Bottom Teeth are out!!

Isnt she adorable?!! :) Her teeth have been out for a couple of weeks but we hadn't been able to take a picture. Now one of her top teeth is coming out but that one is going to be even harder to catch in a picture... we'll see!

Almost 1!

Bella's 11 months and soon she'll turn 1! It's been quite an amazing year.

We've been planning her birthday party, actually TWO birthday parties! One here in Merced and another one in Louisiana at B's mom's house. A friend from 2Peas is working on the invitations and I can't wait to see them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! :)

I'm officially 27 now. It was a good day. We all went to church in Mariposa and I got a couple of presents from church members! :) Everybody loved seeing Bella again after not seeing her for almost 2 months!
Then we went to a friend's b-day party. He's turning 40 on Monday and some family and friends were coming from out of town. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELBIO!! :)
So, tomorrow we are having MY birthday party!! :) Can't wait for Ice Cream Cake!!! :D

'Twas The Day Before My Birthday!

Well, it's my last day of enjoying the mid-twenties. the prime of my life is coming to an end. the foxy chick days are gone. it's all downhill from now on. the sharp mind and free spirit days are over (...) geesh, so dramatic! LOL

On a brighter note, my most dear wonderful parents and brother got me a Cricut Expression. I wasn't supposed to open it until tomorrow, but what's one day. No, not even. Just 12 hrs. So, anyways, I did it! I did it! I opened the Cricut!!! :D :grin: :grin: :grin: It's gorgeous! LOL Now I'm so excited about getting some cartridges and start cutting stuff! :D ok, I better stop. my face is going to hurt if I keep smiling this big! LOL Gracias Mami, Papi & Davidcito!!! XOXOXOXO

Also, Billy is planning a little birthday party for me on Sunday. I'll miss our good friends from Southern and Andrews who don't live near us anymore. But we've met some wonderful people at our 2 churches in Merced and Mariposa, and so I hope a lot of them come! :)

I'll post some thoughts tomorrow on what it feels to be 27!! :o

A New New Me! :)

So, you saw a couple of days ago I got glasses to appear a little more nerdy! :) And today I got a haircut and red highlights to appear more feisty and sexy! :P LOL I wonder what's next?!

Cards cards and more cards

Some patriotic and some religious cards:

Cards galore for Craft Fair!

I've been making tons of cards for the Mariposa Craft Fair next weekend. Here are some:

Happy Baby!

Bella can be so sweet and happy - whenever she wants to! The other times, she's cranky and whiny. Anyways, this is her new HAPPY-BIG-SMILE-FACE. So adorable! The funniest part is that she learned it from me! :) I just wanna kiss her all over and eat her up!
And here she's modeling her cute little skirt and shirt. All ready for summer weather!! :)

It's Summertime!!

A couple of weeks ago we got a little pool for Bella for the summer. Well, last Sunday was over 90'F and so we decided to fill it up and put her in it. And she LOVED it!!! :) She even shared her pool water with Mocha - who was hot and thirsty from running around.

And after a long day in the pool, nothing better than to lay down and watch some Baby Einstein next to my Pooh Bear! :)

A New Me! :)

I've been having some problems with my eyes and so I decided to go to the eye doctor this week. Well, he said I have some sort of infection, irritation and other stuff I couldn't understand very well. The bottom line, I can't use my contact lenses for some time until the infection and the irritation is gone. *sigh* So, since my last pair of glasses were about 7 years old, I decided to purchase a new pair. And here they are!

Follow up visit to the doctor

We went to the pediatrician today for a follow-up appointment after all the drama of the last 2 weeks - high fever, fevral seizure, ER visit, a thousand exams and procedures, pneumonia diagnosis, antibiotic for 10 days, allergic reaction to something, hives, runny nose, sleepless nights and more craziness...

Well, Bella doesn't have pneumonia and her rash is going away. Her bottom front teeth came out. AND she's slept through the night for the past 4 nights! I'd say she's doing very good! ;)

Isabella is 10 months!

