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!!

New Things!!

I am now updating from our new apartment! We had a successful move (thank you so much to everyone who helped out, we couldn't have done it without you all) and are now almost all settled in.

I have started watching Joy (a friend of ours) part-time during the week and it is going so well. It's a little bit more challenging with two babies, but I feel like it's preparing me for when we have another little one. Also, I'm learning that I'm not ready to have another little one of our own quite yet! I'm enjoying too much getting to be with Isabella all the time!! I am also realizing that when we do have another child, Bella is going to have a hard time not being the baby anymore. All things I'm not ready to get into yet!

Adam has started his new job teaching at the local christian school in West Salem and he absolutely loves it. This job is satisfying and fun all at the same time. He just found at that next week he gets to take Monday-Thursday and be a chaperone for the high school retreat at Living Waters Bible Camp (near Westby). What a perfect job, we couldn't have asked for anything better!
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And now on to the light of our lives...Bella!! This beautiful little girl is going to be 1 year old in less than 2 weeks. I can't quite believe where all the time has gone, and yet it feels like I've known her forever. All of the things that she has learned and is continually learning never ceases to amaze me. She has gone from sleeping and pooping to saying, "Da Da", "Ma Ma" and almost walking. It is almost unbelievable!! She is such a bundle of energy and joy and we love it so much.


We are going to be heading to Mukwonago this coming weekend for a family picnic and also a birthday celebration! We are really looking forward to getting to see everyone again. So, if you're around that area we would love to see you! Or, if you are around the La Crosse area: we are going to have cake and ice cream after church on Sunday the 27th. So...if you are around this area please come and hangout with us to celebrate the birthday and play (the more kids the better for Bella!!). Just give me a call/email/comment and let me know if you're planning on coming and then we'll have enough cake and ice cream! We really hope we can see you all sometime soon!

Okay, on to the lovely pictures. There's quite a few, so be prepared!

This was Bella's last bath in our first house together as a family. I had to get a picture of that hair!

This picture is for a couple of reasons: playing in our new house, and a new clip in her hair. Her hair is finally long enough to put a clip in and I think it's the cutest thing ever! But...what makes this picture great is the face that I caught her making, she is becoming quite the little ham!!

Crawling around on the stairs at the new place (she loves going up and down them).

Bella's first lunch at our new apartment. Also, she got to eat out of a bowl. I've been trying to teach her how to eat out of a bowl, but usually I end up cleaning up more of a mess than it's worth!

This is Joy (the little one I watch) and Bella playing. Bella loves to be all over Joy, she thinks it's great having friends over to play all the time!

Last Sunday we went with some friends of ours for a drive to a little town on the river called Nelson. They have an amazing creamery/ice cream shop there. It was really fun (the car ride was long and loud), but so much fun! The lady scooping up the ice cream gave Bella her own mini chocolate cone...although it was cold (picture #1) she loved it!

These were the beautiful flowers around the creamery and I wanted to get some pictures of Bella, but she did not cooperate as you can see. These were the best I got! Here she is with Kalista, our friends daughter.

In this picture Kali was trying to help her pose, but it didn't work. Oh, well...I'm learning that some battles are better left unfought.

Chillin' on the couch one afternoon!! (cute pose and outfit)

Walking around the living room with one of her awesome walker toys!!

And now pictures of the houses! This is a tribute to our first apartment together. Adam and I lived here for over 2 years. We had the top level and our landlord lived on the bottom. We loved it, but it was time to move on now that we have a little one!

And now here's pictures of our new place! We love it so much and Bella seems much happier because we can put things away (we didn't have closets in our first apartment) and we don't have to tell her "no" as often! This may be a lot of pictures, but I wanted to show everyone what it looks like.

This picture is looking into the kitchen from the back door.

This is the kitchen from the other side.

Here I'm standing by the stairs in the living room (also by the front door).

Standing by the kitchen looking into the living room.

Adam took this lovely picture of the stairs!

A couple of pictures of Bella's room. She has found out how to open the draws and pull everything out, she thinks it's great fun. (she doesn't have to clean up the mess!)

Our bathroom. So much bigger than at our old apartment!

And our bedroom. I haven't gotten around to putting pictures on the walls upstairs yet, so it's kind of boring. Hopefully it won't take me too much longer!

And this is our basement. We use it for an office/guest room. and then I'm going to make a little curtain that seperates the room from the storage/laundry area in the back. I'm really excited to finish up this space!

So...that's it. We love it, and couldn't have asked for better! Hope you are all well and hopefully we'll get to see you all sometime soon!