Yippie!

Stella is officially walking now! Yay! I am so proud, she even decided to do it in front of Grandma & Grandpa too! She is so thoughtful! :) Before, she had taken 3 steps by herself but never more than once. Last night she took 4 or 5 steps to me, and then did it at least 5 more times! I was too caught up in the moment to get video. It also sounded like she referred to me as "Mama" yesterday too, which was almost better than the walking!!! She is the most spectacular thing ever. We have also weaned from all the formula, and all bottles except for the bedtime bottle. That one is going to be a B*TCH! She is doing really well drinking the Vitamin D milk from her cups though! She is also doing good eating the "adult" food too. Mostly the Gerber Graduates meals. She still loves bananas, and she now loves mandarin oranges too! Except she calls them "Buh" (Banana) Here is a good picture of her new teeth!

1st Birthday Extravaganza!

I am so behind on posting! Wow, the 1st birthday stuff was so draining! Let's start with Stella's 1st Birthday video!

Here are some pictures of the birthday girl on her actual birthday!

Stella next to the outfit we brought her home from the hospital in!

My first clue she didn't want to wear the hat to her party!


We had Stella's 1st birthday party on Saturday the 5th at 2:00! We had lots of guests in our tiny house! Grandma & Grandpa, Grammie & Pawpaw, Uncle Jack, Uncle Adam, Aunt Nikki. Melissa & Ellie, Tara & Baby Hannah, Erin and Mommy & Daddy! Stella got lots of nice things, a lot of dresses for summer! Here are some pictures from the party... It was a duck theme!

Here is the invitation!

Stella's smash cake!

Ducky Punch!

The duck cake & cupcakes with bubbles!

I have a million of the Birthday Girl, but will try to narrow it down!

In her pretty outfit & bow that mommy made!

Mommy and her favorite baby girl EVER!

With one of her toys!

And let's get to the best part, THE CAKE!!

And lastly a few of our sweet party guests!

Grammie

Baby Hannah

Miss Ellie!

Cousin Erin!

Thanks to everyone for making Stella's 1st birthday so awesome!

First Haircut!

Stella got her first haircut last night! She was super good as usual! They had the booster seat but it didn't strap her in. But she just sat there like an angel! :) She seemed to enjoy all the people getting haircuts, but that makes sense since she is so nosy!

TA DAAAA!

I have the most amazing 10 Month Old!

Stella is 10 months old today! She just amazes me more every single day! She is starting to pick up on words! She is so good at saying Bye-Bye & waving. But she is not getting Hi much yet! She says something similar to dog, but she mostly says it for every animal! Gog-dog-gog sounds. And she loves to pick things up and "talk" on them like they're phones. So, if I say, "Say Hello!" she picks up whatever she has, a remote, a phone, a shoe, and puts it up to her ear. She doesn't say hello, but she makes a sound like Haa. So that is pretty close!

She also loves to take baths! She has some bath books & toys and she loves her rubber duckies! We have 4 or 5 now! So, a few nights ago she wanted to play with the lever that lets the water out of the bathtub. I told her no, because I didn't want her to try to play with it all the time. But then I decided she could do it before I got her out of the tub. Then the next night, I got the towel and said ok let's get out. That little genius, all on her own, pushed the lever down to let the water out! I was like, WOW! But I thought maybe it was a coincidence. Then last night I got the towel and said let's get out, and she did it again all on her own! :)

SANTA!

Well, we celebrated Stella's 9 month b-day by taking a trip to see Santa & Mrs. Claus. That was something Uncle Dave's Lyons Club had. It didn't go very well. But you can't really tell from the first photo. Then I tried again, to see if she was ok with Mrs. Claus....but no dice!









Obviously I could not be satisfied with these as her first photos with Santa. So, we made a trip out on Sunday to find a good mall Santa. That was almost a fail when I saw how much they charged! Cheap package is $20 and you get 2 5x7s. We started at St. Matthews, but their Santa wasn't very authentic. So, we tried Bass Pro Shop since their Santa is free. But the line there was really long. Then we went to Jefferson Mall, and Santa was at lunch for another 45 minutes. But I decided we would wait, and it paid off! I was very happy with the Santa, and he did a good job keeping Stella from freaking out! Finally got my perfect Santa photo!! :)

Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Stella's first Thanksgiving!

And these are from her first time meeting Great Gramma West!

Happy 8 Months...Giggle, Giggle!

Well Stella was 8 months old yesterday! She decided to get me a present! She had a long laughing, giggling session before her bath. It was so great! She has started to laugh more! Grandpa came by last night and brought her some special Heritage tomatoes! She loves tomatoes, unlike her Daddy!

Got some video of the giggling. What we are doing is chasing the dog around the house! :)

Hip Hip Hooray!

Well, My Amazing Daughter Stella can CLAP! Holy moly she is growing up so fast. She is just so smart! I can't believe she can clap. She had been trying for a while, but ended up just clasping her hands together and swinging them up and down. There are so many things I want to blog about her, but I always forget. Dangit. She is still not sleeping well at night. Still don't have any teeth though. I wish we could go back to the 10 - 11 hour nights we had a while ago. :( It's ok though, she is perfectly healthy and amazing, and that is enough for me! We are so blessed! She was a Dalmatian puppy for Halloween! She was so cute in her costume. I made the ears, and the tutu.



She can stand up in her pack in play, and then hold on to the sides and walk all the way around. She is really good with her balance when she stands up holding on to something. She can walk if she's holding onto her push toy. She loves her Strawberry Shortcake Princesses book! She also LOVES to eat, just like her mommy!

Hi!

My baby girl can now wave at you! It is insane! She is so amazing! I am trying to get video, but so far just got a little snippet of one. She is developing so quickly! I just looked at a video from a couple months ago, and I can't believe how much different she looks and acts! It's so crazy. We also went to Huber's over the weekend and had a great time. I will post pictures of that. We have been having more severe teething symptoms for 2 weeks now and still no teeth. She started out with being more cranky, low fever, more drooling, and sticking out her tongue constantly(which she never did). Then we kept the fever, cranky, bad sleeping habits, and added diarrhea(not too bad, but compared to her once solid poo, it was diarrhea). We got back to some good sleeping, she stopped sticking out her tongue, but never lost the fever. Now we have solid poo, tongue sticking out, fever, bad sleeping...COME ON TOOTH/TEETH!!

Huber's & Pumpkin Photos

We Love the Park!

Well I have been trying for a while to get a video of Stella laughing, and a couple days ago she started sticking her tongue out a bunch. So, I wanted to get video of that too. So, she had her first experience with the swing at the park yesterday and I got video of all three! Awesome! Plus I got some fantastic pictures too!