A holiday to remember

Christmas is a time of the year when traditions are started and many new memories are created. This holiday season was no exception. We had wonderful celebrations with family and friends. We thought of those of you we didn't get a chance to see this holiday season and are looking forward to seeing you in 2009.

By posting this video I fully understand that a few years from now Jason and I will be watching some movie, a holiday comedy perhaps, and we will look at each other and say "Hey...that's from the Watercott Christmas skit of 2008." that said...enjoy!

Countdown to Christmas

It has been a busy past couple of weeks but I can say with great pride (and relief) that with the small exception of going to see Santa Claus we have completed everything on our checklist. I am looking forward to Christmas - especially the part when Isabella gets to open all her presents! Bella has been a strong participant in helping us get ready for the holidays, she helped us decorate the Christmas tree, helped to pick out Rocco's present and even helped cut out and decorate Christmas cookies...so if come over and would like a cookie you might wonder why your gingerbread man only has one leg and half an arm and sprinkles only on his head...now you'll know why.

Holiday Preparations

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with good food and family. Now all focus turns on the Christmas season and the long to-do list that goes along with it. Shopping, baking, decorating, wrapping, mailing....well, you get the idea. We have pulled out the Christmas music and Isabella has already learned how to sing "Jingle Bells". I have to admit to being more excited this year as I know Bella will LOVE Christmas. Bella is a constant source of joy and laughter and I find the stresses of life melt away when I'm with her or when she calls me on the phone and says "hi mommy" - I swear it's the sweetest thing ever.

Sad News

My Grandpa passed away this week. Although he was 92 and had a great life it is still hard to lose our patriarch. The Watercott family would not have been was it is without Grandpa's spirit, generosity, kindness and strong family values. He will be missed.

I miss my baby!

I've been in Dallas, TX all week and although the weather has been beautiful I'm ready to head home tomorrow and kiss my baby girl. Thank goodness for this blog because I find myself looking at the pictures and videos everyday. As for the coming weekend, well Jason is hunting so Isabella and I will have a girls weekend...not sure what that means yet but I'm more than happy to get some quality time with my girl.

"Quack Quack!"

Bella - ready for the trick-or-treating to start!

Kitties!

Next stop "Candytown"

"Quack, Quack!" says our little duck. We had a fun Halloween trick-or-treating at a few houses in our neighborhood. After all that practice of saying "trick-or-treat" our girl turned mute when faced with strangers, instead she focused all attention on the neighborhood pets. We had to pet a kitty at the first house, the second house we were infatuated with a barking puppy somewhere in the house...finally at the third house Isabella actually said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you"...and of course we had to pet their kitty cat as well. We found out that Isabella loves candy (no real shocker here) and has most certainly ate more candy in the last two days than in the previous 20-months combined. Enjoy the pics!

Enjoying the fruits of her labor (or in this case candy).

Doing Dishes

The moral of the story is that everything takes longer with a 20-month old in the house. This is a recent video of Bella and Jason doing dishes.

Fall favorites...

Pumpkin on a pumpkin!

Playtime!

Bella with "her" pumpkins!

We have been trying to enjoy the fall weather and spend as much time outside whether on the playground or at the pumpkin patch....or running through leaf piles (pictures coming soon).
Bella has a favorite movie...one which she now demands to watch everyday. So it should come to no surprise that Jason and I now know all the words to "The Bee Movie" - it could be worse, we could have a child addicted to Barney or some other highly annoying character. Amazingly she only had to see this movie once to be hooked and immediately starting demanding "Bees!, Bees! BEEES! I WANNA WATCH BEES!"

Isabella moved her booster seat smack dab in front of the TV for viewing 28 of "The Bee Movie"

When she is not watching "Bees" Isabella love to help us wash dishes. I'll try to post a recent video - not sure who is cuter Bella or Jason. :-)

Bella had a fun time with Mira over the weekend, attached is a picture showing they can actually share, at least momentarily. We'll have to plan more playdates in the future, it's great entertainment.

Cute Clip

Bella loves to watch videos of herself, this is one was taken today.

Isabella had her 18-month check-up last week.

