And Now, the Moment You've All Been Waiting For

Here it is, with no further delay, BELLA'S FIRST RECORDED DRUM SOLO!

A Few More Photos

Here are a couple more photos from the Baltimore trip this past weekend.

Bella's Adventures in Baltimore

Here's a bunch of photos from Michele and Bella's trip to Baltimore this past weekend.

See Bella. See Bella Rock. ROCK BELLA ROCK!

I had to copy these two photos over from my sister-in-law's blog, they easilly rank up there as two of my favorite photos of Bella.

Michele and Bella came back from a quick trip to visit her brother Mark and his family (and a good chunk of the Cooney family) out in Baltimore. We'll be posting plenty of our photos in the next couple of days, but needless to say, Bella had a great time out there playing with her cousin Carolina and seeing the rest of the family.

The good news for me is that I'm finished with another class, and I definitely got an A, so that is good news for me (especially since work is footing the bill!). Onto two more classes this summer, good times.

We actually have no plans for Memorial day weekend, no idea how the heck that happened since every other weekend is booked. We'll most likely be spending it finishing up Bella's Big Girl Room, and will hopefully be moving her over to it then.

College Fun

As you all are pretty much aware by now, I've been going back to college for the past year to work on getting an Associates degree in Engineering. It's been going well, I can't complain about that, especially since my company is helping to foot the bill.

Everything has been going smoothly, and we're less than a week away from the end of another semester. I'll be especially happy about the end of this semester, not because my classes were especially difficult or anything, but because we've had two bomb threats at my college.. IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS!

Yeah, sad, two bomb threats at a community college. I don't even know where to begin with that one. To the best of my knowledge, they were both bogus, I was never worried at all about it. I actually was oblivious to the first one, they had just started letting students into the buildings just minutes before I arrived for class. Last week's was a little more of a production, they were completing sweeping the area when I got there for my class, and there was a lone, sad, pathetic news chopper floating overhead hoping for some primo footage. Sorry pal, it was a dud, hope you got some great shots of me and three of my classmates hanging out in the parking lot.

In my first round of college, all the way back in ancient history to the years 1992-1996, the craziest news we would hear would be something about a student getting so drunk that they would nearly be dead or something to that effect. Or something more amusing, like the time one of the members of my friends' fraternity decided that it would be a good idea to go jogging at midnight, while running past one of the, umm, shadiest parts of the city. So much so that police officers found him jogging in the area and told him to get in the car.

Now, things like bomb threats are becoming commonplace. Oh well, no point in going on about it, since I can actually remember when I started driving, gas was just breaking the $1.00 per gallon mark. Now THOSE were ancient times.

Plenty of Good News Around

Here are more pictures from Bella's past weekend, including more of Bella helping to decorate the Happy Mother's Day cookie for her mommy, a couple of photos from Bella's trip to see the Sesame Street musical, and Bella's amazing finger painting techniques.

I forgot that I haven't posted yet to say a big WELCOME HOME to Michele's brother Mark, who just came back from Iraq last week, we are thrilled that he is back home and safe. Bella and Michele are heading out to Baltimore next weekend to see Uncle Mark and his family (including Bella's buddy, her cousin Carolina, and her new younger buddy, cousin Augie). Unfortunately I have to miss out on the festivities, since my final for my class is that following Monday and I do need to study for it. Dammit.

Another highlight from our weekend: we asked Bella, "who is your favorite singer?," and she said "Mommy!" So we were later watching a live Radiohead performance, and I asked Bella who her favorite drummer is, and she said "Daddy!" Guess all that Rock Band playing has paid off....

(Oh, and the photo from the Sesame Street show took place just before they lobbed those live powder kegs into the crowd. Now that livened up the show)

Just found out about the last piece of great news for the moment. As you all are pretty aware, I was already pretty psyched about Lollapalooza this year from the stellar lineup they're already announced. About 2 hours ago, they just announced the lineup for the kid's stage, and it features none other than Bella's favorite band in the world, THE TERRIBLE TWOS!!! Yes! So now, not only is my favorite band there (Radiohead), but also Michele's favorite band (Butch Walker), and now Bella's favorite band. Count on Bella and Mommy to make an appearance there this year, they will soon learn of the magic of the Mystery Meat Rib Sandwich.

Do I Even Need to Say That We Are Busy?

Of course not... May has been jam packed so far, and is only going to get busier from here on out. We've had two bigger priorities so far, we've planted a bunch of flowers in the front of the house and mowed the lawn, which was starting to look as shaggy as my hair. We're also starting to get Bella ready to move on over 5 feet to her soon-to-be big girl room.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a pretty big day too, about 6 months ago we had bought tickets to go and see Elmo in Musicland (or some name like that), basically a Sesame Street music/play thing that was an early gift for Bella's birthday. That finally came and went, and luckily Bella had a fantastic time. More on that later.

We had a very good Mother's Day weekend, it started off with a special breakfast for the mommies at Bella's daycare. Bella later made some finger paintings for Grandma P and for us at home, so that was a lot of fun.

Our other crazy moment of the weekend happened when we were in Target doing some shopping on Friday. Michele and Bella were near the bikes in the store while I was looking around, and I heard Michele loudly telling Bella she was doing a great job in a surprised way. Turns out they had pulled one of the little tricycles off the shelf, and Bella managed to ride the trike around the aisles all by herself without our help! She always needs our help when she tries at home (since our house is on the top of a hill), but she was riding around like a pro in the store. What a shock.

More to come later...

Happy Birthday to Daddy and Drum Solo

Here are two more videos, the first is of Bella singing happy birthday to me, then the second is Bella's first recorded drum solo!

Photos from my birthday

Starting off is the cake that Bella helped Mommy decorate for my birthday. Yeah, we've been watching a lot of "Ace of Cakes" lately as you can tell...

After eating the cake, Bella decided to draw another one of her masterpieces for us.