Zoo Day

We went to the "doo" today with Whitney, Lucas, Sophie, Sheila, Matej, Kenzie, Julie, and Jace. We had a great time! All of the animals were out and the weather was wonderful...

Kenzie and Stella
Matej
Lucas ( I got him to smile for the camera by bribing him with snacks)
Sophie
Stella is ready to go home

What we've been up to...

Well, we have big news! Josh is being transferred to Atlanta...which means we are being transferred to Atlanta. We put our house on the market yesterday. We had a family work day on Saturday and you would have thought it was Extreme Home Makeover around here! We had PaPa Mike powerwashing, Grandma Sandy cooking for everyone, Grandma Polly weeding flower beds and planting flowers, and PawPaw Johnny weed eating. It was very exciting and everyone worked so hard! It was such a blessing to have help. I don't think we could have done it alone. Anyway, the house looks amazing and we hope it sells quickly so we won't have to move separately. Here's our virtual tour if you know of anyone that wants to move to this area-http://www.realestateshows.com/259875

Stella kept insisting on emptying out our bathroom cabinets, so we finally had to put locks on them. At first, I didn't mind picking up 12 bars of soap, 6 deodorants, a hairdryer, four cans of shaving cream, makeup brushes, etc. every morning....but now that we are moving and our house has to look like no one lives here, it had to stop. Since I have always let her do it, I couldn't just start saying "no," so I just pretend that I don't know how to open them when she looks at me while tugging on the doors. I act surprised and say "They won't open? What happened?" Is that wrong? It saves a tantrum if she thinks I am just as confused as she is about it.

I baby sat my friend Holly's baby Brayden on Friday. Stella reverted to her infant days for awhile. She had to do what Brayden was doing. She showed a bit of jealousy, which is to be expected since she doesn't have to share me with anyone yet. Brayden was a breeze-she was the one that wore me out! Kristi is my hero for keeping Stella and Payton for us for so long. I don't think I could do that every day! What am I going to do when I have two babies? We'll have to wait on that for awhile....
Stella and Brayden (4 mos.)

We went to see Hunter and Grant play basketball in Sugar Land and I was amazed at how well she did! She watched the games and even offered up some coaching advice. We'll have to do that again!

Hunter and Grant

New words: Ste-duh (Stella), wayne (rain), o.k., dido (diaper), bobo (no. 2) She is also signing a lot more now: book, all done, milk, more, daddy, shoes, and she taps her wrist or sways like she is holding a baby if she wants to watch "Baby Signing Time"

Home life

Well, Stella has been keeping me very busy! The days go by too fast. She is constantly on the move and starting to CLIMB! This has been cause for some furniture rearrangement and reevaulation of the safety hazards in our home. New words: "thank you," "cracker," and "mine." At MDO, they told me that she carries around a little plastic baby doll all day and they asked if she had a lot of dolls at home. I said "no" and couldn't believe it had slipped my mind to buy my daughter a doll. She has trucks, legos, block sorters, a scooter, a tent....what, am I raising a boy? No baby dolls? Grandma Polly saved the day and mailed a doll for us and she loves it. She plays with her all the time and wants to dress her and feed her. So cute!

She also just got over roseola. Sound like a pasta dish? No-it was a surprise from Mother's Day Out and a childhood illness we can check off our list. We have been so lucky that she has not been sick. Her temperature reached 104 on Friday and I was terrified. The doctor was not. The ruled out the flu and bacterial infections, so he said it sounded like roseola and this was perfectly normal for her age. She ran a high fever all weekend and got a rash on her stomach and back yesterday. That siginifies the end of roseola. One down, how many to go?