Doing the laundry...

So Bella has now entered into the climbing stage of her life. She loves to climb everything including chairs, toys, and people. Too bad we don't have stairs to keep her entertained. She also is saying a few words like ma ma, da da, and cat. Okay so she mostly says cat because she thinks that the cats are much more fun than we are. She likes to show me where my mouth is, but sometimes it gets a little side tracked and she pokes me in the eyeball or up my nose. She also has super grip strength, which it is very hard to detach her when she has her tree trunks around me. I do know where she gets it from. Yes, I know you all are saying Rick because he is so athletic and strong, but you are wrong. Let me take you back to the good old days of the fitness center at Dixie College. Many of you do not know this, but I won the strongest leg competition. I know you are all saying yeah whatever, but really I did. I leg pressed 340 pounds. Holly can attest to it. I know that it is crazy and all with me now being only able to leg press a feather, but it was true. I have the certificate to prove it (Rick didn't believe me either until I presented him with the solid evidence). So as you can see she does get her super power strength from me and not her dad, who is very athletic and goes to the gym pretty much every night.

Here is a little video of one of her many adventures around the house. Don't worry no babies were harmed in the making of this video. She was alright after the fall and got right back into the laundry basket to watch Sesame Street.

P.S. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. The spell check on the blog is not working and I am too lazy to read through this post again :).

Ode to Utah

So even though I love the Dallas weather and also living in the same city as the Dallas Cowboys, I have been missing home just a little bit. Here is my top reasons that I miss home and the top reasons that I don't.




Miss...


1. I miss family (of course) and your right Amy I do miss my friends a lot too :)!

How could I not miss these guys!!

2. I miss the mountains. I hate when spring and fall come around and it is tornado season. Not so fun to hear the sirens go off and also living on the 3rd floor of an apartment.

3. I miss Pizza Factory, Pasta Factory, Cafe Rio, The spaghetti Factory, Paula's (I know I am weird, but they have good beans and salsa...Oh and they have that delicious orange delight), and Nielsen's Frozen Custard. And now I hear about an In & Out coming to St. George... looking forward to my visits so I can go there too!

4. I miss feeling like I am normal :).

5. I miss it only taking fifteen minutes to get wherever you need to get.

6. I miss watching the news and having the first 20 minutes be about a cute dog that saved a turtles life and not be about all of the murders that have happened over night (Ahh Dallas one of the most violent cities :) ).

Don't miss...

1. I don't miss Salt Lake winters!!

2. I don't miss brushing off snow and then scraping off my windshield in a skirt in -10 degree temperatures.

3. I don't miss St. George traffic where some people think that even though the speed limit says 40 mph it really means 25 mph.

4. I don't miss seeing the injury lawyer ad that says "One call that's all" by that weirdo lawyer.

5. I do not miss Utah's construction on roads that takes over 4 years to complete a 1 mile section.

Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

I was so sad to hear the news of Pres. Hinckley's passing, but at the same time I think of his love for his wife and am so glad that they are together again. It makes me ponder about my love for Rick and how I am truly grateful for eternal families. Pres. Hinckley was a testimony to the truthfulness of this church. Even through my past inactivity and wondering whether or not this church was where I belonged, I always knew that Pres. Hinckley was a man of God. I am so grateful for his work and service for this church. He was everything that I needed in a prophet; he was caring, kind, light hearted, and spiritual. I loved hearing him speak and knowing that somewhere in his talk he would make me laugh. I loved when he spoke of his love for his wife and how it made me want my marriage to be like that. I remember when he spoke in the Dixie Center in St. George. I had purposely pretended that I knew how to sing so that I could be closer to him in the building. When he walked in using his cane and had his wife by him, I had chills and had a confirmation that he was a prophet of God. I will truly miss him. He definitely was a prophet for my generation.

Baby with Attitude

So Bella is definitely a diva! As you can tell with the first picture, she views me as the paparazzi and does not want to be bothered with pictures. Today I went shopping with my friend Tiffany and Bella just lounged out in the cart with her leg propped up and her arm resting on the back of the seat. She loves to shop and as Tiffany and I looked around the store she played with her new shoes and did not want to let go of a Hawaii themed swimsuit. Rick is worried that I have corrupted her with too much shopping. But how can you not buy girl clothes, they are so cute! Anyone who is interested Target just got in some really cute spring clothes.

