New Family Member (and other stuff)

Here are a bunch of pictures that we got from Adam's Mom from when we visited and of our brand new little neice!!! She is absolutely beautiful and we are so excited to get to meet her! So, here are the pictures:

Bella and I right when we got to Grandma's house on Thursday night. She was just so happy to be out of the car!

Playing with the wrapping paper with Uncle Ethan. Bella loved playing and walking with Uncle Ethan the whole time that we were there!

She would crawl right up to him and either want him to hold her or walk around with her. In this case, she wanted a bite of his apple!

Uncle Ethan's so nice sharing his apple with Bella!

Then she found some empty bottles in the kitchen and had fun playing in Grandma cupboards.

Here's Adam getting his birthday gifts. He is reading the book with all the notes from the people that contributed to the guitar. He was so thankful and surprised!

And this is the painting that I painted him. It portrays one of our favorite scenes from the book The Shack (see link in previous post).

And this is our beautiful little neice, Eliot Meer Zastrow!! Adam's brother Ben and his wife Laura now have Oliver and Eliot. So, here are some pictures that Grandma Kathy sent for us to see! We can't wait until we can get to Madison and visit her for ourselves!

And yesterday, Bella and I spent the day with Grandma Peggy and went to the Dells. We had a great time and had to get a picture of this cute sleeper/snowsuit that Grandma got her! Thanks again Grandma Peggy!

Bella's Song

I know that it's been almost a month since Bella's birthday (actually, it has been a month), but I really wanted to share her birthday song with you all! We had a little celebration with friends and cupcakes the night of her birthday. I recorded us singing her happy birthday. It's a little dark because we had the lights off for the candle on the cupcake, but hopefully you'll all enjoy it as much as we did!

Adam's Birthday Weekend

Adam's birthday was on October 17th and we had a great time. For the first time in a long time (5 years) he got to spend his birthday with his family in Mukwonago. It worked out well that we could go and we had a lot of fun!

Thank you so much to all of you who contributed to Adam's guitar!! I was so excited to give it to him and he loved it too. Lots of people have asked if he was able to get a new guitar yet, and he hasn't yet. I was able to present him with a lot of money, but still not enough to get the guitar that he would like to have. So, we are putting it in a fund and hopefully it will happen sometime soon!! Thanks again everyone, I am so appreciative. I couldn't have done it without all of you!

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I now have another little girl that is starting daycare with me on Nov. 3rd. I'm really excited about it, Bella and this new little one are going to be great friends. They are really close in age and play together really well! I think it's going to be good for both of them and a fun little addition to our house during the days.

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Now on to the fun pictures! Enjoy.

Adam and I just got finished reading a book that was recommended to us by Kathy (Adam's mom) and it was amazing. It is called The Shack (www.theshackbook.com). You should really check it out, I highly recommend it! So, as Adam was reading one day Bella was on the couch reading and equally amazing book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and it was a great picture!

I realized we haven't taken any bath pictures in a while, so here is a cute one!

Now on to pictures from the weekend with the family! We went to cheer on Ethan at his cross country meet that Saturday and it was a lot of fun. It was Bella and I's first time at a meet, she had a lot of fun being outside. There were lots of other kids and dogs there to play with. While Adam and Tom ran around to the different check points to cheer Ethan on, Kathy, Bella, and I went straight to the finish line and found a table to sit on. Bella enjoyed playing with the rope that marked where the course was and even got to walk out on the course with Grandma Kathy. As you can see by the big smile on her face, she loved it!

By the time the runners were making it to the finish line, there was quite a crowd. We were standing up on top of the picnic table so we could see Ethan as he came in. He did so awesome and it was great to get to see him run!

After the race, Bella got in on a picture with the men!

Riding home from the race was fun too!

Later that afternoon we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa McLean. We had such a nice time. Bella slept for the first hour and a half that we were there, but when she woke up she was ready to play! She especially liked Tuffy (their cat) and her toys!

Here's Tuffy with Bella. Tuffy didn't want to get too close, but she at least wanted to check her out!

Great Grandma Bobbi got out some great books and read to Bella on the floor. They had so much fun. Grandma even sent a book home with Bella, which she now loves (thanks so much Grandma)!

What a great picture with Dad, Great Grandpa George, and Great Grandma Bobbi.

On Sunday we were able to go and spend some time in Madison with Ben, Laura, and Oliver. We went to church with them in the morning and then spent the afternoon back at their house. Since we didn't get to see them on all of our birthdays, we had birthday brownies! They were so good, thanks guys!

After brownies, Aunt Laura read some books to Bella on the couch. And then we hit the road to come home for Bella's nap and Adam's surprise party!!

