November and December...

Hello, Everyone! We hope that this season finds you all happy, healthy and warm! :) I had some good pictures to share with you, so I thought I'd send a few on through. These are from Thanksgiving Day (the ones where Stella is wearing the brown shirt and orange skirt), a few from decorating our house for Christmas and then there are some we took today with her in her Christmas Dress.

Stella continues to grow and amaze us every day. She is so funny and has her own little personality. She is officially approaching the 'terrible twos' we've decided. She is determined to have things 'her way'!..and if she doesn't get that, then beware, a 'fit' may ensue! :) The bad news for us is that she is so dang cute, even when throwing a fit, that we can't help but just laugh and give her kisses!

She is talking a lot now - she can pretty much say anything you ask her to. She is learning her letters and numbers and is loving all the books that the Simons sent her! She is 32 inches tall and 20 pounds now (at her 18 month well-check).

She has been loving all the Christmas decorations, lights, etc. She knows that Santa says 'Ho, ho, ho' and although I don't think she really understands the present concept yet, she is definitely having fun with the whole season!

She is so beautiful and such a blessing. We are amazed by her every day - in so many ways.

Enjoy the pictures and we wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween happy fall, from Stella! Stella has been loving the fall season. She is obsessed with pumpkins which she pronounces 'kinkins'. She sees them everywhere and points each one out to me all day! It's so cute. So, you can imagine she loved pumpkin carving with some of her cousins. For Halloween she was Tinkerbell. It was such a cute little outfit on her although she didn't really like wearing it! She kept pulling on it and saying 'oss'? 'oss?' (off). But she did have fun seeing the other kids at our neighborhood Halloween party and trick-or-treating! Most of all, as you can see below - she loved the candy!

She is doing great, by the way. She weighs 19.5 pounds and is about 29 inches long. She had an ear infection last month, but other than that has been very healthy even through the fall season so far. She loves to play outside and is looking and acting older every day! She's talking really well for her age and can even sing little bits of the Alphabet song.

Enjoy the pics!

More one-year-old pictures...

Hi, Everyone! I thought I'd send a few more pictures of Stella from the family pics we had taken in July. I've had such a difficult time getting these pictures to post because of the high resolution or something! I eventually had to load these pictures one at a time!

Anyway - obviously, she is now a couple months older than this. She is doing great. She is walking everywhere - and even running! She can say all kinds of things and can repeat just about anything you say to her in one or two word segments.

We've been getting out all our Halloween decorations and she is loving them! So - it's been fun to let her see them all and play with them. This is the first holiday yet where she has actually been a little bit aware of it. We are excited for Halloween. She is going to be Tinkerbell!

She loves playing with her cousins and thinking that she is one of the 'big kids' even though she is just a little tiny thing next to most of them! She also loves all her aunts and uncles and grandparents. She is not, however, very fond of being babysat by anyone but those specific people! So - thank goodness our family lives near by!

Talk to you soon!

New Pictures

Hi, Everyone! I just wanted to share some new pictures of Stella that we had taken a little over a month ago...for her first birthday. We finally got them back and I thought you'd like to see some of them...these are all of the ones of her by herself (all the rest have us in them too). There are a few more too that are really cute - but I'll have to send them in a later post because the blogger site is down right now and won't let me upload any more pictures...So - stay tuned! :)

She's doing great, by the way...walking like crazy and talking a lot too. She's such a special little girl. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives. We hope you are all doing well.

13 and 14 Months!

Stella has had a great summer. She is growing and learning new things every day, it seems. She is just the cutest little thing we've ever seen.
No - she's still not quite walking efficiently yet - but she is taking a few steps at a time and while a bit wobbly, she is finally starting to get it! More than walking, though, she is really starting to talk. It's the cutest thing. She can now mimick just about anything you say to her and is saying a lot of things on her own too. Her favorite being "What's That?" or "Who's that?". She calls our dog by name now and can say Elmo! She loves her grandma and grandpa and says their names quite often! She is also saying the names of her cousins and can identify them by name in pictures.

She loves to swim and is learning to 'blow bubbles' in the water and kick her legs. I think by next summer she'll be really ready to learn to swim!

We went on two vacations this summer - one to Lake Tahoe, California and one to Seal Beach, California where we stayed in a beach house. She had a great time with her cousins on the beach and is finally old enough to actually play and dig in the sand...and boy, did she ever! :) There are some pictures below of the vacations and just some other random ones that have been taken over the past couple months.

She is, as always, still small for her age. But, she is starting to fit into some of her 12 - 18 month size clothes and is wearing some of her size 3 shoes! So - she is growing - if slowly! We love that she is petite - it's so cute.

We hope you all are doing well and are staying cooler than we are! :) Now that we're done with our summer vacations - we are looking forward to the fall!

Stella with mom and dad in Lake Tahoe.

Stella at Seal Beach the first night we were there. She was still becoming accustomed to the sand!

After a few days on the beach she was having a ball rolling in the sand and digging away...not to mention trying to eat the sand!

Stella playing with her cousins Grace and Hannah. She thinks she is a big-girl when she plays with them.

Getting brave down by the waves!

Reading her favorite book at the dinner table in California! She was much more interested in that than in her food.

We thought this was such a funny picture of her. We all had a good laugh when we saw it! Happy little baby!

So dirty! A bath was definitely in order after this particular afternoon on the beach!

Cameron with all his ladies! This is Stella, Hannah and Grace, our nieces.

This picture is a funny one - Stella with her little cousin (the only one younger than her right now). She is always messing with him and trying to give him his binky, etc. Here I caught her in action poking him right in the eye! Silly girl.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LITTLE MISS STELLA!

Stella's birthday was a lot of fun. I have to admit, though, that the whole day, I was a little weepy...I don't know if that is something that is going to happen to me every time she has a birthday or if it's just because it was her first one! I just could not believe all day that it had been one year since her birth. It seems like no time at all has gone by - and on the other hand, it sort-of seems like we've known her and loved her forever!

The day of her actual birthday, Cameron and I took her out to have waffles at our favorite little breakfast place. She loves waffles. Then we met her cousins for lunch and just had a relaxing day. Her actual party was the next day, Saturday, which was a Luau party (sort-of a Hawaiian theme since it was a pool party!). We had Hawaiian food, lots of fruit, hawaiian punch, popcicles, pink and green hawaiian / flower decorations and I made her cake with Hawaiian flowers all over it (above! Sorry - for some reason, on my new computer I have no control over which pictures end up where on the page. They just go where they want and I can't move them!).

She got lots of cute little gifts and all her cousins and a few little friends came to the party.

It was a great day!

Eleven Months - Pool Days!

Hello there! Well - it's been a little over a month since I posted. Stella has continued to grow and become more and more beautiful and funny and her latest craze is going to the pool. She loves the water and loves hanging out with her little cousins who join us there on many days. She especially loves her younger cousin (who is three months old). She won't stop trying to see in his carrier and trying to give him his binky. (Usually she ends up sticking it in his eye or something - but she really makes an effort!).

Let's see - what else is new with her...she now has four molars which she just cut this week. She - as you know - is turning one at the end of this week. We are having a pool party for her with all her little cousins and a couple little neighborhood friends. We have mixed feelings about her turning a year old!...it's so fun to see her grow - but we are sad that she is passing such a big milestone already! We have just truly enjoyed each and every day we've had with her over the past year.

Here are a few recent pool pictures of her! :)