The second picture is a throwback picture to when she was three months old. That is Bella's friend Lilly. Why I post this picture is because we were over at the Kraus family's house and Bella turned into a Mini-me J-Lo. She was telling Liana off by almost shouting at her and pointing her finger at her and this lasted for about 10 minutes (no exaggeration). No real words came out, but she seemed to think that she was telling Liana what was up. It was hilarious. I think that she was jealous that Liana was paying to much attention to Lilly and not her (which is expected since Lilly is her daughter and all). Rick seems to think that she gets it from me saying that I am bossy and it is rubbing off on her and I respond by saying obviously it works, you married me right :)!!

I am so glad that I came into the blogging world. I have reconnected with old friends and I love seeing all of your great blog pages. Love it, love it, love it!!

Brushing Teeth

Okay so I just love that I waited until my daughter was nine months old before I started brushing her teeth!! I was informed recently that I should have been brushing them at six months and yes I am married to a soon to be dentist! She actually loved brushing her teeth and she made her dad so proud.

Life has been kind of sad lately... the Dallas Cowboys lost and we don't know what to do without Big D football anymore! We are going to start cheering for the Packers! Go Favre! Everybody in Dallas, of course, is blaming it on Jessica Simpson, which is getting kind of old! You wanna know why they lost... because T.O. wasn't utilized, Crayton had butterfingers, and the defense could not stop crap! Yes, the Larson family is still very bitter! Oh well there is always next year :).

For all of you who have been asking me how to post without a gmail account, I don't think you can. I am not an expert at this blogging thing, but I don't see how you can. So you can just email me your comments.

Bella loves to climb stairs and thinks that she is such a big girl when she reaches the top. She is finally holding her own bottle, which is so great! She is getting huge (both weight and height)! She just seems to be getting so big and I sometimes have a really hard time lifting her up :). She is our "chunky but funky" daughter. We sure love her.

Dancing Bella

Okay so my daughter actually can dance despite her dad and mom being totally without rhythm. She cracks me up each day with the things that she does. I can say that this age is so fun. Her personality is really coming out. I will be honest and say that the newborn stage was not my favorite, maybe it was because all of her eating and choking problems, but this age when she is crawling and able to interact more is so much fun. So anybody who is willing to take care of my next child during the newborn stage and then give it back to me when they hit about six months to eight months that would be great :)!!

Life is getting back to normal being back in Dallas. We enjoy our walks and hanging out with friends and spending too much at Target. Her sleeping is still off. She now thinks that her new wake up time is 5 am, I don't think so!! Well I am not too good at this blogging stuff, so I better end before I keep on rambling on.

Christmas Vacation

Whitni did such a great job on our Family Pic's!

Well after seeing how many of my friends were blogging, I thought that I better get my blog updated!! Christmas vacation was so fun! We got to see family, good friends, snow, and a lot of food! It is funny how much more you miss your friends and family after going to Utah to visit. It was such a great Christmas for us especially since it was Isabella's first Christmas. We were definitely spoiled by our families and feel very blessed by all of their kindness. Bella had a great time with cousins and friends. Santa found her in Salt Lake and in St. George. The plane ride that I had been dreading, actually turned out really nice when I sat by an elderly man from Scotland that was so nice to us. Come to find out by the end of the plane ride he was LDS and his grandson was in our primary. Crazy how prayers get answered.

Bella spotting Santa and attacking him!

Her first time being in snow.

Our little Rudolph!! Aren't we mean parents :)!

Bella is still on her steak and lobster dinner. We tried to transition her back to Nutramigen, but her body was unable to handle it. Kind of disappointing, but we are just glad that she is feeling better. She is crawling like a mad woman and is pulling herself up to stand on everything! We left Dallas with her just barely learning how to crawl and now return back to Dallas after Christmas with her crawling like crazy and being able to stand. She is just a fast mover and I am having a hard time keeping up with her! I love this stage!!! Her cute, but feisty, personality is so fun. She is laughing so much more, even though she still is a very serious and cynical. She still raises her one eyebrow up at us when she thinks that we have "no clue what we are in for". She definitely is a busy body.


Rick just started up his second semester of his third year. Only 1 1/2 more years to go!! It is so exciting, but yet soon we are going to have to be grown up. We have been students for so long, I don't know how we are going to fair as being real contributors to society :)! I am still working from home as a medical transcriptionist. It definitely has been a great job so that I can stay home with Bella. Well I better finish, but I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday.