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

Christmas Pictures 1

Finally found some time...

I know it has been forever since I posted. I have just been really busy at home and at work and Stella and I have been sick. For me it started on Christmas Eve. I was on antibiotics for a week and have been blowing my nose ever since, we're going on 20 days now. It was definitely an ear infection/sinus infection. I can't remember the last time I've been that sick. Stella started with a runny nose the Tuesday after Christmas and then it went into severe chest congestion. She had to have chest x-rays and everything. Today she's been the best since then, no runny nose or anything and her congestion is gone too. I'll keep the vaporizer in her room for a few more days just to be sure, but I think we made it!!!!

Since I didn't get to posting until now I am just going to post a bunch of my favorite pictures of Stella from Christmas. She was a blast. She had so much fun and opened all her presents with just a little help from me. She got so much stuff and it's not over yet. We still have to do Christmas with John's family. We were supposed to do it yesterday but we got yet another foot of snow Friday and Saturday, so we postponed it yet again until next weekend. So she'll have a ton more stuff coming from her grandma and uncle and aunt.