Mini-Me?

My mom recently posted this pics, and it made me realize...ok, maybe Brian's right when he constantly tells me Belle looks just like me.  As the saying goes, pictures say more than words :)

        Christmas 2009                 Christmas '82      

This one totally reminds me of her.  She always sits on the stairs like that too!   

~So I have to admit,  I think he's right :)  With the exception of the massive amounts of dark hair that I've had apparently since birth :)

Telluride!

So at the end of Jan. Brian and I took our first Mommy/Daddy trip and left Belle in the capable hands of our family!  We left Thursday and were supposed to come back on Monday...key word being supposed to!  Haha...we ended up missing Belle too much and came home on Sunday! :)  Yep, we're those parents!  The trip was sooooo fun though.  It was nice to get away, and Telluride is indescribably beautiful.  Seriously, pictures just don't do it justice.

We stayed at this amazing place with suites and condos called Mountain Lodge.  It's in Mountain Village, which is in a valley between the mountains.  Basically on the other side of the mountain from Telluride, it literally butted up to the slopes.  It was ski in/ski out, so we just grabbed our boards in the morning and walked out our suite ONTO the slopes.  It was absolutely amazing!  However I, on the other hand, was NOT even close to amazing, in terms of my snowboarding skills! Haha...I was not exactly a quick learner and poor Brian was stuck trying to teach me.  I felt bad for him having to wait FOREVER for me, I told him to go ahead, and he would do 2 runs to my one mostly! haha...

But it was so nice, we could ski to our place for lunch, regroup, change shirts and socks (me, cause I was soaked from falling so much), and then hit the slopes again.  We went to Allred's (a popular restaurant just off the ski lift where celebs are frequently spotted, no JT and Jessica though) and watched the moon rise over the mountains.  So beautiful!  All though all the beauty in the world couldn't change the fact that we missed our munchkin!!  It seemed like everywhere we looked there were kiddos!!  We even found out after the fact, that they have daycare there and we every day we'd see about 20 little kids all decked out in their snow gear playing in the snow.  The cutest thing ever.

We missed her so much (and since everything seemed to break in our house while we were gone :)  Though through no fault of our fam), we cut out trip a day short, and decided for now 3 days is our limit on how long we can last without her :)  We've come up with a plan to double up with friends on the next trip, so we can bring our kiddos and take turns skiing!  And now we have a free night for next year since we left early, and we want to try and make it a quasi-annual thing if we can.  So that was our trip...I DEFINITELY recommend Telluride to anyone going skiing.  It's is absolutely amazing, from the lifts Brian and I would pick out our imaginary winter homes...and trying to guess which one was Tom and Katie's of course!                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                  Our View!

Lasik and the Park :)

Poor Brian got Lasik on Friday :(  The end result is good, he can see perfectly...but the experience was not so fun for someone like him who hates even putting in eyedrops!  They ended up having to use some contraption called "retractors"   which sound like a medieval torture device to me!  I ask him if the Valium they gave him helped, and he says, in true Brian form, "Yeah, they gave me ONE 10 mg pill...then they gave the fat chick next to me two!  I weigh more than that chick!"  Haha...

So now he has creepy, red zombie eyes...but other than that the procedure was a success.  I made the silly mistake of waiting for him in the waiting room while he was gettting it done...with Belle.  Haha...silly mommy!  Needless to say I probably did about a hundred hot laps around the doctor's office, and had to excuse my daughter to pretty much all of the staff she ran into/got in the way of :)  At least she was adorable doing it.  Except when she decided to turn off the lobby tv everyone was watching...uh-oh!

She did do one completely precious thing while we were there though.  A family came in with several children, one was a little girl that was almost five, named Keyana.  Now Belle has no concept of personal space with anyone...I know, I know, she's only 1.  So Belle see the new family and figures, "Hey, they're the only people within a 1-mile radius I haven't poked and prodded!"  So of course, she runs up to the family.  Then she stops...looks at Keyana for a minute, then walks right up to her, arms outstretched, and gives her the biggest hug..and holds on to her for a good 20 seconds!  It broke my heart.  So adorable.  Then in true Kristyna fashion, I got jealous and said, "Jeez, she never hugs me like that!"  Haha...no but seriously it was the cutest thing I've ever seen.  And Belle must have learned early that that's a quick way to make fast friends, because then Keyana wouldn't leave her side.  Hence, I was chasing two kids around Barnet, Delaney & Perkins.  Yes!