Height: 33 inches (78% percentile)

Weight: 25 lbs (57% percentile)

This is up 2-inches and 3-lbs from 6-months ago. Her appetite and activity levels seem to be balancing out just fine. Bella has started saying two-word combinations like "more please" and "green beans" and "apple juice" and "mama up" as well as singing her ABC's up to ABCD...before trailing off into eh, ah, uh.....and she can count up to three and occasionally you might get a 8,9,10 thrown in the mix.

Bella had sooo much fun dancing on Saturday night at a family wedding - I love seeing her have so much fun. Sunday we had a relaxing day at home while Jason worked at the Vikings game where he came shoulder to shoulder with Peyton Manning. Don't ever let Jason tell you that he works this extra job for the money. :-)

What happened to August?

Well it has been a busy month to say the least. Jason worked pretty much 24/7 over the last week with the RNC happening. Isabella and I were both sick with a bad cold over Labor Day weekend but we did manage to go up to the cabin for a couple days and let my mom and dad take care of us. I've been working long hours over the last month. I anticipate at least a couple more weeks of "crazy". Jason's schedule will start ramping up next week while he is coordinating some annual training up at Camp Ripley until the end of October.

Isabella of course keeps us plenty busy when we aren't working. She has her 18-month doctor appt. this week and is growing up before our eyes. It is certainly bittersweet. Over the last month she has learned how to frown and give dirty looks (fair warning for those we may see in the coming weeks). Bella has also learned how to turn door knobs and can easily let herself in and out of any unlocked room in the house. Now that daycare has quieted down with the kids back in school we are getting her on board the potty "train"ing. Isabella is doing great and even went #2 on the potty last week. She is a quick learner so hopefully we'll be done with diapers by the time she turns 2.

Back to the real world...

We had a very enjoyable family vacation up to Lake Kabotogama (near Intl. Falls) last week. It was nice to take the week off and spend some quality family time. Above are some pictures of Isabella from the trip. Isabella had fun playing with all the kids on the playground in the playhouse and gradually became acclimated to her first real swimming pool. The swimming pool was a love/hate experience...she loves the pool and hates her life jacket.

Over the last couple of weeks Isabella has started jumping (or trying to jump). Isabella has also started nodding her head "yes" and has also learned the word "No"...great! She has been doing a good job signing "Please" and "More"...now we are working on "Thank you". We took a break on potty training during vacation and we will need to start working on it again.

It was back to work this week, and I'm thankful today is finally Friday.

Trip to the ER

I suppose it was bound to happen...Isabella tripped at daycare this week and split her lip open. Jason brought her to the ER and after a couple stitches she's as good as new. (unless you count the upper lip swollen to three times the normal size)

Jason said it was good that I wasn't there to witness the event - he knows me all too well, I'd still be traumatized. Isabella has already bounced back and no worse for the wear. Hopefully we won't have any other trips to the ER in the future. (cross your fingers!)

What can I say?

It has been a busy month! We had a wonderfully relaxing fourth of July up at the cabin. Work for me has been crazy, I just wrapped up a week-long summer meeting and conference, which put everything on hold and now it is back to the pace of fast and furious...this will probably be the case for the next couple of months except for a week of vacation to keep my sanity.

Jason has been managing everything on the home front - not sure what I would do without him! His endless energy is inspiring.

Isabella is growing up so fast and is learning new things everyday. So many new words I can't really keep track anymore, especially when she repeats almost everything...so does that count or not? Her comprehension is amazing and she loves to help with little tasks like throwing things in the garbage and getting things from around the house. We haven't made much progress on the potty training front, not that we've worked too hard on it. Bella is getting her second year molars, a couple already broke through...they will complete her mouthful of chompers.

Funny story: I bought Isabella new toy, it's an electronic book. When you close the book this very goofy/cartoon type voice says "Bye, bye bookworm." Isabella replies "bye bye dada." Good stuff!

Spitting image

Just had to share this picture taken of Bella last week. I see more and more of Jason in this girl everyday! (looks and personality)

Isabella has been using her potty chair like a pro...we're planning to give potty training our full attention this weekend.

I kid you not!

We just took the potty chair out of the box, assembled it, set in the bathroom, Bella sat down and peed right in the pot...just like a big girl. Fluke? Possibly. So we wait a couple hours and try it again...and? YES! She pees in the potty chair again. I'm not sure where to go from here but this seems like a pretty good place to start.

