Our two daughters

This is going to be long...but there are videos at the end, so bear with me...it's been a long few weeks.

I will start with Gabriella, since she has been such a focal point the past two weeks. After my original ultrasound a few weeks ago we found out that she has something called EIF (extragenetic intercardiac focus), basically it is a freckle on her heart. We went and had a higher level ultrasound done this week to see if anything else would show up, and everything else came out perfect so we have opted to not do anymore testing. We did get to talk to the ultrasound doctor and she explained that it does not effect the function of the heart and is either dense tissue or mineralization, but it typically goes away before they are born. I think God just wanted Joel to see his new baby girl before she was born (since he couldn't come to the first one). The tech did do the 3-d and 4-d so we got to actually see her rolling around and grabbing her feet, and we now have a dvd of bella and gabby. I thought Bella was a mover, but Gabby has her beat. I didn't feel Bella moving until into the 6th month, but I've felt Gabby for the past few weeks. Not everyday, but she is a kicker - especially when I was rocking Bella the other night, Gabby wasn't too excited with her on my tummy. I also think God has blessed us with another LARGE baby! Typically babies are about 8 oz at 19 weeks; however, at 18 1/2 weeks she was already 10oz and 2 inches longer than most. However, my due date has only moved up a few days to June 9th (according to the 2nd ultrasound)...I know my dad is hoping to hit his birthday on the 5th, but I'm hoping she comes two weeks early like Bella so I'm not delivering a 10 lb baby.

Well, onto Bella (our crazy girl). It is so hard to put into words how much she is growing physically and mentally. For awhile she has been so mobile and into discovering everything, but now she is trying to bring us into her world to share what she's learning. She throws little tantrums and then looks at us to see our reaction or if we are paying attention to her...she'll roll around on the ground and get more and more dramatic then get up laughing or smiling. It's also wonderful that she understands what we say now (most of the time). She has favorite books and I love when she brings them over and sits on my lap to read them. She still loves peek-a-boo and walks around with her blanket over her head a lot of the time. She woke up about 10:30 the other night and I went in and laid her down, I opened the door and she had her blanket over her head and she pulled it down and went "boo"...it took everything not to laugh out loud...I laid her down went back to our bedroom and started cracking up.

She also has followed in her daddy's shoes and loves to dance and sing. One of her favorites is "if you're happy and you know it" and "itsy bitsy spider". Below is a video of her dancing to her fridge dj before going to school...

Last night, we got home and I thought she would go straight to bed since she had been going to sleep around 5 all week....boy was I wrong. I was attempting to get pjs on when Bella decided she wanted to play in her diaper until about 7:30 (I think she just wanted to see daddy). She ran around playing and singing and terrorizing the dogs. Here are a few videos of her playing with her dishes and monkey chair...