Busy Busy Busy!

Man oh man, Bella and I have been keeping so busy these days. Continuing our membership with the Alachua County Mamas this year has kept our calendars full! It amazes me how many things there are to do in Gainesville for families. While going to college, I always thought this would be a boring place to raise a family. However, there really are so many different activities to do as a family.

So, since I am a little behind, this is going to be a rather long post.... I have warned you all! I am also going to start at the beginning of the month, because I realized I haven't documented any of them...

So on April 5th, Bella and I ventured out to Sun Country Stay and Play. We almost didn't go and the night before I had planned for us to stay home and do some rainy day activities. However, that morning the horrible rain storms we were having the night before had seemed to settle. We got ready that morning and headed out! Well, it was still drizzling and the rain seemed to sooth Bella back to sleep. So, when arriving I had to wake her up. In doing so, I placed my keys next to her car seat, and then locked my keys in the jeep! And of course, it was still drizzling at this time. Luckily for me, Ann had arrived just as I was taking Bella out of the car. I walked Bella inside and Ann stood with Katherine and Bella while I walked outside and "unzipped the jeep" and grabbed my keys. I was SO glad I had Ann to help me out that day. It would have been miserable to stand in the rain while trying to hold Bella and trying to get my keys out of the Jeep. And while I really don't like driving the Jeep right now, it is very easy to retrieve items I have locked inside!

The last time Bella had been to Sun Country was at 8 months so I was excited to see what she could do now at 15 months! And... Just as I suspected, she could tackle almost everything! She bounced super high on the trampoline, enjoyed jumping

into the foam pit, braved the bounce house, walked across the balance beam, slid down the slide, played with the big balls, and of course ran around a lot! The only thing we didn't attempt were the bars... haha. And that will be for another time. Ever since Bella was a baby, she has always been so adventurous. I love that she is always willing to at least try something once! At the very end of Stay and Play, they always end with a

Parachute game while they sing some songs, and then at the very very end, they have a snack. Well, this time, Bella really enjoyed the parachute and even "sang" along with the songs! While she still doesn't know the words to many songs, she loves to

sign itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle, and kind of tries to sing the end of the abcs. Bella also really enjoyed eating her granola bar at the end. First time getting snack! Needless to say, we will definitely be going back. :)

That same week, Bella and I made our way to the Splash Park! The Splash Park is a park in Alachua that has a bunch of different fountains that the kids can run and play in. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as big as I had expected. But Bella still had a blast. Initially, she was a little timid. But I think this had a lot to do with the fact

that the water was cold and it still wasn't hot outside. As the weather warmed up and she realized what to do, she was running in and out of the fountains and having a blast! We stopped midway through our splashin' fun to enjoy our picnic lunch. Bella had

a cheese quesadilla, a buddy fruit, and some goldfish pretzels! It was a great day! We enjoyed playing with Katherine, Olivia, and Claire.

Wednesday the 13th, Jonathan didn't have to be in the lab so he came with us to the Strawberry Farm where we got to pick our own strawberries! A lot

of the moms I had talked to said it was easy for them and their kids to resist eating the strawberries because they had dirt on them. Well... I had a feeling this wasn't going to be case with my little sweet pea. Bella was so excited to get her own bucket and carried it the entire time. As we were walking to the fields, she found an old strawberry that somebody had dropped. She was so excited to find a strawberry on the ground and she hadn't even seen the rows and rows of berries! Once she realized where she was, she was so excited and kept pointing and saying bae bae for berry. Jonathan and Bella had so much fun eating the strawberries while I sat back fretting over the berries not being washed! Jonathan explained to me over and over that kids have been doing this for years. And if the farmers thought you could get sick or there was any type of liability they would explain this to you before your picking adventure. So, Bella tried to please us both. She would bite the strawberry and then place it in her basket. lol. As it

was, when we were checking out, the lady laughed at the strawberry juice on Bella's face and told us that eating them before they were washed wasn't going to hurt her. I guess I was just being a little paranoid. I still laugh at thought of all the strawberries I washed that were half bitten.

Thursday, the 14th, Bella made it over to one of the ACMs home playdates. We were finger painting at Amy's! She did such a good job supplying the paints and creating a room for the kids to paint. Bella had a lot of fun feeling the paint in between her fingers. She smeared so many different pretty colors together and we even got a few hand prints on the paper before we cleaned up. This was a joint play date, so we had both the wee ones and the tiny tots. It was so much fun to see how far Bella really has come since she was a wee one!

And our last fun meetup was today the 16th. The family got ready this morning, had a quick stop at McDonalds and headed off to Alachua for their "Egg Drop". TooToo had heard about the event about three weeks prior to today and was pumped to get the Easter Egg Hunts started. And this was supposed to be a special one because they would be throwing eggs out of a hot air balloon! Unfortunately, it was a super windy day and they couldn't get the hot air balloon up. But we still had fun! Bella got to "drive" a sheriff’s swat vehicle, pose with the Chick-Fil-A cow, take a picture with the Easter bunny, play a bunch of games including find the egg in the sand, fish for a prize, and match the duckies together! My favorite part of the whole day was probably watching her dance to the cha cha slide! haha. As soon as we got to the park, she started dancing to the beat of the music. She loves to dance. After we got settled in, we walked over to let her participate in the cha cha slide. She would jump and turn around and "cha cha"! It was too funny.

There was only supposed to be one parent per child during the easter egg hunt, so Jonathan went in with Bella while I took pictures. Once Bella figured out what was going on, she quickly tried to pick up eggs in put them into her basket. She got a good bit! Even with the crowds of people! She later got to trade them in for a goody bag. Afterwards we made our way over to El Torros for some lunch. We were a little disappointed in the food and the price of the food. But after you have been to Las Margarita's, it's hard to compete!

Well, we are caught up to speed! This week is going to be another busy week! Monday morning, Bella and I will probably meet up with our mom's group from NFRMC (I need to post about them too!) and then depending on Jonathan's schedule, we may attend the ACMs Easter Egg hunt that night. Wednesday we are going to attend an Elmo Party at the Little Shop in Haile, Thursday we are hosting a Tiny Tot Easter Egg hunt, and then we have Good Friday and Easter! Busy, Busy!

(all my pictures are mixed up... i will figure it out later...)