Long Live the Queen

This year marks the Queen's 60th year in reign! It's her Diamond Jubilee. People all over England will celebrate in different ways. On March 14th, Bella's school had a Diamond Jubilee celebration. The school planted 60 trees in her honor and as part of a nationwide project. They also had a bake sale, raffle, facepainter and teddy bear picnic. Because I had a doctor's appointment in Cambridge in the afternoon, both Curtis and I were able to come in the morning and be a part of the fabulous event. We even got our picture on the front page of the Bury Free Press. It was so much fun!

I made these festive cupcakes for the event. You all know how much I love a theme!

We all got the official t-shirts for the day! Please also notice the Union Jack ribbons in her hair.

Bella (sporting her homemade crown) started to dig the hole for her tree.

Fresh water for the tree. She will always have a tree with her name on it in England. Very cool.

This was the FIRST time EVER that she got her facepainted. She was very apprehensive so the artist only did a little bit.

But, Bella loved the results!

Here are my other cupcakes.

I worked at the Bake Sale.....hmmm..wonder why?

Bella's school is a self sustaining farm, so they made yummy tomato soup with the fresh tomatoes from the garden. It was the best soup I have ever tasted.

Yummy.....CUPCAKES!

These are part of her playground. They are each a separate cottage with a theme inside-- Cafe, Hospital.....

....House and Shop.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Bella had to sport her Dr. Seuss gear on the big guy's bday. Since she now goes to British Nursery, they do not celebrate it so she was a celebrity that day. She got so many compliments on her outfit that she now wants to wear it ALL THE TIME!

P.S. It was show and tell day so Iguana was the lucky one who got to go that day!

But, I am not tired!!!

Bella lives each day to the fullest. She no longer takes naps at school and her teachers are so amazed that she has any energy when she comes home. Well, she does! She does not like to succumb to tiredness AT ALL. A couple of weeks ago, she was tucked into bed and then tried to "stay up"...this was the result.....

ABCDEFG.....

As mentioned before, Bella has an obsession with trying to spell words. She says the word, we sound it out letter by letter and then she grabs the correct letter.

One for the Soul

The weekend after our initial loss and the surgery, we decided to pay a visit to our old church in Watford 1.5 hours away. We love this church and felt like we might find some peace and healing if we went. Because we were going that far, we decided to stay a few nights and do some neat things with Bella. For starters, we got a hotel with an indoor pool and then we took her to an indoor play place. Of course, I couldn't do much, but getting "away" was a blessing to our soul.

Bella has been in swimming lessons for about 1 month. So, it was so neat to see how far she has come! She has no fear.



I brought some new crafts and we created some creatures from the fadoodles.

Ready to go praise the Lord. Bella was really excited about visiting a church that mommy and daddy used to go to before she was born.

New play place! We've been to about a dozen different play places in about a 80 mile radius of our house. They all have mainly the same items, but she NEVER gets sick of them! Bella climbed up to the top of this with no hesitation.


Had to ride on the carousel a few times, of course! First, in the pumpkin carriage and then.....

....on the dinosaur.

Bumper cars, yeah!


And of course, a big slide!


Thank you Lord for this weekend.

Snowy Day

It snowed on Sunday, February 5th and the whole base was closed....yet by Monday, we were at school right on time. Amazing how things work!

Bella is ready to make a snowman.

Hot chocolate is the perfect ending to a day in the snow.

Bella's Latest Obsessions

I like to keep track of her obsessions as she grows. It's so fun comparing to earlier times and it will help me remember how she was at this age.

Here are her latest obsessions-

1. Rhyming- She loves for us to give her a word and then she tells us a few rhyming words. She very often makes up her own stories with rhymes, also. I don't know how she does it so quickly. I will be listening from anothe room and she will read a perfect 4 line stanza with 2 rhyming words. It is so good that I have to go look at the page to see if it is something she memorized, but it never is.

2. Nursery Rhymes- The girl sings and reads (by memorizatioin) Nursery Rhymes CONSTANTLY. When I teach her a new one, she usually only needs one read and then she can do it. She is a sponge. Her favorites are: Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo Peep, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hey Diddle, Diddle, Georgy Porgy, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

3. Folding laundry

4. Berry Applesauce

5. Climbing on everything

6. Jumping off the stairs

7. Swimming

8. Show and Tell

9. Doing everything by herself

10. Snacking all day at school and not wanting to eat dinner

11. Spelling words with her ABC letters

12. Playing memory with math cards I made her

13. Counting everthing and showing it on her fingers

14. Cashews

15. Coloring and doing crafts

16. Making up songs

Didn't you know???

Just in case you wondered.....EVERYONE is born in a manger, according to the Bellster.

Furthermore, we had an interesting conversation last night......

Me- "What is the name of the girl you were playing with at school?"

Bella- "Zoey."

Me- "Mommy and Daddy almost named you Zoey when you were born, but then we loved the name Arabella more."

In the most serious, yet confused look, she replied,

"I wasn't Arabella when I was born, I was Jesus."

Maybe, she knows something I don't? Is she the second coming of the Messiah?

I'm interested in knowing at what point in her LONG life she did become Arabella, because we definitely don't refer to her as Jesus.

I guess it's back to the drawing board with her Christian education.....I wonder who she thinks she is praying to every night? :)

Seriously????

Every parent thinks their child is the cutest and smartest thing. I get it. From all of my training and experience in Early Childhood, I am astonished at the things Bella can do. I basically think she is Einstein!

Except when she does something like this...............

Curtis- "Bella, what were you doing in the kitchen?" (we were in the living room)

Bella- "I was lickin' the dirty floor."

Okay, so I'd like to think she was doing research about the floor and needed to make sure she used ALL five senses for proper observation and I am always impressed with her continued use of adjectives to describe everything, but...................

SERIOUSLY??????

No Words

For the past 3 weeks, I have tried to work out the wording for this post....something eloquent and deep.....but I have come up empty handed simply because I don't want to write about it. Yet, since my blog is a chronological account of my darling girl's life, I have to document even the sad times so she can look back and see what was happening around her.

When Curtis and I went in for our 16-week appointment (on Feb. 10th), we got word (and saw with our own eyes) that our little unborn baby's heartbeat had stopped. Along with that, the measurement showed that it had actually stopped growing at 12 weeks. For those of you who know us, this was our 5th time going through this. Because of this fact, I didn't have too many expectations or hope with this pregnancy until we hit the second trimester. Thus, at that point, I had let my heart open up to the possibility that we were actually having another child. So, when it all ended so suddenly, I was left asking questions and picking up the pieces of yet another dream unfulfilled.

Without going into great detail, because of a few complications, I have been home on leave for 3 weeks. The last 3 weeks have not been easy, but we are managing to come out of the deep darkness. We will never know why God took another one from us, but these truths still remain and have gotten me through yet another trial- 1. He would never give us more than we could handle and 2. He is still in control and has a plan for our lives.

Most importantly, we were blessed with the most amazing daughter who we now believe to be even more than a blessing-----she is an absolute miracle. If that is all we get in this lifetime, than it is more than enough for me.

Count your blessings each day!