt she has had :)  Bella was very chatty with our doctor, we found out at this appointment that Bella had bronchitis and she was very interested in what kind of medication Dr. Beck was putting her on.

We had a "bad parent" feeling type of moment because Bella had been coughing for about a week, I knew her check up was coming up and she had no fever so I didn't take her in, then to find out she has bronchitis, oops.  She is her normal, fun, crazy self just with a kind of wicked cough here and there.

My nieces Evey and Lyla both turn one this month!  We've already had Evey's birthday party and are looking forward to Lyla's this weekend.  The annual Schmitz Pepper Tournament was this month as well, I didn't win the coveted pepper shaker trophy, dang it!  Casey (Mindy's husband) won I believe his fourth title.

So lots of family time this month, changes to the house.  Not necessarily big changes you can see but I now have a huge storage area above the garage thanks to my amazing father-in-law.  He decided to cut a hole in the ceiling of the garage to see if anything was up there, well whoever built the garage had a bunch of extra insulation, window frames, quite a bit of stuff up there and they just built around it with no entry.  So we now have an entry door and he even put a light in there for us :)  He also built some storage shelves that are on the ceiling of the garage, I'm truly getting spoiled, seriously spoiled.

Now for some fun, pictures!  I had taken Bella's six year photos a few weeks ago and Sunday it turned out to be about 72 degrees and sunny so I took her and Tybalt out to my parents' house for a photo shoot in the pasture.  I got a few amazing shots, LOVE them and can't wait to make a few canvas prints.  Tybalt was such a good boy, his age is really showing, he is nearly completely gray through his muzzle.  

Bella loves the owl hat I made for her :)

Sweet cousin kisses!

Evey and Lyla playing at Evey's party.

The birthday girl enjoying her cake :)

 The rest are of my Bella and Tybalt, such a bond between a girl and her dog, I love them both more than I could ever truly express.

Bella is 6!

I can't believe our little princess turned 6 this year!  Time has flown by and it seems like every day she just grows up so much faster.

Six is bringing us many exciting things such as, a new obsession with Justin Bieber, reading to herself, writing letters on her own, homework, loves watching singing shows (The Voice and The X Factor) with mommy.

She is just SO grown up sometimes.  Last night was quite hilarious and I can really see just how observant Bella is.  I had a work event all day and we drank afterwards, I was a good girl and had David pick up and take me home.  So I get home at about 9:30 and Bella is up, I kind of stumble downstairs and she wants me to get her something.  I go upstairs for her and she is following me, all the sudden she says "mommy, that was four times you stumbled, your not too steady on your feet!"

I about DIED laughing, and so did my father-in-law :)  The morning brought about a new question, "mommy why do we have to go pick up your car?".  Kyle about died laughing at that and explained to her that since I wasn't steady on my feet that was why DJ brought me home the night before and why we had to pick up my car.

So funny.  Today was beautiful and I took her to Palisades Park for some photo taking.  I was mad at myself we didn't make it for the beautiful sunset because I didn't think about the cliffs, and yes we have some cliffs in Iowa, but they hid the sun early. 

I still got some amazing shots, hard not to with such a beautiful young lady to photograph :)  The tutu skirt was a project I tried out thanks to Pinterest, I LOVE it and planning making more :)

We love you so much Bells and can't wait to see what this year brings you <3 font="font">

So Many Leaves, So Much Fun...

It is finally my FAVORITE season of the year, autumn.  Bring on the colorful leaves, cooler weather, pumpkin everything, fall scented candles, I just can't say enough about how awesome autumn is.

Tonight we enjoyed what will probably be the last warm day, it got up to 80 degrees today and will only be in the 50's tomorrow!  Papa had a wonderfully HUGE pile of leaves ready for Bella after school and the following photos show just how much fun our little peanut had :)

Also I just received in the mail a awesome buy, Photoshop Elements, purchased from Ebay.  I went the cheap route to make sure I would like it, um wow, totally love it so far.  The black and white photo of Bella just melts me.  

She totally rocks, I'm one lucky mommy!!!

Ties, Hats and Booties!

My little Etsy shop, Bella Knits, is growing.  I'm adding more items and learning to crochet some cute new stuff!  I really need to take some time to make some longies too, the other items are just so much quicker for me to make.

