Welcome Fall!

This picture happened after the blow up slide at the Briarlake Fall Festival. She is not upset because it scared her. She is upset that I came up to get her down. She did not want to slide. She only wanted to run back and forth at the top, bouncing off of the sides and laughing. She did this for a good 10 minutes before the guy said I could go up and get her to come down. She definitely knows how to get her 5o cents worth.

First cotton candy...she wasn't a fan.

Not her first pizza

Halloween shirt from Mimi-she loves it!

An attempt to get a picture of them together

Pushing up on all fours....as my mom said- "Get out the gates!"

Pensive moment

Ellie wanted her to blow bubbles-Stella thought the wand was a little too close for comfort

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship

Andrew and Lisa-Lisa is amazed at Andrew's reading skills

Walk around the neighborhood

She's ready for the walk!

Ellie likes to be expressive with paint

I had to take a picture of what Stella does when I m working on a project. She decides to set up shop directly under my feet when I am doing something-this happened to be cleaning windows.

Sisters

Another pensive moment

Playin' in the t.v. box

Happy girl at Sesame Street Live

Tired girl at Sesame Street Live

We enjoyed having the Benson family last week! Ellie is such a sweet girl and they really played well together. A couple of days before their visit, our basement flooded. That was a fun couple of days. Josh was out of town, so our good friend Marcie came to the rescue. She brought 10 jr. high/high school kids over and they helped clean it out in no time. My friend Marie kept the girls and that was a life saver. I am so grateful to everyone because I have a tendency to freak out and get into the fetal position when things like this happen.

Other than that, nothing much has been going on around here except growing up. Sophia is getting two teeth, getting up on all fours and rocking, scooting around on the floor....she is still the happiest baby on the block and we are really considering keeping her around. Josh doesn't want to put her in the nursery at church, so yesterday she entertained everyone. I can't tell you what the preacher talked about because I was too concerned with her crinkling the program, passing gas, cooing, and making faces at the little old ladies behind us who loved talking to her and didn't know how to whisper.

Stella is talking so much! I asked Josh yesterday if he remembered not being able to wait until she could talk. Now we wonder if she will ever stop! We took a walk around the neighborhood yesterday and I don't think she stopped to take a breath. Today we were on our way from school and Sophia was fussing (hungry) and Stella said "Mama-she's freakin' out." Kind of sounds weird coming out of a toddler's mouth. This afternoon, she started communicating with me through her monitor.

"Mama! Mama!"

"Yes, Stella?" I yell from the living room.

"I need you to get my balloon. It's by the door." She wanted to take a nap with her balloon today. This was about an hour after the "nap" was supposed to begin.

"You can get it, Stella. I am not coming up there again." This would be the third trip to the bedroom. The first was when she yelled that she had to poop. I ran upstairs and put her on the potty. "I need some privacy," she says. I went to our bedroom and began putting away some clothes. "I'm finished! I pooped in the potty!" "Great job! Do you need to tee tee?" "No, I am all finished!" Potty dance, potty dance, back to bed with panties. Minutes later-"Mama! I tee teed in my bed! I need you to come up here right now!" Second trip upstairs. Anyway, back to the balloon discussion.

"I can get my balloon?"

"Yes."

"Oh, okay."

"Mama?"

"Yes?"

"I can come downstairs and sit on the couch and watch Diego Go Go with you."

"Not yet. It's nap time."

"Oh, okay. Bye!"

"Bye. Talk to you later."

"Okay, mama."

Never thought the monitor would be used as our intercom system. It's pretty handy, actually.