Sitting up!

This morning I went to get Bella once she woke up. When I walked into her room I found her sitting up in her crib waiting patiently for me. This is the first time she's sat up by herself! I was so proud of my girl and kept telling her how awesome she was. She just looked at me as if she was saying "Please feed me woman! And change this crazy wet diaper" That's my super smart girl. I bet we're going to start crawling any day now.

Twins!

This morning I took Isabella to daycare and handed her over to Holly. Holly looked at both of us smirked and said "Did you match today on purpose?" I laughed and replied "Hey, I got dressed first!" Holly didn't miss a beat, "Didn't you pick out her clothes?" "yes, yes I did."

Well played Holly, Well played.

Trish

Friday's with dad...

Who's happy to be home with her dad today? Bella !

Isabella's First Vacation!!!!!

At the end of the Summer we took Bella on her first road trip. We felt it was finally time to take her to visit friends and family Colorado. It was so wonderful to see Grandma and Grandpa Neuteboom and especially fun to see the Wells family, specifically cousin Gabe. Isabella was totally enamoured of her cousin especially all the cool things he can do now like run around, splash in puddles, and wreak havoc on the family and Grandma and Grandpa's house. So below is the story of the first National Neuteboom's Family Vacation.

Friday Morning we woke up early....I mean EARLY.....We had packed up the night before and only had to wake and feed the baby, load a few things up and were able to hit the road at 3:30am. I told you it was early. It was a great decision though, Isabella slept for the first 4 hours and I stayed awake to keep Eric company as we drove through the dark. What was especially cool was reaching the Windmill Farms around Sunrise. It was magnificent and a little War of the Worlds ish to see these giant machines churnning through the air. Once Bella woke up I moved to the very comfortable back seat and kept her company (and joined her for a couple of naps on the way) until we arrived in Colorado around 12:00pm mountain time. Connie was home to meet us and take the baby so we could take a nap, I love Grandparents! That evening Heidi, Chris and Gabe came over to enjoy an incredible meal of fried tomatoes, proscuttio wrapped asparagus, and steaks. Connie, Heidi and Eric really outdid themselves on excellent cooking. Isabella and I spent our time catching up and playing with Gabe.

Here is the family after our incredible meal.

Gabe apparently doesn't like socks and firmly believes that Bella should share his dislike. He made sure to take hers off. I'd put them back on and Gabe would take them off again. I'm with him though, barefoot is the way to go!

The next day we hauled the crew up to Castle Rock for some beautiful outdoor shopping. They have an Outdoor Mall with lots of fun shops including a Carter's Outlet ( a very dangerous store for mommy!) Gabe and Bella got matching jean jackets from Grandma and I bought Bella a few new things as well. Here is my preppy daughter on her first outdoor mall crawl.

We then headed to Red Robin for lunch. The kids were both a bit tired and cranky but managed to get through lunch pretty well. Now that Isabella is eating solid foods Eric decided to tempt her with a cheeseburger.

Yeah!!!!!......Burger.....

NO! Of course I didn't actually let my 7 month old eat a cheeseburger, she had green beans for lunch. After lunch we attempted to get a Grandparents and babies picture. We got at least one good one.

And then the attention span ran out.

We headed home and rested up. That night we left the kids with Mimi and Grandpa and Eric, Heidi, Chris and I went out for Sushi. It was really good food and a lot of fun to hang out just as siblings and spouses. When we got home Connie and J.P. looked exhausted but seemed to have a good time with the kids.

Sunday Mimi, Grandpa, Bella, Eric and I headed to Garden of the Gods to hike and check out the rocks. Hiking was a bit more difficult in this altitude with the baby strapped to you but I was happy for the exercise. Isabella really enjoyed the walk and the beautiful Red rocks.

Bella LOVES water bottles. Here she's going after mine. We wanted to amp up the hydration to combat the altitude. Bella did great with it though, I think she's a traveler like us.

Our little Rock Climber.

After we hiked we got in the car and drove to through the park stopping at Balancing Rock.

The drive eventually dropped us in Old Colorado Springs were we enjoyed a nice Greek lunch. Bella had Applesauce from Grandpa. And ice cream for desert???

That Night we went to Eric's first place of employment Fargos. It's a fun pizza joint where Eric spent his awkward teen years hoping that people would leave him a "green dollar" tip for busing the tables. We were joined by Chris' parents and nephews. Chris' mom Kay loved playing with Bella, so far she has all Grandsons and enjoyed lavishing attention on our beautiful girl. It was a blast hanging out with the Wells family and the bonus was great food.

Ahhh Grandpa's sweetheart, It's true.