Here are some new items:

Love, love, love making this stuff :)  Oh and there will is another new item on the horizon, think fluffy, foo foo, fun and colorful!

Best SIL - She's Mine!

So life has had some "stressful" moments over the past month, we get stresses in our life often but the past month has been exceptionally insane.

I always try to make the best of every situation, I really do.  But lately I had moments of, things won't get better this time around, woe is me.

I'm so, so grateful to have the most amazing sister-in-law, she lives in California but we email daily and have for the past few years.  She listens to me vent, we go through struggles together and I couldn't possibly be more grateful to have her in my life or love her more than I do.

I got the best surprise in the mail this week, a beautiful horseshoe necklace that has definitely brought the Iowa Griffin's some much needed good luck this week.

Not the best photo in the world, but seriously, how stinking cute is this necklace???  My phone takes horrid pictures, I'm still using a non-smart phone so it can't be helped.  Hopefully very soon I will join the rest of the world and upgrade to a "smart" phone :)

Just feeling very blessed today for this amazing relationship I have with my sister-in-law, she is truly one of the kindest, sweetest, encouraging people I know and I cherish our sistership.  

Yeah I made up that last word, it works for us :)

Goodbye Summer...

I hope everyone had a truly wonderful summer, ours was pretty darn good.  We had plans nearly every weekend and loved seeing family at different reunions and events.

This year is flying by, I still can't believe Bella is in Kindergarten, she LOVES school.  I love it every night when I come home she is super excited to tell me about her day and everything she learned.  She did have a couple of "boring" days last week, but she still had fun.

Dance is back in full swing, Bella was so happy to see four kids from class last year are in her class this year.  She is learning a lot of new tap steps and ballet moves, she has truly grown to just love dance.

We went to Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, we just love that zoo.

Bella really loved the seals.  It was HOT that day, like 100 degrees, humid, we were just dripping sweat but still had a great time :)

Bella's big "brother" Tybalt turned 7 this year, his age is really showing but he still acts like a puppy.  Those two have such a strong bond, I love this photo.

Bella and Grandpa before the Lamont Days parade.  My dad and his brothers drove old tractors in the parade, it was awesome, my dad was so excited and proud to do that :)

The Koch reunion hay ride is always a blast :)

We took a family trip to Adventureland, Bella LOVES Adventureland and so do I! :)

My beautiful baby nieces Evey and Lyla, they have grown so much, I just adore them.

Kindergarten!

I can't believe it, Bella started Kindergarten yesterday.  I took the day off so Kyle and I could both take her on her first day, then they only had a half day and I wanted to be able to pick her up and have a fun afternoon.

She did good when we got there, picked out her lunch choice (they have four choices every day and each student picks what they want first thing in the morning), then it was time to join the morning circle and for mom and dad to leave.  She got a little sad and didn't want us to go as she stared at the circle of new faces wondering where to sit.  She chose to sit towards the back and promised us she would be brave.

It took everything in me to hold in the tears until we got outside.  What a feeling, leaving her with all those new kids, a new teacher, a new environment and knowing she was a little scared.  But she made it through and had a great day.

How strange, our life has changed once again, as many parents lives have, we now have a school age child and there will be many school events to look forward to.

I still can't believe how fast the past few years have gone by, so proud of our little princess and hopeful that we are raising her to be a strong, sweet, caring, independent person.

My Baby Brother is 30!!!!

That's my little brother Larry or "Bud" as we call him :)  I found the banner idea on Pinterest (my new addiction that could be an entire post in itself:) ).

The birthday cake, thanks to my sister Jenn for helping me with this.  The planned idea was a flop, I ruined two cakes in bundt pans, I've learned I do not get along well with bundt pans ;)

Ahahahahahaha, I know him too well, he was THRILLED with this gift from us and he even wore it the following Sunday at volleyball!

Isn't she just the CUTEST?!?

Mmmmmmm, Rumchata shots with my gusband and Bud, we love you David.

Me and my hubby :)

A birthday celebration for Bud wouldn't be right without volleyball :)  Maybe Ed and I were having an impromptu dance off???

Just have to do the running pose again!

Kisses :)

The boys, love this photo!

Our cousins Ronnie and Courtney and their two little girls were here visiting from Virginia, it was wonderful having them here to celebrate with us :)  I'll have more fun photos of our girls enjoying their time together soon!