Oh, the craziness!

For Bella's birthday she got to go and pick out a new bike with Chip last week. She loved this one for a few reasons, but most of all because it has a kickstand. She is a very practical girl. She also loves anything and everything Pokemon- no matter how often or how hard we try to talk her out of it. She's loved the game and characters and cards for a few years now, and it looks like her love affair with Pikachu isn't going to end anytime soon.

You just can't change some things about kids- so you learn to love the things they love. As long as it's all good. =)

I sometimes think my kids are trying to make me crazy with the things they love and how they like to spend their time and energy, but it also makes me love them like crazy, because their individual likes/dislikes is what makes them each special and unique. Bella has her own sense of humor and is by far the one who takes things very literally and she likes things to be fairly obvious to her. She is a very smart girl and gets good grades in school- but she does things her own way and at her own speed. I have no idea what she will choose to do in life when she gets older, but I do know it's going to be fun to see how she grows and blossoms and changes. She's going to do it all her own way. I know that much already.

Besides posting these pictures from her birthday, I just have to write this down for the record too. She was having a conversation at the dinner table the other night and it ended up going like this:

Ava said, "I know where Pokemon stuff comes from; they made it up in Japan." Bella added, "I know, Ava. Lots of video games and electronic stuff comes from Japan and China." Then there was a pause... followed by this thought from Bella, "Hmmm... I wonder why they can make a lot of cool stuff like games, but they still didn't invent the fork."

She was so serious about it too.

The thing is she had chosen to eat at a Japanese Hibachi restaurant for her birthday meal just a few days earlier and the kids all had so much fun using their kid's chopsticks. Even Crew ate a whole plateful of Chocolate Cheerios, one by one, with his sticks. I ended up holding back my laughter so that I wouldn't hurt her feelings, because she had obviously been thinking things through. And it's just the sort of crazy, unique, thoughtful way I would expect my Isabella to be. I love that girl and all my kids and today I wanted to hang onto some of the little reasons why. Before they really DO make me crazy! =)