8 months old!!

What do you do to celebrate?
Eat cheese toast...

And let brother give you a ride on the gator!!









What else does Stella do now?
Drinks out of a cup--no more bottles!! We made the transition this week. It was really an un-event. Stella made no fuss and kinda just did it herself. I started offering her formula in a cup, and next thing I knew it had been two days since she had used a bottle.
Pulls up. On everything.









And says dadadada. These are all her new accomplishments from just this week!!
Her other favorite pastimes are making diaper changing a contact sport, learning how to bother her brother, and becoming more ad more addicted to her tie blankets.



We have made her extras to have everywhere. At some point we are going to make a "travel size" small one that is easier to take places. She likes the tie parts and grabs one of those and sucks her thumb. It is absolutely precious, but I can see trouble ahead with this little habit.
But she is one sweet little girl!!

Week 1

We survived. Though at night I feel like I might not make it to the next day, I continue to wake up the next morning. Survival is what this journey is all about. We can do this. We are working out some minor kinks (i.e. how do I get to eat supper again), and dealing with missing daddy a lot, but we will figure it all out.
We might have even had a great week if lightning had not struck another pine tree in our yard and taken out the a/c, hot water heater, lights in several rooms, both tv's, the dish receiver, apple tv, cable modem, wireless router, and microwave. This week was spent getting the house livable, and I'm hoping to get cable and Internet back this week.









We stayed with my parents Sunday night and were able to get a/c and hot water working so we could stay at home Monday night.
Here are some pics from the week.





















Porter painted pictures to send daddy.





See my teef?





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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Texas weekend

Friday morning Jared and I left dark and early headed toward fort worth to move him in to his apartment.



We pulled in to leibrock village a solid 12 hours later. Because it was nearly completely furnished it was the easiest move either of us has ever had. He was completely moved in in about 2 hours.





We spent the next day getting his dream dinners, stocking his fridge and pantry, and exploring fort worth to find all the places he would need to go.
One of our buggies at Walmart.


We found Fuzzy's taco shop near the TCU campus. If I would have known, I would have gotten him Fuzzy's gift cards.


Purple margaritas.


Saturday night we dined at Reata's restaurant.








And then back to Fuzzy's on Sunday for lunch before we left for the airport.



My mom and bill brought porter and Stella to the airport to pick me up.






The kiddos had a good weekend with nana and papa, but we were all glad when we all got to stay at our house together again.


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Porter's summer

This child is a nut!!!









These are pictures from our last beach trip. He loves catching crabs off the dock and swimming in the bay. He also likes going to "the sand beach with a roof and a shower" aka the public beach behind The Back Porch. He is super fun at the beach this year and prefers to be in the water. He loves to jump the waves and go as far out as we can stand up. He has no fear.

He has also mastered swimming under water and picking up dive rings on the bottom of the pool. He perfected this skill at aunt ding ding's house in st Pete. He said he likes her pool better than Nana's pool. It is a little smaller and he can swim from one side the other other and it has little benches in the corners.









He also learned how to catch lizards all by himself. Aunt ding ding has a lizard farm in her yard and porter got lots of lizard catching practice. (BTW, aunt ding ding does have an uncle mark but he is obviously not as cool. "uncle mark" doesn't even sound cool. Aunt ding ding--that's a happening kind of name. Everybody wants to hear more about an aunt ding ding.)



Porter visited a children's museum and liked playing boring uncle mark's guitar (I have a feeling I'm going to catch the wrath of boring uncle mark at Christmas--he certainly has gotten "exciting" gifts for porter). Porter is definitely a musical child and constantly makes up his own songs. One of those songs recently consisted of the lyrics "my mama tells me to be quiet. Because Stella is sleeping. She even tells me to be quiet when I'm outside." (I'm a terrible parent.) He has a mouth that won't quit. We plead with him to be quiet sometimes and his response is "but I need to talk." That is obvious. We are painfully aware.



Superhero porter has been flying around our house lately.



He is most interested in the cape blowing in the wind behind him. He is constantly looking behind him to watch it and meeting something stationery and hard in front of him. Epic fail for a superhero.



Tumbling class is a new activity for porter. His is his little outfit. This is the best I could do for a picture. He is not interested in having his picture made unless there is candy involved.
He is enjoying this class and he is going to continue going in the fall. Anything that involves physical activity is right up his alley. And it surely can't hurt his strength and coordination.
He is going to miss his daddy so much. That is truly his best friend. He reminds me of this all the time. "you're not my best friend yet," referring to the fact that I will be his best friend after jared is at school. (We need to work on the whole being a good friend concept.) Tough transition ahead....


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Stella's summer

This child has come alive. She is crawling, won't stay still for a diaper change, and is finding her little voice.



She loves her bath--crawls all over the bathtub and likes to splash. Her big brother pours water on her and squirts her with bath toys and she doesn't care. She loves to suck water out of the bathcloth or nerf ball and will work tirelessly to get to it if it is out of her reach.



She will not be still for a diaper change or putting clothes on. By the time we get to this point after bathtime we are both worn out from the struggle. She's like wrestling a squishy alligator that has gone into the death roll.



She has a serious "bits" addiction. If you give her this blanket she immediately grabs one of the little fringes and sticks her thumb in her mouth. It is so cute, but I wonder how cute it will be when this blanket is no longer yellow. I have thought about it. I recently purchased fabric to make a bits army. She now has two in the rotation with more to come.



Porter loves to hold Stella and he really want to, as he says, "hold her like mama does." Meaning on the hip with one arm. The problem is Stella is almost as big as him with no letting up in sight. He has outgrown some of her 6 month clothes and we are on the verge of having to buy 9-12 month pj's. And when she gets to that size I will need to buy pants with no footies because she will probably be walking before she is out of those. That just blows my mind. It seemed like porter would never walk, and I can't get over how fast it goes by with Stella.






Sleepy baby. Lately we have been having trouble with Stella sleeping at school. She ha one days where she only got a 20 minute nap all day, and routinely only sleeps for 1 - 1 1/2 hours all day. That's just not enough for Stella. She likes 2 long naps a day, so I have had a cranky baby in the evenings. It all culminated in an episode Wednesday and Thursday while I was in Montgomery to take my test, so starting next week porter and stella will be at a new school. Just in time for preschool to start for porter!!



Stella is my happy, content, quiet baby. She definitely likes certain people and is not too sure about everybody else. She is quick to give you the Pappie lip of she doesn't know you.



Stella likes porter but prefers to be a spectator most of the time. He can be a little rough and scares her when he is loud, but I am thankful that he is such a good big brother.



Stella is becoming more mobile, but is definitely not as active as porter was. She doesn't give this thing near the workout that porter used to.
Stella is eating stage 2 foods well and having snacks of puffs and juice in a cup. She also drinks formula from a cup now and we will probably be getting rid of bottles soon!! Now I just have to work on getting her to hold the cup herself.
This little girl has changed so fast in the last month. I can't imagine how different she will be to Jared next time he gets to see her.
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