13 weeks *sigh*

so Sweetie Baby is 13 weeks old. tomorrow she will officially be 3 months old. today will be the last time i call her age in weeks, but from here on out will refer to her age in months. this is a huge step for me, very big! man time is flying. does anyone know how to make it slow down? if you do please tell me your secrets. never in one hundred million years did i ever think that i would love a baby this much. well it has happened. i love her more and more everyday. she has rocked us and for that i am so thankful. we needed to be rocked.
at 13 weeks she can see an object, grap it, and eat it (well suck on it). at 13 weeks she is taking longer and longer naps and is waking up happy. she is taking a long enough nap right now where i can come and redo this entry (see previous post). at 13 weeks she smiles so much and loves to be around us. at 13 weeks she has decided she wants to wake up at night. so much for all the bragging about her sleeping through the night. she slept through the night from 4 weeks til now. sometimes i feed her sometimes not, but she always falls to sleep quickly so it is not a burden. at 13 weeks i have found my 2 chapsticks that went missing. i am able to multi-task once again. i am learning how to do things while she naps (like blog). at 13 weeks i am getting more and more okay with being home and not dressing up. although i still do, my high heels miss me! at 13 weeks my homemade french bread is get better and better. at 13 weeks i have become rested and become a mother!

i mean look at this baby. you can come and bite her cheeks if you want. she is so darn cute!

true story: while Sweetie Baby was sitting in her bumbo on the glider Rainy put the tennis ball beside her and expected BellaRose to throw the ball for her. i am serious true story! needless to say the ball did not get thrown.

speaking of 3 months: my mom worked on

this cross stitch while i was in labor with Sweetie Baby. 3 months later we have it framed and up on the wall. we love it, she will love, we love you!

rainy is going to win America's next top model and get a lucrative deal with Ford Model's for dogs. this picture is what won for her. i mean who would not want to buy this dogfood.

Special find of the week: Pandora Radio. this gem on the internet that was introduced to me by Becky (who is with child by the way :)) is amazing. if you love music and you want to find new music like it go there. you will not be disappointed. my two special finds of many are Sonya Kitchell and Colin Hay. Colin Hay is of "Men at work" fame. Go, listen, love!

aarrgghhh!!!

i hate blogger today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i just had a huge post and it is gone. they said they saved it. they lied to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i have to regroup. i am not sure i have it in me to redo it. man it was good too!

now that i am jobless (go there for all your insurance needs) i stay home and hang out with sweet BellaRose. yesterday we made french bread and oatmel toffee cookies. this was my best french bread yet. today we worked on naps. she took a 2 hour and 45 minute nap!! so proud. we have a much more pleasant baby when she sleeps. although right now she is screaming in her crip. i guess i should get her. i really want to establish the morning nap and then i will move onto the afternoon nap.

in other very exciting news BECKY is pregnant!!! she is making BellaRose a friend. yeah for becky and Jeremiah. we are so happy for you.

FYI- our friends Morgan and Christina are pregnant with Sullivan. He has a congenital heart defect. He is due in October. I am going to paste the e-mail she sent on a fundraiser that they are having for Sullivan. If you have any questions or need directions please let me know. Morgan and Christina could really use your thoughts and prayers as they are facing a big challenge once Sullivan is born.

what: Sullivan Rich Fundraiserwhen: Saturday August 25, 2007Why: Our family is in need of financial help for the upcoming years with Sullivan's surgeries, and the uncertainty of the path we will take. Morgan will have to take time off of work and there are travel expenses, and all the other unexpected things that go along with having a very sick baby. For awareness, to alert our friends and family to the lack of Congenital heart screening and testing, Congenital Heart Disease is considered to be the most common birth defect, and is a leading cause of birth-defect related deaths worldwide.time:2-8pmWhere: Erwin Hills Lion Club, Asheville NCcost:$25 (family)$10 individual (includes, food, icecream, music, all other activities) cash or check only. thanks!Bake sale has items for sale.Come out for live local Music, food donated by 28806 Deli, a silent auction filled with some amazing things donated by local businesses here, nachos, quesidillas, icecream sundae bar, bake sale. Bounce house, crafts, ball pit, temporary tattoos, face painting. Morgan's family in Santa Barbara, CA is hosting a fundraiser in conjuction with ours on the same day!Hope to see you there!email me for more info- cmrichnc@bellsouth.net

baby bumbo

BellaRose is 12 weeks tomorrow. on the 22nd she will 3 months old. on the 22nd i will drop calling her age in weeks and will refer to her age in months. this is a big deal, my baby is growing. the weeks are getting too confusing. i am starting to forget where we are in the grand scheme of things with her age. this is my declaration for this week. i mean look at her, she is growing before your eyes. look at that neck strength sitting in her bumbo seat being such a big girl. sometimes she does get a little crooked as you can tell from the picture on the left. check out the top she has on, isn't it so cool. it is from her aunt newell in chicago who may or may not be hanging with BRAD PITT i am not sure yet. i think that my seamtress buddies who seem to be mulitplying, leaving me in the dust, could make this top too and sell millions. i will work on taking pictures of it.

worth took the newphews and one neice to the woods on sunday. the first trip was with Rocco and Taylor (who are actually pictured at the bottom) to the waterfall at Laurel Ridge. he managed to get them and my sisters car filthy before her trip to back to Greenville, sc. rocco also got stuck in the mud and taylor had to dig his shoes out. i think that they may have had a blast. then on worth's second trip back to laurel ridge he took noah and ethan. they did not get stuck in the mud but i believe that they had an equal good time looking for crawldads. i imagine being in a creek is a good place to get out of the heat.

rainy dog loved going to the creek as well. she is a little stiff today though since she has not been out of the house lately. we will get her back into shape in no time. me and rainy getting back into shape. that is the GOAL!