A few days later...after Dad had recovered a little bit, we took a trip to the park!  Here's Brian and Belle on top of the world!!

Oh and Belle newest word is "down!"  Which she says pretty much anytime you're holding her :)  haha...my little independant woman!

Oh and one last thing...7 days until Telluride!!! Wahoo!  First real mommy/daddy trip since Belle's was born! Powdery slopes here we come!

I'm Domestically Challenged!

So now that Belle's one, I'm trying to transition her into eating only table food.  She's been trying different things for a while now, but I'm suddenly overwhlemed with trying to come up with a balanced diet for a one-year old!  Now, for a normal woman my age with any amount of culinary skills this would not be a challenge at all!  I mean come on, we're not talking about preparing an elaborate meal to feed a large dinner party, we're talking about feeding a one-year old here!  How hard can it be?!  If only I was that woman...nope we're talking about the girl who for the past decade, eats out or throws together something either microvavable or with a prep time of 5 mins or less.  I have zero domestic skills (poor Brian), he actually teaches me how to cook basic, everyday dinner type meals.  So now I feel completely unqualified for coming up with healthy meals for my child.  I'm the girl who still gets a "smoothie" (code word for sugar-filled chocolate blended drink) everyday for lunch!  I'm  so wishing I would have taken Home Ec :)  So here's to some online research on things like steaming veggies, and appropriate meals for developing kiddos, you know Cooking for Dummies types stuff.  Oh, there's an idea, maybe I should buy that book!  Jeez...wish me luck!  Someday I will look back at this and laugh...I hope ;)

Recap of Belle's 1st year!

Since I was so bad last year about keeping up-to-date with Belle's 1st year, I'm going to try and do a mini-highlight reel :) Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed her first year...it' been an amazing ride!

Family pictures at Tempe Town Lake
5 months old

Belle went swimming for the first time! 5.5 months

Belle didn't like getting dunked very much! :)

4th of July Summer vacation to Ventura! 6.5 months

Belle with her Aunt Cheri and Uncle Rick

Belle started crawling!! 7 months old

Hanging out with Grandma!

GO Cards!! Belle's 1st Cards outfit...they won! 8.5 months old

Happy Halloween!! 10 months old!

Belle's fav part of the costume!

I LIKE Halloween!

O.k. so I got tired of posting pics...I'll post X-mas and birthday stuff next time. I'll end with these AMAZING pics taken by my incredibly talented best friend Krissi Kai! This was over X-mas time, so Belle was one year old! :)

A Kiss from Belle!

On Sunday night (01/03/10) while I was trying to hug on Belle and snuggle with her before bed,(She's normally very anti-cuddle) she gave me her first kiss! It totally melted my heart! In true brute Belle style, she preceded the kiss with a slap in the face...I like to think it was her trying to figure out how to grab my face and pull it to her! haha...but the second time she got it right...of course I thought she was going to try and hit me again (and then laugh.) But instead she grabbed both sides of my face with her hands, pulled it towards hers, and kissed me on the lips! It was seriously the most precious thing ever...and yet to be repeated! But hey it's a start! :)

Belle's Vocabulary

I was going over the words Belle know...it seems like she's constantly adding another one...so I thought I'd start to jot them down. i think it will be fun to look back this time next year and see where she was...

Belle's Vocabulary:

• Daddy (was her fan favorite for quite awhile)
• Mum (haha...she uses the British pronunciation) or Mama
• Uh-oh (another fan favorite)
• Doggie
• Light (new one this week, she says as pointing to a light or ceiling fan)
• NO! (and she only yells this word...it's hilarious. Well for now...)
• Snack (sounds more like 'ack!')
• All done (This one's debatable, but I could have swore I heard her say it tonight after I did.)
• oh, and her absoulte #1 most used word....'Hi!' She says it all the time to anyone who can hear her, while waving "hi" with her hand as well. It's adorable.

Belle at 1 year