Bella is putting things IN containers now!  Yes, I know, it sounds very simple.  But this is a skill that we have been working on very hard.  I am so proud of her!  I am also very amused by her new "hangout".  We have a buffet style piece in our dining room, really just a three-drawer piece with an open shelf on the bottom.  Bella has decided that is her favorite place in the house.  We have put a puzzle and a couple of books there for her, and she climbs up there and just sits and "reads".  She looks so cute just sitting there in her little cubby.  Maybe it is the one place that she considers her own, as Steve and I certainly can't fit there, and Addie and Lily choose not to.
Steve and I decided right after Bella was born that she was going to sleep in our room until she was about nine.  Well, we made it almost 19 months, and I think we may have hit our cutoff a bit early.  Not only have I not turned on the t.v. in my bedroom since last summer, but Bella jumps up and decides it is time to wake up the second my eyes open in the morning.  She will sleep through Steve's snoring, but if my elbow or knees crack in the morning as I try to slink out of bed, she is up like a shot.  So I started painting her room last night.  I am going very experimental with the paint job, straight out of the Benjamin Moore fancy schmancy flyer.  I wanted to do something that she could grow with, but still soft neutral colors.  I got the trim and two walls painted last night, and I hope to fininsh tonight.  I will post pictures when everything is complete!  Hopefully she likes it, I know I am very excited...well, nervous.  I have not slept apart from Isabella ever.  And I mean EVER.  She slept in my belly, then by my side in the hospital, then next to my bed, then by my side in the hospital again, and now back to next to my bed.  This is going to be a HUGE deal when she sleeps in her room.  I will admit that we are keeping a bed in her room, too, and I may have to sleep in there a bit.  Steve and I check to make sure she is breathing during the night as it is.  Do you think we will be able to have her sleeping in another bedroom?