twenty months old

Stella is 20 months old now!

I can't believe she will be 2 so soon

Stella is 20 months going on 4 years old

she doesn't seems like a baby AT ALL anymore.

She's all over the place

She talks all day long!

I have to tell her to be quiet sometimes

Because she is a chatter box.
But she seriously can communicate just about every need, want, or pain.
It's nice.

Some of my favorite things she says are...
"I love you too, or I missed you too"
when we ask her if she wants to go
to nursery or bed she usually responds with
 "no, I stay with mommy and daddy"
"go cougars"
she can't get over Christmas
so when she spots a Santa she says
"Santa Claus is coming to town"
when she puts on something pretty or when I'm finished doing her hair
she likes to say
"I'm a princess!"

Stella loves to go to basketball games.
Probably because she can be as loud as she wants
and climb on the benches.
Last night, I took her AF's game to watch Brooke dance
and she was so preoccupied with the caveman mascot
she kept her eye on him all night
and she's talked non-stop about him.
My poor dad was holding her
while she went on and on and on about the caveman

Stella knows a lot of people's names
and says all of them correctly
but for some reason
she refuses to call Bryce and Becca's baby, Zoey, by her full name
she always has called her ZeeZee
but recently she changed to ZoeZoe
I'm not sure why she insists on calling her by a nickname.
 

Stella does not think she needs to sleep.

She fights me for her nap each day

and it's pretty ridiculous

how difficult it is to get her to settle down and go to sleep at night.

She is definitely one of those kids that functions

on much less-than-average sleep.

 

Stella has recently started enjoying Disney movies.

Finally, something besides Mickey, Doc McStuffins, and Elmo

I'm trying to introduce her to lots of shows

but by far her favorite right now is the Toy Story movies

She loves Buzz and Woody.

She also likes the animal shows

like Lion King and Finding Nemo

The Princess movies as her least fav right now

I'm sure we'll get enough of them down the road though.

 

Now, Stella has started thinking a lot of things are "scary":

Ursula the Sea Witch

the washing machine

loud trucks outside

Most of the time it's pretty funny when she runs up

and says
"what is that, it's scary mom"

but it's not funny in the middle of the night

when she has nightmares

because she's been having some of those lately

 

Stella loves to talk about her favorite people (and animals).
Multiple times each day she asks
"where's ______ at"
then she usually answers her own question
"he's at work/home/school"
"she's with ________"
and then she says other things about them like
"_______'s funny"
"________'s nice"
"horses eat apples"

We love brushing our teeth around here

Stella goes and gets her toothbrush many times each day

and wants to brush her teeth.

 

Stella's imagination is starting to grow

and she likes to pretend that

the baby dolls are sleeping

Besides her dolls,

she is also really into her blocks,

her Fur Real kitty,

and she LOVES her books and stickers.

 

This week she has started pulling a chair next to the counter

she climbs up

and helps me make dinner.

The other day I caught her over there by herself

playing with a bowl

and when I asked her what she was doing

she said

"I'm making chicken"

 

 

She's funny.

 

 

Bye Bye Summer

Summer is OFFICIALLY gone, gone, gone.

No more summer BBQ's.

:(

I think it's safe to say Stella enjoyed her hot dog.

Hunting season is in full swing.

So our daddy is MIA lately.

But he lives for this.

So we suck it up and deal.

Football season is also here.

We have BYU season tickets again this year.

I'm back tutoring and keeping busy with lots of projects.

This weekend we have lots going on.

Andrew's brother is coming to visit from Austrailia.

So we are going out to dinner with Andrew's siblings.

I'm also cohosting a shower for my friend Jennifer

and there is BYU game.

Should be lots of fun.

Maybe I'll take a picture and post it.

(I'm so bad at taking pictures lately)

~L~O~V~E~

Some things that Stella LOVES right now...

SHOES

Stella loves to play with shoes.

In this pic she has her dad's shoe (in the back)

and her shoe (in her hands).

Sometimes she'll try to take your shoes right off your feet.

