Celebrating the Chinese New Year

We celebrated the Chinese New Year (Feb 14) a week late with our playgroup friends at Michele & Zachary's house. We enjoyed tasting several different Chinese foods, especially the various cookies. After we filled our tummies with treats, it was time to let the kids outside to burn off some energy.

Bella LOVED riding on the bike...what a cool toy! She's working on learning to pedal, so it was nice to be able to push and steer her without hunching over to grab the handlebar.

Then it was time for Bella had to help Louise (Ms. Weazy) push Carson around the yard.

Carson

Zachary on his riding 4-wheeler

Aiden

Singing

Who says Christmas has to end in December??? Definitely not Bella. :)

We were in the car driving over to visit our friends when Bella suddenly asked to listen to "the Rudolph song". Luckily I had her Children's Christmas carols still in the car, so I pulled it out and popped in some holiday tunes.

Listening to Jingle Bells in February was silly and more fun than listening to it in December.

Potty Party Time!

In case you weren't aware, we are in full blown potty training around here! Bella has mastered going pee-pee in the potty, but going #2 is still under the 'training' category.

Today we hosted a Huggies Pull-Ups potty party for 10 of our little toddler friends who are currently, or about to begin, potty training. Huggies sent us a box of some goodies...coupons, DVDs, potty dance song, etc. We danced to the Potty Dance (http://www.dothepottydance.com/) several times, it's quite catchy so check it out sometime.

Who knew potty training was sooo much FUN?!?!?

I think Zachary is partied out...tired from dancing!

We had a great time partying with everyone and hopefully it'll kick start our kiddos to 'ditching the diapers'. Party on, Rockstars!

First Day of Music Class

We recently checked out a demo kindermusik class and Bella was a little too nervous, shy or anxious to really enjoy it. Even though a little hesitant, we decided to sign her up for the weekly class on Wednesdays.

Today was her first music class and she absolutely LOVED it! We went a little early so she had time to get familiar with the place and teacher, which I think helped. I'm sure it also helped that she knew 3 little friends in her class too.

It was so nice to see her dancing, marching, clapping, singing along, and participating in the class. She was singing (her version, of course) the new 'choo choo' song from class all the way home. As I laid her down for nap, she says "Mama, I love music class". Awwww. :)

Sesame Street LIVE!

I took Bella to see Sesame Street Live at Reliant Arena today, and she LOVED it! All of her favorite characters were there....Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Big Bird, Grover, Bert and Ernie. She loved the music and dancing, which of course she clapped and danced along too. Very cute.

It had a great storyline too, the theme was "Imagine".....1- Close your eyes, 2- Think you're there and 3- Imagine you can be anywhere! Each character imagined they were somewhere special like Mexico (Rosita), Captain of the SS Rubber Ducky (Ernie), swimming underwater (Bert) and a jungle adventure (Elmo).

Every time Elmo would come out, Bella would scream "There he is!" and when he went off stage, "Where Elmo go?" She danced, twirled and clapped through the whole show...she truly enjoyed it.

The Adventures in Potty Training

I am SUPER proud to report that Bella is mostly potty trained. She has peepee totally mastered, even when she's playing and we're out shopping! (Having her go in a public potty was a learning curve for both of us....but we've got it).

Now I say "mostly" potty trained because there is NO way she's going poopy anymore on the potty. I thought we were just extremely lucky when she was also going #2, but she got the toddler memo that said she's suppose to give her parents difficulty with this part. Welp, she's not budging now. She knows the sensation and comes running with a diaper for me to put it on her to go #2. Within 30 seconds of getting her diaper on, she's finished her business. Nice.

Aunt Krissy visited recently and somehow it came up that she use to have a pink Barbie car when she was little. Since Bella LOVES Barbies, she's just dying to get her Barbies a car....a PINK car.

I don't normally negiotiate with Bella, but for this one thing, I'm willing to trade off poopy in the toilet with a Barbie car. No luck yet. She did a poopy in her diaper and said "now we go shoppin for a Barbie car?" Haha, nope.

Oma & MawMaw visit

We had a great surprise today! My mom (Bella's Oma) and my grandma (Maw-Maw Bertrand) were in town to spend the day with us. It was so nice to have someone else playing Barbies with Bella, dressing them up, changing the shoes, combing the hair, etc. Ahhhh, a BREAK!

Bella loved showing MawMaw her "fancy book" (a small photo album of her friends) and telling her about all of her little friends. Then, there was a picture in there from last year's Cinco de Mayo that involved a sombrero. Before I knew it, Bella had dug it out of the playroom and poor Grandma was wearing it. What a great sight! They finished looking through the fancy book with Grandma still wearing the big hat. So cute.

We enjoyed lunch at Lubys and Brian walked over from JSC to join us. It was nice to spend time with them and I know Bella really enjoyed it too. She kept telling Oma "you no go home" and "stay to play with me". After she got up from nap, she was still asking for them. It was a fun day and we loved having surprise visitors for most of the day.