Just some pictures.

I caught Bea singing to her baby.

Bea helps GranPee open his birthday gifts.

And she helps him blow out his candles on his Angel Food cake that I made for him.

My life as a pillow.

I just spent the last two hours as Bea's pillow. One of those hours I actually slept. But that last hour! I wanted to move and stretch but I didn't dare because this was the first time in a long time that Bea actually had a good nap. Well a long time since she's been sick. She would fall asleep but then have a coughing fit and end up waking herself up. We went to the doctor today only to find out that her infected ear looks 'worse' and that her other ear looked 'horrible.' :( Here I thought she'd shaken the ear infection but still had the cold. And she has 'sleep' or I like to call them eye goobers that develop in her eye, sometimes when she's not even sleeping. She's still relatively happy though, she hasn't been acting miserable. We have new antibiotics to take and hopefully she'll be all better by her birthday.

Play Time

Beatrice has been playing with her Christmas presents all weekend. Here she is playing with the suitcase that Tutu got her... I don't think she understands that she's not supposed to get into the suitcase.

This is the 'outfit' that great Auntie Patty bought her. I wanted to see Bea in it. She looks like a big ball of pink cotton candy! This is perfect for the upcoming rugby games we'll have to go to.

Birthdays!

Izak and Oupa's birthdays were yesterday. Here are some pictures of Beatrice helping Izak open his presents and helping him blow out the candles on his ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. Tomorrow is GranPee's birthday and later in the week we will be celebrating Great Grandma Rose's birthday early. (Since she's visiting.) I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures. Also Bea's 1st birthday is coming up! The invitations have already been sent out. I can't believe she's going to be one already! :(

Christmas

Well, Beatrice's first Christmas has come and gone. Here are some of the pictures we took... Bea and GranPee on Christmas eve.

Bea's first Christmas present from us.

Beatrice playing with the puzzle her great auntie Mel and great uncle Rick bought her while

wearing the angel wings her tannie Juanita bought her.

Christmas day, GranPee helps Bea look at all her presents under the tree.

Beatrice enjoying her Christmas morning waffle.

Christmas dinner, Bea borrowed Izak's Christmas crown from his cracker.

Deck the Halls

Well, Bea finally got to visit Santa! She didn't smile... but she didn't cry either. It looks like she wanted to though...

Izak and I took Beatrice to the 'crappy' mall to have her picture taken with Santa. We figured it wouldn't be as crowded since there aren't many stores there and we were right!

Here are some other pictures we took at GiGi's and GrandPee's before we left to visit Santa. I had just finished helping my mom decorate one of her four trees. I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself...

Once we got back from the mall Beatrice was filled with the holiday spirit and decided she wanted to help GiGi decorate her western tree. Here she is with Izak putting a sheriff's star on the tree.

Seriously?

Since Izak stayed home with Bea on Monday and Gigi stayed home with her yesterday... I decided it was my turn to stay home with Beatrice today. She's not as irritable as she was, but believe me she's still irritable. She took her medicine this morning and then took a nap. Now she is up and terrorizing the place! She's already pulled all of her clothes out of the bottom two drawers of her dresser. Then she crawled into the kitchen and found a piece of carpet, a tiny strand of carpet and stuck it in her mouth. I thought I was too late, because I felt around in her mouth to no avail. I put her in her 'bouncy chair' and I realize that she's still chewing on something. So I get down on my knees and I fish around in her mouth and sure enough I pull out the strand of carpet. ICK! Seriously, this girl is going to be the death of me.

Miserable

We are all miserable. I thought Bea was getting better but Sunday night she was so irritable and she kept waking through the night that I thought it had to be something more than a cold. And I was right. She not only has a cold she also has an ear infection. Izak stayed home with her yesterday and took her to the doctor. Bea has pink medicine that she needs to drink every morning and evening for 10 days. She does not like the way it tastes so Izak and I have to get creative and find ways to hide it in her fruit. Izak also went to the doctor yesterday and he has to take a Z pack. How nice that my family will get better and I'll be the only sick one. What is the point in going to the doctor for myself when I know there is nothing they can prescribe for me, since I'm still nursing. My nose is in a constant state of irritation. It feels like I am going to sneeze, but I hardly ever do. UGH!! How did I manage to get sick twice and all within a couple of months?? It totally snuck up on me. :(

Can you hear that jingle jangle sound??

Despite being sick Bea was able to give me a couple of good shots in one of her Christmas outfits that Gigi bought her. She also helped me decorate our tiny tree this year. I'm using the fake one that my mom bought me years ago. It's teeny and sparsely decorated, mainly because I didn't want to pull ALL of our ornaments out of storage and only use a couple of them. I was really thinking of the clean up time. Izak got the lights up on the house. One of our other neighbors were also putting up lights so I felt a bit better about not having decorated yet. Christmas is coming so fast that I was almost thinking that we'd end up not really decorating. Which is sad I know, but who wants to decorate just to pull it all down in a couple of days. I guess I know why some people decorate Thanksgiving weekend. We're not exchanging gifts this year, which is fine with me. We're just getting gifts for Bea, which is a bit silly because she won't really understand, but oh well. That's what we do around Christmas time, give little children all they could want and they end up being fascinated with the box that the gift came in. :) Jumping back to the Christmas tree... I don't even know if I want to take a picture of it because I know my brother will laugh.

We were at Target a couple of weeks ago and I saw this music kit. Bea loved the jingle stick at Toddle Fitness. And since we had to go to Target to exchange some Christmas lights I thought it might cheer her up a bit. She really loves them, even the tambourine!

My favorite picture by far. Beatrice didn't want her headband on her head and was pulling it down and off and somehow I caught her mid-pull down.

This is Bea trying to put her headband back on. She sort of looks like a flapper. :D

With the help of Dad we were able to get her headband on for one good shot!

Now it looks like a beret.

Sick House

Now we're the sick house. :( We're all sick. Bea, Izak, and me... it's pretty pathetic. Bea and I have runny noses and we're coughing. Izak's been coughing for three weeks now.... ugh. We're miserable. And we even had to miss our annual friend's Christmas party. :( Hopefully we'll all be somewhat better by tomorrow. AND hopefully we'll all be well by Christmas.

Sharks!

Bea, GiGi, Auntie Stacey and I went to Birch Aquarium in San Diego for a friend's baby shower. Bea had a great time looking at all the fish and feeling the moss in the tidal pools... (don't ask where those pictures are... ) We were just about to leave and we saw the shark cage! Well, since Izak had taken me to see the sharks when we were in South Africa one year, I ended up not getting a chance to see them (long story) but I would have crawled into a cage just like this. So I thought it only fitting that I get a couple of pictures of Bea in the shark cage. See Ouma and Oupa!? Bea's ready for the sharks!

Gigi bought Bea a shark that sings the Blondie song, "One way or another I'm gonna getcha.." It also moves it's tail. Beatrice just loved it! She laughed the first time she saw it and all the way home she held it and sucked on his fins.

Happiness Is...

Beatrice's smile when I walk into the room. When I go to pick her up at daycare and she sees me and starts crawling to me as fast as her little legs and hands can go. When she wakes up in the morning with a big smile, happy to see me and her daddy.