Stella's First Birthday!!!!

I cannot believe how fast the last year has gone. Stella is 1 already!!! I am up tonight creating a slide show DVD for her birthday party on Saturday and looking at all of the pictures from the last year has been very emotional for me. When people tell you that you won't know the real meaning of love until you have a child, they are not kidding.

Today I took the day off from work and John was off too. We took Stella to the Dinosaur Discovery Museum in downtown Kenosha this afternoon and then we just hung out and played at home. She was given a treat of tapioca pudding with her dinner, but she didn't really like it. She wanted more bananas instead. She's not into treats much at all. She doesn't like chocolate and she gags on ice cream every time we offer it to her. She just likes her fruits. Good girl!!!

Saturday I am having a party for her at our house with just grandparents, aunts and uncles and our close friends with kids. Since the house is so small we have no room for extended friends and family, as it is we'll have about 15 people. I can't wait to see what she does with cake and frosting. I'm making just white since she's not into the chocolate. Hopefully I finish this slide show tonight and then I just have to wrap her gifts and get ready.

I know the next year will go just as fast, and the next and the next. I try to savor every minute and a in awe of her every single day. She is so smart, and such a good baby. I am so proud to be her mother and enjoy every day that I am blessed to see her grow.

Some More Pictures

Updates on Stella

It is just amazing how quickly they grow, I can't believe she is going to be 10 months old this weekend!! She is so smart and I love to watch her as she does everything because you can just see her little mind turning, figuring things out.

Her new things are that she says Mama and Dada when she sees us, as opposed to just when she's playing. So she has definitely linked the words to us. She can blow kisses. She waves Hello and Goodbye, two different waves. She wants to stand all the time and she jumps up and down in your lap if you hold her. When we try to set her on the couch she straight legs us and wants to stand up against the back of the couch instead of sitting.

She loves to have books read to her and when I stop she cries. She watches me as I say every word and she concentrates so hard. I love to watch her face and see her smile as I change my tone depending upon what is going on in the story. Of course she tries to grab the book and rip the pages but I just hold them where she can't reach. We have some of those cloth books and some that are really thick cardboard that she can't rip so I let her play with those.

As far as eating goes she has yet to get any teeth but she eats all of the food groups out of a jar. She will eat her vegetables and meats now. She used to only eat fruit and turn her head for everything else. Lately she seems to be not wanting to drink her bottles but I think that is because her teeth are trying to come up and that is bothering her. She loves anything on a spoon though. We just make sure she gets the minimum amount of formula she needs. I know she won't starve.

I think she is going to skip crawling all together and just go for walking. She reaches for toys and rolls over both ways, she just has no interest in getting up on her hands and knees, she'd rather stand.

Short on time...

Lately I just feel like when I get home from work, after I have made dinner and get that all cleaned up it's time to get Stella ready for bed and then I am ready for bed. I hope once Spring and Summer come and it's still light out once I get home I'll feel like I have more energy and time to do things once she is down for the night.

It's been a little crazy at work too because my position is changing and we are expanding the Planning and Allocation team overall so there are tons of extra meetings and classes and my role is different. I am now the Assistant Merchandise Planner for Handbags. I think I am going to like it, having a change of pace and different merchandise to learn all about, and besides, what cosmetics woman doesn't love handbags as well??

My goal is going to be that I start adding a post once a week, even if just a short blurb. I always have stuff to tell everyone about, I just never get into the basement to do it, and I can't really post at work, even though I am right now. We are planning to get a new computer once we get our tax return so that will help too. Our current computer is one I bought my second year of college, back in 1998 and it is so slow at booting up. It also will not load updates anymore so that tells you it is done. Time for a new one. So in a few weeks when we have a new computer that will motivate me to post more as well. In the meantime I have to make an effort to get down there and do it on the old one.

The long awaited Ma-Ma!!!

Stella says Ma-Ma now! She said it for the first time on Dec 30th. She said it once during the day when John was at work and I wasn't 100% sure that she'd said it because I was cooking in the kitchen and not concentrating on her. Then that night when he came home from work she was on the couch playing with him and she said it loud and clear. At first she saved it for special occasions just as she did with Da-Da when she started saying that months ago. Now she says Ma-Ma pretty regularly and will chant it in a round of 3-5 at times. It's such an amazing thing that we get so excited over that and while she's saying the words, she doesn't really even know what she's saying and she's not addressing it to us. But it still means so much.

She has a lot of her consonants down already, B, C, D, H, L, M, N, P, R, S, T and V. At 8 months she makes all of those distinct sounds. I think she's going to be a chatter box when she's talking. She jabbers all the time now and will make one long jibber jabber like she's telling a total story. It's hilarious. She even has expressions when she does that and her tone of voice changes through out.

Classic Christmas Overload!

I captured this after Stella was done opening all of her gifts from Santa. She was clearly overwhelmed and a bit tired from all the excitement!! Shortly after that she took a nap.

Christmas Pictures 2