Bella turned 10 months yesterday and she's already a professional walker :) We got her another walker/car toy and she's loving it. She walks up and down the hallways in the house. And when she finds a wall or column or door, she just pushes and pushes the car until she can keep walking!


Other exciting news is that a couple of weeks ago I won a portrait painting from the Prima blog. They asked me to send them a picture and since we had just received the 9 month's pictures of Bella, I sent them 2 for them to choose. Here's the final product. It's absolutely gorgeous!

Pictures are here!!!

I've only scanned 2 of the pictures we got from JC Penney's but just wanted to share them with you so you can see how big Bella's growing and how cute she is! :) Do you think I'm biased? hehe

Follow up

Today, Bella woke up at 6 am and took a nap at 8:30. So, Billy and I took a nap also. She didn't sleep too good last night but has been doing ok today. We've been taking her temperature every hour just to make sure it doesn't go up again. And we are giving her Tylenol every 4 hrs plus her antibiotics every 12 hrs.

Since we didn't make it to church, some friends came over and brought us lunch. After eating we went for a walk around the neighborhood because it was a gorgeous day outside and their kids played with Bella. Hopefully she'll sleep better tonight!

Thanks again for all your prayers!

First trip to the ER

Well, yesterday she had a fever of 103F so we called the pediatrician and they said to give her Motrin. It helped and we gave her another dose at night. Today she was doing ok, kinda her usual cranky self, but because she still had a fever we called the pediatrician again and they told us to give her Tylenol if her fever was below 103F. So we gave her some Tylenol around 10:30 am. And again it helped. At around 2:30 pm, Billy was going to put her down for her nap and asked me to give her another dose of Tylenol because she felt warm and it had been 4 hrs. But as soon as I gave it to her, she went on a daze. Her eyes went up to the side, kind of like she was looking up to the ceiling. Not responding when Billy and I were calling her. And her tongue looked kinda purple and swollen. I freaked out and told Billy to call the pediatrician. I was crying hysterically and since the secretary was asking me all kind of random questions I just hanged up and told Billy to call her cellphone. When he was finally able to talk to her, she told him to take Bella to the Children's Hospital in Madera. We were already driving and so we made the 1 hr trip there.

While we were driving I was praying that they would see us fast. I've been to the ER and sometimes they take forever to see you. So when we got there, I was first in line and they saw us right away. They took our information, took Bella's signs (temperature, weight) and then told us to wait outside. Her temperature at that point was 103.1*F. She said if we had to wait for more than an hour to tell her so she could take Bella's temperature again. So I kinda got discouraged because I didnt want to wait for an hour for a room. But thankfully we only waited about 5 minutes and then they called us to put us in a room. The nurses and the doctors came in right away and examined her. The doctor said they were going to run some tests - blood test, urine exam, x-ray - to find where the infection was. Poor Bella was so tired she felt asleep, but only for 5-10 minutes because then the nurse came to take her blood.

That's when the next torture session began. A first nurse came and tried for 5-10 minutes to draw blood from Bella's arm. That's was terrible. We had to hold her down and the nurse poked both her arms and wiggled the needle inside her arm trying to find the vein. Nothing. She went out and brought another nurse who did the same, but thankfully she got it and was able to draw her blood pretty fast. Not without Bella screaming her head out and making me cry too. *sigh* That was painful. Then, another set of nurses came and had to do a catheter to draw urine. More pain and crying. But that went a lot faster and I just didn't look so I wouldn't be traumatized. Finally, they took us to the x-ray room for a chest x-ray. And even though it wasn't painful, she had to be strapped down so she wouldn't move. After that we went back to the room and waited for the results. She was too cranky after all the exams to take a nap, so we just played on her bed. The good thing is that her fever had broken after her earlier nap.

Anyways, after some time the doctor came back and told us that she had some pneumonia and prescribed some antibiotics for her to take. Every 12 hrs for 10 days. And watch her fever closely! We left the hospital around 7:30 pm and she felt asleep as soon as Billy started the car. We got her prescription filled when we got to Merced and hopefully she'll get better soon!

Thank you for all your prayers and support! We really appreciate it!