Catching up...

If you are a mother you know how sacred you time is. Even if the entire day went smoothly, there's nothing quite like a quiet house. And every night after Bella goes to bed and "me" time finally rolls around, I am faced with the question "What am I going to do with the down time tonight?!" I have my 5 top picks for nightly activities...and as we've already established, blogging doesn't usually make the short list.  BUT, tonight I feel inspired. I downloaded all of my pics off both my camera and iPhone and found too many cute pictures that should be shared. So...here they are...and definitely in no particular order. =)

Bella at Kyleigh Mace's 3rd birthday party. It was a fairy themed birthday party...and was beyond DARLING!



The next morning, Bella immediately wanted me to put her wings on her...she wore them around for days. Here she is smelling the flowers.



Here we are again with the wings. She says "WINGS" and then after I put them on her, she (now) runs to our bedroom to look at herself.



Bella's first pony tail!!





Oh my goodness....what a mess!!!



Bella loves wearing ANY necklace. On this day, she selected these lovely pink pearls. =)



Dress up with daddy.

  





The rest of these photos aren't that old at all...in fact, I took them last week. They are a bit repetitive, but my goodness she's cute...I couldn't choose which one I liked best, so I put all of them up.

Late last week Bella took a header on the pavement outside Janelle's house and got her first real "raspberry." She recovered quickly...and it didn't end up looking as wicked as I thought it may have, but it was still kinda ugly.

Santa Cruz County Fair 2010

I'm pretty sure everyone can tell by now that I'm really not much of a blogger. Oh how I wish I were. But I just don't find it to be an activity that I enjoy that much. I'm sure if I did it more often, I would get better at it and it would make the whole process easier. But overall, I find it to be just another task that I have to complete.

OK-now that I have that off of my chest, I will now finally be posting about our trip to the Santa Cruz County Fair....which took place almost 2 months ago now. And I have had this post in "edit" mode for about that long too. HA! I had intended to load the pictures, and post them right away...but,it didn't happen. Hey-I'm just staying true to myself and posting anywhere from 60-90 days after the event takes place. =)

Anywho...we had a great time. The SC County Fair is nearly always the same. And that's what I love about it. You pretty much know what to expect. And I look forward to those same things each year. Specifically, I look forward to the junk food I'm going to consume and the piglets. I could sit on that fence eating a county famous cinnamon roll and watching those baby pigs for hours! But...with a 14 month old...I never sit anywhere for long. This actually Bella's 2nd year at the fair...but last year, she was only 3 months old, so I suppose that doesn't really count. This year, she was old enough to have fun. She rode a few kiddie rides, stoll bites of whatever fatty food I was consuming at the moment, and best of all, thoroughly enjoyed her first pony ride! And yes, it was worth the $7 we spent to watch her on that pony.  It was just darling.

I have more pics and videos...but they aren't posting correctly. GRRRR! (One of the main reasons I do not post more often. I don't have time to figure out what I'm doing wrong.) But here are a few shots...

Pool time!

We've been having some great weather lately...and by lately I mean "off and on...or about every 4 days or so." Basically, it was a perfect time to break out the new swimming pool we got Bella about a month ago. So we set it up and got this party started! And oh my goodness do we have a happy camper.  She L.O.V.E.S. her new pool. And we love watching her play in her pool.  Again...can't say it enough..."cutest thing ever!" 

We have a WALKER!

Yes, the rumors are true....our little Isabella Sole Cosentino is a walkin'-fool! She started walking a few days after we got home from Mexico. I know I say this about nearly every new thing Bella learns to do...but, it is the "cutest thing ever..." Just like when she started to crawl, she gets overly excited when she realizes..."HEY-I'm WALKING....ALL BY MYSELF!" She often squeals with delight. It is just SO incredible to get to witness first hand, the process of learning...well....everything. I am loving this age. But of course, with the walking, comes the falling. And this part, I do not enjoy. Hopefully the falls will be mostly harmless. And for as proud of her as we are...she is probably even more proud. If that is even possible. Here are a few videos of Big B doin' her thing!

CosenMcGregoStettler 2010 HB trip!

Over the weekend of August 20th, we headed up to the houseboat again for another weekend of the usual.  This time we brought along some of our fave's...our dear friends the Hochstettler's who bailed on California livin' for that abundant Oregon sunshine (LOL...sorry, I'm teasing...Oregon is gorgeous) and our dear friends the McGregor's...who, lucky for us, remain local.  =)

It was an ALMOST kid-free weekend...well...with the exception of our little nug who had already spent a great deal of time with the grandparents in the days prior to this weekend excursion.  And boy did we have a ball. Some of the highlights included...EVERY homemade treat Allison made for us, both of the McGregor's rocking it on both the wake board and wake surf sessions,  Josh and his "free-diving with HUGE rocks" shenanigans, Elaine and her amazing ability to plug her nose before she ever came close to hitting the water, and of course Bella...just because she's always a highlight. =) 

Here are some pics of our wonderful weekend with friends. (And I'd like to note...Allison McGregor was our weekend photographer.  You can thank her for these wonderful shots!)

Josh getting some big air...

Mike goin' big too!

Holy teeth Bella.  LOL!

Josh: "This one's called Spin till you die."

My first dive off the top of the houseboat.  I was scared it was going to hurt. Rick and Josh assured me I'd be fine. They were only sorta right. I was fine...but it did hurt. I probably won't do it again.

Mike's first time wake-surfing...he was AWESOME!

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY

We had AMAZING sunsets.

The McGregor's....

Go Elaine! Make sure to plug that nose of yours on the way down now! =)

YEA Allison!! 

Almost.........almost.....

Done!

Happy baby

Josh and his rocks. He would paddle-boat all the way over to the shore and find various huge rocks...paddle them back over to our place and proceed to "free-dive" with the rocks.  The bigger the rocks, the faster the ride to the bottom of the lake. 

The various rocks....and one random pine cone. (Note: The pine cone was not used in any of the free-dives.)

We eventually decided it might be a good idea to tie a rope to Josh's ankle. You know...just in case he got a little too deep, his ear-drums exploded and he needed rescuing. Thankfully, this never happened.

 

Bella LOVES her swing!

And loves swinging as high as possible.

The group!

The food was DELISH!

And have I mentioned we have a WALKER?! More on THAT to come in a different blog-entry. =)

Our slumber-party set up!

This looks awesome...alas a few milliseconds later, Rick crashed hard. No broken bones or torn ligaments, but he was able to score some cool crutches, and ace bandage and a prescription to Vicodin.

My gosh she's cute. 

One afternoon, we all heard Bella playing inside after waking up from her nap. Usually when she's in her bed just talking and playing, I leave her be and let her enjoy whatever she's doing in there.  WELL...this time, she was enjoying herself alright.....and my makeup bag.  She had pulled my bag off the counter, opened it up and taken all the items out. Smarty-pants.

A very happy smarty-pants....

 

Elaine and I

The Hochstettler's