On Monday everyone had to go back to work so Eric and I took Bella up to Breckenridge. It was fun because I had never been. Plus we were able to get a sweet condo for a reasonable price since it was the off season. This place had a separate living room, flat screen T.V. and full size kitchen. We walked around Breckenridge and had lunch before heading back to the Hotel for swimming and dinner. Bella took a nice nap on the river walk.

Tuesday Morning we woke up and headed out of town. The drive back was long (11 hours total) but not too eventful. We even got home with some time to enjoy our evening. It was a great Vacation and Isabella was such a good traveler. I can't wait to get away on our next road trip.

That concludes our Summer Adventures. I'm back at school and Bella started daycare. All is great so far, although a bit hectic while trying to get into the swing of things. I have great classes and a really fun first theater activity of the year planned. It's going to be a great year.

~That's how we put the BOOM in Neuteboom.

Trish

Hanging with Uncle Will

We were so lucky this July to have my brother back in town for the whole month. He came to work on The Victor Continental show and to direct his play " The Trials of Robin Hood" at Summer Youth Theater. Even as crazy busy as he was he still had time to play with his one and only niece. Their favorite game was race car, Vroom Vroom!

Isabella is not so sure about Uncle Willie Reading, "Mommy, I think he's making this up!" "I gaurentee it Bells"

A family breakfast at Mirth (Poor Eric missed out on this one because he had to work.)

For Willie's Last night in town we had a wonderful family BBQ at the folks house where we enjoyed good food, swimming, and ladder ball. Here are the girls relaxing by the pond.

Isabella has her own chair for dinner at Nana and Poppie's

Thanks Shelly for the Happy Frog Pool as you can see we throughly enjoyed it. The day turned into a water fight amongst the adults but I sadly didn't get any pictures of when Dad and I threw Willie into this small pool, too bad as I would have enjoyed embarassing my bro on the blog.

We were sad to see Will go but hope he'll make it

back soon. We also hope that we can convince his wife Lucy to get back over here as we all miss her like crazy. Besides, we need someone to teach Bella funny British phrases.

That's how we put the BOOM in Neuteboom!

~Trish

Mommy and Bella's Summer Adventures #2: Lions and Tigers and Great-Grandparents Oh my!

Isabella and I have had so much fun this summer I've hardly had time to update the blog, so there may be many upcoming posts documenting past events.
To start, Isabella and I have had such a fun summer full of playdates, outings and quality Neuteboom women time.

While my cousin Jen and her family were in town we met up with them., Libby, Tom, Jeff, Alex and Grandma Averill at the Topeka Zoo. Isabella and I had to drive in from Lawrence so we got there after everyone else and I didn't get many photos of the day. I did however get this awesome picture of Bella with my Aunt Jeff

In addition to the zoo we've spent quite a bit of time in Topeka over the summer hanging with family. Here we are with my Granny Sook and Pappy, my moms folks. Pappy just recently was able to finally come home from a long stay at the hospital and Rolling Hills nursing home. I know Granny is glad to have him back and we're all very happy that he's home.

We also went to visit my Grandmother Averill, she loves to have Bella close.

Towards the end of July Bella and I went to spend the night at Aunt Libby's. I had a test to take at Washburn to try and and and English endorsement to my teaching license and since it was so early in the morning we decided to have a slumber party ( which was WAY more fun then the test). We enjoyed a visit with Grandma, Tai food and Isabella's first crackers. She is now a big fan of crackers and so am I, what a great occupier so I can eat my meal as well!

In addition to the Topeka Zoo, Isabella and I took the Kansas City Zoo by storm as well. We headed into KC with our friends Kelly and Brecken ( for more about this awesome baby check out Brecken's Blog) There we met up with two other moms and their kids, Ashley and Evan and Crystal and Dalton. It was a hoot watching the four of us taking over the sidewalk with our strollers. My Beautiful Girl at the Zoo.

Here's Bella near the Elephants, we sadly missed the elephants painting but I'm hoping to catch that next time.

I called this the Butt Face Monkey, I hope you can see why.

My favorite animals have to be the Meerkats. I even do a fairly good impression that my cousin caught on camera at the wedding. Here are are the little furballs.

Here are our mom and baby friends, Ashley and Evan missed the picture because Evan and Bella both fell asleep.

Speaking of sleeping, apparently everyone takes naps around the same time. The Lions

Monkeys

and Bella

The Kansas City Zoo was a blast but it was also huge! We walked around all day and didn't even get a chance to visit a section of the zoo. It was a blast and really nice to spend some time with Kelly and Brecken who are moving to Minnesota. We'll really miss having them around but can't wait to go visit and make fun of the Twins!

That's how we put the BOOM in Neuteboom

Trish