Halloweenish type activities

We started our Halloween festivities a couple weeks early this year with a trip to Lagoon. My mom gave us some free tickets from her work at the beginning of the summer but there was always something going on that prevented us from going. Finally, knowing they were expiring the end of October, we decided to just pick-up and go on a Friday afternoon.


Bella seemed to enjoy all the rides and movement. She drove her boat all by herself and didn't even try to lean over and play in the water. There was of course a fit after each ride stopped as it blew her little 20 month old mind that we would put her in a toy to play for 2-3 minutes only to tear her away when she was just getting the hang of it.


She clambered all over her train seat and tried to climb into the ones in front of us. Did I mention she answers better to the name "Monkey" than her own.



Here are Mommy and Bella bugs. Buggy is another of her nicknames, given by a doctor in the ER during our first visit when he mentioned that she was such a "happy and active little bug" in spite of being covered as she was in full body hives.



The Blue Prince hanging out in his shackles. He keeps complaining that living here (or my cooking) is making him fat. We keep reassuring him that he is fine but I think I will make a copy of this as photographic proof the next time he brings up the subject. :)



For her actual Halloween costume Bella was dressed as a Fairy princess/Butterfly. Mostly butterfly as she refused to keep the princess crown on her head longer than 3 seconds. She thought it was a game and would joyfully pull it off and try to put it on my head or on Papi's. She is pictured here with Aunt Emily who is of course dressed as Sarah Palin. I think she pulled it off quite well.


Here is the back view of Bella's Costume. She tolerated the wings well but didn't really understand that they stuck out farther than her body and so they would occasionally get mangled or knock things over when Bella tried to squeeze into small spaces.



She learned to say the phrase "trick or treat" quite clearly and would say it all the way up to the doorway, she would give a little knock on the door, and then would go suddenly silent the moment someone answered. She really liked her "Pumpkin" or "Box" as she calls it. She became quite adept at picking out her treat and putting it inside the hole. We stopped by my grandmother's house to show her off and of course she got several pieces of candy for her box. While we were chatting in the next room she snuck off and figured out where Grandma had stashed the candy bowl and helped herself to a couple more pieces before she got caught.

I guess that's what Halloween is all about, to see how much candy loot you can collect before some responsible adult puts a kibosh on all the fun.

Videos, get your videos here

I have stored up several videos from the last month or so and decided to put them all out for your viewing pleasure at once.

This first one is from our San Diego trip, playing on the beach with Papi. Sorry about the dizzying camera action half way through. The incoming wave was soaking me as I was recording.

This one is a video I affectionately call "Ping". It's for all those individuals who love baby laughter. No one can make Bella laugh like her papi.

This is a video I took a couple weeks ago when Bella was helping me harvest the green tomatoes from our tomato plants. Apparently she found a little green hard tomato and decided that it was a ball. She spent the next half an hour playing catch with herself, throwing the "tomato ball" across the courtyard and chasing after it. What can I say, the kid needs more playmates.

Bella is fascinated with animals and animal sounds recently. When aunt Caitie was here for a visit she found several leaves outside and decided to fashion wings. Here is Bella's birdy impression.

GIA graduation

At the beginning of the month my family all met up in California for my sister Caitlin's graduation from the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad. She is now a real live certified jeweler and has two sets of letters after her name. We are all impressed that she has turned her love of all things sparkly into a viable career.

Oh and when I said my family met up in California I was literally referring to almost all of my fun mixed-up family together at the same time. Here is a picture of "The Clan" (listed from the bottom left and moving up and around the table) when we went out to lunch. We have: My sister Shoshana, her boyfriend Casey, my mom, my mom's mom, my dad's current wife Kathy, my dad, My dad's second wife's mom Joanie, Family friend's the Jimenez (Joyce, Ron, Steven, and Nicki), my sister Emily, My sister Caitlin and her boyfriend Tom, myself and Bella. The Blue Prince is taking the picture and missing is my dad's second wife Ishi, who unfortunately had to go home the day before to support my littlest sister in taking her SATs. Needless to say it was quite a group. The term herding cats comes to mind but everyone got along well and it was fantastic to see everyone.


As you can tell from the picture, Bella is the only small person in the family so needless to say she got lots of love and attention. She held up well under all the adoration but by the end seemed to get a bit clingy with mom and dad. It is tough work being so overly loved all the time.

We stayed in Carlsbad and decided to spend Saturday afternoon on the beach. It was somewhat chilly and so we all decided to walk and wade a little bit on the beach instead of swimming.


Of course Bella didn't quite grasp the whole wading instead of swimming part and ended up more that a little soaked. The waves were quite rough so she wasn't the only one. All of us ended up with wetter than expected pant legs.


Bella had fun playing with Papi being lifted out of the way of the incoming water.


