Bella is 22 Months Old!

In a few short hours Bella will turn 22 months old. Amazing. She is so much fun right now. Sadly, we have all been pretty sick lately and even though we have been stuck inside a lot, she has been really good.

Bella's favorite things to do right now are read, push her dollies around in her stroller, unfold folded laundry, play with her Little Touch LeapPad, eat, play at the park, walk around the neighborhood and take a bath. She still loves her Music Together CDs and I could not make it through a diaper change without singing the greatest hits of songs from those CDs.

Bella's favorite books right now are "Once Upon a Potty", her new June issue of "Wild Animal Baby", "Miss Spider's Tea Party" and old faves such as "Runaway Bunny" and "Picnic with Monet" and "Dancing with Degas".

Bella loves the bath so much that she asks for it starting in the morning. She can hang out in there for a very long time and there are still tears when it is time to get out.

Bella baked banana applesauce muffins again with Vanessa this last week and enjoyed eating them too! She is still a great eater. Mark said tonight, "thank god Bella likes soup", since we eat a lot of soup in this house! I still have to rotate foods a lot. If she gets foods too often, she will stop eating them.

Bella loves to run around our neighborhood, but doesn't so much like to hold my hand while we are walking. She is getting better at it though. I think that she is starting to understand my explanation for why she has to hold my hand.

Sunny is still Bella's best friend and I can't believe how much manhandling from Bella that he puts up with. Lately, she has taken to hugging him around his neck. It looks so uncomfortable, but he just deals.

Bella is also a great traveler. A couple of weeks ago we went to Palm Springs to spend some time in the sun and to hang out with family. She LOVED hanging out with her cousin Genevieve, who was amazing with her. Jackson was pretty sweet with her too. Bella also LOVED the pool and wanted in it first thing in the morning and didn't want to get out even when she had been in there for hours. I look forward to her learning how to swim.

Right now Bella is taking another Music Together course. I wish that you all could see how her face lights up when they start the hello song. She gets the biggest smile and starts to dance, toddler style!

At Easter, Bella learned how to color Easter eggs and do an Easter egg hunt. She had the most fun opening and shutting the plastic Easter eggs. She didn' t even really care what was inside.

Bella's vocabulary has greatly expanded. Today she started saying "silly". Often she says a whole sentence in gibberish and then will say Daddy. It is so cute. She has such a sweet little voice. She also started saying "poo-poo" and "pee-pee" this week.