Look what I can do!

It's so funny -- with the girls we were hanging on to each and every milestone.......and not that it's not important with Bella.....but I definitely understand the "youngest kid syndrome".....you know - the one where the older kid (or kids, in our case!) have the baby book filled with all the big events.....a gazillion pictures....and then the youngest one comes along and maybe there's a baby book....maybe not......and, at least in Bella's case, there's only half a gazillion pictures instead of the full gazillion - ha!

But! In an effort to get better about that -- how about this first........

We had no doubt that Bella would know what to do......... come on -- it's food! But it was cute and we were quite proud nonetheless! And she's so independent -- now that she's had one go with the fork, she doesn't want any help.

It's so interesting to see how much she picks up from O&S. She's much more verbal than the girls were at her age and she'll try just about everything they do. It was hilarious - the other day I got home from work and after saying hi to everyone I went upstairs to change my clothes. The girls were at the bottom of the stairs calling to me and I heard this other little voice...."Moooooommmmmmmmy!" Well. It wasn't little -- it was louder than all the others - ha! But it was so cute.....O&S would say "Mommy!" "Mommy!" and then just after them would come this loud "Moooooommmmmmy!"

In other, more pitiful news.....Bella has been sick the past few days and it's the sickest she's ever been. She gets croup every time she gets a cold and this time is no different. Yesterday she was so pitiful and just wanted to be held -- and even that wasn't good enough sometimes. She coughed and then cried -- we could only imagine all the coughing made her chest hurt. Her poor little eyes were all droopy and watery....oh. And she had a black eye, too. We're not quite sure how she did that one, but she did have quite the shiner.

And not to forget O&S -- they have both also been sick. We're going to be renting a pressure washer and will be spraying down our house.....the inside......with a Lysol / Clorox concoction. True story.