warm wednesdays

Bella and I went to the park this afternoon and played on the swings. She just absolutely loves to fly through the air, and we love seeing her giggle and smile. Such a treat. It is SOOO warm here (and I mean really, truly warm. My sister called me yesterday from MN and said, "It's so warm here - I'm loving it! It's like 40 degrees!" Sad, Betsy...): 70 degrees is what my thermometer is saying right now. I have a ton of things I need to get done today, but I'm hoping to catch some time on my back porch and knit or read in the sun. Doesn't that sound heavenly??

It hasn't always been warm, though. The past couple days have been frigid, but I get so stir-crazy in the house while Trav's at work, I beg him to go on walks with me when he gets home. I make sure to bundle my little girl up, though, so she doesn't suffer. Yet, ALL of her hats do this to her (see above picture). Maybe it's because she has a small forehead, I don't know... but it makes me laugh and drives her nuts. Sooo.... I've pulled out my knitting needles again and am aiming to make her this precious bonnet (see pic below). This will hopefully solve the problem.

Bella joined us for dinner last night in her Bumbo (great invention!) and she chowed down on three orange wedges! Boy oh boy... did she love those! She had so much pulp on herself, the table, the Bumbo, and us by the end... her bathtub was full of orange pulp that night. We got some pretty cute video too...

Bella has begun sitting up, too. I'm making her practice everyday (which she's growing to like more) and she's getting quite good at it! Both Travis and I can't believe she'll be 6 months old next week. Time has flown by (in some aspects) and we are loving getting to know this little personality. She's a hard egg to crack, but when you succeed, it's worth all the effort.

We finally set a surgery date for her lip repair: March 18. So, just a couple more weeks now and we'll be heading back to CA for her second surgery. We're not really keen on going through everything again, but I think it might be just a tad less stressful, seeing as we kinda know what to expect, we aren't just reuniting after 10 weeks of being apart, etc.

While I've been busy keeping tabs on Bells, Trav has been gone a lot. I feel as though he's this third housemate of ours that shows up every now and then to live with us. Work has been filling his time, along with TDY's, flights, learning a new type of jet (the RT model of the KC-135... if that means anything to you). He also just committed to coach high school boys in baseball this spring, and got asked to play for the base's softball league. Along with playing for our church's softball team, he has quite a handful of opportunities to choose from. I wish I could encourage him in all areas, knowing how much he loves baseball... but I needed to be honest and say I couldn't handle him being gone that much. I don't want to make him sacrifice, but isn't that just life? Full of opportunities and sacrifices. We'll see how much he ends up with on his plate (hoping that another deployment doesn't pop up too soon, too!).

This is super long and I apologize! Happy Wednesday!