Changing Landscape

Life has been busy, Jason has been working hard getting the site for Isabella's new swing set ready. It was delivered last week and Bella already loves to go down the slide all by herself. Jason has also been working on a couple other landscape projects around the house.

I've been swamped at work, long hours everyday. I have a trip planned to Muncie, IN in a couple of weeks to visit a Lifetouch lab to discuss a market test I am planning for fall. Operations is not my strength so I'm hoping the trip will get me grounded and I'll be able to speak intelligently about the operations process. Needless to say I'm very excited about the trip (NOT).

Isabella is saying more words and will try to repeat words we say. New words to her repertoire include: Night night, Pew (as in stinky), Nana (as in Banana), Bobcat, Vroom vroom, milk, potty, breakfast, truck, tickle, stick and bath. She also said her first official sentence this week "Hi Rocco."

Also new in the world of Bella, when we ask her if she needs her pants changed, she'll nod her head "Yes", we'll say okay, let's go change you, and she'll run into her room and lay down on the floor in preparation. We're picking up a potty chair today, maybe her love of chairs will translate into early potty training.

Getting our feet wet...

As you can see I have the death grip on Bella as she tests the water

Bella in her life jacket.

Jason and Bella

Grandma and Grandpa Bartell came up to visit us at the cabin. Bella was on their team for Polish horseshoes!

Bella thinks Grandpa is funny, smart girl!

We had a relaxing Memorial Day weekend up at the cabin. Isabella tested the waters, good thing I was holding on tight or she would have left me at the shore for sure! We've had a great breakthrough recently...Isabella has learned how to safely descend stairs. She'll still walk right off the step if we are there to hold her hand, but otherwise she'll turn around and go down backwards on her stomach/knees. This is a milestone at least 6-months in the making, we're proud! Bella's vocabulary continues to increase and now includes: hi, bye bye, water and buckle.

Long time, no post!

Happy Mother's Day!

Bella & Grandpa (Grandpa made this bench just for Bella - she loves it!)

Bella in her sun hat!

Bella wearing daddy's boots!

Bella loves to climb into her toy basket and bask in the toy glory!

In the day-to-day routine our life seems a little boring, hence nothing new to post. But take a couple weeks off from the blog and all of a sudden there seems to be a multitude of news to post. I hope you have time to take it all in...

• Isabella has really started to increase her vocabulary...here is the list of words she says: mama, dada, Rocco, Bella, sit, shoe, cracker, hot, hat, juice, rocking.


• Bella is getting her incisors in...those darn teeth have been taking forever. I've been freezing wash rags for her to chew on, they work great.


• After months of attempts, Bella finally created music on the harmonica, she loves music. She also loves to dance and does the cutest little twirl move.


• Bella has a facination with shoes, she loves them. It doesn't matter who the shoes belong to, any shoes will work. She try to put them on and walk in them.


• Isabella loves to be outside, our new swingset will be delivered in a couple weeks...probably just in time for mosquito season. Any tips out there for safe bug-repellent for the little ones?


• Bella continues to be into everything, and climbing, or trying to climb on everything.


• Exciting news for me! I bought a new car over the weekend. Common sense prevailed a I bought a new Toyota Camry Hybrid. Well maybe that isn't common sense, but certainly is good sense compared to any SUV.


• Not much new with Jason. He is training at Camp Ripley this week. Overall he's very busy with work, school, yard maintenance, working out...he just keeps going and going.


• Last but not least, I finally completed a website for my dad...check it out and let me know what you think, I'm still fine tuning: http://www.wildironimages.com/

Puddin Pie

Life has been busy at our house. Jason has returned from his extensive traveling, at least for the time being. I am happy to have him home. He has been keeping busy between State Patrol work, Amtrak work, school work and yard work. He manages to do all this AND help out with Bella. It wears me out just thinking about it.

The weekend was good, Bella and I had a playdate with the Stang's and Crandall's on Saturday. Grandma B. watched Bella for a few hours on Saturday afternoon while I did some much needed shopping and Jason finished some school work. Jason and I met up for an early dinner - a treat to have a relaxing dining out experience. (life certainly changes when a 1-year old is in tow)

Sunday I spent the afternoon with my neighbor working on Bella's scrapbook - I'm now up to when she was 2-months old..WOOHOO! Progress!

