Our little Bella isn't so little anymore. She recently celebrated her 6 month birthday and is growing like a weed. We went to the doctor today for her check up and found out she has bumped herself up to the 82% for weight. Dr. Matt said I must be reading her cues really well because she is growing at such a healthy rate. She isn't too difficult to figure out though - every three hours to the dot she gets fussy and is ready to eat. She is starting to rock in the crawling position so she should be scooting around the house in no time. I guess we better go get some gates. We also got her an exersaucer that is really bouncy and she loves to get in there and go nuts! She bounces and screams (happy screams) so hard I can't believe she doesn't give herself shaken baby syndrome. She is a mover and a shaker these days and changing her diaper is like wrestling a monkey!
We have had another eventful month a half. Some fun and some not so fun. Tim and Kelly had a Halloween party and we have some funny pictures from that. It was a great time but I now know how old I am. I will have to attach the pictures Lissy took of Bella in our wigs. They are hilarious! We got to go back to Kirksville twice. First was for Halloween. Bella spent her first Halloween as an elephant. Actually, she didn't dress up on Halloween because we drove to Kirksville after work and by the time we got there it had gotten pretty late. We had a sweet little engagement party for Kaitlin and Zane. It was pretty cute. They had the decorations and treats all ready down in the basement along with some presents. As Kaitlin and Zane sat in the family room and played with all of the little ones, people were running up and down the stairs carrying up everything for the party trying to hide from them. It was a success and I think they were surprised. The next day we got to hang out and relax with all of the family. Ryan, Bella and I went over to the Markeson house to see Tracy, Devin and Delaney Daniels. Devin is getting so big and Delaney is a doll! That night we had the hot dog roast. It was a year ago that day that we told my family we were expecting. No announcements this year from anyone! The hot dog roast was entertaining. Allison must have baked for a month to get together all of her sweet treats and Mom had some really neat dips and breads. I think everyone had more to eat than they were wanting to eat! The best part is seeing all of the kids in their costumes. You will have to check out the pictures. After that we went to Dukum Inn for Caroline's 21st. It was pretty entertaining and we were home in less that an hour! Good timing.
After that weekend, we went home and went back to work. On Tuesday I got a call that my Dad had suffered a stroke. He was in the hospital and they were keeping an eye on his blood pressure. It was a shocker but he is okay. Even though he didn't want us to, we all came back home for a bit. We tried to stay away from the hospital and get a lot of Dad's jobs done around the house. Everyone pitched in and got some of the fall jobs done. I know we probably didn't do it just the way Dad would but we gave it a shot. The guys had to do most of the heavy lifting but I think everyone was a little sore afterwards. I'm thinking these might be some good jobs to tack on to the end of the Halloween weekend from here on out so Dad doesn't try and do them all on his own again. Dad is doing really well and actually started back to work this week. I think he is just sick of people checking on him but what are daughters for!
Even though the circumstances weren't the best, it was still great to get to see everyone and I think Mom and Dad enjoyed a little taste of what retirement would be like.