Shoshana and Casey decided to bury my husband in the sand, reminiscent of the sand necktie episode of Mythbusters. They didn't make it much farther that this, but it is a good view of what he would look like as a dwarf.



Caitlin and her boyfriend Tom were being all shmoopy and cute on the beach (and everywhere else). We liked to tease them about inadvertently matching. (I mean seriously, from the brown pants all the way up to the red hair). It was the first time that Tom met "The Clan" and bless his heart he had the initiation by fire of meeting us all at once. Well I guess we can't say that he got to meet everyone. The Big Brother and his Russian Bride were not present which probably made things a little easier as he likes to play his big brother protector role to the hilt on the few occasions he gets the chance. It's hard work having 5 younger sisters.

I didn't notice when I took this picture of the cute couples starring off into the sea, that Emily was sitting in the middle of them playing in the sand. Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning the juxtaposition of it to her, leading to a comment of "gee thanks, I didn't feel like a third wheel till you pointed it out". Emily understandably got a bit tired of all the coupledom by the end of the trip.
Always in search of a good family picture, this is the closest we got on this trip. Which is kind of sad considering the blurriness and scowl on Bella's face. All in all it was a lovely trip and a nice break from the cold Autumn weather in these parts.

Bathroom Remodel

The other Summer project that got mostly finished this month was my Mother's master bathroom/entire home plumbing project. Here are some pictures of the original bathroom.
We ended up tearing out the built-in cabinets, most of the back wall (to accommodate the new plumbing and electrical work), and enclosing the side window leading to the other bathroom. We also took out the gross 30 year old green shag, put down tile, installed a shower and a new toilet and sink. And of course when I say we, I mostly mean the Blue Prince. Other than some demolition, clean up and painting I mostly just chased Bella out of the work area.


Here are the post construction pictures. There is a reason my mom adores her son-in-law. "We" are taking a bit of a break before tackling her other bathroom.

One month catch up

So as my friends and family are wont to point out, it has been over a month since I updated my blog... No real excuses, I've thought of several blog topics but none of them have really panned out so instead you get a travel-log with many pictures.


My garden:
Still doing well, we have a ton of tomatoes that are slowly turning red at the rate of about 3-4 a week. My dad and Kathy came to visit a couple of weekends back and we turned some of my 2 foot basil plants into fantastic pesto. I loved these pictures of Bella with the cucumber right out of the garden. She ended up eating it down to a nub. Pickles were her first food as they calmed her when she was first teething. I guess the food preference stuck. (insert weened on a pickle joke here :))



Hill Air Force Base Museum:
Since he arrived in Utah three years ago, every time we drove north to Brigham City the Blue Prince would look longingly at the Hill AFB aerospace museum. Finally this month his dream became reality. So many airplanes, so little time.


Notice Bella standing up in the stroller in protest of being strapped down. She figured out how to walk anyway.


Peach Days:
We made it up to my mom's for the yearly pilgrimage back to Brigham City for Peach days. Everyone enjoyed the parade and Bella enjoyed getting all spoiled and sugared up by her grandma and aunt.



Notice the sucker and the hair bows. A prime example of what happens when we visit Grandma (she pitches a fit every time I try to touch her hair)



Mill Creek Canyon:
We took advantage of a beautiful fall evening to go up the canyon with some friends a couple Monday's back. We lit a fire with much lighter fluid and the blue prince's welding torch. Due to the Uruguay/Argentine contingent, dinner was of course grilled meat followed by rounds of Mate by the fire. One of the most pleasant evenings we have had in a long time. Pictured are a side view of Ariel playing with the fire, a decent family shot, and a good picture of Andrea and little Ada.



Watching Ella:
Ella is the youngest daughter of my dear friends Brandon and Kelly. She is about six months younger than Bella and she has been coming over to play every Tuesday afternoon while her mom is teaching a class. The two girls play quite nicely together in a toddler, parallel play kind of way. I have known Brandon for over 11 years now, and the other day we were commenting on how bizarre it is to see our children playing together.







Memory Grove:
Last Friday we decided to explore sites around Salt Lake that we had never visited and ended up at Memory Grove. Considering we lived a time in a nearby neighborhood, this was a glaring oversight. The park was beautiful and made for a lovely hike.

Following the hike we were resting on a bench and Bella decided to explore my diaper bag. She pulled out a swim diaper, and the changing pad and proceeded to see how many ways she could put on the diaper. After several minutes of sticking her arms through the holes she lighted on the next logical challenge: balancing the diaper on her head.

Notice the intense look of concentration.