Bella has been insistent lately on feeding herself...even when the food isn't designed to be "finger food". The picture above is from her attempt at feeding herself pudding. Silly girl!

Spring = Dresses!

For those of you who know me well I have not been a big fan of outfitting my daughter in many dresses. When she was a baby it seemed a little ridiculous, when she was learning to crawl it seemed troublesome, when it was winter it just seemed cruel and now???

Over the weekend I decided to put Isabella in one of the dresses she received for her birthday. Now that she is walking, Isabella seemed to really love her dress and it didn't in anyway restrict her from her normal playtime activities.

While I have to admit it will take some time to get used to this "new look", you shouldn't be surprised if little Isabella is wearing a dress more often in future blog posts.

Fun weekend!

Isabella and I had a fun weekend meeting friends and shopping. We visited the pet store and poked at the bunnies, and watched the birdies fly around in their cage. We also had our first official art lesson. I got these great big sheets of paper from work...for now we are staying in the colored pencil medium. Bella loved it! A future artist?? Perhaps!

1-year picture

My little girl is slimming out...some of her pants are getting a little baggy and loose in the waist. This is a result of all her running around I'm sure. Jason will be back on Friday...whew! We can't wait, I'm exhausted! Don't get me wrong, I get to spend more time with my girl and that is worth the exhaustion...especially when she get laughing and playing...in these moments everything else melts away.

Back from paradise

Vacation was wonderful, think 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'. We are missing our noon rum punch but otherwise getting right back into the swing of things. We were both excited to return and see our baby girl. Bella was SO HAPPY to see us, giddy would be the adjective I would use to describe her reaction.

Jason is headed out east to Washington D.C. this week, he is contracting with a company to help with the firearms training for Amtrak's tactical/SWAT team. Should be an interesting week for him. As for me, I'm keeping very busy at work managing some market research programs and online marketing initiatives.

Isabella is learning new things everyday, I'm amazed at how much she understands. She runs now - actually she runs away from us is more accurate. I imagine her thought process is something like this "Want to put my shirt on? You'll have to catch me first!" It definitely keeps us on our toes!

I knew it was coming...

Jason and I leave on vacation this week. I'm excited...sailing around the Caribbean is going to be an adventure...leaving my sweet baby for 12-days however...hopefully I won't cry everyday! I'm sure we will have a great time on vacation but I will miss my little girl's smiles and big hugs that I get when I come home everyday. (Have I mentioned lately how much I love her?)

We spent the weekend running errands, we brought Isabella in for her 1-year pictures. I have to say it was the best session we've had in terms of getting Isabella to smile. Picking pictures was a challenge...I think they are all so cute! I think we did pretty well only spending $100. Jason thinks we only need pictures once a year from this point on...but don't we want 18-month pictures?? I THINK SO!

We packed our bags, picked up a few last things (beach towel, motion-sickness pills, tanning lotion) and I went in for pedicure yesterday. At the very least my feet are ready for vacation!

Golden Girl!

Happy Golden Birthday to our favorite goddaughter Hillarie! Happy 6th Birthday, we love you!

A ONEderful time was had by all...

Isabella celebrated the big "1" over the weekend. It was wonderful to have such a large group of family and friends there to celebrate with us. Isabella seemed unaffected by all the activity and attention. We were all exhausted by the days end.

I learned that we should save any exciting presents and open only after the majority of other gifts have been opened...opening exciting gifts first leaves a girl not interested in anything else and mom ends up opening many presents on her behalf. Live and learn. Isabella received an entire summer wardrobe by my measure and some great toys and books. What was the exciting present you ask? A tricycle...even though her feet don't quite touch the pedals, it did not stop Isabella from climbing on and enjoy being "driven" all around the house.

It is hard to believe I've been a mommy for a full year...what a life changing experience this has been. Motherhood has unequivicolly exceeded my expectations in every way. Isabella is such a sweet and fun little girl...I love her more than I can say.

Isabella's 1-year stats:

22-lbs (60th percentile)

31-inches tall (85th percentile)