the journey to three 1/2

26 April 2009

gardening

today, we spent the day planting our mini veggie/herb garden and plant for our front porch. stella LOVED being outside all day getting dirty :)

all clean, waiting for momma to bring the plants to the back

ready to dig in :)probably just dumped a plant out of that pot she's holding

helping momma mix up the veggie soil

snack break

refueled and ready for action!

being silly

all dirty

carrying buckets

busy girl!

she carried those buckets back and forth for an hour or so, then sat in the middle of them and played - then she cried when i started pulling them away from her to plant our tomatoes in them!

it was a fun day outside - i know where we'll be spending most of our summer!

we took a family trip to Denver to see baby marianne april 22 - 25. she is only a few weeks old and is so tiny and sweet! stella wasn't really jealous as much as she just pretended marianne wasn't there. we tried to get her to hold her so we could take a picture and she was NOT having it! it was fun to be a small part of welcoming marianne and get to snuggle her and love her while she is so tiny - and it was nice to be able to give my jilli a hand. as always the trip felt too short, but i'm sure jill and jerry were ready for the screaming 2 yr old to be gone :) even though they love her very much.

momma and baby

stella and aunt jilli

stella being extra excited trying to run away from daddy after brunch on sunday

all 3 of us after brunch on sunday

stella kissing marianne bye

we are so glad we were able to come visit. can't wait to see you 3 soon (we hope). we love you!

01 April 2009

HAPPY SECOND BIRTHDAY STELLA LU!

i can not believe my baby is TWO. it happened so fast. when we brought her home she wasn't moving at all. no crawling, no pulling up, no walking. she was still very much a baby at one year old. in the last year, she has changed SO much. she is running around like crazy and talking NON-STOP these days. i love the sound of her voice. we got some video of her talking today, i'll have to get that posted :) i am just completely amazed by her. she really is the center of our world. so many things have happened in this last week, i have been all warm and fuzzy inside. sometimes i look at her and i just can't believe she is mine. all mine. we love you stella lu! happy happy day baby girl!

for her birthday, we went together to pick stella up from daycare and went straight to the park to play!

after the park, we had our favorite for dinner. MEXICAN. then we went home for cupcakes! of course she had to blow out candles AGAIN since it was her ACTUAL birthday!

after cupcakes, it was time to get measured on the door frame! we have been marking her height every few months or so. she loves getting it done and stands up really straight for us to mark it.

then, stella had her bath and got all ready for bed. this is where we sit when i dry stella's hair. then we always play in front of the mirror for awhile. she is such a ham :)

28 March 2009

today is the one year anniversary of the day we came HOME with stella. i can't even describe how good it felt to be HOME with her. once we landed on US soil and made it through immigration, we were so relieved. then, when we flew into KC, we were met by our 2 closest non-family family members :) aunt jilli and uncle jason picked us up at the airport. it was so odd to have other people see us as a family and see HER. everything seemed so surreal until we got HOME. i think i was terrified someone would take her away from me. we have been loving on her a little more this week and squeezing her a little tighter. we can't believe it's been a year :)

today we had her second birthday party. she doesn't officially turn 2 until wednesday, but today seemed like a good day for a par-tay. we had lots of good friends and family there. stella LOVED being the center of attention and played her part well :) i made these funny hats for everyone to wear and we had lots of food - and cupcakes of course!