Anyway, along with a memorable trip to the state fair (that included a Virgin of Guadalupe hat, many animals to pet and a new horsey toy) you are basically caught up on our month. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Thanksgiving point

On Saturday we got tired of boredly staring at each other and decided to leave the house. Our destination: Thanksgiving Point Gardens. None of us had gone before and as I tend to geek out with plants and gardens in general it sounded like a good fit. (Is it silly to say that one of my favorite parts was the demonstration tomato garden? I was feeling slightly smug that none of their full sized tomatoes were ripe yet either). The Blue Prince just kept sighing with pleasure about how calm and peaceful everything was. (I think we have been working him too hard)Anyway, on to the pictures:



Bella and myself on the bridge of the Monet Garden. Bella is peeved that I wouldn't let her play in the lake.

Bella inside the Caterpillar slide in the Children's Garden.

The Blue Prince in the Wisteria tunnel leading to the Secret Garden.

I told him to pose like a Greek God statue and this is what he came up with. I won't lie, I kinda like it.

We were standing on a pier in the middle of the fish pond covertly throwing Cheerios to the Koi fish to make them come to the surface when Bella decided to join in the game and threw in her bottle. The fish proceeded to happily drink the milk out of the nipple. Through ten minutes of precise Cheerio throwing skills we were able to get the fish to move the bottle towards the shore where a valiant Blue Prince was able to pluck it out of the water.

Here is Bella riding on Papi's shoulders and of course pulling his hair. She has recently developed a bit of a troubling violent streak. If anyone knows the best way to deal with screaming, hitting, face slapping, and head butting tantrums (I think she nearly broke my nose this morning, when it got in the way of a flailing head butt) I am all ears.


A family picture self-portrait by the Blue prince. He is generally very good at these.

The Artist

On Wednesday the Blue Prince was sick with the most recent plague making its way through our home and decided to stay home from work. As Wed is my big work day, he decided that we would save the babysitter fee and he would watch Bella all afternoon. Blue Prince has an odd habit of filling Bella's crib with toys when putting her down for a nap. Wed. he apparently decided to put her down with a coloring book and a pencil. When he went to get her out of bed a couple hours latter he discovered this lovely example of budding talent. He said that she pointed it out to him with the biggest smile imaginable on her face, so proud of what she had done.

Allergy testing

As many of you know Bella ended up at PCMC at the end of June for an overnight stay due to an allergic reaction to an unknown source. Today we had our visit with an Allergist for skin testing and we are a lot closer to an answer. The three main allergens are:

• Eggs:
  

Which basically we knew. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a little girls face shouldn't look like this after eating a scrambled egg Christmas breakfast.

Luckily so far, the facial swelling has been the extent of the effect from eggs, and it goes away after about an hour. We just have be careful of less obvious sources such as the "ah-ha" moment in the Buenos Aires food court when we remembered too late that Chinese fried rice is made with scrambled eggs. Dr. Allergist also said that raw egg is often more allergically potent than the cooked stuff, so we will be avoiding cookie dough for the time being.

• Shellfish:
  

Also not a huge surprise as it is the familial allergy group. The weird thing about it is that each member of my family with a seafood allergy is allergic to different things. My grandmother is allergic to Trout. My father gets deathly ill with Scallops and I have a mild allergy to Shrimp that I have mostly grown out of. One of my earliest memories is of being rushed into the bathroom by my dad to wash the hives I had developed after eating a shrimp dinner. I think I was about 5. Now I just get itchy hands if I have to peel shrimp. Dr. Allergist seemed somewhat surprised when I was asking in depth questions about what is defined as a shellfish. His comment of "most kids foods are fairly safe" in the tone of "what are you feeding your 18 month old" made me realize that most families eating habits are somewhat different from my own. We don't really go for Kid foods vs. Adult foods around here. My cousin Conner's favorite food as a toddler was Crab Legs. I'm sure that Bella has probably had Shrimp before without problem, but it will be interesting trying to figure out which Shellfish is her specific No No.

Number 3 and the real Kicker:

• Cats

Bella loves cats, Kitty was one of her first words. Thinking back, it makes sense and is probably the one that ended us up in the Hospital. She would always get a little congested when we would visit Grandma's and she would play with the Ancient One (i.e. Crystal), when she was still around. Two of the upstairs neighbors have cats but luckily they mostly run away from her before she can get too cuddly. For the time being I am just going to watch this one and try to prevent her from rolling around naked with felines. At least we have a good excuse now to turn down free kitten offers. We had a narrow escape from this the other weekend when we visited with Aunt Leanne. She tested borderline positive for dogs as well so no furry friends at all for us. Not news that will break either my or the Blue Prince's hearts. The down side is that this allergy leaves her at high risk of developing asthma, so another fun thing to look out for.

All in all I think it was a worthwhile visit and I appreciated my friend Kellie's referral to the Doctor in question. Anyone else have any fun allergy related comments to share?