My mom asked him for an abstract painting and gave him carte blance to do whatever he wanted. What he came up with is a pop art infused re imaging of the famous Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People.

I cannot express enough how absolutely beautiful this thing is in person. I took a pic of it to show off but really the pic doesn’t do this work justice. To give some scale it’s 36″ x 36″ Oil on Canvas. Its absolutely beautiful.

Size: When last me measured her she was about 27″ tall and around 19lbs. She’s probably bigger by now since that was a couple of weeks ago. So far she only has her two bottom front teeth, and they are only about half way out. When she smiles really big you can see them.

Mobility: She’s completely full of energy and independence now and crawls at full speed. She loves to pull herself up on coffee tables or the boundaries of her playpen to stand up and can navigate the edges so long as she has 1 hand on something to steady her. I’m pretty sure she’s got the strength to stand on her own but she seems to be more interested in getting back down to crawl where she wants to go.

We recently picked up a walker, it’s a little Jeep (very cute) and she’s kind of getting the concept that she’s in control of it. At first she was just standing there hopping up and down, but she’s learning to move it around now. If she’s not in the walker we move the coffee table and make a little kid play zone in the living room with pillows, the couch, entertainment until and the ottoman as the boundaries. We just toss some toys in there and let her run amok. She seem to really like that since it allows her to move around quite a lot.

Sounds: Bella is pretty loud, she likes to scream and yell in that high pitch sound only little girls can make. She laughs all the time and has a couple of words under her belt. She’s been saying Dada (actaully dadadadaadDAADADADadadadaaaadadada) for a while now, but recently she’s added “Mamamama” too. She also likes to make buzzing sounds like she’s imitating a car or a motorcycle. She also has clapping down pretty well and will randomly bust out a clap session when she likes something. When you see her if you’re lucky you’ll get the Bella trifecta which is the big smile, a wave and then some clapping. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it does she’ll melt your heart.

Entertainment: Bella used to be an all Disney Channel girl, but they have so many repeats she’s kind of over it. We’ve since expanded her channel line up and now she likes, Hi-5, Yo Gabba Gabba and Hip Hop Harry. She’s also getting into PBS Sesame Street line up. Most of you have seen her playing piano, she’s still pretty into that, she loves to try to play my guitars with me, and really anything musical is pretty interesting to her. If you kind of sing and hold a note, she’ll try to sing it back to you. If you change the pitch higher or lower she’ll do the same. She’s got a good ear! haha. She’s also starting to dance when music number on her shows come on. It’s actually pretty darn funny, I’ve tried to video tape her but she’s a little camera shy about it.

Travels: We really haven’t gone anywhere to far yet. We’ve visited friends and family in San Diego and Orange County and taken a few day trips to the Zoo, Wild Animal Park and Sea World. She’s able to recognize animals now and even though she’s not totally sure what they are, she likes looking at them and talking to them. I think we’ll be taking her on her first Disneyland trip soon to continue her mommy’s tradition of the Dinseyland life. I’m looking forward to the first time she seems Micky or Minnie, I’ll have my camera’s ready to capture every moment. Stay tuned on that.

Phia and I are just loving every moment watching her grow. She’s a great tempered little girl, she wakes up every day with a smile on her face. She very rarely cries and it’s really only if she needs something or is over eating peaches. We’ve both grown more as people and have grown attached to this little girl in ways I don’t think we could have imagined, I guess being a parent is just one of those things that can’t be explained, you just have to live through it. But I guess I can say now that I finally get it.

Here are some recent pics of the baby: