Bella's 2nd Birthday Party

We were so lucky that almost everyone we expected at Bella's party was well. There has been so much sickness- swine flu and the regular flu- that it really was a miracle that they could all come. We had Bella's birthday on the 22nd of November since we were away in Vierumaki for her actual birthday weekend which I last blogged about. The party was a great success. I decided that we would have a Dora theme, for obvious reasons. When I set up for the day I put the few decorations up while Bella was taking a nap. When she woke up, as always, she was a little groggy and she was fascinated by the new Dora stuff around the apartment. She just kept walking up to it and pointing and softly saying "Dora".

I did make the cake and I am glad that I did but I am not sure that I will put myself in that position again! It was hard work! Bella really enjoyed have food that she could just graze on. She really like the pretzels and I think that she even managed to eat a carrot or two. Since Natu was here she had someone her own age to play with and she had 2 Aunties and 3 cousins around. Jaana and Leo were also able to make it.


Bella got her first real doll and has enjoyed giving it some milk. This is a doll that when you give it real water, it will pee. Luckily it came with a potty although we have yet to try this function. Seems like a lot of work to me!

2nd Birthday and the weekend away

We took a long weekend for Bella's birthday and rented the cabin owned by my work again. This time it didn't go as smoothly as it did the first time as instead of Taneli playing golf, he was sick with a fever all weekend. Then by the end of the weekend (ie yesterday) Bella got a fever too! Hers was higher than Taneli's and seems to have peaked at 39.3! I have been a little worried about it- I sure hope that it isn't swine flu. Taneli decided that one thing that would make Bella feel better would be to buy her a recorder...please note that he is not home with her today...he got to go to work!

So as for the photos, I put the first one here that was taken about a week or so ago but I thought that it would be interesting to see her compared to Vernita since I haven't done that comparison for a very long time! She certainly has grown a lot since then.





We opened her gifts the day before her birthday, on Saturday, so that she would be able to play with them longer and entertain herself better. But we made her cupcakes on Sunday. Bella also 'helped' me to make these cupcakes (not a culinary triumph to say the least but we were at a cabin). She sure liked the little hearts and teddy bears on them though.





One thing that she was able to do there was to watch tv while she ate. Not something that I would normally let (or would be physically possible in our house) but it was a special weekend.






By the last day, Taneli was feeling ok enough to play a little with Bella and here he is scaring her as he hid behind the door...you can see her in mid-flee...










Bella also had some fun with the mirrors...she wasn't bored at all!!! As you can see from the last photo here of her waiting by the front door...poor her!






I have added a couple of compilation videos...meaning that they are a couple of videos stuck together for convenience sake. The first one is so funny. She has taken to turning off the bathroom light with the comment, "oh, its dark in there"... and then she is saying that it isn't her birthday. This is from one episode of Dora where they have to find out whose birthday it is and they ask everyone if it is their birthday (I didn't know any of this until I said to Bella a few days before her birthday and I told her it was her birthday soon and she said "it's no birthday"-meaning, "it's not my birthday"). I nearly fell over laughing...then I figured out that it was from Dora...so funny. She denied her birthday all weekend! In the video, again, she learned the birthday song from Dora, since in that same episode they found out which characters birthday it was and then sing to him. Happy Birthday Bella!

Ei, ei, ei

We now have a two year old (as of Sunday) that doesn't really say no. Isn't that great! Instead, she says "ei"...which is no in Finnish. It is funny the things she chooses to say in English or in Finnish. She also always says "katso" which means "look", even though the thing she says next might be (and probably is) in English..."Katso puddle". She now answers questions. I was getting worried there for a while that she would have no opinions! hahaha. I needn't have worried. She finally responds if I ask her if she wants some milk- generally she says "ei". She hasn't learned to respond in the positive. But I have learned that if she throws her precious soother and towel on the floor and runs towards me (or to her chair to sit down) then it means yes. She does the same thing if, being half an hour late or so, I tell her that dinner is ready...then she goes at lightening speed towards her chair with the soother and towel being thrown with abandon anywhere along the way. Then I know that I took a little too long getting dinner ready. The up side of course is that she will eat the dinner! Two nights ago that happened and I have to fill her bowl with a second and third helping! Then she ate some yogurt and then as she was watching Dora about 30 mins later, she ate a whole banana. She must be growing!

The first snow

Yesterday was the first snow of the year. Isabella went to daycare and they said that she had lots of fun eating it! hahaha. That is not surprising coming from the girl who used to kneel down and drink from puddles. It snowed all day yesterday and it stuck around. Then this morning it was all sloppy and rainy. Now we are back to snowing. Good thing, there will be more for Bella to eat...so she will be happy!

Dora, Dora everywhere

I bought Bella the coolest little suitcase and it finally arrived the other day. Kids can ride on it and the long strap can be undone and used to pull the suitcase with the child on it. It seems to be well made and it has been designed to be able to pull the kids through the airport when their feet or legs get tired. I can't wait to use it, although we don't have any trips planned yet :-(






Later on we were just playing around and since I almost NEVER get to be in photos with Bella, I asked Taneli to take a few photos...but unfortunately, it was set for taking night photos so they aren't the clearest.

Bella decided that she wanted to look at all her Dora's today...as you can see, she has a lot! She also has a few more that she doesn't know about yet. To be honest, I wish that they would make more because then we wouldn't have to keep watching the same ones over and over again! She is so funny because you can just point to a DVD cover and ask her what that one is called and she knows. I never expected that. But we were trying it today and she knew almost all of them, just not the most recent one! Amazing!

Pumpkin fun

We invited the neighbour over with her two kids (although one is only 2 months old) to help us carve the pumpkin. Mia said that she had only ever seen them in movies before and was very interested to see how it was done. The funniest part was that both Natu and Isabella wanted nothing to do with the pumpkin carving at all! Neither of them would touch the insides either. As you can see in the first photo with us in it, Bella has a bit of a death-grip on my arm. They didn't mind being called back to the kitchen to see the finished product. Then they went back to playing for a short time while I fished out a candle and some matches. Then it was all ready when they came back...you can see in the last photo how brave Isabella was...that was as close as she would come to the pumpkin all lit up in the dark kitchen! hahaha...

It's raining leaves...

So October flew by with my work trips (I had three during October) so I was lucky to see Bella much at all during the month. As you can see, she was able to relax and spend some quality time with her towel.

We went out on the weekend to play with some leaves. I had been in all weekend as I wasn't feeling well and so Bella hadn't really been outside at all either and I felt that we both needed some fresh air. Taneli got all the fresh air he needed beforehand since he is still able to play golf on the weekends...lucky him! But we did get to play with some leaves. We shook some trees to make them 'rain' on Bella...then she wanted to give it a try, of course.