Before we left I had given our spare key to some friends, so they were there when we got home and surprised Adam with some pizza and cake. We had a nice night!

We took two pictures to get everyone in, so here's who was at our house!

Later that night after Bella got her pj's on she was being such a ham. She was pulling her socks off and smiling so big for the camera! We love her so much!

And here is Bella and Joy playing around the house one day. The two of them love to play in this drawer together!

Ooops...forgot some pictures!!

I don't know what I was thinking, but I completely forgot to put some pictures on that last blog (thanks for reminding me Adam). I talked about how Bella had 3 parties and cakes, well here's the third cake and some other things too!!!

Grandma Peggy and Bella with cake #3!! This was for the birthday part with friends and my side of the family.

She didn't get nearly as messy with this one because Grandpa Steve fed her the cake off of a spoon. She gets so spoiled when Grandma and Grandpa's are around!!!

Not only did Bella get some fun bedding and curtains for her room, but Grandma also got her this toy. She really seems to like it! She opened it all by herself too.

Daddy and Bella built a fort in the living room one afternoon while I was gone. It looks like they had a lot of fun playing around!

Now, we've always known that our daughter will probably grow up to enjoy a good cup of coffee every once in a while. The only thing is that we NEVER thought it would be this early in life!!! :)

Last Friday night we walked downtown to go to City Prayz. It was pretty cool so we bundled Bella up and she was so cute! We stopped at the farmer's market on the way downtown which was really nice (I think it was the last one for the season). And when we got home Bella looked so cute I couldn't help but take a picture:

Yesterday I got to watch our best friend's little boy, Eli. Eli and Bella had a wonderful day getting to play with each other. Sometimes it's so hard to get a good picture of Bella because when she sees the camera all she wants to do is grab it! This is the best I could do that day!

Bella has a drawer all to herself in the kitchen so she can play with stuff while I'm cooking or doing the dishes. She loves playing with big people things. Within the last 2 weeks she has started to take everything out of the drawer and then crawl into it and play. Now, this would just be a cute thing she does...

except for the fact that I did the SAME thing when I was a little girl! It must run in the family!!

Happy Birthday to Bella (and Mommy)!

Bella celebrated her 1st birthday a couple of weeks ago on September 23rd. She is now officially a toddler! And then the next day was my birthday. It was fun remembering back to what we were doing a year ago and being able to remember so specifically everything that happened on my birthday a year ago. I've never been able to remember exactly what I was doing on my birthday the last year, but now I think it will be much easier!

Bella got to have 3 parties, which means 3 cakes!! She loved every minute of it. And for my birthday Adam found a babysitter and took me to dinner and then on a horse and carriage ride around downtown and riverside park. It was wonderful!

These first few pictures are from when Bella and I visited Adam at the retreat he went on (with his school). She loved being able to play around in the grass and on all the fun equiptment!

This is Bella's first birthday party!! We spent the weekend before her birthday in Mukwonago with Adam's family to celebrate birthday's and also for a Zastrow family reunion (pictures from that at the end). Bella had fun playing at Grandma Kathy's house with fun toys!

She also loved trying to pick up this 5 pound excersize ball. She actually was able to pick it up, but the face and noises she made while doing it were priceless!

She's opening her present from Great Grandma & Great Grandpa McLean. She loved taking the paper off. After she opened this present it was nap time, which was perfect because she got some CD's with lullaby music on them!! Thanks so much Great Grandma & Great Grandpa McLean!

After nap and dinner she got to open some more presents. This one is a fun ball toy she got from Grandma Kathy!

We put it together and Oliver and Bella had so much fun playing with it!

Now it's time for cake #1.

She LOVED it!

This picture is from the morning of her birthday. I made her a special birthday shirt to wear. I don't think she understood that it was her birthday, but then when I told her...

she was SO excited!!!

Bella and Joy had fun playing all day and making a big mess with the magazine!!

We had some friends over for dinner and cake on her actual birthday. So here's celebration and cake #2!

Milk break!!

On our way up to take a bath before opening her present. What a mess!

Here's her present from Michelle, Jeff, & Eli. I think she has more fun with the bag and tissue paper!

Then the next day (my birthday) Eli and Joy came to play and all the babies were wonderful. They had so much fun playing together around the music table...

And having a teether party!!!

These are some pictures from the Zastrow family reunion. It was such a wonderful day and it was great to see all the family again!

Adam, Ben, Dad, and Ethan

Family picture outiside, Bella was kind of squirmy!

And Grandpa Tom with the grandchildren! How cute is this!!