A.T.L and beyond........

it has taken me 8 years to get all the pictures on here. there are a lot of pictures as well. there was just so many things to take pictures of, so this will be the post for the week. as i mentioned earlier we went to ATL, the homeland, for my grandma's 93rd birthday. what a celebration. we had a wonderful time there. Grandma got to hold and sing to BellaRose a lot. i am so blessed to be able to see my daughter with my grandma. so special.

Angela can't get enough kisses!

here are 6 of grandma's great grandchildren. 2 of them were in england and could not make it to the party. my sister with her 2 kids and my cousin with his 3 kids.

these are my cousins little girls Lindsey and Cassidy. they put on a little dance for us. i was so proud of them for coming up with the dance and wanting to show all of us.

so angela and the family got a new puppy. he is really cute, only 3 1/2 pounds. the kids adore him. we need help coming up with a name. so if you have any thoughts please let us know. i like Moose, and Bruno was a thought, but that might have been vetoed.

this is REBECCA she just had her baby, emerson, on 07.07.07. it was so much fun to catch up with her and meet her husband Sebastian. Emerson and BellaRose got to play under the star together. Emerson is so cute and little! Thanks for the good time Bec. We also got to see my other friend Sumner and her new husband Wes. I forgot to get a picture and i am kicking myself about that. Sumner just got married in Greece, in June. How exotic!

the gigantic skatepark tour made its way to georgia as promised. we first hit up Athens, home to the mighty DAWGS. it was scorching hot so worth did not skate as long as he would have liked and he took a hit on the concrete that sort of knocked his brain a little bit so he called it a day on the ole skatepark and we hit up the cute town of Athens. then worth found his Mecca, the new BrookRun skatepark in Dunwoody, not far from my dad's house. he said it is the best skatepark he has ever been too. i have to say that it was beautiful and i don't know much about skateparks.

this was worth's skating buddy......he was 3! so cute.

this is athens' skatepark below. BellaRose may just one day be a skater girl you never know. she sure likes watching her daddy skate!

sweet BellaRose smiles a lot now. it is so wonderful to have a little baby smile at you. her whole face lights up.

here is our harvest of pumkins and tomatoes. the pumpkins did not make it to October, but we will proudly display them in August for all the world to see! we have pumpkins and we are proud. i found a website on pumkin growing and it said that we can keep them until spring if we take care of them. check out the basket, it is filled with cherry tomatoes. if you want any PLEASE come by. i am not sure what we will do with all of them.

Worth's GIGANTIC skatepark tour

so begins Worth's gigantic skatepark tour. he has been preparing for this tour for sometime now. as you see here he is practicing at his home skatepark, Food Lion Skatepark, in Asheville. My dad texted us with some very exciting information about a new 2.1 million dollar skatepark in ATL, Brook Run Skatepark. It is only minutes from my dad's house. We are heading there for Grandma's 93rd birthday and we will be making stops along the way for Worth to skate. He is like kid in a candy store, he can hardly sleep at night. The anticipation for what this weekend holds is overwhelming. He wants to hit 4 different parks in 4 days, unheard of you say, not for Worth Grant and his GIGANTIC Skatepark Tour. Pretty soon you will be saying "Tony Hawk who?". We will be posting the destruction when we get back. You better go skate them before Worth gets there because there is going to be nothing left once he is gone.

and on to sweeter things, BellaRose is 10 weeks old today. my how it has flown. she is staying awake longer and smiling bigger. she is such a joy to our life. we went on a hike the other day and she did wonderfully, maybe because she slept most of the way, but still enjoyable for us.

so she may look like Yoda a little bit? don't tell her we said that when she is older and can develop a complex though!

Tomatoes and Pumpkins

Just wanted to share with you our garden as of late. We have lots and lots of very good cherry tomatoes. We also have a ton of green tomatoes that have not turned red quite yet. Worth makes some mean fried green tomatoes, so it looks like that is what we will be eating lots of around here.

We also have 8 pumpkins!! How excited are we about this. We are SO excited. They are all really different too. We are going to have a whole garden of pumpkins next year. They grow so much everyday.

Here is just a real sweet picture of Worth's brother Ben when BellaRose was first born, oh yeah he is single too ; ).

shots

we went to the doctor yesterday for our 2 month check-up. BellaRose is pretty much over her cold! she did get her shots and she did fabulous. she had 3 shots and had to drink something. when she got the shots she turned bright red, held her breath and let out one big scream. after that she was over it. what a champ. she is in the 70th percentile on height and weight. she weighs 11lbs 5 1/2 ozs. her height is 23 inches, and her head is 15 1/2 inches. we did have a great milestone yesterday in that she took her first full nap in her crip. she cried, and i let her, and after about 10 minutes she crashed! she sleeps in her crip at night and as been pretty much since the beginning, but i am such a sap during the day. i just love holding her so much. i never thought i could love a baby this much.

you want to know what BellaRose loves, her baby einstein play gym. i put her there one day and was amazed at how much she loves it. she just flaps her arms and legs, and coos and smiles. who knew a star that lights up and makes silly noises would be so entertaining. i guess the people at baby einstein!

and this was how i was able to take a shower the other day. the door she is in front of is my bathroom. i put her in the swing and she was awake, and when i got out she was asleep. i am sure it is unorthodox to let her sleep in the swing and all the books will get mad at me, but they aren't home with me trying to bathe now are they? and allow me to get on my soapbox for one moment....books. i love them, we all know i do, but i had to put the baby books down. they completely stressed me out and i believe made the 1st couple of weeks even harder then they needed to be! new moms revolt. i declare a "put the books down" protest. who is with me i yell!!!!!!!!!!!!