The other day she went into my closet and got my flip flop

She came out holding it and I looked just in time

to see her lick it

top to bottom
yummmy

BALLS

We might have a soccer player on our hands

Stella loves to play with all balls

but she really loves to kick them lately

She's a pretty good dribbler

---a tear is shedding

from both Andrew's and my eye

because soccer is NOT our favorite sport to watch--

GARDENING

or should I say dirt

She loves to play in the dirt and get messy

And surprisingly she loves to wear her sunglasses

she looks too cute in them

WHEN DADDY COMES HOME

Stella loves when daddy come homes to play with her

they are great buddies

and Stella has Andrew wrapped around her finger

MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE

finally

Stella will watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for a bit each day

She would never watch Baby Einsteins

so this is the first time I can get a couple moments of relief each day

FRUIT

Stella stopped eating baby food a while ago

She is a big girl and thinks she can eat anything anyone else can

In fact, yesterday we were eating Mother's Day dinner

and she was dying for a pork rib

Andrew finally gave in an let her suck on one

She loved it!!

But by far her favorite food is fruit

We had some pears the other day

and when she would spot them on the counter she HAD to have them

This night she got the whole pear

and was loving every bite

Then when we tried to take it away

she would tuck it under her arm like a football

and run away

(She likes to run away now when we try to take something

from her that she wants to keep)

Oh my little Stella!!!

Such a huge personality

wrapped up in a tiny package

She finds a way to make me laugh

(and want to pull my hair out)

everyday

Last Day of 2011

just a few pics to end the year...

in her jammies and new winter coat

 a new hat and dog for christmas

"keep your distance santa" 

"ok, I'm done!"

we had a wonderful Christmas!

and we got an awesome new camera

because ours was dead....so dead

(hence the lack of Christmas pictures)

so hopefully we'll figure out how to use the camera

and be back in blogging business.

we're ready to ring in the new year tonight!

Here we go 2012!!!!

What We've Been Up to Lately

Blogging lately...is not a priority.

I am, however, grateful that all of you are updating your blogs--so I have something to read during slow times at work. Andrew and I have both been working a lot lately which is no fun but we are so grateful that we actually have jobs!

School, well it's still going. We're both in summer classes and trying to crank out classes as fast as we can. I want you all to know that we have been going to school non-stop (every semester) for 5 years. How are we not done you wonder? Well Andrew has changed his major more than a few times and then there was then knee surgery thing.......I transferred from ZOOBIEville and UVU decided to make me take like a zillion classes over for different (all ridiculous) reasons. Bottom line...they want your money! But this time next year, I can finally stop talking about school.

Between school and work--honestly we haven't been left much time for summer. We did sneak away for the 4th of July weekend. We resurrected my parents' waverunners and took them out to Starvation for a weekend of waverunning and fishing with Bryce and Bec. My fam came up and joined us on the 3rd, which was fun. And despite my dad's embarassment that the waverunners are old---we had a blast and didn't care that they were old. In fact, there were so many rednecks around us I felt pretty classy that trip. On the evening of the 4th we decided to drive into Duchesne and see if they were having town fireworks. Sure enough it was easy to see where the entire town was. We pulled in and the people were so friendly. They even moved over their trucks to make sure we had a great seat for the fireworks (which were shot off the top of the mountain and were actually really cool). For a brief moment, I thought it would be fun to live in a tiny town where everyone knows each other and is really nice--you know like Julia Roberts town in Runaway Bride. But then I came back to reality :)

Kelsie and Ethan came up from Texas this week and we hung out with them a bit. Boy do I love and miss her! I bet that not many of you can say that you have been friends with someone for 21 years--and I'm only 23.

We actually have some pretty fun things planned the next couple weeks, so I will try to remember to take my camera and then remember to take pictures. I'll let you know how they turn out. Plus it's Andrew's b-day on Tuesday. Big 26!! He kinda feels old so give him a hard time about it.

And that's it, for now.....

We're Alive!!!

Well---it has been about 5 weeks since I've posted. Wow I'm a lame blogger. We've been doing the usual work, school, work, school, work, school and it goes on and on and on. But we've also done some other fun stuff occationally in between school and work.

My cousing Kaisha got married to her sweetheart Matt. Check out that sassy flower girl!! We had a fun shower for her, but I was too busy hosting to take any pictures......

It was my 23rd birthday and I went shopping Tai Pan Trading.......but ironically I didn't end up buying anything. I was rushed cuz my hubby was with me! And boy does he look BORED!! But I did get some great new ideas----I haven't spent any of my birthday money yet.....so I might have to go back, but I won't be buying that werid wreath thing. I put it around my next cuz I thought it looked the flowers that go around the winning horse's neck in a horserace.

We also had the lovely pleasure of speaking in church a couple weeks ago. Boy, we're glad that's over with. Other than that....not too much has happened.